socialist
46 Summer 2007
www.socialistresistance.net
A grey deputy
for Brown:
But Respect
misses its
chance
pages 2-5
Palestinians divided:
End the
Israeli
occupation!
The bloody conflict that has broken out
between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza and
the West Bank will be music to the ears of
the Israelis, the US and the EU.
They have worked might and main to
isolate, blockade and undermine the
Hamas government elected in 2006, and
to strengthen the hand of the discredited
and corrupt Fatah wing of the Palestinian
movement, and its President Mahmoud
Abbas.
The fighting that culminated in the
Hamas victory over Fatah in Gaza –
followed swiftly by brutal Fatah reprisals
against Hamas support and facilities in
the West Bank – has now opened the
possibility for US and EU aid to flow
solely to their chosen faction in the West
Bank, while further tightening the noose
around Hamas and the civilian population
in Gaza.
For the Israeli regime this split in the
ranks of its main opponents gives an
opportunity to weep crocodile tears for
the innocents caught up in the situation
while celebrating fresh opportunities to
isolate “extreme” Palestinian forces -
and even cultivate a new, pliable
No.
Media
Freedom in
Venezuela?
Discussion
pages 16-17
“moderate” Palestinian leadership.
The confrontations between
Palestinians in Gaza are the direct
consequence of the Israeli occupation
and the transformation of the Gaza Strip
into a hopeless ghetto.
The only way out of the crisis is the re-
establishment of the basic rights of the
Palestinians, the immediate release of all
the prisoners, freedom to travel and
work, and the ending of the
bombardments and the assassinations
perpetrated continuously by the Israeli
army.
Price: 80p
Ecological
crisis in
Australia
Laggard state
pages 10-11
A viable perspective for the Palestinian
people requires the total withdrawal of
the Israeli occupation forces and the
evacuation of all the Israeli settlements
on Palestinian land.
Socialists must also demand that the
European Union, and in particular the
British government, intervenes to stop
the Israeli aggression, and begins again
an honest co-operation with those elected
to government in Palestine.
This is the only way the EU could help
in practice to unblock the present tragic
situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
2 Socialist Resistance
Home News/Editorial
Postal workers
cheer strike vote
CWU Member
Delegates at the Communication
Workers Union Conference
stood and cheered when the
results of the Royal Mail and
Post Office pay ballots were
announced.
The membership rejected
management’s below inflation
2.5% pay with strings offer by
3-1 majorities on a turnout of
over 66%.
It is now likely that the first
national strike action in Royal
Mail and Post Office for 11
years will take place, unless the
company backs down from its
hard line stance.
There are few signs that
management will back down
because the dispute is fast
becoming a trial of strength with
a still strongly organised
workforce in the context of the
government sponsored
programme of postal
liberalisation, automation and
privatisation – all of which
directly threaten up to 40,000
jobs and pay and conditions.
As the CWU puts it in a letter
to Royal Mail managers, as far
as management is concerned
the workforce is “25% overpaid
and 40% under worked.”
Management’s proposals
includes an end to Sunday and
Bank holiday collections, and
major reductions in nightshift
and overtime working.
Cuts in overtime hit postal
workers hard because basic
hourly rates are so low – about
£8 an hour, with many working
sixty hours a week or more to
National Shop Stewards’ Conference
Stewards Network must unite broader struggles
Chris Brooks
One of Britain’s most militant
unions is establishing a cross-
union organisation for shop
stewards.
On July 7th, the RMT is
sponsoring the founding
conference for the national
shop stewards network.
The conference has been
called by a steering committee
elected by a conference of 250
delegates held in October.
It aims to address the crisis
of political representation
created by the march to the
right of new Labour. It hopes to
help trade unions to better fight
neo-liberal offensive and the
relentless attack on the public
make a living wage.
Additionally Post Office
management is closing over
2000 LOCAL Post Offices and
franchising 85 Crown Offices
without an agreement with the
CWU.
Strike action is looking likely
despite the CWU Postal
Executive stated intention of
avoiding industrial action if at all
possible, but management is
belligerent.
Industrial action tactics have
not yet been decided but all out
indefinite action has already
been ruled out, which is
premature in front of a
management which has few
inhibitions in the tactics it is
likely to use.
Offers of support have been
forthcoming including that of
Mark Serwotka’s PCS General
Secretary to coordinate public
sector action.
This should be accepted and
built on.
Gordon Brown will publicly
maintain a hands off approach,
while privately supporting Allan
Leighton and Adam Crozier to
the hilt.
He will see any dispute as an
opportunity to allay any
remaining City and Blairite fears
that he may be a soft touch for
the unions.
However a determined
campaign can win. While
competition is eating into the
most profitable parts of the
business, Royal Mail still
handles 99% of letter deliveries
for example.
sector.
The timing of the event is
highly significant, coming at
the end of Blair’s premiership.
Key figures in the trade
unions, on the left and in the
Labour Party have taken part in
a series of conferences and
discussions about what
initiatives might be taken to
remobilise the progressive
movement.
Socialist Resistance strongly
supports the conference. A
national meeting of our
supporters in the trade unions,
on January 20, discussed how
the new network can play a
major role in helping solidarity
to develop more rapidly, and
Labour leadership transition
MISSED CHANCES TO
BUILD RESPECT
The inauguration of
Gordon Brown and his new
deputy leader at the end of
June will close a period of
relatively heightened debate
and slightly more open-
minded analysis of the state
of working class politics in
Britain.
But it also represents yet
another boat missed by the
routinist and blinkered
leadership of Respect, who
have continued sleep-walk-
ing through the process.
The organisation which
once set itself the task of
building a broad political
alternative to the left of
Blairism has failed to seize
this one-off opportunity.
It has missed a vital
chance to raise its profile
and present itself as a credi-
ble way forward to those
considerable sections of the
Labour and trade union left
who had staked their hopes
on a campaign around John
McDonnell to rekindle
dreams of “reclaiming” the
Labour Party.
True, McDonnell himself
was brought on to Respect
platforms, and formal sup-
port was proferred to his
campaign, for what that was
more strongly. It can also help
to regenerate our unions by
building an independent and
pluralist class-struggle
viewpoint on how to rebuild
trade union strength and
organisation.
However, the unions are
currently weak. The Shop
Stewarsd Network will succeed
only it is greatly expands its
reach.
First, it needs to connect
with the new generation of
trade unionists that will
probably not be at the founding
conference. Second, the
network also needs to
champion the political and
social struggles going on today
worth: but the fact that the
Labour leadership process
was not even on the agenda
at Respect’s National
Council meeting on May 12,
and the relish with which
leading delegates at that
meeting predicted
McDonnell’s campaign
“dead in the water”, and
pronounced for the
umpteenth time the demise
of the Labour Left, betrayed
their underlying indiffer-
ence to the political task of
winning the best of that left
to Respect.
Suggestions from Socialist
Resistance supporters at that
meeting (just weeks after its
very successful interven-
tions in a number of council
The organisation which once set itself the task of building a
broad political alternative to the left of Blairism has failed to
seize this one-off opportunity.
elections) that Respect
should produce new, tar-
geted, campaign material,
preferably a hard-hitting
and political tabloid paper,
designed to intervene in the
Labour leadership and
deputy leadership debates
and hustings and in the
– many of which start outside
the unions.
For example, campaigners
supporting the Labour
Movement Conference on
Climate Change should be
welcomed at the event, as
should members of RESPECT.
That won’t be easy. Some
RMT leaders fight shy of
political questions, such as
how to build an alternative to
Labour.
But, because of the low level
of trade union struggle, the
Shop Stewards’ Conference will
only grow if it encourages
trade unionists to open up to
broader political and social
issues.
HOME NEWS
trade unions, were ignored.
So were suggestions of
meetings and other initia-
tives which could raise
Respect’s profile and credi-
bility as an alternative. The
National Council does not
meet again until September.
This failure to respond is
no accident. It reflects the
exceedingly limited objec-
tives set for it by the deci-
sive political force inside
Respect, the SWP.
Remarkably, Respect’s
officers have decided that
Respect itself is “too
narrow” an organisation to
focus the intervention of the
SWP at the National Stop
the War march that has been
called on June 24 outside
the Brown inauguration in
Manchester.
Worse, SWP members
working in Respect in
Manchester, following this
approach, have redoubled
their efforts to ensure that
the organisation does not
even produce a local cam-
paigning tabloid for distri-
bution on June 24, after
their national comrades
rejected any such publica-
tion at national level.
Here we have the bizarre
spectacle of an organisation
that has been deliberately
confined to the level of a
“coalition” rather than a
party to keep it broad, but is
now rejected as insuffi-
ciently broad to fly its own
banner and speak in its own
name at a national demon-
stration.
We can of course be sure
that the much narrower
SWP will be present with its
newspaper and profile
proudly on display at the
Stop the War march: only
Respect is to be kept under
wraps.
But it gets worse: while
Respect’s national officers
Galloway: “aspirations” for left
have been contemplating
their navels since the local
elections, other organisa-
tions have been taking ini-
tiatives to reach out to the
disoriented Labour Left
and raise some form of
political debate – without
the slightest flicker of
response from Respect.
Compass, a leftish-centre
conglomeration of Labour-
ite academics, MPs, com-
mentators and pundits,
signed up over 1,000 people
to a national conference
“shaping our global world”
on June 9, a debate firmly
within the “reclaim
Labour” framework.
It was allowed to pass
without challenge by
Respect, which has no
equivalent level of political
dialogue, and no vehicle to
promote the extensive
policy alternatives it has
developed.
As we go to press the
Morning Star has also con-
vened another major discus-
sion event on politics after
Blair, this time with a much
more working class and
trade union-based audience,
but again within the Star’s
continued framework of
“reclaim Labour” – but
again with no intervention
or challenge from Respect.
Yet these are the type of
forces that must be won
towards the building of a
new political alternative:
shirking that political fight
simply allows a regroup-
ment of the old left, and
does nothing to politically
strengthen Respect or build
 Socialist Resistance 3

Editorial
Council
housing or
Andrew Wiard

private
Respect’s roots in the anti-war movement are not enough to
ensure a Labour Left collapse results in a growth in Respect

the morale of its dwindling in the unions that rallied to

numbers of non-aligned McDonnell while their

equity?
activists. union leaders grovelled to
The Respect website also Brown.
displays this obvious disori- A Respect circular on June
entation and weakness: the 5 calls for volunteers for the
“Events” panel contains June 24 demo, Pride on

which does
just three feeble items – a June 30 and the SWP’s
sponsored charity run by Marxism event on July 5-9.
Cllr Oliur Rahman, an art Only subsequently did a
exhibition that began in hasty circular seek help in
January and a cartoon exhi- mounting an intervention

New Labour prefer?

bition! at this year’s UNISON con-
The nearest to a response ference.
to the Labour Party debate Socialist Resistance has
is a statement from May 17 continued to argue that
by George Galloway, imme- Respect remains the only
diately after the McDonnell plausible base from which a
“By 2010 we will ensure that all and relatives. Even New programme and ensuring The odd thing is that even
campaign collapsed. This broad and campaigning
social tenants benefit from a Labour’s preferred option, the sufficient funds to maintain all though most of them were in
boldly promises that: alternative to Blairism can
decent, warm home with “registered social landlords” council homes in future years. government Blair was
“It must now be clear to be built in the short or
modern facilities.” That’s what (RSLs) were only able to build Though Brown qualified his favouring the property
everyone on the left that the medium term. the Labour Party Manifesto said 19,600 homes. remarks later by saying at a speculators and disregarding
main arenas for rebuilding But the SWP’s stubborn in 2005. These RSLs are often staffed GMB conference that “he Labour voters on the waiting
progressive politics are very resistance to developing it So how many council houses by former senior local would look at ‘new means lists.
far from the Labour Party as a party – or a coalition do you think were built in government staff who see them through which they can build Contrast the malign neglect
and its enervated local that acts and fights like a 2005? Half a million? as a way of quickly increasing houses’” It turns out, according of working class families to the
organisation.” party – is jeopardising the One hundred thousand? No. their salary by switching over to the magazine Inside Housing care lavished on the the
“Over the coming weeks gains that have been made, Two hundred and thirty nine! to what is really a branch of that all the deputy Labour robbers barons of the private
we will be seeking to discuss and hobbling the develop- That’s 239 without any missing the private sector. leadership contenders support equity companies. You pay less
with key figures in the trade ment of the organisation as zeroes or decimal points. To be It’s sometimes said of New the fourth option. tax on capital gains than on
unions, on the left, in the a whole. fair to New Labour that’s a big Labour that it is the reformist So they should. Their party income.
Labour Party and across the We remain convinced that rise from the 192 council party that no longer makes conference has voted to Go to work five or six days a
progressive spectrum as a to build a genuinely broad houses built in 2001/2. reforms that benefit working support it three years in a row. week and you can pay 40 per
whole what ini- and active politi- These figures come from the class people. Ten years into a cent tax. Buy companies, sack
tiatives might be The SWP’s cal alternative to government’s own publication Labour government its housing workers, devastate their
taken to rally and resistance to the left of New Housing Statistics 2006. By policy is strong evidence that pension funds and you pay as
unify our forces. developing it as Labour we need contrast 1657 houses were this is true. Blair gave the little as 5 per cent tax on an
“Respect has more than the col- constructed during John buffoonish John Prescott income of millions of pounds.
aspirations to a party is lapse and demor- Major’s government in 1996. responsibility for housing to The GMB says a total of 96
advance the jeopardising the alisation of the These numbers pale into show what a low priority it was. insolvent pension funds in the
whole left as well gains that have Labour Left: we insignificance compared with His government oversaw the rescue schemes set up by the
as our part of it.” need a Respect the 14,015 homes built by continuing sale of council government have direct links to
But while there been made, and leadership that councils in 1990, or the 74,835 homes and stock transfer private equity owners. Even
completed in 1980. programmes to give away some of the private equity
may be more hobbling the goes out to build Campaign group Defend council housing to New Labour bosses are worried about the
back-room
approaches to a
development of the organisation,
and to mobilise it. Council Housing (DCH) says supporters in the RSLs. effect on their public image.
few left union Respect That means
that there are 1.6 million New Labour is unlikely to Though this does not stop them
people on council house meet its manifesto promise evading tax completely by
leaders for taking every
waiting lists. New Labour has either. The Audit Commission declaring themselves non-
another series of “fighting chance to promote and
turned its back on them. has said that many councils resident in Britain.
Unions” rallies, there is pursue political debates and The private sector, that’s are likely to miss the What does New Labour have
little sign that the trade dialogue with those sections what the rest of us call government’s target to meet to say about this? Brown’s
union intervention is being of the labour movement property developers, new standards for “decent” long-time henchman Ed Balls
carried through with any who are closest to us: but it construction companies and homes by 2010. said “private equity is an
real conviction. The Trade also means developing real speculators, was allowed to In recent weeks Brown has important part of the UK
Unions section of the politics and real political build 191,722 houses in 2005. been hinting that he has an financial services sector and
Respect website on June 17 life in Respect. Virtually none of these would ‘open mind’ about the fourth can play an important wider
had just six entries for 2007, It remains to be seen have been available or option for council housing, as economic role creating jobs
the most recent dating back whether the SWP is brave affordable for the working class an alternative to transfer, and developing companies.”
to May 29. enough to take on that chal- families and the vulnerable arm’s-length management and All these inequalities and
A good June 7 statement lenge: sadly, on present people on the council waiting the private finance initiative. injustices have developed and
on the CWU strike ballot is showing, their narrow and lists. This is the solution got worse during Brown’s time
trailed on the home page, limited view seems set to They have to make do with developed by DCH and includes as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
but there is no broader reduce Respect to an irrele- expensive privately rented improving all existing council It’s certain that little will
No question over whether
sense of seeking to relate vance on the sidelines of accommodation, overcrowded homes and estates, starting a change when he becomes
housing is one of their
politically to the activist left British politics. homes or staying with friends new council house building prime minister.
priorities …
4 Socialist Resistance
Home News
Same old New Labour …
Harsh new
police powers
Piers Mostyn
The government’s media
friends have been talking up
the wonderful possibilities
offered by Brown’s corona-
tion as Prime Minister.
In their fantasies, years of
disaffection and disgust at
Blair’s championing of
bombs and banks can be
brushed aside as a fresh
breeze sweeps the political
horizon.
Fantasies, because Brown
has wasted no time in
demonstrating that it will be
business as usual from the
New Labour bunker. Top of
the list are attacks on civil
liberties.
Undeterred by Blair’s
Parliamentary defeat in his
bid for a draconian exten-
sion of police powers to
detain suspects without
charge, Brown is pushing
yet another “anti-terrorism”
bill that will try again.
The “compromise” last
time was an extension to
“only” 28 days – powers that
are already unparalleled in
Europe. 90 days looks to be
on the cards once again.
It is claimed that serious
crime, in particular terror-
ism, has nowadays become
so sophisticated that police
don’t have enough time to
investigate after they arrest
someone.
But this is not based on
any research into how many,
if any, criminals escape jus-
tice as a result.
The fact is that three exist-
ing solutions – for police to
do more investigating pre-
arrest; to bail the suspect to
a later date or to charge with
a holding offence where the
evidence supports it - have
worked perfectly well for a
long time.
Last time widespread hos-
tility split the cabinet with
leading members openly
stating that they had seen no
Parting
shots: John
Reid is about
to stand
down as
Home
Secretary
representations from the
police to justify it.
Liberty has denounced the
proposal as internment by
another name. This is not
loose rhetoric.
The control order regime
internment by another
(a system of house arrest
route.
that is itself an authoritarian
The government’s att-
abuse of civil liberties) is
empts to cow popular oppo-
showing signs of collapse.
sition through talk of
Individuals subject to it
Islamic terror plots have not
have gone awol and judges
succeeded.
have objected to conditions.
It is now widely accepted
Control orders themselves
that government policy –
replaced internment with-
war on Iraq and
out trial at Belmarsh –
Under s.44 Terrorism Act 2000 powers in London alone 22,600
have been stopped, of whom only 27 were arrested: that’s 0.1%.
But that, it seems, left the police inexcusably weak.
Afghanistan, backing for
which was thrown out by
Israel’s onslaught on the
the House of Lords, in a cli-
Palestinians and the oppres-
mate of mass opposition to
sion and witchunting of the
the war. So we are back to
Communist Party debates
Andy Newman reports was genuine and real
commitment to allowing debate
from the Morning Star and contributions from the
organised conference floor.
This was especially true of
and finds that the the fascinating session about
Communist Party of the peace movement, where
Britain is having the panellists (Andrew Murray
from the Stop the War
serious, strategic Coalition, Kate Hudson from
discussions about the CND, and Alan MacKinnon from
left’s future. Scottish CND) did not lead off
with speeches, but just
responded to debate and
The “Politics After Blair” con-
questions from the delegates.
ference organised by the
Alan was able to report on
Morning Star was a very inter-
the extraordinary success of
esting event. It was reasonably
Scottish CND, in achieving the
well attended, with usually
rejection of Trident by almost
between 150 and 200 in the
all parts of Scottish civic
hall, but lots of people seemed
society, including an
to be there for only one or two
overwhelming vote in
sessions, so the overall atten-
Hollyrood.
dance was higher than that.
The continued weight of
There were some very
influence of the Morning Star
positive aspects to the
was also clear from the fact
conference, not least of which
that Jon Cruddas, John
HOME NEWS
Muslim community in this
country – is itself a major
driving factor boosting
whatever risk to the public
exists.
Already shelved after an
outcry was another pro-
posed new law making it a
criminal offence to refuse to
answer questions when
stopped by the police.
Under s.44 Terrorism Act
2000 powers in London
alone 22,600 have been
McDonnell, Ken Livingstone
were on the platform, as well
as Matt Wrack of the FBU, Bob
Crow of the RMT and Tony
Benn. Sometimes at left
conferences, the “celebrity”
speakers are there to play the
role of ornaments enhancing
the prestige of the organisers.
But the conference saw
fraternal disagreements
running through it about the
attitude that socialists should
take to the Labour Party, and
the practical tasks for building
the left.
The session on Social
Equality and Multiculturalism
became a bit muddled. It tried
to cover too much ground, and
was not able to adequately
deal with genuine
controversies that became
apparent, for example with
Salma Yacoob from the
platform and the SWP’s Sean
Doherty from the floor
stopped, of whom only 27
were arrested: that’s 0.1%.
But that, it seems, left the
police inexcusably weak.
What these powers have in
common is in ripping up the
bedrock principle that a
person is innocent until
proven guilty.
However behind the head-
line debate on these propos-
als are a raft of others that
show signs of being nodded
through.
These include new powers
to clamp down on travel
abroad. This is despite con-
cerns about existing dracon-
ian powers – described by
Liberty as a licence for
“racial profiling” at ports
and airports – to detain and
question travellers for up to
nine hours without even a
suspicion of terrorism.
Also in train are police get-
ting the power to continue
interviewing post-charge
(which would destabilise
basic rights to prompt trial
and to know the case against
you) and data sharing
powers for the intelligence
and security agencies.
Massive public hostility in
recent years has helped
defeat a series of Labour
attacks on our basic rights.
But if this job is left to the
Lib Dems and Tories, they
will compromise, as they did
before in allowing the cur-
rent 28 day detention limit.
It’s time for the unions and
the anti-war movement to
mobilise on the issue.
defending faith schools against
the mood of the meeting.
The question of the break up
of the UK, and Gordon Brown’s
defence of the British union
should also have generated
debate, and the CP do not yet
seem to have grasped the
importance of this issue.
Bob Crow put the cat among
the pigeons with a very
forthright rejection of the idea
that the Labour Party could be
reclaimed, and both he and
Matt Wrack pointed out that
there is no appetite in their
unions for re-affiliating.
Jon Cruddas, true to form,
gave an extremely perceptive
analysis of how New Labour is
failing its working class
supporters, and John
McDonnell acknowledged the
unprecedented weakness of the
Labour left, but was sceptical
that an electoral alternative
could be built.
Socialist Resistance
By Piers Mostyn
The Labour leadership suc-
cession has been the first
substantial chance since the
early 1990s for Labour Party
and trade union members to
challenge the party’s trajec-
tory and address the burn-
ing issues of the day. It has
been largely a wasted oppor-
tunity.
First we had Brown’s coro-
nation. And then a lacklus-
tre deputy leadership
campaign.
All but one of the candi-
dates (Jon Cruddas) have
been involved in the central
leadership of the party and
government – tied hook,
line and sinker to the string
of reactionary policies asso-
ciated with a decade of
Blairism in power, in partic-
ular the criminal war on
Iraq.
It was largely an exercise
in pretending to offer
change whilst representing
solid continuity, sustained
by hot air, hypocrisy and
humbug.
Barring an unforeseen last
minute rank and file revolt,
the left in the party will
come out of this whole
process thoroughly margin-
alised. 263 Constituency
Labour Parties made nomi-
nations.
Cruddas’s rating as second
most popular to Benn, at 67,
at first sight shows promise.
But 75% of the CLPs nomi-
nated candidates who have
politics after Blair
The call for a new party to
the left of Labour was explicitly
raised by Bob Crow, and
echoed by the SWP’s Nick
Wrack speaking from the floor.
Speaking for the Communist
Party, both Star editor John
Haylett and General Secretary
Robert Griffiths acknowledged
that New Labour is right wing
to an unprecedented degree,
and that the fact that
McDonnell failed to get on the
ballot for leadership was a
major defeat.
However, rather than
believing that a new mass
party of the working class can
be built in the present
circumstances, the CP are
proposing deepening and
strengthening the processes by
which the trade unions develop
political ideas in opposition to
neo-liberalism.
For example a think tank or
foundation, funded by the
Gluttons for
punishment
UNISON’s Political Fund has
circulated members to stress the
union’s unanimous endorsement for
Brown, even as he slashes the
wages of 1.3 million NHS staff – and
to call for a vote for Blairite Alan
Johnson, with a second preference
for … Peter Hain!!
Grey deputy for
Brown leader
rubber-stamped a decade of
imperialist wars and
assaults on public services.
With membership figures
slumping from (if you
believe the spin) 407,000 in
1997 to 177,000 earlier this
year – it will be in the
unions that any hope of a
revival of radicalism in the
labour movement lies.
But a sober reflection of
the state of play in the
unions is also necessary.
Those backing Benn,
Blears, Harman, Hain and
Johnson included: GMB,
Unity, Usdaw, Aslef,
BFAWU, TSSA, UCATT,
Andrew Wiard
Unison, and (tragically) the
NUM (who backed Hain).
These candidates had
nothing to offer at the vari-
ous union hustings other
than more of the same.
Against that the CWU
executive’s backing for their
former fellow-bureaucrat
Johnson was censured by a
militant conference that was
also balloting for strike
action. And Amicus and
TGWU backed Cruddas.
unions but with the
participation of the socialist
left, for promoting public
ownership. This idea was
warmly received by Matt
Wrack.
The significance of the CP’s
current position is that they are
uniquely situated to act as a
bridge between the trade union
left, the Labour Party left, and
the non-sectarian left outside
the Labour Party.
Although the Labour Left
have been crushingly defeated
over McDonnell there is going
to be no collective exodus from
the Labour Party, and despite
some excellent localised
electoral results for Respect,
the far left outside the Labour
Party are clearly unable to
attract the four and half million
votes that Labour have lost
since 1997, neither is Respect
nor the [Socialist Party-led
Committee for a New Workers
Politics
Party] CNWP attractive to
militants and activists used to
the democratic norms of the
movement.
Given this impasse where
the left both inside and outside
the Labour party are extremely
weak, neither side are going to
convince the other to join them.
But what we do have is a
developing political opposition
from the trade unions, leading
the way in ideological
opposition to private equity,
PFI, promoting equal rights for
Agency and migrant workers,
etc.
If a new mass party is to be
founded only the trade unions
have the prestige, personnel
and finance to do so, but it
cannot happen until they
conclude they have exhausted
their options with the Labour
Party.
The role of socialists is to
encourage the unions to put the
New party: Bob Crow
value of their special
relationship with the Labour
party to the test, and draw the
necessary conclusions.
It is also worth mentioning
that the atmosphere was very
friendly and welcoming, and
perhaps surprisingly the age
profile of the delegates was not
noticeably older than for
equivalent events organised by
the Trotskyist left.
I had a chat with CP general
secretary Rob Griffiths
afterwards who said this is the
first of many such events they
hope to be putting on – which
is good news.
HOME NEWS
Bring it on: Brown knows that
he need have no fear of the
independence or fighting
capacity of any of the
candidates to be his deputy.
All are compromised by their
prior involvement with
Blairism and their current
links and sponsors.
The character of the cam-
paign was well captured by a
special edition of the BBC’s
Question Time programme.
The first audience question
to the six candidates set the
tone: what did they think
was the biggest failure of the
Labour’s past decade in gov-
ernment?
Harriet Harman said the
Iraq war, Peter Hain said the
lack of affordable housing,
5
Hilary Benn said the failure
to tackle yawning inequal-
ity, Alan Johnson said the
neglect of children in care.
This shopping list of
betrayal was delivered with-
out any sense of shame.
As each candidate was
barely half way through
their first sentence inter-
locutor David Dimbleby, to
his credit, started interrupt-
ing, “but weren’t you part of
the government”, “did you
object about this at the
time?”, “and what have you
done about this since 1997?”
etc.
They had nothing to say.
What could they say?
Unfortunately Cruddas
failed to polarise the issue
into a debate over the legacy
of the last decade. He tried
too hard to avoid being side-
lined as a leftie.
As the only backbench
candidate he combines
independence from govern-
ment, a credible involve-
ment in some real
campaigning – against the
fascist threat in East
London – and a programme
(focussed on Iraq, defence of
public services, opposition
to the renewal of Trident
and backing for the Trade
Union Freedom bill) that if
implemented would involve
a break with a decade and a
half of New Labour policies.
His problem, as he freely
admits, is that he supported
the war at the time of the
invasion and, until recently
had little public profile as a
radical.
Indeed, before election of
MP he was a Blair advisor.
His candidacy at least
ensured there was a debate
and raised the flag of left
opposition.
His vote will be a marker
of the state of play in party
and unions.
But even that will come
with qualifications. Most of
his supporters were far from
visible in support of John
McDonnell’s bid for the
leadership.
Ken Livingstone is a
prime example – and Tony
“Baldrick” Robinson.
And Cruddas himself
nominated Brown for
leader, signalling that he
saw his campaign primarily
as vehicle for placing left
pressure on Brown – and
giving grateful union lead-
ers Simpson and Woodley
an easy option to pose as left
critics rather than a call for
a decisive change.
6 Socialist Resistance HOME NEWS

After Blair
The failure of John McDonnell’s Labour Party
leadership challenge even to get as far as the
ballot paper represents a new low water mark for
the power and influence of the Labour Left.
But the situation poses challenges also for the
building of any new left wing alternative to
Blairism, and has highlighted the weaknesses of
Respect, as sections of the trade union and
Labour left begin to regroup forces without
abandoning their conception of “reclaiming
Labour” (see Editorial, page 2).
Molly Cooper

A recent Socialist Resistance London forum

took up this issue, in the form of this debate
between Alan Thornett from SR, and Simon
Deville, who spoke from Labour Left Briefing. Skeleton crew: pensioners protest at New Labour’s failure to link pensions back to average pay – with little or no union opposition

WHY SOCIALISTS SHOULD

BE IN THE LABOUR PARTY
Simon Deville,
Labour Left
Briefing
The Labour Party leader-
ship has moved a long way
to the right implementing a
programme of counter-
reforms that the Tories
under Thatcher couldn’t.
At the same time the left is
a pale shadow of its height
in the 1980s.
Some argue that this
demonstrates the need for a
new left party. I would argue
that this is based on both a
wrong assessment of the
current political period, and
a wrong strategic orienta-
tion that can only serve to
further marginalise the left
from the mainstream of the
working class.
The central problem with
this argument is that it has
no explanation as to how
and why Blair has been able
to push the Labour Party so
far to the right with so little
opposition either inside or
outside the party – and it
shows no understanding of
the real scale of the problem
we face.
Overall, people who have
become disillusioned with
New Labour have not gone
on the streets on mass
protest but have tended to
drop out and become less
political.
No far left group has
recruited even a significant
minority of the 200,000
people who have left the
Labour Party since 1997.
Most people are opposed
to privatisation but this has
not translated into either a
strike wave or even a mass
campaign against the con-
tinued privatisation of
health, education or hous-
ing.
Many might not like what
New Labour is doing, but
this doesn’t mean they have
drawn any radical conclu-
sions from this.
The anti-war movement is
a dramatic exception, but
even here, the anti-war
movement’s absolute peak
was on the eve of war when
Those radical unions that have left or been expelled from the Labour Party have not
gone on to form a new party but have strengthened the hand of the right wing unions.
millions of people believed
that their collective activity
could actually stop the war.
The anti-war movement
has made an impact on class
consciousness, but it hasn’t
seen the movement find an
organisational expression
on a national scale.
Aside from those disillu-
sioned with politics, much
of the left ignores the fact
that there is a significant
section of the population
that is reasonably happy
with the Blair government.
Blair has after all won three
elections in a row.
Most people are
opposed to
privatisation, but
this has not
translated into
either a strike
wave or even a
mass campaign
Ten years of economic sta-
bility, a continued growth in
property prices and near
full-employment all mean
that a lot of people have
done quite nicely under
Blair, albeit at the expense of
a growth in inequality
unheard of under a Labour
Government.
The legacy of the defeat of
the miners has massively
undermined class confi-
dence and combativity, cre-
ating low levels of strikes
and struggles and convinc-
ing large numbers of work-
ing class people that
collective struggles cannot
help to win reforms or
improve their immediate
situation.
The rightward drift of
Labour is merely a reflec-
tion of a rightward drift in
the trade unions and else-
where, and can’t be resolved
simply by leaving the
Labour Party.
The votes of the trade
union leaders have rescued
Blair time and again. The
‘big four’ unions still hold
decisive sway within the
Labour Party – Blair would
have gone years ago if they
had forced him out.
The mainstream trade
union leaders have deluded
themselves – despite all the
evidence - that they some-
how have influence on Blair
by negotiating behind the
scenes.
Those radical unions that
have left or been expelled
from the Labour Party have
not gone on to form a new
party but have strengthened
the hand of the right wing
unions.
We are left with a very
complex and in many ways
contradictory situation, in
which the key task for
socialists should be finding
ways of patiently rebuilding
the labour movement and
confidence of the class, of
finding ways of resisting
privatisation and the neo-
liberal offensive and most
importantly of winning
some victories that demon-
strate the importance of col-
lective struggles.
In order to do this we must
be firmly rooted inside the
mainstream of the working
class movement and develop
ways of relating to the polit-
ical centre and mobilising
the class as a whole.
Launching a radical, left
wing party will only serve to
pull together some of the
best working class activists
and isolate them still further
from the rest of the class.
Simply asserting as some
do, that workers are angry
and straining to be let off
the leash by the bureaucracy
misunderstands the current
situation.
Calling on the formation
of an ideological-based
party that will then some-
how win the working class
over to it misunderstands
how politics work and will
ensure that socialists have
even less influence on the
mainstream of the class than
they have at the moment.
There is an obvious appeal
to working only with people
you are broadly in agree-
ment with, but if socialists
are to make any significant
impact they will need to get
their hands dirty and work
with the broad mass of the
working class, often on
terms that we do not choose.
Socialist Resistance
Left in disarray
After McDonnell failure
TIME TO
GET REAL!
Alan Thornett
We are at an important turn-
ing point in British politics.
Brown is about to enter
office.
It is already clear that he is
planning to drive forward
all the main items of New
Labour policy: the neo-lib-
eral offensive; the attack on
public sector; the continua-
tion of the war in Iraq; the
replacement of Trident; and
the attack on human rights
and civil liberties as well as
his current attack on public
sector wages.
He may disengage to some
degree from Iraq, but no
more so than the US
Democrats are planning to
do.
This situation has been
compounded by the spine-
less soft left Labour MPs
who refused to nominate
John McDonnell and create
a contest.
They have facilitated a
seamless transfer from Blair
to Brown that New Labour
has been planning for a long
time.
It is the ‘plan B’ under
which Blair, damaged
mainly by the war, but also
through his association with
corruption, dishonesty and
neo-liberalism, can be
replaced with a new broom
in his own image.
The danger now is that we
could now have a rejuve-
nated Blairism well placed
to drive the whole new
Labour project to a new
stage.
Unfortunately much of the
left seems to be oblivious to
this danger and appear to
have learned little out of the
defeat of the McDonnell
campaign.
The McDonnell defeat has
exposed the chronic weak-
ness of the Labour left as far
their influence (or rele-
vance) inside the Labour
Party is concerned. Yet all position to fight for socialist
the signs are that they policies than we have been
intend to plough on with the for years”.
same line - that the Labour It is another delusion His
party can be “reclaimed” for failure has exposed the full
the left and for the workers’ extent of the weakness of the
movement. Labour left which has
The Communist Party of clearly existed for a long
Britain (CPB) which also time.
has a “reclaim Labour” Others on the Labour left
position appears to be doing argue that problem was
the same. amongst Labour MPs, not
This would be a big mis- party members.
take. Of course there is a prob-
Despite campaigning for lem amongst MPs. The
months John McDonnell whole of the intake of new
fell well short of the 45 nom- Labour MPs since 1997
inations he needed from have been absorbed into the
Labour MPs to stand. For Blairite project.
the first time since the early But Labour MPs have to
years of the Labour Party reflect the pressure from
the left failed to mount a party members – and there
challenge in a Labour lead- lies the other problem: there
Every major radicalisation of the past 10 years – from
Seattle to the mass anti-war movement (with its millions
on the streets) – has by-passed the Labour left.
ership contest. was no significant pressure
The McDonnell cam- from party members to
paign’s claim that they were nominate McDonnell.
robbed of a contest by the In fact the pressure was in
requirement to be nomi- the other direction, for MPs
nated by 45 is not credible. to try to secure their future
Of course the right are not by nominating Brown.
going to do them any And what happened to the
favours, but it is not a new trade union awkward
requirement. It was there in squad?
the election following Most of them rushed to
Ramsey McDonald’s resig- endorse Brown. McDonnell
nation in 1931. failed to win the support of
What’s new is that for the any major union for his
first time the left was unable campaign.
to surmount it. Neither Derek Simpson,
Brown won a massive 318 Tony Woodley, Dave Prentis
nominations, including nor any of the general secre-
those of Campaign group taries of the big unions were
member Bob Marshal prepared to back him. They
Andrews and John Cruddas enthusiastically backed
the “left” challenger for the Brown. In fact a bit of sup-
deputy position. This was a port from the trade union
huge vote of confidence for leaders would have been
Brown’s project. enough to get McDonnell
Yet John McDonnell says: on the ballot paper.
“We’re now in a stronger McDonnell argues that the
McDonnell
failed to
win the
support of
any major
union for
his
campaign.
way forward from here is to
support the conference of
the Labour Representation
Committee (LRC) in
October.
But the LRC hardly exists
outside of its occasional con-
ferences. It is also a mis-
nomer. It is not a campaign
for independent labour rep-
resentation – like its prede-
cessor at the turn of the 19th
century which produced the
Labour Party as an alterna-
tive Liberal representation.
It is a campaign to reclaim
Labour: i.e. a campaign to
stay in the Labour Party as
its first principle and win it
back for the left. That is why
you have to be a Labour
Party member to join it.
The reality is that a crisis
of labour representation and
consequently the conditions
for a new party to the left of
Labour have existed since
the mid-1990s and Blair’s
take-over of the Party.
Space opened up to the left
of Labour which is even
wider today.
At the same time the
Labour left have been ever
more marginalised.
Every major radicalisation
of the past 10 years – from
Seattle to the Global Justice
Movement and from the
mass anti-war movement
(with its millions on the
streets) to the current envi-
ronmental and anti climate
change campaigns – has by-
passed the Labour left.
You only have to look at
the decline in the number of
Labour Party banners on
demonstrations over the last
two decades to get the pic-
HOME NEWS
ture. It’s now unusual to see
one at these events.
Some on the Labour left
argue that you can’t build a
new party to the left of
Labour with the current low
level of trade union strug-
gles.
But the mass anti-war
movement, the global jus-
tice movement, mobilisa-
tions against the G8 and
against climate change and
in defence of the environ-
ment are forms of class
struggle as well.
If you take these struggles
and the radicalisation they
produce alongside the
potential political recompo-
sition created by the march
to the right of new Labour
and the collapse of new
Labour membership figures
you have the necessary
ingredients for a substantial
new party.
And if people from the
Labour left and the CPB
were to help organise a polit-
ical alternative outside of
Labour this would open up
new possibilities for the left
as a whole.
The problem we have is
that while the political con-
ditions clearly exist for a
new party to the left of
Labour, the project has
stalled as a result of divi-
sions amongst the left them-
selves. The SWP have their
responsibility for this, but
they are not the only prob-
lem.
The reason why the Stop
the War Coalition (StWC)
has been so successful is
because it has been a gen-
uine coalition of the left.
The CPB, the trade union
left and much of the Labour
left are in it and working
fruitfully with the SWP and
George Galloway.
If the left can work
together in this way in the
StWC why can’t it do so as a
7
political alternative to
Blairism?
Respect has its problems
(which we have written
about at some length, see
again this month’s
Editorial) but it has respon-
sibilities in this situation as
well.
Respect is the best attempt
so far to build something to
the left of Labour. No other
party has found a response
amongst some sections of
the working class in the way
that Respect has.
It is the only organisation
on the socialist left which
can win new seats in local
elections and which has a
chance (a very good chance)
of winning a seat or seats in
the London Assembly next
year.
The 12,000 votes in
Birmingham in May
amongst 7 candidates was a
remarkable achievement.
Respect is not, in itself, the
answer to the problem of a
left alternative, not least
because of the strong
instinctive resistance among
many on the Labour left to
engaging with any new
alternative organisation,
especially one containing
George Galloway and/or the
SWP.
But it is the best focus
around which such an alter-
native can be built. Respect
should not simply call on
people from the Labour left
and the CPB to simply join
it in its present form.
Rather it should be pre-
pared to discuss the problem
without preconditions and
not let organisational for-
mulae stand in the way of
the political goal in front.
Using the advent of the
Brown era to organise the
left into a far more effective
force is the only adequate
response to the problems we
face.
8 Socialist Resistance
NHS
UNISON given
go-ahead for
October 13
national demo
Danny McIntosh
“It’s full steam ahead for a
national demonstration to
defend the NHS on Saturday,
13 October”, according to
UNISON’s Head of Health Karen somewhat in the phoney war
Jennings, writing to health
branches of the largest public
sector union.
The demonstration will be
part of UNISON’s Keep the NHS privatisation is set for the
Working campaign, and “will
be the focus of a public display
of celebration and solidarity for tell branches that their
an NHS that is still largely
owned and run by the public
sector.”
It is good that the major
union in the field is giving this
lead, hopefully to be supported
by the other unions and
organisations from NHS
Together.
But there are concerns: two
months down the line from the
initial decision on the date, not insulting pay award, slashed
much seems to have
happened. There is
no publicity
material, and we
still don’t know
where the march
will be, so travel
arrangements have
not begun.
There are fears
that union leaders
will choose
somewhere other
than the natural
political target of
Karen Jennings … calling for campaigning
London: others fear
that the UNISON leadership, so
reluctant to break ranks with
Gordon Brown, is simply going
through the motions of
convening a demonstration that fight.
is doomed in advance to fail –
through inadequate and
incompetent political
preparation.
There is precedent for this:
in the early 1990s UNISON was such as London Health
instructed by national
conference to call a national
demonstration over Low Pay.
They called the march in
Newcastle, spent £1m on
obscure and ineffective
publicity, drew a relatively
small turnout, and from there
on used the failure as a stick to massive show of strength in
beat down subsequent calls for
national protests.
There seems little doubt that
the momentum of the popular
movement that was visibly on
the boil against cutbacks,
closures and privatisation last
autumn and winter has ebbed
situation since the new
financial year: but the issues
are still there, and a new round
of controversial cuts and
autumn.
Karen Jennings is right to
campaigning activity – woefully
weak in some areas, where job
cuts and service reductions
have gone through largely
unchallenged – needs urgently
to be stepped up.
Union members also need a
firm lead, more information
and confidence-building
measures to ensure they vote
for strike action over their
from a wage-cutting 2.5% to an
even more derisory 1.9% as a
result of Brown’s intervention:
again they will find widespread
support if they take up this
UNISON branches will in
many cases need support in
broadening their campaigns
from organizations with
expertise in popularizing policy
Emergency, and from broad-
based campaigning
organizations such as Keep Our
NHS Public.
With summer holidays
looming up, the countdown has
already started. Let’s not waste
this chance to build a really
defence of the values of the
NHS as our most popular
public service.
£500m surplus has not stopped
juggernaut of NHS cutbacks
As Patricia Hewitt proudly
unveiled a massive unspent
pot of NHS cash that could
have spared misery for
patients and staff, health
services across England face
another battering from cut-
backs and closures.
The thumping £500m sur-
plus delivered in most of
England’s Strategic Health
Authorities follows months
of painful belt-tightening,
with bed and ward closures,
job losses, frozen vacancies
and deliberately lengthened
waiting times, with many
Primary Care Trusts insist-
ing on a 5-month “mini-
mum wait” for non-urgent
care.
London Health Emer-
gency pieced together a
snap-shot view of the cuts
still under way as ministers
cracked open the cham-
pagne to celebrate the half
billion unspent – while
insisting the crisis-hit serv-
ices must meet tight cash
limits this year and even
tighter constraints from
2008.
North Yorkshire and York
PCT is carrying through a
second year of cutbacks
having axed 200 jobs and 90
beds last year.
In the North West
Westmoreland General
Hospital still faces swinge-
ing cuts and closures, while
NW Pennines Acute Trust is
planning to axe 10% of its
beds in Oldham, Rochdale,
Fairfield and North
Manchester, and East
Lancashire acute is seeking
to cut 127 jobs to slash its
wage bill by £4m.
In the North East the
County Durham and
Darlington Foundation
Trust is seeking to axe 700
staff to balance its books.
In the West Midlands,
Coventry’s brand new
£400m Wallsgrave Hospital
has announced a third
reduction in bed numbers
and a job freeze as it wrestles
with a £15m deficit.
In the East of England,
There have been bed and ward closures, job losses, frozen
vacancies and deliberately lengthened waiting times
Huntingdon’s Hinching-
brooke Trust faces a
“rescue” package which
amounts to a 2-year stay of
execution, with a loss of 25%
of its caseload, as
Cambridgeshire PCT strug-
gles with a £51m deficit.
In Norfolk, after a year of
cuts and cash savings, the
merged PCT also faces a
£50m deficit, and plans
involve cuts in mental
health and closure of 40
community beds.
In Suffolk, Ipswich
Hospital after a traumatic
year of short-sighted cuts,
must make further savings.
In the West of England
jobs and hospital services in
Weston Super Mare and
minor injuries units
throughout Wiltshire are
among a series of targets for
cutbacks.
Cuts are looming in Surrey
and Suffolk, despite
repeated delays in the con-
sultation process. Sussex
faces a loss of services in
either Eastbourne or
Hastings, while services in
Worthing, Brighton and
Haywards Heath are also
under threat.
In London, a major acute
services review has been
postponed, but it is clear
that services are under
threat in north London
with the plans to close A&E
at Enfield’s Chase Farm
hospital, NE London with
the sword hanging over
services at King George’s
Hospital, Ilford, major cuts
aimed at slashing a massive
£41m from spending at
Epsom & St Helier in SW
London, and a review pend-
ing in SE London, with
Queen Mary’s Hospital,
Sidcup the likely victim of
cutbacks to tackle a local
£65m deficit.
Commenting on the ongo-
ing cutbacks, LHE’s
Information director Dr
John Lister said:
“The cuts we have uncov-
ered are all ongoing and
upcoming, drawn from
press coverage since April 1:
we know these are only the
tip of the iceberg as Trusts
and PCTs come under pres-
sure to slash back their
budgets this year, in
advance of tighter times to
come – effectively stockpil-
ing cuts.”
Many cutbacks decided
last year are still taking
effect, and many areas –
such as parts of London,
Surrey and Sussex, are
awaiting the outcome of
controversial reviews.
“Patients are waiting need-
lessly, newly qualified nurs-
ing and other staff are being
turned away from the NHS,
and morale among existing
NHS staff remains at rock-
bottom.
“What’s worse is that
while these cuts are ripping
in to the public sector provi-
sion, hundreds of millions
are being squandered on
pointless and over-priced
contracts with the private
sector.
“If ministers do not
change course, Gordon
Brown will go down as the
Prime Minister who in his
first year in office did the
most irreparable damage to
the NHS.”
Socialist Resistance
Victory for school
meals campaigners
Roland Rance –
Secretary Waltham
Forest Trades
Council
Following a short, but very vigor-
ous, campaign, unions and par-
ents in Waltham Forest have
forced the council to reverse – or
at least postpone – plans to
close the centralised school
meals service.
Had the plan gone through,
Waltham Forest, which is led by
a Labour-Lib Dem coalition,
would have been the first
borough (but presumably not the
last) to make such a cut.
Thousands of children could
have been left with no midday
hot meal; some schools were
reported to be negotiating bulk
purchases from local sandwich
shops.
Disgracefully, the council
Academies & trust schools:
Tories back New Labour scheme
By a teacher
Westminster City Council,
securely Tory since the mid
1980’s, has embraced New
Labour’s City Academy propos-
als. It is within sight of abolish-
ing all state secondary schools
by turning them into Trusts or
Academies.
The aim is to abolish itself
as an education authority, to
reduce the role of the Council
to the smallest scale possible,
perhaps a few meetings per
year to set the contracts and
review the performance of the
outsourced service providers.
The effect, of course, would not
be to end “political”
involvement in local
government, but merely to bury
it in legal details understood
only by lawyers but hidden
from democratic scrutiny.
No surprise then it was to
Westminster that neo-liberal
prophet, Tony Bliar came to
unveil his plans for Trust
Schools, essentially schools
paid for by the state but owned
and run by charitable trusts.
His visit to Quinton Kynaston
School was greeted by a large
anti-war demo mainly made up
of pupils. Unfortunately for the
claimed that recent progressive
steps, including equal pay for
school meals staff and improved
nutritional standards in the wake
of the Jamie Oliver television
series, made it too expensive to
provide this service.
Having two years ago
redefined the shortfall on the
school meals budget as a
“subsidy”, the council is now
intent on reducing this even
further.
Unison pointed out that the
total shortfall on school meals
was only £200,000, while
councillors’ expenses amount to
£900,000 a year and the council
has paid “consultants” some
£10 million over the past ten
years to give advice on how to
save money.
Campaigners clearly felt that
providing the borough’s
schoolchildren with a decent and
affordable midday meal was a
better use of our money, and the
campaign, in which school
Molly Cooper
meals’ supervisors played a
leading role, attracted wide
support.
In a step which embarrassed
the council, union members
visited Jamie Oliver’s east
London restaurant, where they
were greeted with coffee and
cakes, and Oliver issued a
supportive statement.
Local Labour and Tory MPs,
and the borough Public Health
Officer, also criticised the
council’s decision, while Unison
discovered that it had not even
been voted on in council, and
was thus open to a legal
challenge.
Faced with this concerted
opposition, and following a large
demonstration accompanied by
many children gleefully banging
saucepans, council leader Clyde
Loakes appeared on the Town
warmonger, his stance on the
Israeli attack on Lebanon the
month before, meant he was
forced by a halfhearted party
revolt to declare that he was
leaving office even as he
praised Trusts.
Now the Head of Quinton
Kynaston is installed as the
Interim Head of Pimlico School
at the other end of the borough,
itself threatened with being
turned into an Academy. Should
the Council and Lord Adonis
succeed in privatising both
schools, there will be will be no
state secondary schools left in
the borough.
10 years ago Pimlico parents
and teachers fought off an
attempt by the Council, aided
by then Chair of Governors,
Jack Straw, to hand the school
over to a developer under the
discredited PFI scheme, an
early attempt by New Labour to
lever schools into the private
sector.
Last September, North
Westminster Community School
was closed and given over to 2
Academies, one to the United
Learning Trust, an offshoot of
the Church of England; the
other, to a Hong Kong based
Home
Hall steps to announce a retreat.
He announced that the service
would continue for the next year
at least.
Loakes even tried to claim
credit for the protest, thanking
protesters for coming and
insisting – in the face of all
evidence – that the reports were
unfounded.
As a candidate to succeed
popular local MP Neil Gerrard,
who will retire at the next general
election, Loakes is presumably
property developer, Chelsfield,
which was involved in the
lucrative Paddington Basin
development. Chelsfield itself
was by then sold on to the
owners of Multiplex, of
Wembley Stadium repute.
It’s long been the case that
education policy in
Westminster is almost entirely
driven by property interests. In
many ways that is the essence
of neo-liberalism, indeed of
liberalism itself: freeing the
“rights” of property from the
tiresome constraints of
democracy.
Combined with this
respectful attitude to property
rights, is Christian
evangelising. Here, ULT Chair
Sir Euan Harper’s closeness to
Blair gives them an inside track
when it comes to promoting
academies.
Six of the eight Westminster
secondaries are now
denominational schools – all
Christian.
Laughably, ULT Paddington is
described by the Council as
non-denominational, despite its
“Christian” ethos. Imagine the
reaction if a Muslim school
similarly claimed to be “non-
keen, for the moment at least, to
appear as a guardian of Labour
values – though the subsequent
decision that the local party will
have an all-women short list has
frustrated this hope.
Unions and parents,
meanwhile, will continue to
watch the council’s decision-
making very closely. It is likely
that next year will see another,
better-prepared, attempt to close
the school meals service. And
we will also continue to oppose
denominational.
The third essential in the
Westminster triangle is finance
capital. Absolute Return for
Kids (ARK) the charitable
offshoot of a hedge fund is
about to open a two-form entry
4 – 18 Academy on the
remaining site of North
Westminster Community
School.
ARK’s declared purpose is to
open a chain of cut-price state
funded private schools. State
schools are denied the
largesse available to
Academies and Trusts.
True to form, the Labour
opposition confines itself to
point scoring over the Tories.
While correctly pointing out
that the Tories have already
made up their minds to turn
Pimlico into an Academy,
thereby making a mockery of
the current consultation
process, Labour is using the
threat of an Academy to try to
railroad through Blair’s trust
proposals.
MP Karen Buck has declared
her support for Academies,
despite having to (briefly)
withdraw her son from the
school because of the state it
9
any suggestion that the service
be funded at the expense of
other cuts. Waltham Forest
Council is threatening to close
the borough’s world-renowned
William Morris Gallery, has built
a sparkling new library without
any books, and has failed to
prevent the closure of the
borough’s listed Edwardian
cinema; we will not allow them
to use their defeat on school
meals as an excuse for further
cuts to other budgets.
Cameron: easy ride
was in. Like the campaign to
defend Council Housing,
opposition to academies is
beginning to snowball. A House
of Commons enquiry on June
12th heard from campaigns
across England.
In Brent, campaigners are
camping out on the site of a
proposed ARK Academy.
Despite imaginative and
vigorous efforts, campaigners
have not always won,
especially given the pressure
exerted by the DfES who refuse
grant funding for schools if
local authorities don’t come up
with proposals for Academies
or Trusts.
In order to win, the anti
academies campaign needs an
explicit political platform to knit
together the diverse strands
that make it up. The
Westminster experience is that
New Labour under Brown will
not be that vehicle.
10 Socialist Resistance
USA
A modest
beginning:
US mass
march for
Palestine
David Finkel
The most important fact
about the June 10,
Washington DC March to
End the Israeli Occupation
was simply that it took
place.
Part of an international
weekend of mobilizations
for Palestinian rights, mark-
ing the 40th anniversary of
the 1967 war and the occu-
pation of the Palestinian
West Bank, East Jerusalem
and Gaza, the rally at the
U.S. Capitol and march to
the Ellipse drew a crowd of
five or perhaps six thousand.
This is modest in compari-
son with the 20,000 who
marched in London on June
9 (according to press reports
I’m reading), and small
indeed by the standards of
major U.S. antiwar protests.
Its significance for the
movement in this country,
however, goes deeper than
the numbers may indicate
on the surface.
After an afternoon rally, we
hit the streets in spirited
fashion, with the loudest
chants occurring as we
passed by a couple hundred
pro-Zionist counter-demon-
strators on the sidewalk.
The march was called
jointly by United for Peace
and Justice (UFPJ), the
dominant coalition in the
current U.S. antiwar move-
ment, and a partially over-
lapping coalition of several
hundred groups called the
Campaign to End the Israeli
Occupation.
This was the first national
action explicitly called by
UFPJ centered on Palestine,
an issue which many
Molly Cooper
activists have long felt the
UFPJ leadership hesitated
to take on due to the over-
whelming pro-Zionist con-
sensus in the Congressional
Democratic establishment.
The occupation in
Palestine has been linked, to
be sure, to the U.S. occupa-
tion of Iraq in antiwar mobi-
lizations, but how to do this
is a constant source of ten-
sion within as well as
between antiwar coalitions.
Marches for Palestine have
also been called by “hard”
anti-imperialist and solidar-
ity organizations, but June
10 was a first for the antiwar
“mainstream.”
Those with a long memory
recall a real atrocity in 1982,
at the height of the Israeli
invasion of Lebanon, when
a million people rallied in
New York for nuclear disar-
mament and any mention of
the Middle East or Lebanon
It’s important to enlarge the currently very small proportion of people who
see the horrors in Palestine as affecting their own lives.
was explicitly barred from
the speakers’ platform.
Times have changed: On
April 20, 2002, just months
after 9/11, when hundreds of
thousands marched in
Washington against the
Bush regime’s war in
Afghanistan and its already
sinister threats to Iraq, tens
of thousands of Arab and
Muslim Americans partici-
pated, expressing enormous
solidarity with the
Palestinian struggle (in the
immediate wake of the Jenin
massacre).
20,000 protestors marched in
London on the June 9 Enough
demonstration
Some will be disappointed
that this outpouring was not
duplicated on this occasion,
and that the overall size of
the march was nowhere near
the turnout for protests over
the Iraq war.
But there are substantial
reasons why such expecta-
tions were not realistic in
this instance.
! First and foremost, a
large Arab and Muslim
turnout – beyond the com-
mitted activists – depends
on mobilizations within
those communities through
their own organisations,
media, mosques etc.
That’s what built their
turnout for April 20, 2002,
not the antiwar organiza-
tions themselves. Today
there is not only a real cli-
mate of fear among these
communities; while rage
over the U.S.-Israeli
destruction of Palestine is
deep, there is also demoral-
ization over murderous
Palestinian infighting and
despair over the never-
ending carnage in Iraq.
! The U.S. antiwar move-
ment as a whole is well
below its historic peak of
mobilizing power that was
reached in 2003 – ironically,
before American public
opinion had turned over-
whelmingly against the war.
More important, perhaps:
While everyone in this
country feels impacted by
the U.S. disaster in Iraq, still
only a small minority feels
directly affected by the crisis
over Israel/Palestine.
! In terms of pure numer-
ical turnout, a demonstra-
tion in New York City would
be larger.
However, the organisers
wanted to put the focus and
the political “street heat” on
Congress, with a day of mass
lobbying to follow the
Sunday march.
Further, UFPJ’s mobilisa-
tions typically occur on
Saturday; this one was
called for Sunday to avoid
conflict with the Jewish
Shabbat (not that this would
affect most Jewish activists
who are mainly, though not
all, secular, but cultural sen-
sitivity was important in
this case).
Indeed, participation by
Jewish Voice for Peace and
other Jewish anti-occupa-
tion groupings was signifi-
cant.
In the circumstances,
then, June 10 must be seen
as a modest but important
beginning. Where to go
from here?
The pro-Palestinian move-
ment is proceeding on sev-
eral fronts, most important
(in this writer’s view) with a
struggle around selective
divestment from Israel
being waged in church
denominations.
As for the broader antiwar
movement in relation to
Palestine, we face several
strategic responsibilities.
Today, the U.S. antiwar
movement represents the
sentiments of the majority
of the population and must
act accordingly.
It’s important to enlarge
the currently very small pro-
portion of people who see
the horrors in Palestine as
affecting their own lives.
It’s going to be even more
important to confront
Congress, which remains
rock-solid in support of
Israel’s atrocities even as it
pours tens of billions more
dollars into the Iraq debacle.
The movement must also
step up its activism against
the sinister threats of bomb-
ing Iran – which desperate
neocons like Norman
Podhoretz and the warmon-
gering “Independent Dem-
ocrat” Senator Joseph
Lieberman openly advocate.
All this needs to be done
without falling into the trap
of ascribing the disastrous
U.S. wars throughout the
Middle East to “the power of
the Zionist lobby overriding
American national inter-
ests.”
We’ve made a start; the
tasks facing us are massive
and urgent.
" David Finkel is an editor
of the socialist magazine
AGAINST THE
CURRENT, sponsored by
Solidarity (www.solidarity-
us.org).
Socialist Resistance
May was the worst
month for US
fatalities in Iraq
since 2004 and the
first anniversary of
Israel’s failed
onslaught on
Lebanon
approaches. Piers
Mostyn asked
GILBERT ACHCAR
to provide an
update on some
recent
developments,
starting with a
balance sheet of the
US surge in Iraq.
GA: It has been above all a
surge in bloodshed and a
major failure if we measure it
by the Bush administration’s
goal – nothing short of turn-
ing the whole Iraqi failure
into a success story … But it
very blatantly failed.
The major goal was to create
conditions through which
they would change the politi-
cal alignments in Iraq and set
up a new alliance that would
be close to the US and enable
Washington to better
manoeuvre in the country.
Moqtada al-Sadr was a chief
target of this whole operation
and we can measure its failure
by the way he is now back and
very much prominent in the
news, after having vanished
for a while.
He recently made a speech
which had a more nationalist
anti-sectarian edge, does this
signal any change?
I think he probably came to
the conclusion that it is high
time for him to renew or
resume the political stance
that he had been following
until late 2005 or early 2006.
The February 2006 Samarra
attack [a devastating Sunni
sectarian attack on the Shia
mosque there] was a water-
shed in the Iraqi situation.
That is when the image of
al-Sadr turned from one of
non-sectarian Arab-cum-
Iraqi nationalist into one of
leader of a Shiite sectarian
militia.
He is trying now to restore
his previous image. He proba-
bly believes that the climate is
right for a new attempt – after
over a year during which the
Shiites let off sectarian steam
very intensively in response
to the sectarian attacks they
A crucial turning point
as Bush plays “double
or quits” in Iraq
had suffered.
Are you saying that the tit for
tat sectarian escalation may
have played its course and that
Moqtada al-Sadr could return
to a more nationalist dis-
course?
Yes precisely. He probably
feels that things can calm
down now, at a time when it’s
more urgent than ever for him
to rebuild his image.
He needs to reach out to the
Sunni Arab Iraqis, because he
Moqtada al-Sadr was a chief target of this whole operation, and we can measure its
failure by the way he is now back and very much prominent in the news,
understands that there is a
major political operation
going on of which he is a
target.
The two Kurdish leaders
have recently made state-
ments warning against an
ongoing “plot” that aims at
overthrowing the Maliki gov-
ernment.
The other man who stands
at the centre of this “plot” is
none other than former US-
designated prime minister
Iyad Allawi – the closest, most
reliable stooge that the US
and Britain have in Iraq.
So the situation is getting
very sensitive right now. We
are at a crucial turning point
in the Iraqi situation, facing a
decisive moment in the
coming weeks and months.
And that’s when Moqtada
al-Sadr has decided to go back
on the offensive politically,
which is definitely a clever
thing to do for him.
Are there any signs of a
response from amongst the
Sunni opposition groups?
Well there are. Al-Sadr’s
new tone is generally wel-
comed by the nationalists –in
contrast to the sectarians –
among Arab Sunnis.
If you put aside the al-Qaida
type of anti-US anti-Shiite
fanatics, there are two types of
forces among the Iraqi Arab
Sunnis: on the one hand,
those chiefly spurred on by
sectarian and anti-Iranian
views, which are close to the
Saudis and willing to make
deals with the US against the
Shiites.
And, on the other hand,
those who consider the US as
the main, most dangerous,
enemy and who are therefore
willing to make an alliance
with anti-US Shiite forces –
provided (as the fear of Iran is
common to all Sunnis) these
are forces that they deem to be
independent enough from
Iran.
That is the case of Moqtada
al-Sadr. Although he has
obvious links with Tehran,
which backed him increas-
ingly over the last few years,
he retains a certain degree of
political autonomy and is
known to be fiercely inde-
pendent.
Do you think we are heading for
a crunch point, where the
Americans will have to change
course radically or even with-
draw?
It can’t be so simple. I have
been describing what al-Sadr
is trying to do. I didn’t imply
that he is going to succeed.
He can certainly find a cer-
tain measure of success, but a
major success allowing him to
be the winner in this whole
confrontation is quite diffi-
Iraq
cult to predict at this point.
He’s facing quite difficult
conditions.
The Allawi operation is still
going on. It is essentially an
attempt at building a cross-
sectarian political coalition
using the lure of US support
in order to topple the Maliki
government and bring Allawi
back to the helm as the
“strong man” and saviour of
Iraq.
Although I wouldn’t bet one
penny on the success of this
operation, you can’t exclude it
totally. You can’t exclude
some kind of coup that would
be backed by the US and the
segment of Iraqi military
forces that the US believes to
be under their reliable control
(if there are any actually).
What is certain though is
that we will see crucial
changes in the coming period.
For the Bush administration,
the ongoing “surge” is a
double or quits operation.
They are under intensive
pressure in the US. Although
we have seen how the
Democrats have shied away
from pressing forward the
issue of a timetable for troop
withdrawal - the issue of Iraq
is prominent in the presiden-
tial election and US public
11
opinion has become much
opposed to the continuation
of the war.
The Bush administration is
playing what appears to be its
last card. At the same time,
the administration is cover-
ing its back by reaching out to
Tehran – in a very limited way
for a start – for a possible
accommodation, as recom-
mended by the Baker-
Hamilton report.
Turning to Lebanon, has the
siege and bombardment of the
Nahr el-Bared Palestinian
refugee camp been a relative
sideshow or does it have
deeper connections?
I think that whatever
ignited the confrontation, one
thing is obvious: it has been
immediately exploited for a
very definite agenda.
This was (1) to test the abil-
ity of the Lebanese army to
confront other forces, starting
with the easiest –
Palestinians, against whom
Lebanese Shiite and Sunni
soldiers alike can be united
with no major risk of split
along sectarian lines; and (2)
to get the army to enter this
Palestinian refugee camp in
Northern Lebanon and take
control of it under the pretext
of fighting this group.
This is why Hassan Nasrallah,
the leader of Hezbollah, came
out saying that he considered
the penetration by the
Lebanese army of the camp to
be a “red line”. Why did he say
so, despite Hezbollah initially
expressing its solidarity with
the Lebanese army?
Because he realised that this
Palestinian camp has become
a testing ground for the abil-
ity of the Lebanese army to
implement a task that is part
of UNSC Resolution 1559
(sponsored by Washington,
London and Paris in 2004)
calling for the disarming of
both the Palestinian camps
and Hezbollah.
Nasrallah became aware that
the battle of Nahr el-Bared is
but a first step on a path that
leads ultimately to the fight
against his own forces.
You can see that in the broad
display of active solidarity
with the Lebanese army in
the ongoing confrontation:
Washington is sending
weapons and inciting all its
allies to send whatever hard-
ware the Lebanese army
needs.
" This is an edited version
of an interview conducted on
6 June 2007.
For the full version see
www.zmag.org/weluser.htm.
Gilbert Achcar is an anti-war
activist and an academic who
grew up in Lebanon.
12 Socialist Resistance
Unions
Spanish car
workers fight
plant closures
Julian Coppens
writes from Cadiz
Despite being held back by a
“socialist” government and
their own trade union lead-
ers Spain’s car workers look
set to continue strike action.
In Spain they do some
things differently, including
strikes. Every now and then
the nightly diet of boredom
and distraction that passes
for news in the capitalist
press is relieved by images
of workers blockading roads
wearing black balaclavas or
scenes of street battles with
the police and burning
tyres.
Many of these scenes have
involved the ongoing dis-
pute with the US-based
autoparts supplier Delphi.
The company plans to
close its Puerto Real factory
in Cádiz in the Andalucía
region of Spain, making
1,600 workers redundant.
Since it first revealed its
proposals to close the Puerto
Real factory in February,
there has been a wave of
One of the central demands made by the union leaders has been on PSOE Prime
Minister Zapatero to intervene and take legal action against Delphi.
demonstrations and strikes.
For several weeks, there
were daily demonstrations
outside the town hall.
The initial protest in early
March brought as many as
75,000 people into Cádiz,
according to the unions.
They included workers
from the aeronautical firm
Airbus, which is threatened
with redundancies and clo-
sures in Spain.
There were also workers
from the shipbuilder
Navantia, the aeronautical
company EADS-CASA, Rota
military base, metallurgical
industries in Almería, Sevilla
and Córdoba y Jaén, workers
from telephone companies
Telefonica and Vitelcom in
Málaga and students from
several universities.
Demonstrators were
joined by the wives and chil-
dren of the strikers, carrying
banners proclaiming, “13
years of deceit,” workers
from auxiliary industries
saying, “We are also
Delphi!” and workers from
the contract cleaning and
maintenance companies.
General strike
called
Despite the scale of the
protests and the outpouring
of sympathy from the people
of Cadiz, two months passed
without any sign of the dis-
pute being resolved.
On April 20, leaders of the
anarcho-syndicalist General
Confederation of Labour
(CGT) were forced to call a
general strike.
Unfortunately they lim-
ited their call to 14 towns
under a general slogan
demanding more industry
for Cádiz rather than a
direct appeal to prevent the
closure of Delphi.
Nor did they link their
strike appeal to action against
other threatened plants such
as those at Airbus or Seat,
Volkswagen’s Spanish unit.
There was a major response
to the general strike call,
bringing the region to a vir-
tual standstill and arousing a
great upsurge in solidarity.
Industrial estates in the area
were closed, public buses
were running minimal serv-
ices and the streets of the
towns were largely empty.
Government representa-
tives have not made any state-
ment on the numbers who
participated, but reports sug-
gest a total of 300,000 people
took part.
Despite the militant strug-
gle waged by the Delphi
workers, as well as large
demonstrations and solidar-
ity action by workers else-
where, the Spanish Socialist
Workers Party (PSOE) gov-
ernment and unions have
allowed Delphi manage-
ment to shut the factory and
emboldened them to
threaten closure of other
plants in Spain.
Despite this, the actions
continued unabated into
May and were organised by
spontaneously formed
workers’ committees.
On the first day of the
Trade and Tourism Fair,
workers blocked access to
the main entrance, present-
ing press reports on the
struggles to the tourism
chief of Andalucía.
The workers also organ-
ised a five-day march along
the 119 kilometres that sep-
arate the factory from the
offices of the regional gov-
ernment in Sevilla. Road
access to the plant was
blocked with barricades and
burning tyres.
One of the central
demands made by the union
leaders has been on PSOE
Prime Minister Zapatero to
intervene and take legal
action against Delphi.
This would be on the basis
that the company has
reneged on a deal awarding
it substantial public subsi-
dies in return for its com-
mitment to long-term
investment in the region, up
to 2010.
According to the Anda-
lusian authorities, Delphi’s
Puerto Real plant has
received regional and cen-
tral government grants
worth 60 million euro since
1986. The company has also
benefited from the deal in
the form of lower-than-the-
average European Union
corporate tax rates.
Bumper bonuses
In a report prepared for the
US bankruptcy court,
Delphi posted a net loss in
March of $63 million. The
company lost US$828 mil-
lion in the fourth quarter of
2006 and $5.5 billion for all
of last year. Despite the poor
financial results, manage-
ment has walked away with
bumper bonuses.
A federal bankruptcy
judge approved Delphi’s
request to give 440 top exec-
utives bonuses adding up to
$37 million.
At the same time the com-
pany is seeking a 60 percent
wage cut for its 33,000
unionised workers in the US
and has gutted pensions,
health benefits and working
conditions. 21 of its 29
plants are being sold off,
closed or relocated.
The struggle in Spain is
led primarily by the CC.OO
union associated with the
Spanish Communist Party
(PCE) and the CGT, and has
been conducted undemocrat-
ically by the union bureau-
cracy.
There are two factors,
however, that could lead to a
rank and file led militant
revitalization of the strike.
All three shifts have been
combined into one, bring-
ing all the workers together
at the same time every day.
And at the end of June
workers will receive their
last month’s pay – with no
redundancy or holiday pay.
Whether this will lead to
increasingly radicalised
strike committees, led by
rank and file workers, call-
ing for nationalisation of the
plant - remains to be seen.
Socialist Resistance
South Africa
PUBLIC SECTOR
STRIKES BACK FOR
PAY JUSTICE
Norman Traub
South African trade unions
have launched one of the
biggest national strikes of
the post-apartheid era in a
move widely seen as spear-
heading the left’s challenge
to win control of the ruling
African National Congress
ahead of next year’s presi-
dential election.
On June 13, the unions
called out hundreds of thou-
sands of members in sup-
port of public sector workers
who had already been on
strike for a fortnight, forc-
ing schools to close and hos-
pitals to treat only
emergency cases.
Municipal workers joined
the strike, shutting down
rubbish collection, mainte-
nance of power supplies and
public transport.
In addition, taxi and bus
drivers, electricity and
cleaning workers, adminis-
trative staff and officials
from border posts and air-
Unions
ports joined the protest. apartheid government.”
Cities like Durban were Underpinning the strike is
brought to a complete the looming power struggle
standstill and many workers for control of the ANC at its
took part in lunchtime national congress in
protests. December ahead of next
The unions wanted a 12% year’s general election.
wage increase but have low- South Africa’s trades union
ered their demand to 10% confederation, Cosatu,
plus increases in health and which has 1.8 million mem-
housing benefits. bers, is part of the tripartite
At the Addington Hospital in Durban, several nurses were
wounded when police opened fire on the fourth day of the strike.
President Thabo Mbeki’s ruling alliance with the
government increased its ANC and the Communist
offer from 6% to 7.25%, well party.
below inflation. However, because of the
Public sector workers are a massive disaffection among
prime example of qualified ordinary workers it has had
workers who survive on low to call this action.
pay - nurses earn as little as A political columnist for
£250 a month. Johannesburg’s Star news-
Striking workers joined paper described the strike as
protests in major cities a political strategy beyond
including Johannesburg, pay issues.
where some held up signs “This is war, a show of
reading: “The ANC govern- force by the unions after 12
ment is a replica of the then years of being bludgeoned
to man hospitals. Nurses
were served with copies of
the ultimatum when they
were on picket duty.
Despite the interdict, large
numbers of nurses remain
on strike. At the Addington
Hospital in Durban, several
nurses were wounded when
police opened fire on the
fourth day of the strike.
Twenty nurses were
arrested as they blocked the
entrances. On the day of the
mass sympathy strike, thou-
sands gathered outside the
into submission in the
parliament building in Cape
ruling alliance,” he wrote.
Town.
The government’s
Many strikers spoke bit-
response has been heavy-
terly about the contrast
handed. In an attempt to
between their demand for a
intimidate workers, Public
12 percent increase and the
Service Minister Geraldine
57 percent that has been rec-
Fraser-Moleketi obtained
ommended for President
an interdict from the
Thabo Mbeki and his cabi-
Labour Court forbidding
net.
workers in essential services
One striker told Reuters,
from joining the strike.
“They live in luxury, we still
This included the water
stay in poverty.”
industry, the courts and cor-
The militancy and deter-
rectional services, emer-
mination of the workers
gency health provision,
involved in the strike and
nursing and medical, and
the widespread support in
paramedics.
the population are an
Fraser-Moleketi immedi-
expression of massive disaf-
ately declared that essential
fection with the ANC gov-
workers who did not return
ernment.
to work by June 4 would be
South Africa, according to
summarily dismissed.
the United Nations
More than 600 strikers
Development Programme,
have been sent letters of dis-
is among the most unequal
missal. Soldiers were sent in
13
countries in the world—
third from the bottom
behind only Brazil and
Guatemala.
The country is becoming
increasingly polarised,
headed as it is by a small
clique of black business-
men, mostly made up of
leading members of the
ANC, enriching themselves
through the government’s
policy of Black Economic
Empowerment.
Along with the South
African Communist Party
(SACP), COSATU favours
the candidacy of Jacob
Zuma, the supposed
“people’s president,” who is
no left-winger.
Zuma was Mbeki’s second
in command until last year
and has never opposed any
of the government’s pro-
market privatisation poli-
cies.
Mr. Mbeki, president of
both South Africa and the
congress, is legally barred
from running again for
national president in 2009,
but is widely expected to
seek a new term as president
of the party late this year.
The president of the party
effectively controls who
becomes its nominee for
president of South Africa.
Experts say the strike
could become more serious
if it spreads beyond public
workers to private indus-
tries vital to the national
economy. However, that
seems unlikely at present.
14 Socialist Resistance
Women
Development or devastation?
Philippines’ main
export trade:
female labour
Eva Olaer,
(Executive Director,
Stichting Sumpay
Mindanao
International)
Human resources are now
the primary commodities
for export by the
Philippines government
–and most of the labour
exported is female, to
respond to labour demands
in the advanced countries,
such as domestic work,
taking care of the aging pop-
ulation and other human
service-related work.
Caught in the grip of
global competition and neo-
liberal policies, President
Gloria Arroyo’s regime has
opted for the institutional-
ization of labour migration
as a central measure to
counter the economic crisis
in the country.
It is also the most prof-
itable way of global trading,
with less capital investment
and risks on the part of the
sending country and the
expectation of high returns
in the form of remittances.
The aggressiveness of this
human trading was even
shown during the wars in
Lebanon and Iraq, when
President Arroyo
announced that she was
sending more “supermaids”
to Middle East countries,
while other governments
were sending rescue vehi-
cles for their citizens living
in these countries.
According to Philippine
economic indicators, the
remittances of Overseas
Filipino Workers (OFWs)
exceed foreign direct invest-
ment in the country.
Remittances per annum
amount to about US$12-14
billion, which only includes
those working legally
abroad, whereas many
OFWs working in domestic
and other service work are
undocumented.
The Philippine govern-
ment relies heavily on the
remittances the OFWs send
to their families to compen-
sate for the lack of spending
on social services such as
health and education, to
boost domestic consump-
tion and to cover its yearly
budget deficits.
And the sad truth is that
the income from the labour
migration business is
mostly spent in this way,
and not on productive
investments, which means
that the migrant workers
will work forever abroad, in
order that their families can
simply survive and because
there are even fewer options
for them to return to the
country, whose economy is
bankrupt and corrupt.
The dramatic increase in
labour migration has cre-
ated a large population of
transnational migrant fami-
lies. Thousands of children
now grow up apart from one
or both parents, as the par-
ents are forced to work out-
side the country in order to
send their children to
school, give them access to
quality health care, or, in
some cases, just provide
them with enough food.
Feminization of
the Export of
Human Labour
Philippine labour migra-
tion has a woman’s face.
According to the Philippine
Overseas Employment
Administration (POEA), in
2003, more than 70% of the
workers abroad were
women. Most of them are
between 25-29 years old.
Women migrants live and
work in more than 192
countries. They work as
professional and technical
employees, nurses, clerical
and sales workers, entertain-
ers, caregivers, and domestic
workers. Many are
employed in jobs which
have traditionally been
undertaken by women.
Most of these women
migrants who work in the
service and domestic sectors
leave families behind and
their children are taken care
of by their parents, male
partners, or relatives. The
function of reproduction of
labour that was performed
by migrant women is passed
on to their male partners
and women relatives.
The paradox of this femi-
nization of migrant labour is
that the women who have
Thousands of children now grow up apart from one or both parents, as the parents
are forced to work outside the countryin order to send their children to school, give
them access to quality health care or sometimes provide them with enough food
left this reproductive func-
tion in their own family to
join the global workforce are
still performing the same
function … for families in
First World countries.
The effects of the femi-
nization of labour migration
on the families of the
migrant women from poor
countries demonstrate how
the global economy is struc-
tured to benefit the rich
countries of the world.
The migrant women who
work in domestic house-
holds in the countries of
Europe, the Middle East,
US and Asia are mostly
undocumented, and are
basically denied their rights
UNISON has
launched a Filipino
help line to assist
work with the many
nurses employed by
the NHS
as workers and human
beings.
The worst cases are
encountered in Middle East
countries where these
undocumented domestic
workers are locked up in the
houses of their employers,
treated inhumanely and
sometimes even killed.
An increasing number of
migrant women are victims
of sexual abuse, trafficking,
and prostitution. Despite
the reports of these abuses
many Filipina women still
migrate and work in these
countries, putting their
chances of survival at the
mercy of their employers.
Most of the migrant
women’s families are run by
their male partners.
Research shows that the
spending habits of the
family increase – shopping
sprees, spending more on
luxurious items and other
non-essential buying.
OFW Remittances
The most often-used argu-
ment in favour of labour
migration is that remit-
tances play an extraordinary
role in the economies of
many developing countries
– far more important than
official development assis-
tance or even the country’s
foreign direct investment.
Worldwide, remittances
are estimated at about US
$167 billion per year, and
approximately 60 percent of
this sum goes to developing
countries. Remittance esti-
mates are imprecise, how-
ever, because remittances
often move through private,
unrecorded channels.
Yes, the Philippines has
annual OFW remittances of
US $12-14 billion, exclud-
ing the non-formal chan-
nels: but NO that does not
compensate for the social
costs of migration and the
development of the country.
Despite this enormous
amount of remittance or
cash inflow, labour migra-
tion does not significantly
improve the development
prospects of the country of
origin. The Philippines
have had great difficulty in
converting remittance
income into sustainable pro-
ductive capacity.
In addition, most Third
World countries are able to
exercise little control over
the composition of their
labour exports—rather, they
are determined by foreign
labour markets, and may
bear no relation to ‘surplus’
labour at home.
The Philippines has
focused quite deliberately
on producing skilled labour
for foreign markets, but
remains passive in the face
of international supply and
demand.
As we have said, remit-
tance income is rarely used
for productive purposes.
Remittances go in small
amounts to poor people (the
average size of a transfer
from the US or Europe to
the Philippines is about
$200 or 150 euro per
month), and are used mostly
to support direct consump-
tion and spending on hous-
ing, healthcare, and
education.
Only a very small propor-
tion of remitted funds seem
to go into income-earning,
job-creating investment and
property acquisition.
Remittances may not con-
stitute a rising tide that
raises all boats, but they do
have a very important effect
on the standard of living of
the households that receive
them, constituting a signifi-
cant portion of household
income. They represent the
most important social safety
Socialist Resistance
Over 750,000 Philippines-trained nurses are currently working
overseas, employed in dozens of countries , often through
agencies such as this which regard them as a very saleable
commodity
net of poor families, espe-
cially in times of disasters
or difficult times.
Far from being produc-
tive, remittances increase
inequality, encourage con-
sumption of imports,
increase domestic prices for
education and health, and
create dependency.
They increase the profits
of foreign banks and have
led to the proliferation of
money transfer and
exchange businesses.
Much more money goes to
the financial markets and
on consumer spending than
on productive investments
that could enhance labour
productivity and sustain-
able development.
Aside from the economic
aspects, labour migration
affects families. It has con-
tributed to the malfunction-
ing of family structures.
Cases of marital infidelity
and juvenile delinquency
are prevalent among
migrant families and a rela-
tionship of dependency on
the migrants is created.
Global capitalists are the
principal beneficiaries of
the labour of migrant
women in the domestic
households, because they
do not have to pay for the
reproduction of the labour
force.
This is especially the case
with undocumented
migrants, whose monetary
compensation is low and
who have no social benefits
– health care, sick pay,
retirement pensions, paid
holidays.
A campaign is underway
for the recognition of over-
whelmingly female domes-
tic labour as real work, and
for the regularization of
migrant domestic workers.
It is vital that these work-
ers receive the full support
of the left and the workers’
movement.
Europe
Irish election – a
shift to the right?
Joe Craig
Ireland’s Green Party has gone
into government with Bertie
Ahern’s corrupt Fianna Fail.
They have been bought off with
two government jobs.
Their new Minister for the
Environment John Gormley
will, among other things, be
responsible for the water
supply in Galway.
The city’s residents and
visitors aren’t able to drink the
water because the aquifers
have been contaminated
precisely because of Fianna
Fail’s corruption and refusal to
invest in infrastructure.
The 2007 election has been
described as a “vote to stand
still”, opening the door to a
third consecutive term for a
Fianna Fail led government –
against almost all predictions.
The party saw its seats in
the 30th Dáil fall by only two to
78 and its first preference vote
actually rise fractionally by
0.1% to 41.6%.
Fine Gael enjoyed the
biggest increase in both vote
and seats, the former rising by
4.8% to 27.3% and the latter
by 20 to 51. The Labour Party
did badly losing one seat and
0.7% of its vote to finish on 20
seats with 10.1% of the vote.
This is a very bad result
reflecting an inability to
recover from the disastrous
1997 election when the party
Italy - split
looms for
Rifondazione
Liam Mac Uaid
“The left that is in goverment
has completely broken its rela-
tionship with the social move-
ments”.
That is the verdict of Partito
della Rifondazione Comunista
(PRC) parliamentarian
Salvatore Cannavò. Cannavò is
a member of Sinistra Critica
and a PRC deputy in the Italian
parliament’s lower house, the
Green ties don’t worry Bertie
was punished for its coalitions
with Fianna Fail (and then Fine
Gael) following its ‘Spring tide’
when it won 33 seats.
The Greens may have
increased their vote by 0.9% to
4.7% but they did not achieve
the 6 to 8 per cent of the
opinion polls.
Sinn Fein also did badly,
actually losing a seat, almost
losing another, and only
increasing their vote by 0.4%
through standing more
candidates in more
constituencies.
Considering they had
confidently expected to win at
least 10 seats this is a major
set back that has delivered a
critical blow to their entire
strategy of being in office
North and South and having
some clout when being there.
Chamber of Deputies.
Speaking about the events of
“No Bush Day” on June 9th,
when George W. was in Rome
to meet Prime Minister
Romano Prodi and the Pope, he
pointed out that the march of
80 000 showed that there is
now an opposition on the left of
Italian politics.
Cannavò argues that
Rifondazione has failed as an
Prominent among the
casualties were Seamus Healy
and the Socialist Party’s Joe
Higgins. The SP also failed to
get Clare Daly elected in North
Dublin.
Generally the left might
console itself with the thought
that it generally held its vote,
with a good result for the SWP
front in Dún Laoghaire.
But others did not do so well
and the failure of Joe Higgins
will reflect general
disappointment, this also
reflecting an electoralist
fixation on seats as opposed to
the quality and quantity of the
vote.
How can such a conclusion
be drawn?
A rightwards drift can be
seen in the evolution of those
parties that many still judge to
belong to the left.
The Labour Party’s platform
endorsed tax cuts for the
middle class and the current
low tax on capital.
The Greens also accepted
the latter and Sinn Fein kicked
off its campaign by dropping
its marginally progressive tax
increase proposals on
corporations and those earning
in excess of 100,000 euro a
year.
The latter party’s rush to the
right has been the greatest of
any party over the last number
of years and thus arguably
organisation because its
leaders are inadequate and
their project of being in Prodi’s
government is wrong. While
Cannavò headed the
demonstration opposing Bush
Rifondazione leaders were
almost alone at a party-
organised demonstration in
Piazza Del Popolo.
Prodi now heads a coalition
that reaches from Rifondazione
Comunista to the right wing
Partito Democratico, a pro-
capitalist party explicitly based
on the US Democrats.
The government’s
programme includes the
retention of Italian troops in
Afghanistan and a package of
neo-liberal reforms.
Rifondazione is playing an
impossible game by trying to
be both part of the government
15
done more to shift general
politics to the right than any
other.
All these parties signalled
their compatibility with the
reactionary policies of the two
main parties by touting
themselves as coalition
partners, something Sinn Fein
for example had not done in
previous Southern elections.
In general terms even the
manifestos of Fianna Fail and
Fine Gael were noted as
promising less on poverty
reduction and on health
provision than those of 2002.
The Irish economic boom is
ending and further attacks on
workers’ interests will be
accelerated by this election
result.
But its end will also begin to
end illusions that property will
make everyone rich or that
some redistribution by taxes
will cure structural inequality
and the mass of social
problems that exist. Workers,
at different times and in
different places, will fight back.
The task of socialists will not
simply be to support their
demands or generalise their
struggle. It will be to give
them some political leadership
and a political alternative. The
truth is that this election
recorded a shift to the right.
The shift is neither decisive nor
catastrophic.
and the electoral voice of
opposition to the government’s
agenda.
Sinistra Critica had fought to
prevent Rifondazione from
being part of this alliance.
Cannavò has already made
up his mind, saying that he has
stopped paying his dues and
that as far as he’s concerned
his relationship with the PRC is
over – but that the issue needs
to be discussed more fully in
Sinistra Critica.
The tightly organised left
current has agreed to have a
special conference in
September.
It is almost certain that they
will decide to leave the party
en masse and establish an
organisation that will continue
the fight against the war and
Prodi’s neo-liberalism.
16 Socialist Resistance
Venezuela
DEBATE
Media in Venezuela: from
mythology to liberation
Dan Jakopovich
Free socialism is based on
respect for and strengthen-
ing of the widest democratic
freedoms, and freedom of
thought and expression are
elementary democratic
rights.
From that libertarian
socialist point of view I will
attempt to deliver my own
critical analysis of Chavez’s
recent refusal to renew the
licence of a private television
company Radio Caracas
Television (RCTV) for using
the public airwaves, but also a
critique of the position from
which this decision was
attacked in the corporate
media around the world.
Lies and
selectivity in
mass media
Lies and selectivity charac-
terise the capitalist media’s
reports regarding the Left in
Venezuela, and the approach
to these current events cer-
tainly does not deviate from
the usual practice. It is
important to make a few
things clear.
Firstly, it is useful to know
that RCTV is not an “inde-
pendent” media (let alone
“the voice of the people”),
but is actually a private tele-
vision channel owned by a
billionaire oligarch Marcel
Granier.
RCTV and Marcel Granier
are not fighting for the
“freedom of the people”;
they are defending conser-
vative interests and privi-
leges of a few RCTV owners
and tycoons.
Secondly, it is important to
note that, in spite of what
the mainstream media
maintains, Chavez did not
“outlaw” RCTV, but has
only refused to renew the
concession of this private
television for using the TV
frequency which is a public
good, and is by Constitution
(written long before the left
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s recent refusal to renew the licence of a private television company Radio Caracas
Television (RCTV) for using the public airwaves has triggered a new polarisation, and something of a debate over how
media freedom and democratic access to the media can be achieved and maintained in the process of socialist
revolution. Here we carry three initial responses to the events and the hysterical bourgeois response to Chavez’s action.
came to power) under the
jurisdiction of the executive
branch of the Venezuelan
government.
The decision not to renew
the permit of the private cap-
italists for using this public
good does not stop RCTV
from continuing to broadcast
their programme on cable or
satellite television. Chavez
did not close any radio or tel-
evision station.
Thirdly, why was the
RCTV permit to use a
public TV frequency
denied?
Certainly not simply
because of its “critical stance
towards the government” or
“the support for opposi-
tional candidates” as the
BBC lied.
For example, Human
Rights Watch has concluded
in their report Venezuela’s
Political Crisis that “Far
from providing fair and
accurate reporting, the
media by and large seek to
provoke popular discontent
and outrage in support of
the hard-line opposition”
(Human Rights News,
October 9, 2002 ).
RCTV went far beyond
that, openly breaking the
Venezuelan Constitution
and the “Law of Social
Responsibility for Radio
and Television”.
Against the law and against
the Constitution, RCTV
called for political violence
and public disturbances. It
called on the public to bear
arms and attack the demo-
cratically elected government
of Hugo Chavez.
RCTV had announced that
Chavez resigned (while he
was actually abducted by the
insurgents). Do the mass
media have a right to know-
ingly lie to the people?
When millions of
Venezuelans took to the
streets, helping to defeat the
coup and reinstate Chavez
as president, RCTV refused
to broadcast this, just like it
refused to inform the public
that the coup had failed –
and broadcast only cartoons
instead!
Aside from taking part in a
coup against a democratically
elected government in April
2002, RCTV also actively
encouraged economic sabo-
tage, which, according to a
number of sources, cost the
country $10-11 billion (a sum
of $14 billion had also been
suggested).
All this had helped bring
Venezuela to the brink of a
civil war, and had opened a
way for a possible American
military intervention as
well.
What country would allow
a private television station
that had participated in a
coup to continue broadcast-
ing its programme on a
public frequency after the
coup had failed?
In Venezuela, one such sta-
tion continued doing so for
an additional five years.
Marcel Granier was not
arrested or even accused of
treason, a charge which
would very probably have
been raised in UK and US for
the same activities.
Hypocrisy is the quintessen-
tial virtue of the bourgeoisie.
Private or public?
The state in Venezuela cer-
tainly does not have total
control over the media. In
Venezuela, as the official
June 2006 report of the
Venezuelan Ministry of
Communications and
Information states, the vast
majority of the Venezuelan
mass media (TV and radio
channels, as well as newspa-
pers) are privately owned:
! 90% of the TV market is
in the hands of 4 private TV
companies: RCTV, Televen,
Globovision and Venevision.
! 79 of the total of 81 TV
channels (97%) are private
property.
! 706 of the 709 (99%)
radio stations are private,
and all 118 newspapers are
WORLD WIDE
private.
Marcel Granier owns 40
other TV channels through-
out Venezuela (mostly
local). The stockholders of
Empresas 1BC (the com-
pany which owns RCTV)
reflect a “dense tangle of
blood and wealth” (George
Ciccariello-Maher, Zero
Hour for Venezuela’s RCTV,
Monthly Review Zine),
linking Granier through
intertwined dinastic ties
with the owners of other
leading private media cor-
porations.
Apart from RCTV, the
largest TV channel
Venevision, whose main
stockholder is Gustavo
Cisneros, one of the richest
men on the planet according
to Forbes, is also fiercely
opposed to the left-wing
government of Hugo
Chavez.
Globovision, one of the 4
strongest TV companies, is
particularly critical towards
the government. Even the
Washington Post published
an article which states:
“Free expression is exer-
cised in Venezuela. Another
influential television sta-
tion, Globovision, lambastes
the Chávez government fre-
quently, and Caracas boasts
a range of newspapers, many
of them with an anti-gov-
ernment bent. ...” (Juan
Ferero, Pulling the Plug on
Anti-Chavez TV,
Washington Post, January
18, 2007)
All this tells a lot about the
alleged media “control” by
Chavez. Pitiful is a democ-
racy where “public discus-
sion” and thought is
manufactured by a handful
of media moguls.
State or public?
Still, we shouldn’t fool our-
selves. Opinion polls indi-
cate that the RCTV question
has split the Chavez support
base.
The majority of the popu-
lation generally supports
Chavez, but this was an
unpopular decision, as it
might had been expected
(and not just because RCTV
brought widely watched
soap-operas and sexually
provocative material).
Internal and international
damage caused by the non-
renewal of licence to RCTV
could cost far more than the
presumed benefits.
The resolution of the 12th
World Congress of the
Fourth International
“Dictatorship of the prole-
tariat and socialist democ-
racy”, written in 1985 by the
distinguished Marxist theo-
rist Ernest Mandel, might be
somewhat instructive here.
It particularly highlights
the necessity of preserving
the widest democratic free-
doms and pluralism in the
course of the development
of a new society, and warns
of the negative conse-
quences of stifling those lib-
erties.
Socialism heralds an
expansion and deepening of
democratic freedoms, not
their reduction. Even from a
purely pragmatic angle,
repression over the human
rights of capitalists (which
of course doesn’t include
their privileges) seems to
bring more damage than
benefit to the revolution.
For Mandel, a moderate
exception in terms of media
control can be made in situa-
tions of open war or physical
hostilities, when the capital-
ists constitute a direct anti-
democratic physical threat to
the new order, and stricter
methods are needed.
It is obvious, however, that
Chavez took this measure
from a position of power and
relative security.
A more radical democrati-
sation of the media is
needed, with more initia-
tives for establishing and
developing participatory-
democratic and community-
run media.
Socialist Resistance
Media debate
The National
Association of Free and
Alternative Community
Media (ANMCLA)
demands the expropria-
tion of the private media
magnates of their trans-
mitters and equipment,
and the establishment of
direct-democratic control
of the population over the
new TV channel.
The capitalists should
have the right to free
expression, but they do not
have the moral right to
hold special privileges
because of their wealth.
Similarly, it is necessary
to transcend the privileged
position of the administra-
tive apparatus, which
should serve the people.
The struggle against state
control on all levels in the
Venezuelan society,
including the media, is a
critical issue for the future
of the Venezuelan experi-
ment. This demand for the
socialisation of media is
particularly interesting
and important.
It is necessary to estab-
lish direct-democratic con-
trol of the population over
the media programme,
largely through non-privi-
leged, easily and quickly
recallable delegates
directly responsible to the
masses and derived from
the self-managing workers’
and communal councils.
Democratic free-think-
ing, as the reflection of a
truly democratic praxis,
represents the harshest
blow against the manipula-
tive capitalist industry of
consciousness.
As the pioneers of true
democracy in Venezuelan
media, the Association for
Communitarian, Free and
National Alternative
Media (Anmcla) say:
“The freedom of expres-
sion is the expression of
freedom, not the voice of
privilege.”
Giant demo backs call for
democratisation of airwaves
KATHALINA
BARROSO reports
from Caracas on
the
demonstrations in
support of the
restrictions
imposed on
counter-
revolutionary
RCTCV
Thousands of Venezuelans
marched through the streets
of Caracas to support the
government’s decision not
to renew RCTV’s licence.
They also rejected the vio-
lence stirred up by some
media outlets as they tried
raise the temperature on the
streets and incite violent
demonstrations.
Scores of social and politi-
cal groups which support
the democratisation of the
airwaves assembled in
avenida Bolivar in Caracas.
Member of the National
Assembly Dario Vivas said
“It showed that the big
majority is in the streets in
solidarity with President
Chávez and the Bolivarian
revolution”.
Two marches set off from
Parque del Este and La
Bandera at 10am. One went
past the pro-revolution
CANTV station.
“There we gave a docu-
ment of solidarity to the
new manager of Cantv and
then we went to Plaza
Morales to give another one
to the public defender,
Germán Mundaraín” said
the deputy.
The march called on the
investigating authorities to
speed up the investigations
into those who are causing
chaos and conflict in the
capital and in some other
parts of the country.
Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez Frías
announced on December 28
2006 that RCTV’s licence
would not be renewed
because of its constant vio-
lations of the country’s
laws.
The private channel came
off air on May 27th and
Televisión Venezolana
Social (TVes), the country’s
first public service broad-
caster began transmitting.
This new channel is the
first step towards the real
democratisation of the
country’s airwaves.
Since Monday 28th May
some of the private media
companies, taking their
lead from Globovisión and
some right wing politicians
have started a campaign to
raise the political tempera-
ture on the streets.
Groups of students from
the universities and
Caracas’ private schools
responded to their messages
and began peaceful protests
that, within hours, became
violent.
Later National Assembly
Deputies Desirée Santos
Amaral, Calixto Ortega y
Gabriela Ramírez declared
on the radio that radical sec-
tors of the Venezuelan
opposition Un Nuevo
Tiempo and Comando de la
Resistencia were behind the
supposedly “spontaneous
and peaceful demonstra-
tions.
How much does a
tear cost?
The people on the streets
are giving an answer to the
manipulation of the artists
Democratise the media
Kathy Lowe
Venezuela’s decision to reclaim
the public airwaves used by
Radio Caracas Television
prompts a wider question for
socialists: “what would a revo-
lutionary model of the media
look like?”
Venezuela is a society in
transition. But a revolutionary
government that had already
overthrown capitalism would be
taking all kinds of steps to
redistribute land and resources
in favour of the poorest and to
bring the country’s assets
under workers’ control.
This would include the
means of communication.
As socialism is based on the
full democratic freedoms
including freedom of
Despite considerable provocation, Hugo Chavez (above) has
not hurried to take action against RCTV
who “wept” for the loss of
RCTV.
During the anti-imperial-
ist march in support of the
Bolivarian revolution some
groups of students and
other protestors marched
past the headquarters of
broadcast network ViVe to
show their support for pres-
ident Chávez and to oppose
the private companies’ dis-
tortions of the truth.
Liliana Ortega, a law stu-
dent at Universidad Arturo
Michelena said “the artists
were an instrument of the
opposition, helping them
with their plan to desta-
bilise the country. The
expression, the emphasis
would be on plurality.
Debating, defending and
deepening the revolution would
demand the widest possible
access to information and
discussion for everyone.
There would obviously be a
place for the revolutionary
party to have its own press and
programmes. There would also
be room for dissent and
minority views.
Organisatons such as
independent trade unions,
peasant groups, indigenous
communites, women’s groups,
gay and lesbian campaigners
and churches, would be
guaranteed media access or
helped to set up their own
media.
Democratically run national,
regional, and local media with
WORLD WIDE 17
script for Sunday 27th
called for the artists to
appear without make-up
crying in front of the cam-
eras.”
She appealed to fellow stu-
dents who are protesting at
“being robbed of their free-
dom”.
“Please be calm. We live in
a society with laws. Our
Constitution and our legal
system provide many guar-
antees of freedom of expres-
sion for all Venezuela’s
citizens.
“I would ask my fellow
students not to take part in
these demonstrations and to
return to classes as normal
unionised workers and
community participation, would
be the objective.
Privately owned newspapers
and broadcasters would be
allowed to continue as long as
they provided a public service
and public access and gave
their workers and the
community representation in
running them.
Space and resources would
be made available for
developing independent
newspapers, film, theatre, film,
TV and radio production.
Media awareness would be
part of the popular education
efforts. The skills and solidarity
of media professionals at home
and abroad would be
harnessed to offer
communications training to
union and community leaders,
on Monday.”
Edison Garcés said
“You don’t have to be a
professional to realise that
what these stations are
doing is not very ethical.
“They are abusing the fact
that viewers identify with
these actors’ characters.
They shouldn’t be using
them to manipulate people
in this way.”
He also mentioned the
expansion of the rights and
freedom to participate in
broadcasting that people in
Venezuela now enjoy.
“It’s striking that people
who before were not able to
enjoy educational and
informative programmes
now are able to take deci-
sions in their own commu-
nities.
“We now have legal pro-
tection to discuss decisions
about the economy, the
infrastructure and educa-
tion. It’s clear to me that the
President is the person
pushing this forward.”
Cabo Guanipa, a represen-
tative of the contractors of
Elecentro said
“We have freedom of
expression here, and we
aren’t going to let ourselves
be manipulated. That’s why
we’ve come out to defend
this process and the
President. Patria, Socialism
or Death!”.
neighbourhood committees and
minorities to help them to
organise and campaign.
Inevitably, the population of
a revolutionary state would still
be exposed to the influence of
the media moguls and their
neoliberal backers through
satellite and regional
broadcasts crossing national
boundaries.
But democratic free-thinking
and transparency in society,
coupled with genuine
improvements in workers’ lives
would be the socialist way to
combat reactionary
propaganda.
If Venezuela tries to
democratise its system of
communication as it moves in a
revolutionary direction, it
deserves the support of
socialists everywhere.
18 Socialist Resistance
Ecosocialism
Marcus Greville
Australia is currently in the
grip of an ecological and
environmental crisis, one
that is characterized by the
current drought gripping
over half of Australia’s agri-
cultural land.
This drought is estimated
to be a one in 1000-year
event and is widely
acknowledged to be exacer-
bated by rising average
global temperatures.
Bushfires between
September and December
last year, centred in Victoria
were some of the worst on
record and were made worse
by the drought.
The effect of the drought
has been devastating for
Australian farmers and rural
communities. Although
rain fell in May and June it
has already driven food
prices up and knocked 1%
off the country’s GDP.
Water supplies will only
start to recover however if
Australia receives above
average rain fall over the
next few years, and if this
rain doesn’t appear the
threat of irrigation being cut
off to farmers may be
realised before the end of
the year.
In this election year, the
Howard led Liberal govern-
ment is starting to notice the
shift in popular environ-
mental consciousness, but
still will not engage in any
meaningful discussion
about real measures to
reduce carbon dioxides
emissions or repairing
Australia’s degraded envi-
ronment.
Following US President
George’s Bush’s lead and the
Australian primary industry
pressure, Howard refuses to
introduce measures that
would harm the national
economy.
While the Stern report
explained that the cost of
not acting now to reduce
global warming gases will
cost more than introducing
measures immediately,
Howard remains unmoved.
In fact Howard, who has
been in power since 1996,
has been unmoved on all
environmental questions in
Australia and has overseen
increasing rates of environ-
mental degradation on all
key indicators.
According to a 2002 report
by Dr Peter Christoff of the
University of Melbourne
“Laggard state”
Australia wracked by
environmental crisis
which was commissioned by
19 organisations including
Oxfam and Greenpeace:
“Over the past decade, in
ecological terms, Australia
has been a continent in
reverse.
“It is going backwards on
“Over the past decade, in ecological terms, Australia has been a
continent in reverse: it is going backwards on nearly every major
indicator of our environmental health”
nearly every major indicator
of our environmental
health, including the loss of
plants and animals, land
clearing and degradation,
the condition of Australia’s
inland waters, and green-
house gas emissions. Per
capita, Australians generate
more greenhouse gases and
clear more land than the
people of any other wealthy
nation.”
Between 1993 and 2001 the
number of extinct, endan-
gered or vulnerable bird and
mammal species rose by
over a third from 118 to 160
which is mainly due to the
permanent clearing of
native vegetation.
This is the single largest
contributor to the losses in
Australia’s terrestrial biodi-
versity and land clearing is
continuing to accelerate.
While reforestation offsets
a large amount of vegetative
cover, plantation forests do
not provide the habitats for
native animals.
Australia is the world’s
driest inhabited continent,
but also has one of the high-
est levels of per capita waters
consumption of any coun-
try.
Water conservation proj-
ects have managed to have
an impact on domestic
usage but the real culprit for
water usage is big industry
and in many cases they pay
tiny amounts for their water
allocations or receive them
for free.
BHP, which is mining the
world’s largest uranium
deposit, Olympic Dam mine
in South Australia, pays
nothing for the 33 million
litres of water it uses each
day.
It also consumes 10% of
South Australia’s total elec-
tricity production, making
it the biggest greenhouse-
gas producer in the state.
To date the mine has pro-
duced 60 million tonnes of
radioactive tailings and this
will increase by 10 million
tonnes this year. The report
goes on to say that.
“Internationally, Australia
is a laggard state. It has per-
formed significantly behind
other industrialised coun-
tries on most environmental
measures.
“It has the second highest
level of per capita waste pro-
duction, the highest per-
centage of arable land
degraded, the world’s fifth
highest per capita level of
water consumption, and the
world’s worst record of any
nation for known extinc-
tions during the past 250
years.
“Australia also has the
highest per capita green-
house emissions of any
developed country. At 27.9
tonnes CO2-e per person,
this is more than double the
average of 12.8 tonnes per
capita for all industrialised
countries.”
In face of this Howard is
making the case that to solve
the problem of global warm-
ing, Australia and the world
must embrace ‘clean coal’
technology and nuclear
energy.
The path for increased ura-
nium mining was opened
this April when the Labor
Party dropped its longstand-
ing ‘3 mines’ policy which
supported the existing 3 ura-
nium mines in Australia but
no more than that.
The national conference
dropped this policy in sup-
port of open slather ura-
nium mining. Howard and
the nuclear industry have
lost momentum on the
debate about nuclear power
generation in Australia but
the debate is not yet won.
Clean coal technology is
being touted as a viable way
to keep coal fired power sta-
tions and the powerful coal
mining industry going.
At the May 27-30 Asia
Pacific Economic
Cooperation’s energy
summit held in Darwin, the
energy ministers present
spent most of their time dis-
cussing securing oil supplies
for the 21 member states.
The Australian resources
minister, Ian MacFarlane
described his vision for
meeting future energy needs
was one of coal and nuclear
and this is a more or less
bipartisan view point of the
Labor and Liberal parties.
The Socialist Alliance
which will be standing can-
didates in this year’s federal
election, has by comparison
adopted a position to reduce
stationary power emissions
by 95% by 2020 with an
overall emissions cut of 65%
increasing to 90% reduc-
tions on 1990 emissions by
2030.
These targets are to be met
in the main through massive
increases in renewable
energy investment and
using natural gas fired
power plants as a bridge
between phasing out coal
and full-scale renewable
power production.
Like the rest of the world,
dealing with the generalised
ecological crisis in Australia
is not possible using market
driven solutions such as
water and carbon trading
schemes.
The resources are always
diverted from the most
socially useful to the most
profitable.
The power to make deci-
sions about the impact of
our activities on the envi-
ronment needs to be taken
out of the hands of big
industry and put into the
collective decision making
hands of those who bear the
brunt of the decisions made,
the working people.
Socialist Resistance
campaigns
Ecosocialists to launch
new international
Derek Wall
Building a movement against Climate Change
Roy Wilkes
THERE IS an objective urgency
to the climate issue that impacts
directly on social conscious-
ness, and which helps us to
define some aspects of the
movement we seek to build.
First and foremost that
movement needs to be global,
since carbon emissions do not
respect national boundaries.
One of the most positive
aspects of the leadership of the
Campaign against Climate
Change is that it understands
this and is working to build just
such a global movement, linking
up the campaigns around the
world and helping to set up new
ones, including in the South,
(although usually in alliance with
NGOs, which is something of a
weakness.)
And secondly, given the
extreme and unprecedented
depth of this crisis, the
movement must be huge, bigger
probably than anything we’ve
seen before.
This is fairly obvious but it is
still worth emphasising, and it
has clear implications for the
level of priority socialists need to
give to this work; it also implies
that the movement has to be
broad and inclusive, based
In what promises to be a mile-
stone event, ecosocialists are
preparing to meet in Paris to
launch a new international.
Michael Lowy and Joel
Kovel, authors of the
ecosocialist manifesto, have
called the meeting on October
7 in Paris to bring ecosocialists
together.
The manifesto is symbolic of
the way that socialists are
increasingly acknowledging the
green roots of Marxism.
Greens, meanwhile, are
realising that capitalism is the
cause of climate change and
other ecological ills.
Climate change is an urgent
concern for the political
mainstream. But the economic
roots of environmental
problems in the short term
pursuit of profit are pushed to
the sidelines.
Rather the emphasis is on
individual consumer action and
on ‘solutions’ via carbon
trading and pollution quotas.
Equally Marxists in the 20th
century largely treated
environmental questions as of
secondary importance and
often were tempted to interpret
Marxism in a narrowly
productivist form.
However there is a growing
awareness that Marx and
Engels were ecologists,
concerned centrally with
problems of deforestation, soil
erosion, food additives and air
pollution.
Engels’ famous Condition of
the English Working Class
looked at how pollution
wrecked the health of the
proleteriat. Marx’s first political
journalism showed how
peasants were excluded from
the woods where they collected
fallen branches for fuel.
Today capitalism still throws
peasants off the land, encloses
resources and makes profit
from the exploitation of the
around the simple demand that
emissions must be cut to a safe
level.
What this level should be is
determined not by political
expediency or by the economic
constraints of capital but by the
best available scientific
knowledge.
The movement will have to
grow very rapidly indeed if we
are going to avoid catastrophic
and irreversible feedback effects
– the famous tipping points.
It needs to be resilient too, if it
is going to avoid being knocked
off course by a ruling class hell
bent on defending profitability.
The question that arises
therefore is this: what sort of
alliance can deliver on all these
criteria?
There are two social forces
that are absolutely key to this:
organised labour and the youth.
The youth have the biggest stake
in fighting for the planet’s future,
and they also have the energy
and natural radicalism to push
the movement forward.
But just as the trade unions
have been severely weakened by
the defeats of the past, so too
have the students.
Students today are heavily in
debt and endure a much more
working class and the
environment.
The Paris meeting will bring
supporters of the ecosocialist
manifesto together on a non
sectarian basis to look at
practical ways of building a
sustainable, socialist and
democratic future.
Green Left, the ecosocialist
and anti-capitalist platform in
the Green Party; Socialist
Resistance and Green Left
Weekly will be sending
representatives.
Ecosocialists from Venezuela
will also be involved in the
project.
The socialist climate change
blogger Ian Angus is one of the
organisers. He notes:
“This meeting is a very
preliminary first step. We will
get to know each other,
establish a provisional
organising committee, and
begin discussions of projects
and activities.”
intense examination treadmill
than at any time in the past. This
is reflected in a historically low
level of radicalism, certainly in
the universities.
Where there is a radicalisation
it tends to be among younger
students, in the schools and
colleges. This is certainly what
we’re finding in Manchester,
where there is a real resonance
for the climate campaign among
school students but less so in
the universities.
But of course, the social force
with the weight to really push
through the changes that are
needed is the working class
itself.
Our class has the capacity to
reorganise production so it is
not only rationally and
democratically planned but also
environmentally sustainable.
As ecosocialists, our primary
task is therefore to turn the
emerging climate movement
decisively towards organised
labour, and also to ensure that
environmental issues become
central priorities for the unions,
at the level of action rather than
just platitudes.
This approach implies a
decisive break with the past, for
both the environmental
The main goal, he added,
would be to set a time, place
and preliminary agenda for a
larger meeting in 2008. There
it was hoped to have broad
participation from green-left
activists around the world.
The aim in Paris is to allow
groups and individuals from
different political affiliations to
network so as to deepen
understanding of ecosocialist
ideas and to further common
projects.
This will be neither a talking
shop nor a top-down monolith
but a means of creating an
ecosocialist politics that has
real bite.
Marx summed up the
objective in Capital III:
movement itself and the unions,
both of whom have a long
standing and deep seated
distrust of each other, at least at
the level of their respective
bureaucracies.
The trade union bureaucracy
pointedly relegates
environmental issues on the
spurious grounds of defending
jobs.
And most leading
environmentalists look to
capitalist governments and
corporate management for
solutions to the crisis.
In arguing for the climate
campaign to build a strategic
alliance with organised labour
therefore, we are in effect
exposing the opportunism of
both bourgeois
environmentalism and the trade
union bureaucracy.
We are making some
headway with this strategy. The
Manchester Carnival is
developing a real resonance
among school students, and is
also drawing a lot of support
from union branches.
We are also seeing a very
positive response among rank
and file trade unionists to the
proposal for a labour movement
conference on climate, which is
19
“Even an entire society, a
nation, or all simultaneously
existing societies taken
together, are not the owners of
the earth. They are simply its
possessors, its beneficiaries,
and have to bequeath it in an
improved state to succeeding
generations.”
The point, as always, is to
make Marx’s statement real.
! More details http://climate-
andcapitalism.blogspot.com/20
07/06/international-ecosocial-
ist-meeting.html
! To read the ecosocialist
manifesto http://www.green-
left.org.uk/manifesto.shtml
Derek Wall is the Green Party
of England and Wales Principal
Speaker.
being planned for February next
year.
The conference will give us an
opportunity to build networks of
environmental activists
throughout the labour
movement, activists who will not
only organise within the unions
to build the mass actions of the
climate campaign, but who will
also be equipped to push
forward the important debates
on the sustainable reorganisation
of production under workers’
control.
George Monbiot ends his
book Heat by arguing that this
movement is unique in that we
are ultimately building a
campaign against ourselves. I
think this is the wrong approach.
We will never build a mass
movement by demanding
austerity.
Instead, we should present a
positive vision of the future, a
sustainable future in which our
class controls its own destiny
and thereby transcends once
and for all humanity’s alienation
from nature.
(This is an extract from Roy’s
speech at the Socialist
Resistance Day School on
Ecosocialism or Barbarism, held
in Manchester in June).
20 Socialist Resistance

International
Labour Party leader faces 3 months detention
Release
Email:
http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/WTP
residentMessage.aspx

! Mr. Shaukat Aziz

Farooq Tariq!
Prime Minister of Pakistan
Prime Minister Secretariat
Constitution Avenue
Islamabad, Pakistan
Email: primeminister@pak.gov.pk

Khaliq Shah on behalf Throughout the country hundreds of ! Mr Pervez Elahi

of LPP
The Labour Party Paksistan has decided
to challenge the arrest and detention of
its general secretary Farooq Tariq in the
Lahore High Court.
Farooq Tariq, was arrested on 5 June
from his residence in Lahore without
warrants, and on June 7 sent to
Bahawalpur Jail after a 3-month
detention order was issued by the home
secretary of Punjab.
Farooq Tariq’s detention is a part of
recent state crack down on political
activists and workers taking place
against the backdrop of the mobilisation
of large numbers of lawyers and media
workers against Pakistan’s Musharraf
regime.
political workers have been arrested and
cases have been lodged against
thousands more.
According to the police reply
submitted to the court, Farooq was
arrested under section 16 of
Maintenance of Public Order.
Meanwhile, the jail authorities in
Bahawalpur have refused to allow
visitors to see Farooq Tariq, after party
members and workers demanded
access to him.
It may be mentioned that Bawalpur is
an 8-hour journey from Lahore, and the
purpose of shifting him to Bahawalpur
is clearly designed to stop him receiving
visitors.
According to the authorities, any
Chief Minister Punjab
Chief Minister House
Lahore, Pakistan
Email:
http://www.chpervaizelahi.com/writemsg.a
sp
! Lt General Khalid Maqbool
meeting with Farooq can only be messages to be sent to those Governor Punjab
arranged after written permission from responsible for this repression. Governor House
the home secretary: this is sheer Please send your protest letters to: Lahore, Pakistan
violation of constitutional and ! General Pervez Musharraf Fax: +92 42 9200023
fundamental rights. President of Pakistan Email: governor.sectt@punjab.gov.pk
Labour Party Pakistan condemns the President House
attitude of the jail authorities and Constitution House ! Tariq Mehmood Babur
demands visitors be allowed to see Islamabad, Pakistan Superindent Jail Bahawalpur
Farooq Tariq. It is calling for maximum Fax: +92 51 922 1422, 4768/ 920 1893 Ph: +92 62 9255298
pressure on the authorities, and or 1835 Fax:+92 62-9255318

Workers’ Liberty opposes immediate withdrawal from Iraq

Into the camp of
super-profits reduces the pos-
sibilities of Iraq rebuilding
itself and makes it an example
for any other state that would
a workers’ movement. In
Russia, the Mensheviks
developed this view – in oppo-
sition to Lenin’s Bolsheviks –

imperialism
Chris Brooks
The recent conference of the
Alliance for Workers Liberty
(AWL) has voted to reject
calls for the withdrawal of
Western troops from Iraq.
It concluded that the Iraqi
workers’ movement could
currently not survive without
the occupation, because US
and UK withdrawal would
lead to civil war.
The AWL minority which
calls for troops out, including
David Broder and Daniel
Randall, also strongly opposes
the call for immediate with-
drawal.
However, the occupying
forces are the major force pro-
moting civil war.
On Ireland, Palestine and
now Iraq, the AWL view
imperialism as the lesser of
two evils: they refuse to sup-
port anti-imperialist move-
ments when imperialism
creates the problem.
Echoing the AWL’s support
for Boris Yeltsin, it suggests
that only the dominance of
imperialism can develop the
working class, and that the
local bourgeoisie and worker
organizations are too back-
ward to do anything progres-
sive.
Strategy of tension
US policy in Iraq divides
people into Kurds, Sunnis
and Shias, and actively pro-
motes division between them.
The occupation armies have
partitioned representative
bodies, political parties and
cities along those lines.
By fostering communal
divisions, and building walls
and militias to enforce ethnic
cleansing, US strategy divides
workers against each other.
The US has shipped in large
numbers of arms from Bosnia,
and is arming and organizing
Sunni militias. Most, perhaps
all, of the ministries are used
by one or another militia as
organising bases. Occupying
troops have been implicated
in terrorist bombings of civil-
ian areas, and have even been
arrested carrying IEDs.
In Iraq, the results are
brutal. In the first three years
654,965 additional deaths
were caused by the occupa-
tion: 2.5 % of Iraqi’s popula-
tion; overwhelmingly men of
working age. Over 90% died
There is no sign of worried Iraqis begging US occupying troops
to stay on – as AWL would prefer.
violently.
While Workers’ Liberty
argues the occupation pre-
vents a slaughter of trade
unionists, thousands of those
killed will have been trade
unionists.
While the AWL joins anti-
war marches, in practice, the
AWL wants the US and UK
occupation to remain until its
mission is accomplished.
Nation or class?
Class consciousness strug-
gles to develop under colonial
systems: the support for
national independence not
only crosses class lines, but
also appears to be more urgent
priority. Furthermore, the
immense fear, violence, isola-
tion, roadblocks, shortages
and desperate living condi-
tions have broken communi-
cations and discussions
between Iraqis.
Outside the oil industry,
many of the most militant
people are taking up arms
against the Americans under
whatever leaderships they are
able to find – even Al-Qaeda.
Only the Federation of Oil
Unions has been able to win
even modest victories, and
even they face a puppet gov-
ernment which has banned
strikes and re-introduced the
death penalty.
Oil and Israel
The occupation also under-
pins a US strategic goal: to
ensure that no power in the
region can challenge the US
and Israeli dominance over
the region. Securing US oil
challenge Israel.
This is another challenge
for the AWL: socialists
should support the Iraqi
resistance against the US.
The AWL supports Israel,
and opposes Muslim organi-
zations that oppose Israel,
even those with mass support
Hamas and Hezbollah.
Faith in capitalism
There is a strong parallel
here between the crisis of the
early socialist movement and
the evolution of the AWL.
For the AWL, Iraqi self-
determination is put on hold
until the West has helped sta-
bility and workers’ organisa-
tion to develop.
In 1904, the Socialist
International also started to
link national development to
independence. For example,
it called for home rule for
India, but under British con-
trol, until the working class
developed.
It gave colonialism a civiliz-
ing role, although they
stressed that capitalist colo-
nizers would not bring devel-
opment, but terror and
atrocities.
It believed that capitalism
would give to the developing
world some democratic, eco-
nomic and social conditions
essential for the emergence of
to say that socialism could
emerge only after capitalism
had developed the workers’
movement.
Similarly, the AWL shows
little confidence in the ability
of the masses in the develop-
ing countries to overcome the
divisions that imperialism
has fostered.
The AWL fails to admit that
in Iraq today, the imperialist
occupation primarily frus-
trates the development of
working class leadership.
Occupation makes it harder,
and not easier, for the workers
and other toilers to be won to
democratic and socialist
ideas.
As an alternative, Resistance
is republishing Leon
Trotsky’s strategy for fighting
colonialism and under-devel-
opment, The Permanent
Revolution.
Despite his old-fashioned
language, Trotsky’s guidance
remains powerful:
“The movement of the col-
ored races against their impe-
rialist oppressors is one of the
most important and powerful
movements against the exist-
ing order and therefore calls
for complete, unconditional
and unlimited support on the
part of the proletariat of the
white race.”
Socialist Resistance 21

Marxism

Revolution in the
sunshine – Fourth Following the 1932: Trotsky cracks a joke in a meeting in Copenhagen
Renton also effectively tion and blockade square

International
charts the factors that led to with the claim that it was
the degeneration of the isolation and blockade that

revolution to Russian revolution.

He gives a sense of how
led to Stalin’s success?
Renton is perhaps too

Youth Camp
civil war and the resulting hard on the old Bolsheviks

its end
near-extinction of the slaughtered in Stalin’s
Russian working class set purges of the 1930s. He says
the scene for the ascen- ‘Almost none of Lenin’s
Young supporters of Socialist entertainment with discos, live dency of Stalin and the former colleagues had the
Resistance are getting ready to bands and bars. figures, and concepts and bureaucratic strata that coa- courage to deny the
go to the French town of Any young person who is Trotsky, by David theories. lesced around him. charges. Instead they
Barbaste in July. interested in socialist ideas Renton, Haus For the most part, brevity He shows how the fate of showed a mistaken loyalty
They’ll have an unique and likes what they read in this does not lead to a loss of the revolution was eventu- to the Party of 1917. Most
opportunity to spend a week paper is welcome to take part Publishing, London clarity or theoretical focus, ally sealed by the fact that of the old Bolsheviks had
with other young socialists
from Mali, Morocco, Palestine,
as part of our group.
We’ll be organising the
2004, 181 pages, but there are a few occa- revolution failed to materi- already recanted and they
sions where Renton slips alise in the more advanced were too far along this road
Philippines, Venezuela and travel arrangements and we’ll paperback £9.99 up. For example, in the economies of Western to stop now. Others were
more than a dozen European all meet up together before we Review by Alex entry on dialectical materi- Europe. motivated by loyalty to the
countries. go. alism he says Renton’s presentation party.
Once there they will be If you are interested in
Miller
‘The doctrine of dialecti- raises difficult questions Although their own lives
running and participating in going or would like to find out Having recently slated Ian
cal materialism was first about how things would were lost, they could see no
discussions, debates and more about the camp ring Thatcher’s woeful 2003
associated with the German have been different if alternative to Communism.
meeting on globalisation, Tracey on 07906484074 / biography of Trotsky (SR
philosopher G W F Hegel, Trotsky’s oppositional fac- Had they won, it would
ecology, war and imperialism, 02088007460 or e-mail February/March 2007), I
but it was later developed tion in the Communist have meant the defeat of
feminism, family & sexuality tnt_london@hotmail.com. approached David Renton’s
by Engels to become part of Party had triumphed in the the Party, which was
and much more besides. If you would like to contribution to the Haus
the wider notion of histori- 1920s over the Stalinist unthinkable.’
This is the twenty-fourth financially support our Publishing “Life and
camp and it’s entirely delegation to the camp please cal materialism.’ bureaucracy. This is unconvincing.
Times” series with some
organised and run by the send cheques payable to This is misleading in two If Stalinism was the prod- The confessions were tor-
trepidation. Would this be
young participants. “Socialist Resitance” to PO respects. While the notion uct of isolation and the fail- tured out of the old
another piece of incompe-
As well as the politics the BOX 1009 London N4 2UU. of dialectic is indisputably ure of revolutionary Bolsheviks, many of whose
tent anti-Trotsky hackwork?
camp has a lively range of Hegelian, it is of course socialism in Western families were also under
My worries were
inaccurate to associate Europe, factors outside the threat of torture and death
unfounded. Renton has
Hegel with dialectical control of the Russians, from Stalin’s thugs. How
NEW from Socialist produced a clear and
materialism. wouldn’t trying to save the many of us would refuse to
informative biography of
Resistance “the man who refused to
Leaving out the distinc- revolution by overthrowing “confess” in the face of
tively idealist aspect of Stalin be like trying to put such threats?
Middle East: war, compromise, who followed
the Revolution to its end,
Hegel’s dialectic blurs the out a fire by blowing away That Renton’s book
the smoke?
imperialism, and ecology who wrote and argued and
respect in which Marx,
having found Hegel stand- Would the victory of the
throws these difficult ques-
tions into relief is in the
never gave up”.
How was Palestine destroyed? Did the ing on his head, famously Opposition have resulted in end no criticism.
It constitutes a sympa-
great powers create Israel? Why has stood him right-way up just another form of The questions are real,
thetic but far from uncriti-
Lebanon suffered war after war? What again. bureaucratic degeneration? and need to be faced square
cal portrait of perhaps the
role has religion played in the Middle And on the standard pre- Moreover, Renton writes on by socialists following
most controversial left-
East? When did the region become the sentations of Engels’ phi- ‘Stalin’s success compelled the revolutionary road in
wing figure in the history
hub of the world’s ecological crisis? If losophy, historical the people of the Soviet the 21st century.
you want answers to any of these questions,then you need this of the 20th century.
materialism is narrower Union to live in conditions Anyone looking for a
book. For an inexpensive paper-
than dialectical materialism of isolation and blockade, quick and inexpensive
Roland Rance and Terry Conway have gathered together 300-pages back, the book is beauti-
rather than vice-versa. under a leadership commit- introduction to Trotsky’s
of the most powerful articles written in the last sixty years by fully produced, containing
But such slips are rare, ted to the most extraordi- contribution to the socialist
socialist,ecologist and anti-Zionist activists across the region. dozens of photographs.
and on the whole Renton nary policies of shock journey could do far worse
The main text s inter-
does a good job of filling industrialization.’ than start with Renton’s
Cover price £20. READERS OFFER: £10 plus £1.50 spersed with brief “enyclo-
out the theoretical back- How does the claim that engaging and well-pro-
postage and packing, from Socialist Resistance, PO pedia-style”entries on
ground to Trotsky’s life. Stalin’s success led to isola- duced biography.
Box 1109 London N4 9DU. famous events, historical
22 Socialist Resistance
Reviews
Reaching new
depths of …
banality
Surreal Things
Exhibition
V & A London, 29
March – 22 July
2007
Jay Woolrich
Any exhibition of work by
Surrealists is likely to be of
interest to socialists familiar
with the long-standing links
between Surrealism and
Marxism, and also to a
broader audience for whom
Surrealism and the surreal
are part of everyday parl-
ance.
But shows put on by
mainstream galleries with
zero input from contempo-
rary Surrealists have a
woeful track record, and
Three titles from Resistance
NEW BOOKS DEFEND MARXISM
Chris Brooks
Three new paperbacks from
Socialist Resistance address
some of the major questions
facing the progressive move-
ment today:
Should radicals aim for state
power?
Can developing countries
defeat imperialism?
What approach should we
take towards religion?
All the books include
contributions by Michael Löwy,
the Brazilian socialist who will
speak at the Marxism
conference where the books
will be launched.
They bring to a total of eight
the books we have published
over the last 12 months.
Take the Power to Change
the World: globalisation and
the debate on power is
collection of essays about John
Holloway’s popular theory that
this reviewer for one
approached the exhibition
with trepidation.
First, the good news. The
exhibition includes a hand-
ful of rarely seen works by
women Surrealist artists,
including Leonora
Carrington, Toyen,
Dorothea Tanning and
Leonor Fini.
In particular, Carrington’s
dazzling ‘Night Music’
retains a deeply unsettling
impact undimmed by the
passage of time.
Despite the best efforts of
the Surrealists themselves
these women artists have
remained scandalously
underrated, and any expo-
sure of their work is wel-
come.
That’s the good news. In
every other respect the
exhibition surpasses previ-
radicals can change the world
without taking power.
Phil Hearse, who opened the
debate on the Marxist left
about Holloway’s theory, has
collected articles by Daniel
Bensaïd, Holloway, Löwy and
others. This 148 page book
discusses one of the most
pressing discussions on the left
ous mainstream ‘Surrealist’
shows in attaining new
depths of banality. Aside
from a couple of brief refer-
ences at the start of the
exhibition, politics is rigor-
ously excluded.
Not for the first time
Surrealism is treated purely
as an ‘art movement’.
Instead of being seen as
part of the inevitable com-
modification of all phenom-
ena, the appropriation of
Surrealist themes and
motifs by capitalism (e.g.
through advertising and the
design of products for the
rich) is celebrated and legit-
imised here, rather than
being seen as a terrain of
struggle.
This of course comes as
no surprise. What is aston-
ishing however is both the
ineptitude in the selection
today. To maximise the
audience for the book, it will
retail for just £6.
The Permanent Revolution &
Results and Prospects, two of
Leon Trotsky’s most famous
books, are being republished in
a single volume. The volume
summarises the lessons of the
Russian and Chinese
revolutions for the
underdeveloped countries.
This powerful classic was
recently dropped by Pathfinder
Press, which means the book is
generally unavailable through
bookshops.
In our freshly typeset new
edition, both works are
introduced by Löwy, the pre-
eminent author on Permanent
Revolution. It benefits from an
updated translation and costs
£9.
The Foundations of
Christianity was one of the
If you happen to find
yourself in South
Kensington on a rainy
afternoon with
nothing better to do –
and you’ve got a
tenner burning a hole
in your pocket – then
perhaps it’s worth a
visit ….
of the material on show and
the cretinism of the accom-
panying commentary.
For instance, sections on
an interior by Le Corbusier,
on post-war American bio-
morphism, and on Art
Nouveau, leave the visitor
with the distinct impres-
sion that the curator has
thrown in any odds and
ends that happened to be
lying around in the V & A’s
basement – any link to
Surrealism is tenuous at
best.
Other examples of this
cultural kleptomania appear
around every corner.
The inclusion without
comment of that arch
enemy of Surrealism, Jean
Cocteau, gives a clear indi-
cation of the depths of the
organisers’ ignorance.
This is confirmed by some
of the commentaries that
litter the exhibition, which
would be funny if they
weren’t so utterly mislead-
ing for a non-specialist
public.
Some of these comments –
for example the claim that
‘…the Surrealists perceived
the shop window as
innately surreal’ – manage
to combine idiocy with
most popular
theoretical works
of the pre-war
socialist
movement in
Germany.
This book by
Karl Kautsky was
translated into
nine languages.
It is one of
Kautsky’s most
substantial
works: the first
English edition
was 700 pages
long. To make the
book easier to
read, and less
costly, it is being
published in the
9” by 7” textbook
format, and is
priced at £10.
In his
introduction,
meaninglessness.
And what are we to make
of the proposition that
‘Surrealism … learnt the
power of symbols from
advertising’?
We might as well say (and
with rather more justifica-
tion) that they learnt the
power of symbols from
Freud; or perhaps from
road signs? A reasonably
competent ‘A Level’ student
could have done better.
This generally slipshod
approach even extends to
the exhibition shop, where
cardboard bowler hats,
stick-on ‘Dali’ moustaches,
and badges bearing the
slogan ‘this is not a badge’
set the tone for the kind of
trashy merchandise on
offer.
Although in a way it’s
reassuring that at least
some profiteers are inca-
pable of making a cheap
buck out of Surrealism
without simultaneously
making fools of themselves!
So is the exhibition worth
a visit?
Well, if you happen to
find yourself in South
Kensington on a rainy
afternoon with nothing
better to do – and you’ve
got a tenner burning a hole
in your pocket – then per-
haps.
Michael Löwy writes that
“Kautsky’s book has the
great virtue of being the first
attempt to interpret, in the light
of the class struggle and
historical materialism, the
fascinating figure of the
“crucified proletarian
Messiah”.
“Its popular success is
probably due to the interest of
socialist militants to see a
vision of the origins of
Christianity which permits the
modern workers’ movement to
appropriate to itself the figure
of Jesus as a prophet and
martyr for the proletarian
cause.”
To order any of these book
post-free, send a cheque
payable to ‘Resistance’ to PO
Box 1109, London N4 2UU.
 Socialist Resistance 23

We welcome letters of up to 400 words. Longer

letters may be cut for space reasons. You can email
us, or post text to
PO Box 1109 London N4 2UU
Activist’s
DIARY
Saturday 30 June
Manchester: National Day of
Action on Climate Change.
Thursday July 5
London 59th Birthday of NHS:
Keep Our NHS Public rally,
House of Commons (Committee
Room 14), with Frank Dobson
MP, Dr Jacky Davis (BMA
Council), John Lister (London
Health Emergency).
Saturday 7 July
London: Shop Stewards Network
Founding Conference. Called by
RMT. 11am - 5pm South
Camden Community School,
Charrington Street, London
Wednesday 11 July to
Sunday 15 July
Tolpuddle: Tolpuddle Martyrs’
Festival and Green Camp:
Champion the environment at
home, work and college. Learn,
discuss and share ideas.
Accredited course from
Wednesday 11 July until the end
of the Festival. For details: TUC
on 0117 947 0521 or south-
west@tuc.org.uk
Thursday 12 July
London: Defend Council Housing
conference with Prof Peter
Ambrose, Frank Dobson MP,
Jack Dromey, Cllr Abjol Miah,
Austin Mitchell MP, Paul O’Brien,
If you like what you’ve read or you want to find out more about Socialist
Resistance, get in touch with us by ringing 020 8800 7460, or email
contact@socialistresistance.net
Heather Wakefield, Eileen Short,
Alan Walter. 10.45-4.30pm TUC
Congress House, Great Russell
St, central London £20/£5 (ten-
ants). 020 7987 9989,
info@defendcouncilhousing.org.
uk
Monday July 16
Manchester: The collapse of
Irish Republicanism: speaker
John Mc Anulty. Socialist
Resistance public meeting.
7.30pm, Friends Meeting House,
Mount Street (behind the main
library)
Tuesday July 17
Birmingham: The collapse of
What’s On
Irish Republicanism: speaker
John Mc Anulty. Socialist
Resistance public meeting.
7.30pm, Bennett’s Bar, Bennett’s
Hill
Wednesday July 18
London: The collapse of Irish
Republicanism: speaker John
Mc Anulty. Socialist Resistance
public meeting. 7.30pm Indian
YMCA, 41 Fitzroy Square, WC1
Thursday July 19
Oxford: The collapse of Irish
Republicanism: speaker John
Mc Anulty. Socialist Resistance
public meeting. 7.30 Town Hall,
Panel Room
Saturday July 28
Oxford. Demonstration at
Campsfield House removal
centre. (12-2pm)
Calling for immediate closure of
immigration detention centres
and an end to the detention of
refugees and migrants, organ-
ised by the Campaign to Close
Campsfield. For more informa-
tion tel. 01865-558 145 or
01865-26804 or 01993-703
994, email info@losecamps-
field.org.uk.
Saturday October 6
Campaign Against Climate
Change planning day and AGM.
Venue to be confirmed.
Building a Labour
Movement Conference
on Climate Change
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
At the recent Campaign
conference and the work
of this group we want to
Against Climate Change get a first leaflet printed
International conference for circulation amongst
there was a workshop for trade unionists as soon as
trade unionists addressed possible.
by Cllr Rania Khan from I am therefore asking
Tower Hamlets, Tony for signatories from
Staunton from Plymouth interested trade unionists
UNISON and East London to be listed on this leaflet.
NUT activist Andy Stone. All will be in a personal
Inspired by an excellent capacity, unless otherwise
session there was indicated.
enthusiastic support for a Can you please get
much wider network of Birmingham City Centre these back to me by
trade unionists to co- (directions below), and the Friday 22nd June so that
ordinate work on these start time is 12.45pm. we can get a leaflet out in
issues in UK workplaces. Please do all you can to good time. Bob Crow
We agreed an initial aim publicise this meeting (General Secretary RMT)
of organising a Labour amongst your union has kindly agreed to add
Movement Conference on friends and comrades. his name to the
Climate Change for We will need to take conference in order to get
February 2008. I decisions on the venue, the ball rolling.
volunteered to coordinate budget, structure and In solidarity,
this. publicity for the February Roy Wilkes
So I am now writing to event at this meeting. 4, Oakhurst Gardens
you for two reasons. If you are planning to Prestwich
1. There will be an open Manchester
attend this meeting in
planning meeting for this M25 1JQ
Birmingham please let me
conference in Birmingham know by email as soon as Phone: 0161 773 8699
on Saturday 14 July. possible. Mobile: 07801 263 265
The venue is Carrs Lane 2. In order to get some E-mail: roywilkes59@talk-
Church, Carrs Lane, publicity for this talk.net

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socialist
www.socialistresistance.net
Spanish and South African
strikers show the way to fight
Fight back now
for jobs and
public services!
TENS of thousands of South African
public sector workers have been on
strike for over two weeks as this issue of
Socialist Resistance goes to press.
They have defied police violence and
held solid in their fight for a 12% pay
increase, having rejected an insulting
6% offer from a government that is
paying its ministers a thumping 57%
extra (see page 13).
In SPAIN, thousands of car workers in
Cadiz have also taken swift and solid
action to defend their threatened plant,
with strikes and demonstrations that
have drawn solidarity from workers in
many other industries (see page 12).
What a contrast with our feeble
unions! Faced with a brutal wage cut for
1.3 million NHS staff, who have been
offered a below-inflation 2.5% pay rise,
No. 46 Summer 2007
and then seen even that cut further in
value by Gordon Brown’s insistence it be
paid in stages, UNISON the largest
public sector union voted unanimously to
… endorse Brown for Labour leader, and
has spent months vaguely threatening to
ballot for some form of industrial action,
hoping the membership will get bored
and forget.
Meanwhile some health campaigners,
Price: 80p
defenders of council housing and the
courageous school meals campaign in
Waltham Forest (see page 9) have
shown that broad suppost can be built,
and attacks can be beaten back.
The basic lesson that has to be
learned is that without a fight, there can
be no victory, and without some victories
the unions become weaker and more
prone to fresh attack. Fight back now!