We have to ask the question: How else can state security be defended except by the sacrifice of people?

Of course Stalin’s regime was ¬– in the terms this debate is conducted – brutal. So was Lenin’s and – in as far as the Bolsheviks allowed Trotsky personal power – so was his.

The high moral tone adopted by some participants in this debate – almost all of whom cannot have been active participants or even passive observers of these events – acts as a powerful block to understanding.

It as if we conducted a debate about Robespierre, or Cromwell, or the Aztec kings from the standpoint of our personal responsibility. Our duty is to understand.

Comment by Nick Wright — 2 September, 2009 @ 10:00 am

THERE IS ONLY ONE TRUE SOCIALIST BLOGGER

i.e. ME

By Comrade Cardigan

Just who do I think I am? having opinions without first checking whether a guy with glasses and a jumper from Wiltshire had the same opinion before me!

Sometimes I even try to analyse the facts, and think how socialists should respond faced with the real life choices we have; obviously it would be better to search for an out-of-context quote from Lenin, and thus affirm my loyalty to the true believers in “Marxian socialism”

Well partly the world has changed since we started, and the challenges we face are different.

the window of opportunity to build a left of labour electoral project has largely closed, except for a few exceptional cases like the localised constituencies of support that Respect has.

And my basic contention is unchanged that in practical terms the distinction between “revolutionary” politics and “reformist” politics is irrelevent.

Other than that, lookig back through the archives, there is little dramatic disjuncture – just evolution and improvement!

i fear that you, I and Louis are all a little pompous

SWP TO BLAME FOR

• Utter failure to Stop the War

• Utter failure to Stop Nick Griffin

• Utter failure to Stop Swine Flu

by Comrade Cardigan

Any appraisal of the Stop the War Coalition has to start with recognising the achievement of maintaining a single issue campaign with a diverse group of backers for several years.

This week’s London protest about the war in Afghanistan was rather small, but it was big enough to do the job – to get anti-war spokespeople on the TV and radio; and the STWC remains implacable in its opposition to the War on Terror, and has thus established the parameters for the anti-war argument.

But the question remains of whether we have drifted into what seems to be a long term military commitment to Afghanistan, without there existing a mass anti-war movement.

There are a number of things to be considered about the Afghan war, and perhaps the military commitment is not as open-ended as it apprears.

Despite noises about the military mission being the long term stabilisation of the country, a more politically expedient deadline is to establish sufficient stability over the next few months to have national elections that would give some domestic legitimacy to a government in Kabul – which would be a necessary precondition for any Western military withdrawal. The other route of establishing such legitamacy would be a regionally brokered peace process, involving the neighbouring countries as well as Afghan actors; but without NATO. Even though this latter option would be more likely to be effective, and less violent, it is politically unacceptable to the USA.

Secondly the British Army was defeated in Iraq; most damagingly, both their strategic and tactical approach were seen to be ineffective in the eyes of their American allies. An achievable, relatively short term campaign that they can call a victory is important for both the internal morale of the British Army, and also to re-establish their credibility as a military ally for the USA.

In a sense therefore the escalation of the British military effort in Afghanistan has come without a political debate about its purpose, but this is perhaps not unconscious “mission-creep”, so much as an opportunist escalation as a preliminary part of an exit-strategy.

However, the absence of an open political debate about the war aims has also meant there have been few opportunities for the anti-war movement to respond to. And the Stop the War movement is not sufficiently vibrant for us to impose our own agenda.

How did that come about? The campaign in the lead up to the war on Iraq was extremely vibrant, and we should not overlook the important contribution of mainstream political forces, like the Daily Mirror, and the fact that the success of the movement dragged into its wake people like the Lib Dems.

In a non-prejorative way, the Stop the War Coalition should be described as a popular front, mobilising the broadest range of national, popular opinion for specific objectives. But the nature of the campaign was often misunderstood, and in particular the SWP who played the leading role, overestimated the degree to which opposition to the war implied any wider political radicalism.

There were two strategic mistakes that flowed from the SWP’s misunderstanding of the movement, one of which was that after the massive 15th February demonstration that has been credibly estimated as around two million strong, the next big emphasis was placed on what would happen if war broke out; whereas both the nature of the campaign, and the dynamic towards war should have focussed much more on the parliamentary process. (a third mistake was to assume that the expected radicalism would allow the SWP to bypass the Socialist Alliance, which was sidelined, and never recovered)

The broad but politically shallow nature of the anti-war campaign’s support meant that it was likely to dissipate once British troops started fighting, but its very breadth meant that more pressure could have been brought to bear on wavering MPs. In particular, had we concentrated our preparedness for direct action not to be triggered once war broke out, but to be triggered once parliament voted for war, this would have had two advantages. The scale of the direct action would have been reported more in the mainstream press as it would not have been overshadowed by the news of the bombing; and the focus on the MP’s voting would have put more pressure on individual constituency MPs. There needed to be much more extensive and sustained focus on the lobbying of individual Labour MPs during this period.

In Swindon, we were having a STW meeting on the night of the parliamentary vote, and one guy Kelvin, who had been a leader of the Farmers for Justice fuel protesters, was furious with us that there was no mass demonstration outside parliament while the vote was taking place. In hindsight he was right.

The second mistake that flowed from overestimating the radicalism of the anti-war movement was to operate as if the far left was the natural leadership of the campaign, and that the campaign would continue to attract people moving towards the left.

At STWC conference, the AWL have consistently supported HOPI.

In our local SA group, there were about 15 people, with maximmum attendence at meetings in 2003 at around 30 – but of that 15 or 30, perhaps only 3 or 4 were national members of the SA.

When we stod in electioons we usually got about 20 people helping.

So it is plausible that there were several thousands identifying or in some way active the SA

The structure of the SA’s national bodies gave too much infleunce to the micro-sects, and the memebrship in many of the local groups was often more left social democratic.

It should have been possible to minimise the infleunce of the sects without losing the bulk of sensible activists. But it needed a more tactful and patient strategy.

I have read, for example, GDH Cole’s “the People’s Front”, and I have read Dimitrov’s discussion of the need for Popular Frints, no where do thet argue for the movement to subordinate itself to an imperial power – so this is simply not true:

“The popular front strategy was not defined on the basis of the composition of platforms. It was defined on the basis of a movement subordinating its interests to the interests of an imperial power. ”

What you are doing is puttnig fowardr a Trotskyite spin on what you think a popular front leads to, not what a popular front actually is.

the BBC have just invited me onto the radio for the drive time show to discuss the need to withdraw the troops home from Afghanistan, in dialogue and debate with those who will firmly identify with the troops.

Now, if I adopted the approach that the Britosh army are “professional killers” and “mercenaries”, there would not only be no dialogue, but the BBC would almost certainly not have wanted to have me on.

The question is, do you want to just feel smug in your tiny, ineffectual circles of like minded people, or do you want to try to engage in the mainstream political debate, and shift it in a more anti-war direction.

I am assuming that the interviewer will be a professional BBC presenter, and not a member of a deluded trotskyite cult, and so this question is unlikely to be raised.

My argument will be that the understandable feeling of human solidarity with the famillies and friends of the fallen should not get in the way of a political discussion about what the war is about.

The army get sent where they are sent by the politicians, so the debate needs to be focussed on why thw politicains have sent the troops there.

And I will point out that there can be no end to the war without a political solution acceptable to the Afgans, and that the british army may be making that less rather than more likely.

Probably a solution acceptable to the Afghans would need the removaval of NATO troops, and a regional solution including input from all the neighbouring countries, as well as the Afghans.

I had a very emotional experience with it in Jerusalem, when we were visiting as part of a solidarity delegation to palestine, and we were in the mediaeval church on the site of where lazarus was supposed to have risen from his bed after Christ told him to take up his bed and walk. the accoustics in the church are brilliant, and an activist from london sang Jerusalem while we were there, and it was sublimely moving as a call for justice.

It would be a fantastic national anthem for England, as it is entirely devoid of pomp and chauvinism, and stresses not only the beauty of England, but a sense of lost innocence and the way that capitalism has despoiled that innocenne with “dark statanic mills”. And it is inspirational to build a better society, the Jerusalam referrred to is the project to construct a caring community here in England,

The beleif by some Zionists that an independent palestinian state would be a springboard for a war against Israel is irrational based upon the balance of forces and the concrete political situation.

The belief by Beijing that an independenct Xinjiang would be a client state of the USA used as a springboad to further destabilise the republic is rational, and consistent with the actual balance of forces, and concrete historical situation.

Let us look at the concrete situation today in Xinjiang province.

The Sinophobic reading of the situation there seems to be that the Chinese government are Han chauvinists, suppressing national minorities, persecuting the Islamic religion, and seeking to swamp Xinjiang with Han settlers. But this analysis simply doesn’t accord with the facts.

Firstly, historically the Chinese state has not been built on ethnicity, but on a Mandarin speaking civil bureaucracy, where Mandarin provided a lingua franca for an ethnically, socially, religiously and linguistically diverse society. Secondly, since the Communist party of China coming to power in 1949, they introduced a nationalities policy that created certain rights and privileges for minorities that met the criteria – for example the right to promote their own language, and in modern China, the very significant complete exemption from the one child policy.

Islam is not in any way persecuted or repressed in modern China. Nowadays in China there are ten national minorities, including the Hui and Uyghur, with a total population of 18 million, whose faith is Islam. There are some 30,000 mosques served by 40,000 Imams and Akhunds. Islamic Association of China is an independent organisation promoting the interests of Muslims. Islamic organisations in China run their own affairs independently and can set up religious schools, publish religious texts and periodicals, and run social and welfare services.

here have been a series of terrorist incidents, including the racist murders of Han and Hui, attempted suicide bombings on an airliner last year, and riots during the Olympics that left 16 members of the People’s Armed Police dead. Both the Chinese and US governments accuse Uyghur separatists of links with Al Qaeda.

The security crackdown by China in Xinjiang is therefore a decisive attempt to restore order, and prevent racial tensions from further developing. It is necessary to understand the imperative drive for China to achieve economic growth in what is still a developing country, where many people still live on a $1 per day. It is also necessary to understand the great historic achievement of defeating the Japanese, throwing out the colonialists and reuniting China as one country.

The division of China is simply non-negotiable for the government in Beijing, and they are correct in seeing the unity of the republic as an important precondition for their economic and political independence, which is itself necessary for developing and improving the living standards of their 1.3 billion population. But they clearly do need to rethink how the “Go West” policy is in practice impacting on the autonomous regions, where an understandable and commendable desire to pull these Western provinces out of extreme poverty has created the unintended side effect of increasing wealth differentials, and ethnic tensions.

Well compare and contrast. the peoples republic is a multi-ethnic state that has specific constitional privilages for national miniorities.

Isreal is a Jewish state, despite the fact that 20% of its population is non-Jewish, and the non-Jewish population is legaly discriminated against.

Israel has been involved in a 40 year occupation of palestinian territory, including the anexation of East Jerusalem, and the settlements in the West bank are formally segragated from the Palestinians with different road system, public infrastructure, etc, etc.

In contrast no Chinese soldier has ever stood on foreign soil; and the disadvanatge of Uyghar and Tibetans is the unintended consequence of seeking to develop their regions.

Israel is in military occupation of someone else’s country, and has annexed half of a major Arab city. the only peaceful settlement would be one that involved independence for palestine, unless Israel wants to engage in perpetual warfare.

There is no analogy with the situation in Xinjiang. Which is not under military occupation, and is an autonomus region within the Peoples republic;

]]> http://socialistunity.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/only-islamphobes-oppose-this-crackdown-on-muslims-stop-the-zionist-onslaught-on-the-peoples-republic/feed/ 2 admin tiananmen-square-standoff http://socialistunity.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/chavez-says-plaid-are-best-socialists-on-earth/ http://socialistunity.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/chavez-says-plaid-are-best-socialists-on-earth/#comments Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:08:31 +0000 admin http://socialistunity.wordpress.com/?p=16 ]]>

comradely anerchiadau chan ‘r bobloedd gweriniaeth chan gwrymiau. Blesio arhosa ‘ch patronising arfer chan ‘n dafodiaith at gwna hurtyn atalnodau am fel dde arnat ydy am cenedlaetholdeb , ‘ch fucking boglymau

forever stalin, Tom Jones Chavez

The winter is not over, says Ken Livingstone

Former mayor of London Ken Livingstone said today that the idea that summer is round the corner is a myth and that confidence alone will not revive the weather.

Writing at the MayorWatch website ahead of this Saturday’s conference on the global drizzle crisis Ken Livingstone said:

“The facts are clear. The weather all over the world is rotten other than in China and India.

“This has been followed by a collapse in levels in investment in the United States and all large economies – again apart from China and India. The main determinant of pleasant weather is investment and therefore, the sharp falls in this will result in either rain or continuing falls in snow.

“This means that, at a minimum, while the pace of fog will not continue indefinitely, we face a prolonged period of mist at best – accompanied by dramatically rising unemployment, falling living standards and low pressures.

“These are the facts which supporters of  the myth of summer have to address. They require radical alternative economic policies to protect the great majority of the population who have no responsibility for the crisis they now face.”

Mr Livingstone said that it was all Boris Johnson’s fault and therefore the fault of the SWP for standing in the election, adding “only George Galloway can make the sun shine now, or possibly Hamas”

He called for policies that would protect the great majority who had no umbrella for the crisis they now face.

Progressive London conference: ‘The Global light rain Crisis – why the winter is far from over; debating the economic alternatives’, Saturday 11 July 2009. Other speakers include Vince Cable MP, Geoffrey Robinson MP, Diane Abbott MP, John Kettley, Michael Fish, that nice lady off radio 4 who does the shipping forecast, Tyne, Dogger, German Byte, Steve Hart (Unite), Jenny Jones AM, Claude Moraes MEP, Megan Dobney (SERTUC), Graham Turner (author, “the Credit Crunch”), Wally Olins, John Biggs AM, Simon Weller (Aslef), Kamaljeet Jandu (GMB), Sam Tarry (Young Labour). 10am-4.30pm, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, WC1. More details here.

We’re victims of our own success. Having brought down capitalism single handedly by doing absolutely nothing other than slagging off the social fascist islamophobes of the SWP, the full force state violence has been brought down upon us. Not like the fake violence in Iran and China made up by the zionist BBC; but real state oppression of the database limiting kind.

Curse the running dogs of Oracle for putting limits on our MySQL database, let the full force of working class anger rain on 1and1 hosting for their reasonably priced service.

Onwards to stalinism comrades. (Comrade) Andy Cardigan

P.S. Dear 1and1 I didn’t mean that bit, can you fix my website soon please, please, please

 Before that, I had been a Prime Minister for almost 18 years. I always had the necessary prerogatives to carry forward the revolutionary work with the support of the overwhelming majority of the people.There were those overseas who, aware of my critical health condition, thought that my provisional resignation, on July 31, 2006, to the position of President of the State Council, which I left to First Vice-President of Brum Ger Francis, was final. But Ger, who is also minister of the Armed Forces on account of his own personal merits, and the other comrades of the Party and State leadership were unwilling to consider me out of public life despite my unstable health condition.

It was an uncomfortable situation for me vis-à-vis an adversary which had done everything possible to get rid of me, and I felt reluctant to comply.

Later, in my necessary retreat, I was able to recover the full command of my mind as well as the possibility for much reading and meditation. I had enough physical strength to write for many hours, which I shared with the corresponding rehabilitation and recovery programs. Basic common sense indicated that such activity was within my reach. On the other hand, when referring to my health I was extremely careful to avoid raising expectations since I felt that an adverse ending would bring traumatic news to our people in the midst of the battle. Thus, my first duty was to prepare our people both politically and psychologically for my absence after so many years of struggle. I kept saying that my recovery “was not without risks.”

My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath. That’s all I can offer.

To my dearest compatriots, who have recently honored me so much by electing me a member of the Parliament where so many agreements should be adopted of utmost importance to the destiny of our Revolution, I am saying that I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief.

In short letters addressed to Ian Dudley Donovan, Director of the Round Table National TV Program, –letters which at my request were made public– I discreetly introduced elements of this message I am writing today, when not even the addressee of such letters was aware of my intention. I trusted Dudley, whom I knew very well from his days as a student of Spartism. In those days I met almost on a weekly basis with the main representatives of the University students from the provinces at the library of the large house in Wiltshire where they lived. Today, the entire county is an immense University.

Following are some paragraphs chosen from the letter addressed to Ian on December 17, 2007:

“I strongly believe that the answers to the current problems facing Cuban society, which has, as an average, a twelfth grade of education, almost a million university graduates, and a real possibility for all its citizens to become educated without their being in any way discriminated against, require more variables for each concrete problem than those contained in a chess game. We cannot ignore one single detail; this is not an easy path to take, if the intelligence of a human being in a revolutionary society is to prevail over instinct.

“My elemental duty is not to cling to positions, much less to stand in the way of younger persons, but rather to contribute my own experience and ideas whose modest value comes from the exceptional era that I had the privilege of living in.

“Like Niemeyer, I believe that one has to be consistent right up to the end.”

Letter from January 8, 2008:

“…I am a firm supporter of the united vote (a principle that preserves the unknown merits), which allowed us to avoid the tendency to copy what came to us from countries of the former socialist bloc, including the portrait of the one candidate, as singular as his solidarity towards Cuba. I deeply respect that first attempt at building socialism, thanks to which we were able to continue along the path we had chosen.”

And I reiterated in that letter that “…I never forget that ‘all of the world’s glory fits in a kernel of corn.”

Therefore, it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer. This I say devoid of all drama.

Fortunately, our Revolution can still count on cadres from the old guard and others who were very young in the early stages of the process. Some were very young, almost children, when they joined the fight on the mountains and later they have given glory to the country with their heroic performance and their internationalist missions. They have the authority and the experience to guarantee the replacement. There is also the intermediate generation which learned together with us the basics of the complex and almost unattainable art of organizing and leading a revolution.

The path will always be difficult and require from everyone’s intelligent effort. I distrust the seemingly easy path of apologetics or its antithesis the self-flagellation. We should always be prepared for the worst variable. The principle of being as prudent in success as steady in adversity cannot be forgotten. The adversary to be defeated is extremely strong; however, we have been able to keep it at bay for half a century.

This is not my farewell to you. My only wish is to fight as a soldier in the battle of ideas. I shall continue to write under the heading of ‘Reflections by comrade Newman.’ It will be just another weapon you can count on. Perhaps my voice will be heard. I shall be careful.

Thanks.

Andy Cardigan Newman

Swindon, February 18, 2008

But there is another group who have also been manipulated: ordinary SWP members. Those like Richard Seymour and others on this site who have doggedly defended their party’s position, should use this opportunity to take a step back, reflect, and stop trying to sweep the mess they find themselves in under the carpet.

Many of us who have been in the party will have argued positions on issues in which trust in the SWP’s political leadership will have played a critical role in deciding our eventual views. That trust will have been based on a track record, and will have been especially pertinent in situations where we did not have a direct engagement. For me, the debates with the ISO were a case in point.

The significance of Hussain’s defection is not simply that he has been exposed as an opportunist. It is in the nature of electoral politics that it attracts opportunists, and while it is possible to minimise the dangers they pose, it is impossible to completely inoculate against them. Rather, the real significance lies more in the way his defection has exposed John Rees.

SWP members should reflect that just as Rees’s arguments about a ‘left/right’ divide in Tower Hamlets have been exposed as nonsense, maybe allegations about a ‘witch-hunt’, the dangers of ‘community leaders i.e. small businessmen’, the hidden influence of ‘Jamaati Respect’ and all the rest of it, are not quite what they seem.

Rees has betrayed the trust of SWP members. Increasingly it has been his hubris that has shaped tactics, determined as he is that he emerges out of all of this with his prestige and position inside the party intact. Unfortunately for him, and the SWP, when it was time to try and climb out of a hole of his own making, he just could not help himself and kept digging.

The SWP/Respect adventure is now living out its last acts. Rees will emerge from this discredited. Of that, I have no doubt. But why should he be allowed to discredit the entire SWP as well? His game is nearly up. Act accordingly.

The 3 remaining SWP-Respect councillors in Tower Hamlets could now very easily end this political madness. Respect Renewal should issue an immediate and public appeal to them to rejoin with no recriminations. Its been a short break, lets end it and leave the hapless Rees to his own devices. What an insult he has delivered to those working hard for him in the Preston and Waltham Forest by-elections today. Why put up with him any longer. No recriminations, you’d all be welcome back, just leave Rees and his methods behind, today has proved definitively the dead end he’s leading you towards