Hitherto philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways. The point however is to change it. Karl Marx 
Economic & Philosophic Science Review
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No 0989 March 09th 1999                                                                                                                                      10p

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The SLP's undebated Euro-election plug is playing the working class into the hands of an import-controls capitalist trade war. This petty nationalism is being encouraged in all directions by Scargillism's anti-theory philistinism. Concealed and undiscussed splits and differences can only demoralise party members. Promoting an Establishment-trusted anti-communist like Paul Foot (whose SWP refused to back the Miners Strike) will disgust them. Real anti-imperialism requires Leninism's non-stop debate and discussion of EVERYTHING.

Scargillism is in danger of leading the SLP into sterility with its censorship of discussion of party differences, and with the crude attempt to silence the EPSR for debating these matters.

Everyone knows that there are sharp and serious disagreements between Scargillism and Heronism which have divided the party leadership for a year and partially paralysed it, and disciplinary action has now been taken.

But the arguments are being deliberately covered up, and the SLP membership is being deliberately kept in the dark about these divisions' very existence, about who is saying exactly what, and about the aim of the disciplinary action.

This is 100% the WRONG way to conduct such conflict, which should be the richest source of all of party education, explaining to workers in and around the SLP, in the course of a LIVING struggle whose outcome matters, why one side is right and one side is wrong because of DEEP mistakes in political understanding of capitalist crisis and of what perspectives, strategy, and tactics best to fight it with.

Because nothing is being explained, and because the membership is not being involved in resolving the struggle, early-on enthusiasm for building the SLP in action has almost disappeared in many parts of the country, and people have left in droves.

New people still keep coming forward towards the attraction of Scargillism's record in trade union struggle, but this total censorship method of party enlightenment and education is so ludicrously destructive and negative that no serious new socialist-party spirit of the kind that the period requires is likely to emerge.

To build a united socialist party against every aspect of bourgeois ideology and the capitalist state, workers must be brought together by common understanding and trust.

People are not going to feel comfortable and confident about sticking their necks out for the difficult work of launching a new socialist party in the still continuing anti-socialist climate of today if fundamental total differences such as split the SLP remain not only unresolved but not even subject to wide party discussion yet (so as to put the problems on the way towards resolution).

People's enthusiasm for any joint activity will ALWAYS be governed by how much unity, trust, confidence, and comradeship they feel for each other.

Party-wide, such feelings are impossible for the present moment around the SLP. There is massive distrust instead. And because there is not only nothing being done about it, but good SLP members are actually being disciplined and expelled for raising such matters and attempting to discuss them, ― then a vast amount of confusion surrounds the SLP as well.

None of this helps inspire members to turn out for party activities as the Scargillist leadership is urging everyone to do whilst telling them nothing about what is going on.

Things work in exactly the OPPOSITE way to how Scargillism sees things (as approvingly quoted by Lalkar):

"Anyone in these circumstances who thinks we should be spending our time having internal discussions about the internal working mechanisms of the party has to be living on another planet."

The 'circumstances' are the need for a massive turnout for the flood of election and TV rights campaigns this spring.

But for such a joyous turning out, the precise OPPOSITE of the above is needed. If the SLP membership could be rallied by every means possible for the open political DEFEAT of the Trot oppositionists who have been sabotaging party work right round the SLP for more than a year, ― then the entire membership would go off happily to canvass and organise for a party which at last knew its own mind, and could at last give a confident UNITED lead to the whole membership.

Debating the anti-communist individualist nonsense of Heronism in order to DEFEAT it once and for all would give party members an enormous boost and surge of confidence. People would start to feel they knew exactly where their party stood, and that it was prepared to speak and act decisively to keep the entire membership informed and involved in steady progress in overcoming obstacles, oppositionism, and difficulties.

As it happens, the interminable secret manoeuvring and fiddling against the Trots provides less than full confidence that their factionalism will at last be dealt with, and no confidence at all in the insulting mafia methods which treat the party members with contempt by keeping them out of the debate, and conducting everything through Scargill's personal manipulation of his regime.

In the real world, serious socialist movements have only flourished where EVERYONE has been encouraged to find out exactly what all the differences are, and exactly what the right answers are. A party will only become a serious force for winning the whole class to socialism when its members are not only trusted with mass involvement in sorting out the party's development and conflict problems, as should have happened at the November 1998 Congress, but are actively encouraged to keep up to date with and elaborate every new details of theoretical differences pulling the party apart.

Leninism, the first mass party ever built to win socialism, is the obvious model:

To establish and consolidate the Party means to establish and consolidate unity among all Russian Social-Democrats, and, for the reasons indicated above, such unity cannot be decreed, it cannot be brought about by a decision, say, of a meeting of representatives; it must be worked for. In the first place, it is necessary to work for solid ideological unity which should eliminate discordance and confusion that, let us be frank, reign among Russian Social-Democrats at the present time. This ideological unity must be consolidated by a Party programme. Secondly, we must work to achieve an organisation especially for the purpose of establishing and maintaining contact among all the centres of the movement, of supplying complete and timely information about the movement, and of delivering our newspapers and periodicals regularly to all parts of Russia. Only when such an organisation has been founded, only when a Russian socialist post has been established, will the Party possess a sound foundation and become a real fact, and, therefore, a mighty political force. We intend to devote our efforts to the first half of this task, i.e., to creating a common literature, consistent in principle and capable of ideologically uniting revolutionary Social-Democracy, since we regard this as the pressing demand of the movement today and a necessary preliminary measure towards the resumption of Party activity.

As we have said, the ideological unity of Russian Social-Democrats has still to be created, and to this end it is, in our opinion, necessary to have an open and all-embracing discussion of the fundamental questions of principle and tactics raised by the present-day "economists," Bernsteinians, and "critics." Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and definite lines of demarcation. Otherwise, our unity will be purely fictitious, it will conceal the prevailing confusion anal hinder its radical elimination. It is understandable, therefore, that we do not intend to make our publication a mere storehouse of various views. On the contrary, we shall conduct it in the spirit of a strictly defined tendency. This tendency can be expressed by the word Marxism, and there is hardly need to add that we stand for the consistent development of the ideas of Marx and Engels and emphatically reject the equivocating, vague, and opportunist, "corrections" for which Eduard Bernstein, P. Struve, and many others have set the fashion. But although we shall discuss all questions from our own definite point of view, we shall give space in our columns to polemics between comrades. Open polemics, conducted in full view of all Russian Social-Democrats and class-conscious workers, are necessary and desirable in order to clarify the depth of existing differences, in order to afford discussion of disputed questions from all angles, in order to combat the extremes into which representatives, not only of various views, but even of various localities, or various "specialities" of the revolutionary movement, inevitably fall. Indeed, as noted above, we regard one of the drawbacks of the present-day movement to be the absence of open polemics between avowedly differing views, the effort to conceal differences on fundamental questions.

DECLARATION OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF ISKRA

There can be no strong socialist party without a revolutionary theory which unites all socialists, from which they draw all their convictions, and which they apply in their methods of struggle and means of action. To defend such a theory, which to the best of your knowledge you consider to be true, against unfounded attacks and attempts to corrupt it is not to imply that you are an enemy of all criticism. We do not regard Marx's theory as something completed and inviolable; on the contrary, we are convinced that it has only laid the foundation stone of the science which socialists must develop in all directions if they wish to keep pace with life. We think that an independent elaboration of Marx's theory is especially essential for Russian socialists; for this theory provides only general guiding principles; which, in particular, are applied in England differently than in France, in France differently than in Germany, and in Germany differently than in Russia. We shall therefore gladly afford space in our paper for articles on theoretical questions and we invite all comrades openly to discuss controversial points.

1899: OUR PROGRAMME

The history of socialism and democracy in Western Europe, the history of the Russian revolutionary movement, the experience of our working-class movement, such is the material we must master to elaborate a purposeful organisation and purposeful tactics for our Party.

OUR IMMEDIATE TASK [1899]

Far from even accepting any role for theory in building a socialist [party – ed], let alone encouraging non-stop discussion to get it right and regular party schools to provide the historical understanding, particularly of the postwar period and the long-gestating disgraceful collapse of Revisionism, — Scargillism is deliberately allowing unresolved and unexplained muddle to accumulate around Trot sabotage to the party, while viciously putting the boot into good SLP comrades who have published the EPS Review for 20 years to help the fight for Marxist-Leninist understanding.

The farcical injustice with which the disciplinary proceedings are now being conducted, making no sense at all, will only breed even more confusion and demoralisation.

C.Sikorski remains on the NEC representing the women's section despite having factionalised OUTSIDE its recent AGM for delegates to disown the proceedings, and the party leadership which set them up, and to attend instead the SLP Trots' RIVAL women's section AGM in seven weeks time.

But the vice president of the SLP, elected to the NEC by the whole party congress (unlike C. Sikorski who got on through nomination by her 'own' Trot-manipulated 'women's section') is expelled not only from the NEC but from the party itself just because of his job, which he has done for 20 years, of being editor of the EPS Review, an independent Marxist-Leninist weekly publication which has always supported a non-factionalised unitary SLP and has influenced a lot of good communists into joining the party and working hard for it, — in collaboration with the party leadership and not against it.

And the conduct of the 'disciplining' itself makes just as depressing reading.

The vice president offered to give up his post in return for a serious discussion to find a way for party supporters to be able to debate the deepening of party education on ALL political questions.

The resignation offer was accepted, but no discussion at all was forthcoming, replaced by a completely infantile attempt to 'prove' that a wretched bureaucratic stitch-up by Scargillism (to try to silence a source of Marxist-Leninist struggle, for scientific analysis) amounted to evidence of 'personal dishonesty' by the editor of the EPSR. What a disgusting degenerate farce.

And all utterly irrelevant anyway to the problem of the SLP needing to find its own way of creating precisely such a discussion and education vehicle for a deeper grasp of all politics and economics that the EPS Review, for example, provides.

In fact, of course, Scargillism is giving its answer, - trying to shut down any serious scientific analysis of the world and the British labour movement, proposing a congress discussion only once every three years; organising no national party schools on political education; and publishing Socialist News only six times a year with a purely syndicalist/import-controls line, and not a word about even the existence of SLP internal political conflict, or about internal political conflict within the wider labour movement; and least of all about international labour-movement conflict over the meaning of modern history (with Revisionist self-liquidation of the Soviet workers state at the raging heart of the chaos and confusion.)

It is as though the SLP existed in a complete vacuum, with SLP students trying to build the party on campus but with no rival ideologies or 'left' parties in sight, for example; or SLP branches trying to run public campaigns but with no contrary 'left' views in opposition from the swamp of 57 varieties; or as though Socialist News had the field of 'left' publishing to itself.

The main concentration must certainly be on the SLP's own policies and programme, but it is completely unrealistic and dumbing-down of the membership's political education to pretend that all the philosophical assumptions behind the SLP's line on things do not face major constant challenges from rival ideologies.

The anti-SLP stuff needs answering (both external and internal (!)) and the party's members need constant training and educating by the party's press and its political schools to be able to take the lead in the ever-widening and ever-deepening philosophical and political DEBATE which will become a mass feature of the WHOLE of life (trade-union branches; universities & colleges; student unions; pubs and clubs of all varieties; etc, etc) as the international crisis of the imperialist system plunges into ever-worsening catastrophic crisis.

But as well as Socialist News taking on very few controversial questions and encouraging no debate at all, what little it does assert combatively is starting to increasingly stick out like a sore thumb, - all wrong.

Now that it is right out in front, the SLP Euro-elections drive: "Vote us in to get us out", is so hollowly misleading that working-class confusion can only increase.

Imperialist crisis is going to devastate Europe, all parts, no matter who is in or out of the European Union. The SLP slogan incorrectly implies that being out of Europe is some kind of solution to capitalist crisis problems.

It is not.

The SLP's slogan and accompanying statement implies that the problem of monopoly-bureaucratic boss-ism is WORSE in Europe than in Britain or elsewhere. As far as the working class is concerned in bearing the burdens of the coming crisis and world slump, implying such a difference is utterly misleading.

The monopoly-bureaucracy of the imperialist ruling class will be a tyranny for the working class to bear almost identically everywhere, whether inside or outside such an economic union.

Specifically, the SLP claims that a British capitalist economy still using the pound will fare better in the crash than a British capitalist economy tied up to the Euro. This is factually speculative in the extreme, with every likelihood of being quite WRONG. On the balance of probabilities, an economic union clinging closer to Germany might be expected to fare better in a slump for a while (when ALL will be doing badly in any case, which is the real point) than an uncompetitive economy on the fringes of Europe. This largely pointless and misleading claim is little more than a sop to crude nationalist prejudice.

The SLP notion that a British capitalist economy out of Europe would have 'more sovereignty' and 'more ability to manage its own economy' is not just pure nationalist self-delusion but lays workers open to quite monstrous class-collaborative illusions as well. Socialism has still not been mentioned at this point in the SLP's latest Euroelection presentation, so all the assumptions are about what the SLP's understanding will achieve for workers in Britain while still as it is, - a capitalist country.

And when the 'socialist alternative' is finally brought forward, it is presented only as the means for getting Britain out of the European Union, not as a means of getting the capitalist class out of Britain. Such a notion does not even get mentioned. A Britain is envisaged, - class-rule and mode of production unspecified, - which is part of "real internationalism" as opposed to being part of the EU 'capitalist bosses club', and where workers are no longer seen "only as fodder to be used at the lowest cost so that bosses can make the highest profits".

Which leaves the door open to the assumption that a high-wage low-profit capitalist economy is both available in this world, and acceptable, - both of which are infamous nonsense ideas. This SLP Euroelection propaganda is running into some very treacherous waters indeed.

Still not identified as socialist, a presumably still-capitalist Britain is then pictured in an idyllic trade-expansion area for its economic flourishing which will famously include Cuba and the Third World, - which is a nice if vague idea under continuing capitalism, but which so ludicrously avoids the question of what will the world-dominant imperialist economy be doing meanwhile that it renders this naïve SLP make-believe utterly incredible.

This Mary Poppins blurb concludes with confirmation of earlier assumptions that it is a still-capitalist Britain that is envisaged, with "coming out of the EU" described as "a crucial first step towards fighting against global capitalism", but with still never a mention of any class war against the British capitalist class. 

These are just the paltry warmed-up leftovers from the utterly discredited and failed CP/Morning Star anti-monopoly policy of Alternative Economic Strategy which marked Revisionism's final spiral downwards into total class-collaborating pointlessness and deserved death and obscurity.

This historically-bankrupt Revisionist nonsense, imagining some kind of rational planned way out of global imperialist crisis, - a total and dangerous delusion, - is treacherously augmented by its inevitable nonsense-counterpart of import controls, spelled out in the national assembly elections spiel for reviving the coal, steel, and engineering industries in Wales and Scotland.

Again this is simply put forward by the SLP as the best policy of any party to meet the current economic situation. There is not the slightest suggestion that class war will first have to take place against the British ruling class, and then international class war against the domination of the world economy by imperialism, before planned revival out of capitalist slump can take place.

Any idea that "not everything has to be spelled out" or "why upset people by telling them more than they need to know at this stage", etc, etc, is the most foul gross deception on SLP members and on the working class.

And it is utter nonsense as well. There is no mistaking that the SLP's latest Euro-election and national-assembly propaganda is clearly putting forward 'dramatic' reform proposals for the economy and society AS IT IS NOW, - i.e. proposals for current capitalist Britain.

And if further proof were needed, the policy statement for Wales spells it out: 'Halt imports' to make the revival of domestic industries possible NOW, - thus confirming what Scargillism employed as a stunt in the joke disciplinary process against the EPSR editor, expelling him among other things for being opposed to import controls "which are SLP policy", it was announced.

And import controls is the only possible 'explanation' for the insoluble conundrum posed by this SLP demand to restore basic industries NOW before even the slightest hint of class war against the present capitalist ruling class for the ownership of the economy and the industries has been mentioned. There is currently world over-production of all these basic commodities. That is why Britain's industries have been knocked out by cheaper or better trading competition from supposedly cheap-labour international monopoly rivals. So where would revived British production of coal, steel, shipping, and engineering go if there is already a worldwide glut in all these things which is what is causing the slump and the growing mass unemployment in the first place? And the answer is: Import controls. The British economy gets out of its own unemployment crisis by forcing some rival producers somewhere abroad to close down instead.

As any fool knows, of course, this only raises further questions of an even more insuperable or terrifying kind.

If Britain stabs other countries' coal, steel, and engineering exports in the back, what is then to stop them stabbing other British exports in the back such as textiles, or cars, or computers?

And once these capitalist trade-war cards have been played in full, which in all capitalist history have never led to anything else other than dramatic economic collapse for ALL parties involved in this beggar-thy-neighbour stupidity, - what then stops the still 'surplus' labour forces (the unemployed) being driven into uniform to take this trade-war conflict onto the political war-conflict stage, - i.e. an inter-imperialist shooting war, such as alone ended imperialism's two previous great trade-war crises this century?

Scargillism is preparing the working class to be led into the most appalling and idiotic tyranny imaginable, - putting it into the ideological pocket of its own rotten ruling class on the eve of the most disgraceful devastating crisis and crash that capitalist private ownership has ever inflicted on mankind.

This is the price of Scargillism's philistine fear of theory and its bureaucratic stifling of discussion and debate. It is a nightmare of demagogic conceit, and its crude populism is shamefully closer to the politics of the National Front than anything else.

In Scotland, the SLP's capitulation to these wretched politics of petty nationalism is total, - demanding "a Scottish parliament that abolishes capitalism", a Scottish parliament "with real powers" whereby the "Scottish people" can "reclaim their rights to a fair return of all the wealth generated by Scottish industries and services", based on "common & social ownership" of the economy.

This stuff might just work as agitational propaganda in the midst of a total economic crisis when the obvious revolutionary implications of all these demands have already been well spelled out and understood by the whole of the people, without exception.

That is hardly the case here. This is just crass reformist day-dreaming, tinged with silly and shameful petty-nationalist delusions. ALL bourgeois 'democracy'  (parliaments, assemblies, etc) are SOLELY for the further hoodwinking and enslavement of the working class, NOTHING ELSE. Socialism will NEVER be available as a 'parliamentary reform' to ANY nation on earth, - however gifted, talented, and hard-done-by they feel. These are just the tragic delusions of petty-bourgeois nationalism, feeding into the working class, courtesy of the philistine ideological backwardness of Scargillism.

The Balkanisation of Britain is being proposed solely because Britain is now one of the weakest links in the imperialist chain and could suffer proletarian revolution during the long slump-crash devastation to come. Split apart, the fighting capacities of the working class in Britain might just about be controllable, especially if the most renowned militant sections in Scotland and Wales can first of all be weaned off into some petty-nationalist make-believe. And then once isolated and hived off, the fiery Welsh and Scots working class might also be controllable too.

Facing the entire proletarian forces in Britain up in arms, international imperialist intervention would have great difficulty in carrying out a counter-revolution, despite having the CIA-Pinochet 1973 model against Allende in Chile as the current' successful blueprint.

But with all the international multinational firms (the real owners of Scotland) in operation against an isolated Scottish working class, an isolated Welsh working class, and an isolated English working class in turn, the counter-revolution would have a much better chance.

These 'devolutionary' games are a bourgeois racket which the most philistine or backward anti-communist 'left' daydreamers in Scotland have alone fallen for. A majority of the Glasgow working class failed to vote for devolution or refused. That was the real intelligent genius of Scotland speaking.

This petty nationalism has got the epoch completely wrong, - still assuming some never-ending capitalist boom, where all that needs to flourish is the individualist consumer spirit. So why not be proudly and identifiably Scottish with a capital S, etc, etc. Yes, why not indeed, but do it where the real working-class genius of Scotland has already shown such outstanding strengths of collective courage and independent-mindedness in the modern era, - in standing up to INTERNATIONAL capitalist oppression, - British, American, Scottish, what difference does the nationality of the imperialist bourgeoisie make?

What the world needs now is workers with the guts and the good sense to stand up for communist revolution, and finish with all capitalism for all mankind, - not creep away into some Scots petty-bourgeois hellhole with the reins being pulled by the SNP posturers or the Edinburgh aristocracy or any other capitalist mafia, replacing the crooked London Establishment (where many of the same Scots who will rule 'devolution' are already pulling strings anyway, this having been genuine BRITISH ruling-class imperialism for 200 years or more, i.e. not exclusively English imperialism).

'Devolution' will be a nightmare nonsense and working class parties which fail to spell this out before it happens or who actually help deceive workers in Scotland that 'devolution' will be a good thing for them, will deserve to pay a heavy price in the future in eternal hatred for them by all serious-minded workers everywhere. Imperialism cannot wait to play the nationalist card all over the world so as to divide and rule the working class on a continuous basis in spite of the collapse of their rotten system plunging everyone into poverty and despair.

Thus, even in its daft vacuum where the SLP and Socialist News pretend that theirs is the only 'left' policy before the working class and that no rival confusing ideologies need polemicising against at all, - Scargillism still manages to get everything wrong once scientific political detail has to be gone into.

And even in the midst of all the politically-unchallenging activity reports from around the SLP regions, Socialist News still manages to let slip through at least half-a-dozen anti-SLP barbs from the Trots and others, with scarcely-veiled renewed appeals for Black Sections again, and for Alliances' 'non-sectarian cooperation' again, etc, etc. Letting workers be afflicted by Trot muddleheadedness is fine by Scargillism. But the EPSR's Marxist-Leninist challenge to every last New-Age and single-issue ideological anti-communist nonsense has to be banished away as far and as rapidly as possible.

So what is really welcome, given that Heronist Trotskyism is temporarily demoted because of excessive factionalism? Why, really star-material soft-focus broadcast Trotskyism is welcome, in the person of Paul Foot who gets a whole page free advertisement on the back of the latest SLP information bulletin going the rounds.

Foot is the star attraction at the NUM's memorial day in Barnsley on March 13 for miners' strike victims David Jones and Joe Green. They deserve better. Foot is an anti-communist opportunist of the most treacherous kind who is allowed to peddle his witty propaganda for 'socialism' from the highest forums in the land in return for bilious counter-revolutionary diatribes against the workers states whenever the Establishment needs them. (See elsewhere this issue for an exposure of the SWP/Footite latest fake-'leftism' on the Lawrence case and Loach's anti-communist historical brainwashing in 'Land & Freedom').

Trust the populist demagogy of Scargillism to have the highest regard for Foot's vicious anti-communist opportunism, one of the most sinister enemies of the workers states in British politics.

To its credit, Scargillism often refused to go along with such CIA/Vatican anti-communist stunts as Solidarnosc, the bogus 'rank-and-file' 'socialism' run by the fascist Walesa to eventually wreck the Polish workers state with petty nationalism. Now total imperialist domination is back in Poland, and the German Junker feudalists are reclaiming Silesia; and all of this so lovingly embraced by Paul Foot.

But Scargillism is, however, incapable of seeing any connection between the need to reject CIA/Vatican stunts like Solidarnosc and the need to reject muddleheaded Trots who sold this counter-revolutionary viciousness to British workers.

And this opportunist philistinism then reveals its real anti-theory backwardness over something like Ireland where Socialist News has printed similar 'revolutionary' contemptuous dismissals (of the titanic victory over British imperialism by Sinn Féin and the IRA) to the academic SWP/Footite 'advice' to the Republicans to 'stop sectarian terror' (i.e. effectively to stop the national-liberation struggle which has actually defeated British imperialism) and to create a 'socialist revolution' instead, - just like that, - and to build it out of 'Protestant' and 'Catholic' workers (meaning the stooges of British imperialism fighting to keep their colonial privileges, and Irish nationalists fighting to win their country's full self-determination at last after 800 years British domination and to overthrow the 'Protestant' colonial statelet infamously misnamed 'Northern Ireland'). What a sick joke by utterly arrogant petty-bourgeois English nationalists, posturing as 'left socialists', whose totally academic 'revolutionism' has done less actual defeating of imperialism in its whole SWP existence (and in its existence to come) than has the average Granny's bin-lid on the Falls Road.

Wretchedly covering up for Scargillism in its deliberate philistine attack on EPSR Marxism are those odd relics of Revisionist disaster around Lalkar and the Stalin Society, peddling dirty lies that the Review "had used internal SLP material for publication" which was a) totally untrue when Scargillism launched its attack; b) totally irrelevant anyway to the critical problem facing the SLP of having no discussion at all; and c) just a dishonest euphemism for noting that the EPS Review had hoped to lend Scargillism some Marxist political breadth and depth, just as Lalkar is hoping to do.

The major question of just how limited Scargillism will now be after deliberately rejecting a centrist path of development by closing the door to open Marxist agitation, will be examined further next week; but for the moment it is important to remember that Lalkar's OWN great problem is its Stalinist history of backing non-discussion of Revisionism's obvious weaknesses for decades, and continuing inability to discuss Stalin's weaknesses even now. No wonder it backs Scargillism's 'no debate, no discussion' strategy. It led to Third International disaster in the end.

It will prove just as catastrophically sterile for the Scargillist project today.

And it is clearly an anti-Leninist attitude, as is clear from the following excerpts.

Being tactical is one thing; covering up for infamous nonsense is something different entirely, in any political strategy. Swallow too many lies 'for the tactical good of the cause', and the cause itself becomes polluted, as generations of too-loyal Stalin adherents eventually proved worldwide. 

To build a rational scientific world, Leninism insisted on a true analysis of developments at all times. AC & RB

Although we carry out our literary work from the standpoint of a definite tendency, we do not in the least intend to present all our views on partial questions as those of all Russian Social-Democrats; we do not deny that differences exist, nor shall we attempt to conceal or obliterate them. On the contrary, we desire our publications to become organs for the discussion of all questions by all Russian Social-Democrats of the most diverse shades of opinion. We do not reject polemics between comrades, but, on the contrary, are prepared to give them considerable space in our columns. Open polemics, conducted in full view of all Russian Social-Democrats and class-conscious workers, are necessary and desirable in order to clarify the depth of existing differences, in order to afford discussion of disputed questions from all angles, in order to combat the extremes into which representatives of various views, various localities, or various "specialities" of the revolutionary movement inevitably fall. Indeed, we regard one of the drawbacks of the present-day movement to be the absence of open polemics between avowedly differing views, the effort to conceal differences on fundamental questions.
Draft declaration of Iskra and Zarya 1900

In the present situation in our Party, both factions have agreed to the convocation of a unity congress, and both have agreed to submit to its decisions. The unity congress will decide what are to be the united tactics of the Party. Our duty is to do everything to hasten the convocation of this congress, and to strive with the utmost vigour to bring home to every Party member as clearly as possible the tactical differences on the question of taking part in the Duma, so that, in voting for delegates to the joint congress that will unite our Party and our tactics, all Party members may make their choice not haphazardly, but with deliberation, with a complete knowledge of the case, and after fully weighing up the arguments of both sides.
1906; The duma & Social-Democrat Tactics

The objection may be raised, further, that the present moment is inopportune for the elaboration of a programme because there are differences of opinion that give rise to polemics among the Social-Democrats themselves. 

I believe the contrary to be true—this is another argument in favour of the necessity for a programme. On the one hand, since the polemic has begun, it is to be hoped that in the discussion of the draft programme all views and all shades of views will be afforded expression, that the discussion will be comprehensive. The polemic indicates that the Russian Social-Democrats are showing a revived interest in extensive questions pertaining to the aims of our movement and in its immediate tasks and -tactics, precisely such a revival is essential to a discussion of the draft programme. On the other hand, if the polemic is not to be fruitless, if it is not to degenerate into personal rivalry, if it is not to lead to a confusion of views, to a confounding of enemies and friends, it is absolutely essential that the question of the programme be introduced into the polemic. The polemic will be of benefit only if it makes clear in what the differences actually consist, how profound they are, whether they are differences of substance or differences on partial questions, whether or not these differences interfere with common work in the ranks of one and the same party. Only the introduction of the programme question into the polemic, only a definite statement by the two polemicising parties on their programmatic views, can provide an answer to all these questions, questions that insistently demand an answer. The elaboration of a common programme for the Party should not, of course, put an end to all polemics; it will firmly establish those basic views on the character, the aims, and the tasks of our movement which must serve as the banner of a fighting party, a party that remains consolidated and united despite partial differences of opinion among its members on partial questions. 
A draft programme of our party 1899

It is impossible to conduct a political struggle if the Party as a whole fails to make statements on all questions of policy and to give direction to the various manifestations of the struggle. The organisation and disciplining of the revolutionary forces and the development of revolutionary technique are impossible without the discussion of all these questions in a central organ.
Our immediate task 1899

Determined working-class leadership wants to sort out issues, defeat reaction and, most of all, defeat Cold War anti-communism posing as "the Trotskyist, real socialist revolution". Good, pro-Soviet and Marxist-minded comrades in the SLP have got to start realising what a valuable role they can play as ideological working-class leaders, rather than as mere activists

What could better confirm last week’s EPSR's warning that the struggle for Marxist-Leninist politics depends on a fight of the type waged by this paper than an examination of the way that the Trot fake-'left' spreads confusion and anti-communist poison on all today’s most crucial issues.

Where EPSR 988 urged all workers to focus on the CLASS nature of the police in the light of the heroic Stephen Lawrence campaign, the SWP Trots, for example, DO NOTHING BUT bang the war-drum for anti-racist campaigning.

"Condon out! Police are racist to the core. Justice now for Stephen Lawrence" urges the front page of Socialist Worker (27 February).

Its "What we think" column details a stream of racist abuses from the Met, and says, lamely, that 

"The police uphold a society which breeds racism and other divisions, and all that bigotry is concentrated in their ranks."

But what do these anti-communists say about the solution, given that they have spent lifetimes saying that the Soviet Union, China, Korea, Cuba, the Viet Cong, Sinn Féin, ANC, SWAPO, Mugabe’s ZANU, etc, etc were or are no good because their leaderships are not genuinely revolutionary?

They are utterly, uselessly and idiotically REFORMIST:

"There will be many calls for reform of the police over the next few weeks. They will fight any challenge to the way they operate tooth and nail. Now is no time for half measures...

"An end to police racism could only happen if the secretive bureaucracy which runs them was torn apart and they were made accountable for their actions, at all levels, to ordinary people.

"The groundswell of anger among black and white people and the determination of Stephen’s family made the inquiry happen...

"The pressure on the police needs to be stepped up now. No one should be fobbed off by cosmetic changes."

But, according to this garbage of light-minded reformism, they should be fobbed off with a "solution" to police behaviour that doesn’t involve the overthrow of capitalism, and its state - just that capitalist state bending to concerted 'left' pressure.

What a joke.

Even the capitalist media has been highlighting the failings of the Met, and urging "new thinking" on the police force.

But the story for the revolutionary interests of the working class doesn’t stop with exposing the hopeless reformist ineptitude of the Trots, in this case the SWP. It has barely started.

What motivates these 'left' posturers? And why do they bother to profess "Marxism" and "socialist revolution", when they patently talk reformist solutions to the working class?

Their motivation is in all cases, anti-communism. Their middle-class conceit and petty bourgeois fear of real disruption to their libertarian and Western cosy lifestyle existences if workers revolution did arrive (in its only possible form, the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a party that supports Soviet-KGB type firmness against counter-revolution) makes them want to throw a giant anti-communist wet blanket over the entire possibility of communist revolution.

The red ink? The 'revolutionary' talk? The foot-stamping about a bad, racist police force? All eye-wash for their real purpose: maintaining and protecting every crucial Western 'democratic' prejudice against any real overthrow of capitalism or imperialism.

In the same issue of Socialist Worker, for example, and just as described in last week’s EPSR, explaining why it is so vital for the Review to maintain and if anything step up its battle for Marxist analysis in front of the working class, the Trot SWP go into ecstasy over the anti-Soviet myth-making of Ken Loach’s film, Land and Freedom. (See last week’s EPSR for a detailed alternative review of Loach’s monstrous distortion of the heroic CP-led International Brigade’s role in fighting Franco and German/Italian fascism, and the courageous assistance provided by the imperilled USSR).

There is a direct connection between the Trots’ outrageous posturing of how "they could have won the revolution were it not for Stalinism" and "ditto in Chile" etc, etc, when in fact Trotskyism has NEVER WON A SINGLE REVOLUTION AND NEVER WILL (BECAUSE IT IS ANTI-SOVIET AND ANTI-COMMUNIST) and their deliberate failure to urge the working class to build CLASS WAR understanding in the immediate context of the anger aroused by the police’s villainous failings in the Stephen Lawrence murder.

The posing is necessary in order to create 'left' ground from which to poison the atmosphere yet further against the USSR and party-led proletarian dictatorship, on top of all the poison from the capitalist press and TV (like the Cold War series), so that workers can get yet another anti-communist ear-bashing - along the lines, "even socialists hate the USSR".

Their advert for Land and Freedom ends with a quote from their hero, George Orwell, now acknowledged as being in the pay of British intelligence, a police spy against communists in the labour movement.

A writer whose books 1984, Animal Farm and Homage to Catalonia are rammed down teenagers’ throats on the National Curriculum because they are tried-and-tested effective hate-propaganda against the USSR, and push the line that "revolution gets you nowhere, mate". No wonder he was a long-time correspondent for the BBC.

It bears constantly repeating that there is no mileage for socialists and communists in not waging an OPEN POLITICAL fight against the Trots.

The working class has to hack its way through all the appalling lies told about the USSR, China, Vietnam etc in order to win revolution in this country. A lively sensible discussion about every bugbear and bogey that has ever been been foisted on workers by Western propaganda is far more than academic, so, for example, putting the record straight on Soviet Collectivisation in an SLP meeting has to be seen as part of TODAY’S battle against Trot anti-Sovietism, and entirely open to being moved on to the burning topic of all the Trot anti-communism infecting the party, which needs DEFEATING.

What a tragedy that SLP leader Arthur Scargill is dodging this issue, and foolishly attempting to counter the Heron-Sikorski disruption by 'constitutional' means. Good SLP cadres and the working class as a whole are being robbed of a PRICELESS chance to DEMOLISH fake-'leftism' in public, and the SLP has just made a rod for its own back, because the Trot sabotage gets automatic bourgeois-Establishment legal back-up.

Scargill is also making a mockery of his protestations at October Revolution rallies of pro-Sovietism, if he is not motivated to POLITICALLY CRUSH the Trots like the Herons, who say "good riddance to cranky Marxism, that Berlin Wall and the KGB".

The only road forward is MARXIST POLITICS. Build Leninism.
                                                                                                                    Chris Barratt

World Revolutionary Socialist Review
(edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles).

INDONESIAN recognition of East Timor's right to self-determination, ending nearly two decades of quasi-military rule, and changes in the prison conditions of rebel leader Xanana Gusmao, are the latest developments of East Timor’s fight for independence.

The announcements were made the day before high-level talks between Portuguese and Indonesian authorities were due to begin in New York under UN auspices. However, thousands of terrified East-Timorese fled their villages after at least six people died during attacks by pro-Indonesian collaborators.

The announcement of a change in Indonesian policy came at the end of January, when Palatals, following a meeting of the cabinet, stated that the government will allow the independence of East Timor after the election of the Indonesian Supreme Legislative Assembly, the MPR, if the East Timorese reject Indonesia's proposal for autonomy.

The same day, the Indonesian administration offered Timorese rebel leader Banana Gustavo to move from his prison cell to house detention. "I accept the offer"; Banana (53) told reporters at Jakarta's Financing jail, where he is serving a 20-year prison term.

Officials said the move was a compromise related to a request from the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan.

Foreign governments have expressed the hope Banana, who has a wide following in East Timor, could play a "Nelson Mandela-like" role in seeking a solution to the East Timor problem. Xanana was captured in 1992 and sentenced to life imprisonment for plotting against the state and illegal possession of weapons but his sentence was commuted to 20 years in jail.

The developments were welcomed by East Timorese Nobel Laureate Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, who pointed out that he still wanted a referendum for East Timor. "Yes, I would be happy if the offer is put into practice. But as I have said for the past 10-15 years, the offer for a wide-ranging autonomy should be accompanied with a referendum to decide whether this is what the people want. Let me stress that wide-ranging autonomy is not something final but only transitional. It is only final when the people says so."

From Belo’s point of view, East Timor could have 10 or 15 years of autonomy under Indonesia and after that decide themselves whether they want to be independent.

On the other hand, José Ramos Horta, who won the Peace prize in 1996 with Belo, denounced the proposal as a "stunt". "They never deliver what they promised. I believe it is no more than a smokescreen, a diplomatic stunt . Their aim is to win the good favour of the international community, while at the same time they create terror in East Timor".

It seems that Australia will support autonomy of the territory, as it expressed its belief that East Timor is too weak to become an independent state.

Tom Hyland, spokesperson of the East Timor Solidarity Campaign, feels that "The position of the successive Australian governments have been, perhaps, the most hypocritical of all governments. Not only did they refuse to investigate the death of the Australian journalist killed by the Indonesian army, but have Illegally shared the oil resources of East Timor with Indonesia.

"As regards the future of East Timor, obviously there is a lot to be done. East Timor had the 23 largest oilfields in the world, a substantial coffee crop, marble and many other natural resources. In fact, East Timor has the capacity to become one of the richest states in the world but it will take time. Australia may be dependent on an independent East Timor for its energy resources in the next millennium."

The possibility of East Timorese self-determination becoming a reality is dependent very much on the result of the elections to the Indonesian Legislative Assembly, as two of the main opposition leaders have declared themselves against the government’s idea of considering independence for the island. Megawati Sukarnoputri, leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI), pointed out that the government of president B.J. Habibie has no authority to make a decision on the territory. The daughter of Indonesian’s first president Sukarno, who transformed the Indonesian federation into its actual shape, reminded Habibie that his government was transitional and his ascent to power was due to an emergency situation caused by the Indonesian students protests last year. 

Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Walid, the chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Moslen organisation and backer of the newly founded National Awakening Party said that the decision of Indonesia to include the territory of East Timor as part of the country should be respected. "In my opinion, East Timor should remain part of Indonesia".

For Tom Hyland, the party of Suharto and Habibie does not stand a chance of winning the elections, as "a coalition between Sukarnoputri and the moderate Islamic Mummahadin party of Wahid looks like the most likely outcome", though it is possible that the Islamic parties of Indonesia will refuse to endorse a woman as president. There is also Amien Reiss who is President of the most moderate of Indonesian Islamic parties. So any of them could be president."

While officials of the Indonesian government deliberate over East Timor’s status, the situation on the island is still difficult. The Indonesian military have been arming groups of East Timorese collaborators. Tensions are high in the former Portuguese colony where the National Commission of Human Rights (Komnas HAM) estimates that more than 50 people have died in clashes in the past six months, while more than 2,700 refugees are camped outside the village of Suai, 90 kilometres southeast of the capital, Dili, after fleeing violence between groups of pro and anti-Indonesian Timorese. At least six people have been killed in the Kovalima district in just three days.

"As in the case of all colonial occupations, the Indonesians have pursued a policy of divide and rule among the Timorese people. Some Timorese have been conscripted into the Indonesian army. Some have also benefited financially from the occupation. But the resistance to Indonesian control has held firm and the last 23 years have seen an astonishing David and Goliath situation between East Timor and Indonesia with a heroic resistance to a very brutal regime. What will be needed is a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the type experience in South Africa, so that all the people of East Timor, those who have resisted and those who have collaborated can iron out their differences", explains Tom Hyland. •