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 1023 December 01 1999                                                                                                                     10p

Sinn Féin and IRA triumph nearly complete. After 800 years, colonial rule starts to pack its bags to leave for good, dismantling its rotten partition statelet as it departs. Ireland's reunification now just a matter of time.

Exactly as Marxist-Leninist science has consistently explained must happen (see the EPSR every week for the last 20 years), the historical balance of class and national forces has finally forced decadent British imperialism to at long last go through with its snail's-pace withdrawal from Ireland.

Six all-Ireland ministries come immediately into operation covering crucial economic and social matters; plus an all-Ireland Council of Ministers; Irish politicians will run five of the ten local government departments in the former occupied Zone (3 from the SDLP, 2 from Sinn Féin); the deputy premier in the lingering 'northern' entity will be Irish; and the effective disarmament and dismantling of the anti-Irish sectarian state police force in the north, - the RUC, should begin immediately.

"A good days work" as the legendary national-liberation struggle leader Martin McGuinness, famed in the British press as a former IRA chief-of-staff and now in charge of education in the north, objectively put it.

The capitalist system and bourgeois ideology still rule, with all their constraints and limitations. But no longer governed by vicious racist bigotry and imperialist-domination interests, Ireland's class struggle concerns will soon be paramount, and Sinn Féin is currently better equipped to fight for socialism than any other major party in Europe (and far beyond).

The die-hard reactionary British bourgeois and the equally colonially-minded fake-'lefts' are all utterly humiliated over their various delusions that the Sinn Féin and IRA national-liberation struggle could never be triumphant, or had already sold out, etc, etc.

Defeating the final 30 years last-ditch stand by vicious and armed colonial-imperialism in the name of Ireland's full final self-determination was the aim, victoriously achieved. Socialism was never, and could never have been, the immediately reachable goal.

Paisleyite bile at yesterdays historic assumption of power by Irish ministers in the north, and Trimble' poisonous propaganda insult: "It's over to you Mr Adams. We've jumped, you follow" will only be remembered as a lasting reminder of the wretched defeated small-mindedness of decadent British colonial mentality. Good riddance.

The working class in Britain are the really big winners, freed at last from the final rotten grip of British imperialist colonial arrogance. "No surrender to the IRA?" Have another look. RB

Exposing opportunist petty bourgeois 'socialism' in practice is a victory for the working class which only the struggle for Marxist-Leninist science could help accomplish. Scepticism which ignores real developments is just a reflection of middle-class complacency. Scargillism's nonexistent 'economic analysis' will only add to the bourgeoisie's trade-war fever and lay workers open to inter-imperialist conflict disasters. Workerist posturing will not save the proletariat from further endless SLP philistine treachery. Correctly analysing world class-war events is the only way to get close to the real interests of the working class - not via ignorance of revolutionary theory. Lalkar's museum-Stalinism is just a contemptuous joke on workers. Anti-Leninist revisionism will become a laughing stock.

The slick sophisticated cynicism of hightech modern existence takes an increasingly jaundiced view of all bourgeois politics but is obviously also deeply sceptical about how relevant Marxist-Leninist theory might be to solving contemporary world problems, if at all.

To many workers, the idea of building a 'practical mass movement' to make 'real progress' seems far more realistic and sensible than 'trying to convert a hostile (or indifferent) and unreachable population to Marxist philosophy', etc, - especially with just a 'cut-and-paste peashooter', etc.

Such popular sentiment is just plain WRONG on every account.

Promoting a more-numerical labour-movement party with a much more visible public image just for its own sake is obviously crazy. No political grouping can for long remain 'an open book' with its fundamental-perspectives, its organisational culture, and ultimately its basic class character 'still to be written'.

For good or ill, the working class can never cease to be educated by events, by how they have been described, by what policies have been put forward as a 'solution', and by how things subsequently turned out. It can ONLY be educated by such practice.

Events have moved on since the SLP's character was being formed. The party's social-chauvinist and social-pacifist alignment is already unshakable. This is already the overwhelming CLASS orientation of the ENTIRE Scargillist culture which COMPLETELY dominates the SLP and will never cease to do so.

There is no "purely shallow technical problem" of a "missing second paragraph" accompanying Scargill's repeated assertions of a naïve economic CLASS OUTLOOK. It is trade-unionist/petty-bourgeois LITTLE ENGLANDERISM.

Declaring in the SLP Congress report: "How can we have a strong economy when 50% of our steel is imported" cannot be reinterpreted no matter how many second paragraphs are added to it.

It is a clear-cut CLASS expression of a dismal reformist mentality born of 200 years of syndicalist class-collaborative politics led by a labour aristocracy thoroughly ideologically corrupted by the gain and glory of British imperialist economic triumph in past world history.

The statement is pure economic illiteracy, - meaningless, - under any conceivable system, capitalist or socialist. It is Mickey Mouse, Legoland 'constitutionalism' which could only be the product of a dangerously immature political mind which has clearly suffered from too long a walling-off within trade-union-boss bureaucratism but has now taken the road of demagogic political populism.

Trading between product-specialisation communities has always been a huge part of civilisation's technological/economic progress under any system, and the percentage of exchanged products can NEVER in itself be an underlying CAUSE of economic crisis OR EVEN A SYMPTOM, in itself, necessarily. Moaning that 50% of steel used in Britain is now imported has nothing in it but silly hurt national pride, and this is exactly what part of the message of Scargillism really WANTS to convey. 'We are a proud, skilled, industrial working class of long, heroic achievement in a Britain which was once the workshop of the world. Bad rulers and management have let the country go to the dogs and be carved up by European bureaucrats, among others. As a measure of how far we have sunk, look at the fact that 50% of the steel used in this country is now imported."

The import statistic is, in itself, utterly MEANINGLESS. The rest is all too real, chronic social chauvinism.

And WITHOUT any plan at all. The missing 'second paragraph' is NOT 'missing' by accident but by design. There is no intention by Scargillism to divert all attention of the working class to the fact that the whole ownership and thrust of the British economy is controlled by the private interests of the capitalist class WHO WILL HAVE TO BE CONFRONTED DIRECTLY OVER THAT OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL before any meaningful changes can occur in the whole fate and direction of the country's industry and commerce. Exactly the opposite. This 'socialist' propaganda is DELIBERATELY kept as vague as possible, with the DELIBERATE intention to go for 'what is achievable, first of all, one step at a time' etc.

And that is to DELIBERATELY stoke up chauvinistic trade-war measures and resentments 'first of all' in the working class.

It is the 'natural' spontaneous-philistine way for semi-literate 'left'-reformist posturing to respond to world imperialist crisis phenomena, - just as the 'natural' way to respond to that crisis's closest serious warmongering explosion - the blitzkrieg on Yugoslavia - was via 'stop the war' protests.

Events, coupled with what leadership is offered and with how things turn out, educate the working class. If the working class hears nothing but this "what about these imports" drum-beat all the time that the over-production crisis of the world market-imperialist system steadily strengthens its ultimate menace to ALL jobs and living standards, then the trade-union mentality, and workers in general, will unfailingly move towards import controls as their immediate, 'achievable', 'step-by-step' supposedly 'political' demand,- encouraged by the SLP's propaganda:

"How can New Labour claim to have a strong economy when Britain is cutting back on our indigenous fishing industry" 

Scargill's report to Congress goes on. 

'Our' steel, 'our' fishing industry, how can 'we' have a strong economy, 

etc, etc.

"How can New Labour claim to have a strong economy while farmers are paid to stop growing or producing affordable food here in Britain"

it continues. 

"How can this Government claim economic strength when it continues to import textiles and clothing at a time when the British textile industry, like others, is being systematically destroyed",

etc, etc.
   
Every single reference relentlessly on and on, is to the notion that contamination from the world monopoly-imperialist crisis can be 'solved' or at least 'ameliorated' (Scargill's report) by

'not letting our (!) industries be carved up and made fools of by European bosses and others playing import games just to suit their private profiteering'

etc, etc, - the emphasis all the time being on bad or ill-intentioned management of the economy and to 'needless foreign involvement', but NEVER on the whole free-world SYSTEM whose anarchic market forces will screw ALL workers in ALL countries unless international communist revolution puts a stop to it.

The outcome is obviously predictable. With this, and with social-chauvinist propaganda from other sources even more bluntly xenophobic, 99% of steelworkers, textile workers, agricultural workers and fishing, etc, will start campaigning for import controls as the 'way forward' or the next 'one step at a time', and no SLP agitation will try to hold them back.

The dominant syndicalist mentality is at it already with the current GMB protests against Marks and Spencers deciding on stepped-up overseas production of goods for more cost-effectiveness (because cheaper) but threatening jobs in the textile industry in Britain as a result. In similar regional-isolationist manner, Liverpool dockers chanted 'best dockers in the world' when trying to save their employment in the recent lock-out/strike.

It is picket-line industrial action but it cannot change the pattern of world imperialist market globalisation - (as the results prove from the 1984-85 miners strike onwards (and before that too)) - if it limits its aims to "action-now amelioration" (to repeat Scargill's formula).

Such syndicalist reformist pipe-dreams can only frustrate and demoralise workers, - as the TUC's abysmal record of failure, retreat, and chronic membership-loss plainly demonstrates. And this 'action-now, achievable aims only' reformist approach is initially going to put ever-increasing pressure on the SLP to drag its propaganda ever further and ever faster in that same direction when the 'Save the pound' campaigning gets into its full stride in the coming months. Scargill may directly distance himself for opportunist-careerist reasons from the 'left' TUC and Morning Star (CPB) circles which will make some of the labour-movement running in this 'defend the national interest' class-collaborative rallying which will rise in step with growing economic-crisis phenomena, - but it will be a miracle if the SLP actually campaigns AGAINST such social-chauvinism, because its core class ideology is identical.

And chauvinism will certainly win the day, first off, and carry the overwhelming majority of the working class with it initially.

But events once again will be decisive. Import-controls isolationism will inevitably suffer just as much economic catastrophe in general, in the long run, as will be inflicted by world monopoly-capitalist market forces everywhere else, - inside or outside the rival cut-throat-profiteering trading blocs. Vast mountains of so-called 'surplus' investment capital now HAVE TO BE destroyed at the end of the most opulent and lengthy inflationary boom that imperialist credit-creation has ever devised in all history. Manufactured to boost living standards internationally to keep communist revolution at bay, it can only end by utterly polluting all international currency and trading relationships, threatening total bankruptcy and impoverishment in all directions, and driving the free-market competitors towards all-out conflict and inter-imperialist warmongering.

Thus step-by-step 'ameliorating' reformism will achieve absolutely NOTHING in the first place (i.e. be a complete FAILURE), but in the second place will at the same time only dangerously FURTHER ADDLE THE UNDERSTANDING of the working class which has been devastated enough already with other bourgeois illusions. In short, the whole ethos, tactics, strategy, and programme of the SLP is ALREADY putting a warmongering social-chauvinist noose around the neck of the working class.

But nevertheless, it will be argued, is not the SLP, even-so, much closer to the 'real' working class than a tiny 'isolated' struggle for Marxist-Leninist philosophy by a small 'sect' which allegedly 'found mass-movement work difficult' after supposedly 'so much concentration on theory', etc.?

This is ALL FALSE once more, and slanderously so as far as abilities for mass-movement work are concerned. It was precisely because EPSR-educated comrades were TOO successful as SLP cadres, - better organised, better propagandists, clearer about the role that an SLP might have played in reviving mass socialist consciousness, etc, - that Scargill felt it vital to try to destroy the EPSR's influence inside the SLP as soon as it was thought to be becoming too menacing to his control via his backward political clique.

It is infamous nonsense to present this as some kind of 'threat' by the EPSR. Its politics sought only to boost the mass party idea, consciously around Scargillism as a centrist development which might only ULTIMATELY be crossed swords with and destroyed by increasing need for more revolutionary tactics and demands, etc, as the imperialist crisis deepens. The crunch came much earlier solely because of Scargill's pre-emptive strike, which back-stabbing was NOT a separate issue but totally coincided with and confirmed the emerging fundamental CLASS-PHILOSOPHICAL orientation that Scargillism wants and is now firmly established by the events-based social chauvinist and social pacifist lines. All that Scargill's back-stabbing treachery added was proof of how ludicrous lies, deceit, and censorship to keep the party membership in the dark completely matches the degenerate fake-'left' politics the SLP is now indelibly identified with.

Almost by definition, the painstaking examination of the relevance of Marxist-Leninist philosophy to the modern world every week for the past 20 years is in one sense obviously bound to be 'isolated' in being in a period of the most catastrophic Revisionist and workers-state disasters ever imaginable, coinciding with the most fabulous 'free-world' market-forces consumerist boom in all history.

But look a little closer at any specific analysis fought for, and a slightly different picture emerges.

Ireland is the obvious current example best to take, although scores more would do as well going all the way back to Solidarnosc, Revisionism in general, Grenada, etc, where the EPSR's fight for Marxism at least proved that it was not 'isolated' from reality, which is clearly the main (and only) criterion. In imperialism-corrupted racist Britain, the EPSR's view on the greatness and importance of the national-liberation struggle triumph in Ireland is very much a minority understanding, even around the fake-'left'. It is still a relatively isolated analysis among Irish workers, and was at one time even out of touch with majority opinion inside Sinn Féin itself when the EPSR was explaining the longterm political victory of the Hunger Strikes, and associated electoral successes and mass support, when Republican News was writing about 'another defeat and setback', etc.

But when the idea of being 'close to the real interests' of the working class is substituted for the slightly workerist and pointlessly-subjective notion of 'being close to the real working class', what emerges? And what is certain is that if Scargillism's offensive conceited arrogance (that the Sinn Féin-led national-liberation struggle has 'retreated' to a 'failed second-best') is regarded as reflecting 'greater SLP closeness to the real working class', then the comrades there are more than welcome to such foetid philistine confines.

The NATO warmongering on Yugoslavia is another good example of what being 'close to the real working class' might best be taken to mean, - and also an example of how Scargill apologists just ignore all the specific arguments which have challenged SLP viability as 'good leadership for the working class'.

With one voice, Socialist Labour was undermining its own 'Stop the war' social-pacifist muddleheadedness by regurgitating NATO's 'stop ethnic cleansing' warmongering propaganda, echoing the Hitler-Goebbels 'Big Lie' blitzkrieg excuses; but with another voice, it was peddling a 'Defend Yugoslavia' line, extended by Spark Scargillists into the fantasy that the final Revisionist/nationalist debacle was a 'victory for Yugoslavia'. Only if the natural condition of the working class is held to be commendable total befuddlement can any of this ignorant and posturing nonsense be considered as 'close to the real working class'.

Only the ludicrous summing up by the International Committee Report to Congress of this historic crisis-warmongering turning point in modern imperialist-crisis developments - (as just "NATO aggression which enraged Party comrades in all Regions and led to spirited protest across the country" - and nothing more), - could possibly be dismissed as mere naïve stupidity. The rest is just consciously reactionary nonsense from a determined museum-Stalinist position which reduces the last 70 epoch-making years of world history to a farcical 'bogyman' theory - the rotten apple Kruschev wrecking the whole barrel of workers-state Stalinist perfection (which like the serpent into the Garden of Eden, and other fairy tales, never quite explains why God played such a nasty trick/bad hand in the first place).

The sturdily-formed long-established CLASS character, quickly assumed by Scargillism and typified by an arrogant/philistine refusal to reply to difficult criticism, came ready-perfected in the SLP's Lalkar supporters who have for nearly 20 years been studiously avoiding the EPSR's voluminous exposures of their own Revisionist idiocies and especially those of their hero Stalin in his monumental nonsense-work, 'Economic Problems of Socialism, 1952' which part-encapsulated his already well-worn theoretical muddle (which turned Moscow's wishful-thinking opportunist-compromise hopes for continued avoidance of war with Western imperialism into lunatic 'Marxist' theories about finding 'peaceful roads to socialism' and 'an end to imperialist economic expansion and renewal' as 'justification' and 'security' for such war-avoidance hopes and fears AND FOR ALL THE TREACHEROUS ANTI-REVOLUTIONARY POSITIONS and PARANOID SOCIALIST-CAMP TACTICS taken up in the name of such hopes and fears).

Exposing the Revisionist/petty-bourgeois socialist drivel of Lassalle, Bakunin, Bernstein, Kautsky, Trotsky, etc, helped to create all the essential central material of Marxism-Leninism, from the 1850s to the early 1920s. Exposing the undeniable Revisionist MIS-leadership in the subsequent 70 years which prepared the way for Kruschevism and ultimately Gorbachevism must equally be the material for re-establishing the dominance of Marxist-Leninist theory today, and Stalin's opportunist-bureaucratic 'theorising' howlers must come top of the list.

But the Lalkar Scargillists refuse to budge, or even to polemicise. Once enshrined, museum Stalinism is to stay enshrined, - even down to the not insignificant historical detail of protecting a 'great leader' who on no account must suffer the indignity of criticism.

So nothing of Scargill's pathetic syndicalist shallowness can ever be even mentioned in front of the working class (where obviously non-stop critique and assessment of EVERY position adopted by ALL participants in the struggle to provide a correct analysis of the world and thereby correct leadership of the workers movement should take place, - as was the making of Marxist-Leninist science in the first place).

Nevertheless, all of this Lalkar/SLP shambling political/theoretical mess and cover-up will doubtlessly be declared even so to be 'closer to the real working class' than the EPSR's alleged 'sectarian isolation'.

A new meaning emerges for this sad and empty workerist posture: - close enough to the working class to constantly treat it with contempt like so much garbage-fodder.

The Lalkar/SLP October Revolution rally in Leicester 10 days ago provided a prize example. The leaflet contained a substantial, impressive and moving text on the heroic, history-making, and undying achievements of the world's first workers state, all profoundly correct.

But when it came to the crucial question of why workers in 1999 should be concerned with something which 'no longer exists and which failed' (in common close-to-the-working-class parlance), the leaflet consciously and contemptuously just bottles out. With no mention of any mistakes or wrong turnings to spoil the lovely picture, the leaflet suddenly declares:

"The once mighty USSR finally collapsed in 1991 for reasons which need not be gone into here".

But going into those reasons and how to avoid them ever happening again to the workers states of the future, (the advocacy of which is the whole point of this October anniversary rally and leaflet), is undoubtedly the burning issue which not only workers attending would want to read and hear about, but which the working class of the whole world is still, in one sense, bursting to find out more about, — so perplexing but also so potentially enriching is the whole question of why the final bureaucratic-revisionist leadership had the character that it did, and why it effectively decided to self-liquidate as it did.

And all of the answers, of course, go right the way back to Stalin's degenerate bureaucratic-revisionist 'theories' (enshrined in 'Economic Problems') which 'justified' his opportunist retreat from Marxist-Leninist world revolutionary perspectives.

The Soviet workers state did not "collapse" at all. Utter nonsense. It was betrayed from within by bureaucratic-Revisionist leadership which ultimately took Stalin's opportunist retreat (from too much stress on further REVOLUTIONARY anti-imperialist struggle worldwide into class-collaborative compromise notions of 'peaceful roads to socialism') to its logical conclusion of Gorbachev's 'seeking to combine the best of socialism and capitalism in our common European home for the better advantage of all of us', etc, and dismantling the dictatorship of the proletariat as a gesture of 'democratising' goodwill, thereby introducing instant total catastrophe for the whole 280 million ordinary people of the former Soviet Union.

Another convenient aspect for these Lalkar Scargillists in their mealy-mouthed dumbing down, - so contemptuously of the 'real working class' that the SLP is supposedly so close to, - is, of course, the reluctance of Scargill & Co themselves to ever get drawn into discussions or comment about such crucial matters for the whole future understanding of the struggle for socialism as the question of a workers state and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This mutually-supportive interest (between Scargillism's 'left' reformist posturing and Lalkar's museum-Stalinist cover-up of difficult historical questions for all Revisionist retreaters) in pretending that a serious and sincere dedication to world socialist revolution does not 'always' need to be harping on revolutionary struggle (even occasionally would not have been bad in the long years of Stalinist bureaucratic degeneracy, or in the SLP's case either) has now been apologised for on the grounds of 'smart Marxist tactics', with the added accusation that the Lenin quotes of EPSR 1021 (issue before last) insisting that the revolution's aims should monopolise at least 80% of all tactical reformist agitation and propaganda, were all 'inappropriate' and 'taken from the wrong period', implying that their 1916 date clearly implied an on-the-eve-of-revolution situation where the stress in the quotes on revolutionary consciousness was 'obviously inevitable' but that completely different Lenin tactics were in operation ten years earlier (implying that Bolshevik 'willingness for straightforward reformist agitational pressure' smartly kept off 'too much revolutionary emphasis' for tactical reasons, etc)

It is complete anti-revolutionary hogwash.

It is clearly part of the very definition of Marxist tactics to understand that calls for guerrilla war, or armed uprisings on the streets, or constant political general strikes, etc, etc, are just ultra-left posturing and not serious revolution-work at all if the situation is completely inappropriate for such calls.

But to extend such an obvious basic grasp of objective Marxist materialism into the suggestion that all emphasis on revolutionary agitation and education was sometimes dropped in favour of lesser reformist demands in the interests of broad-front collaboration and strategic step-by-step 'gains' is an outrageous Revision of Marxism.

Such quotes cannot be found. Marxism-Leninism scientifically grasps the exclusively REVOLUTIONARY nature/driving force of society's great 'reformist' progress, and NEVER stopped repeatedly saying so, explicitly insisting that the working class AT ALL TIMES needed REVOLUTIONARY education, and nothing else, - whatever tactical period was having to be gone through. At any date, Lenin is fighting for one thing only, - the OPEN advance of working-class REVOLUTIONARY CONSCIOUSNESS:

 § 12. We neither can nor will help “in every way” to improve the conditions of the workers under the present circumstances. For instance, we cannot help in the Zubatov62 fashion, and even if Zubatov corruption is involved we shall not do that. We fight only for such improvement of the workers' conditions as will raise their capacity to wage the class struggle, i.e., when the improvement of conditions is not bound up with corruption of political consciousness, with police tutelage, with being tied down to a given locality, with subjugation to a “benefactor", with a lowering of human dignity, etc.. etc. Precisely in Russia, where the autocracy is so much inclined (and is becoming more and more inclined) to buy itself off from revolution with various handouts and sham reforms, it is our duty to draw a clear line of demarcation between ourselves and all sorts of “reformers." We also fight for reforms, but by no means “in every way"; we fight for reforms only in Social-Democratic fashion, only in a revolutionary way.

 § 14 formulates the content and the tasks of economic agitation in too narrow a way. The latter is not confined to strikes alone. We need “better conditions," not only for the cultural development of the proletariat, but particularly for its revolutionary development. The “active role” of Social-Democrats in strikes does not end with encouraging the struggle for improvements in economic conditions. Strikes (like economic agitation in general) should always be used to encourage the revolutionary struggle for freedom and for socialism as well. Strikes should be used for political agitation also.

§ 15 is also most unsatisfactory. Strikes are not the “best” means of struggle, but only one of the means, and not always necessarily one of the best means. We must recognise the importance of strikes, make use of them and lead them at all times—but it would be all the more dangerous to exaggerate their importance, the more this has been done by the “economists.”

What is said further about strikes is redundant: it has already been stated in § 14. A reference to leadership of the economic struggle in general would have been sufficient. This leadership may sometimes consist in deterring from strike action. The programme expresses itself in too absolute a fashion, and for this very reason too restrictedly. The programme should have spoken about the task in general, that of leading the economic struggle of the proletariat, of making it more organised and conscious, of organising workers' trade unions and endeavouring to develop them into all-Russian organisations, of utilising every strike, every manifestation of economic oppression, etc., for the most widespread socialist and revolutionary propaganda and agitation.

The end of § 15 limits the tasks of this agitation, making the use of political agitation depend, as it were, on action by the police, etc. Actually, however, we must try to use political agitation (and this is quite possible if the leaders are at all capable) before action by these "archangels”, and irrespective of that action. It should have been formulated more generally: “to take advantage of all and every opportunity for political agitation,” etc.

The end of § 15 is also incorrect. It is the less fitting for us to speak of “general strikes,” the less opportunity we in Russia have of preparing them. And, in general, there is no reason for speaking specially about “general” strikes in programmes (remember the absurd “general strike” in the pamphlet, Who Will Carry Out the Political Revolution?63 After all, such misunderstandings are also possible). To declare that strikes are “the best means of developing class-consciousness” is also absolutely incorrect.

As a whole, a serious revision of the programme would be highly desirable. In general it would also be desirable for the Northern League to take an active part both in the unification of revolutionary Social-Democracy in a party and in the preparation of the Party programme.
Apr. 1902 A letter to the Northern League

Struve is absolutely incapable of understanding the revolutionary attitude towards half-hearted reforms undertaken for the purpose of avoiding a revolution. To Mr. Struve every reference to the double game played by the reformers from above appears to be Slavophilism and reaction, just as all the European Yves Guvots declare the socialist criticism of private property to be reactionary! It is, of course, not surprising that once Mr. Struve has become a reformer, he has lost the ability to understand the dual nature of reforms and their significance as an instrument to strengthen the domination of the rulers, strengthen it at the price of granting reforms. But... there was a time when Mr. Struve understood this amazingly cunning manoeuvre. That was long ago, when he was “a bit of a Marxist,” and when we fought together against the Narodniks in the columns of the now defunct Novoye Slovo.124

Vodovozov viewed the idea of social reform in the abstract, divorced from the real social forces that create it. That is why he considered Catholic socialism in the main a peculiar ideological movement in favour of social reform and not a specific form of preventative reaction to the growing working-class movement on the part of the European bourgeoisie, and partly also of the remnants of European feudalism....” So you see: in the distant past, at the time of his youthful infatuations, Mr. Struve understood that reforms may be a preventative reaction, i.e., a measure to prevent the ruling classes from falling, and directed against the revolutionary class, even though it does improve the condition of this class. I put it to the reader: who, then, is right? Was it “revolutionary phrase-mongering” I indulged in when I exposed the reformist one-sidedness of Mr. Struve's attitude towards a reform such as the Zemstvo, or has Mr. Struve become wiser and abandoned “once and for all” the position of a revolutionary which he at one time defended.
1903 Mr. Struve exposed by his colleague

“We must choose”—this is the argument the opportunists have always used to justify themselves, and they are using it now. Big things cannot be achieved at one stroke. We must fight for small but achievable things. How do we know whether they are achievable? They are achievable if the majority of the political parties, or of the most “influential” politicians, agree with them. The larger the number of politicians who agree with some tiny improvement, the easier it is to achieve it. We must not be Utopians and strive after big things. We must be practical politicians; we must join in the demand for small things, and these small things will facilitate the fight for the big ones. We regard the small things us the surest stage in the struggle for big things.

That is how all the opportunists, all the reformists, argue; unlike the revolutionaries. That is how the Right-wing Social-Democrats argue about a Duma Cabinet. The demand for a constituent assembly is a big demand. It cannot be achieved immediately. By no means everyone is consciously in favour of this demand.* But the whole State Duma, that is to say, the vast majority of politicians—that is to say “the whole people"—is in favour of a Duma Cabinet. We must choose—between the existing evil and a very small rectification of it, because the largest number of those who are in general dissatisfied with the existing evil are in favour of this “very small” rectification. And by achieving the small thing, we shall facilitate our struggle for the big one.

We repeat: this is the fundamental, the typical argument of all opportunists all over the world. To what conclusion does this argument inevitably lead? To the conclusion that we need no revolutionary programme, no revolutionary party, and no revolutionary tactics. What we need are reforms, nothing more. We do not need a revolutionary Social-Democratic Party. What we need is a party of democratic and socialist reforms. Indeed, is it not clear that there will always be people who admit that the existing state of affairs is unsatisfactory? Of course, always. Is it not also clear that the largest number of discontented people will always he in favour of the smallest rectification of this unsatisfactory situation? Of course, always. Consequently, it is our duty, the duty of advanced and “class-conscious” people, always to support the smallest demands for the rectification of an evil. This is the surest and most practical policy to pursue; and all talk about “fundamental" demands, and so forth, is merely the talk of “Utopians”, merely “revolutionary phrase-mongering”. We must choose—and we must always choose between the existing evil and the most moderate of the schemes in vogue for its rectification.
    
That is exactly how the German opportunist Social-Democrats argued. They said, in effect: There is a social-liberal trend which demands the repeal of the anti-socialist laws, a reduction of the working day, insurance against illness, and so on. A fairly large section of the bourgeoisie supports these demands. Do not repel it by tactless conduct, offer it a friendly hand, support it, and then you will be practical politicians, you will achieve small, but real benefits for the working class, and the only thing that will suffer from your tactics will be the empty words about “revolution”. You cannot make a revolution now, in any case. One must choose between reaction and reform.

The French ministerial socialists argued exactly like the Bernsteinians. They said in effect: We must choose between reaction and the bourgeois radicals, who promise a number of practical reforms. We must support these radicals, support their Cabinets; phrases about social revolution are merely the chatter of "Blanquists”, “anarchists”, “Utopians”, and so forth.

What is the main flaw in all these opportunist arguments? It is that in fact they substitute the bourgeois theory of “united”, “social” progress for the socialist theory of the class struggle as the only real driving force of history. According to the theory of socialism, i.e., of Marxism (non-Marxist socialism is not worth serious discussion nowadays), the real driving force of history is the revolutionary class struggle; reforms are a subsidiary product of this struggle, subsidiary because they express unsuccessful attempts to weaken, to blunt this struggle, etc. According to the theory of bourgeois philosophers, the driving force of progress is the unity of all elements in society who realise the “imperfections" of certain of its institutions. The first theory is materialist; the second is idealist. The first is revolutionary; the second is reformist. The first serves as the basis for the tactics of the proletariat in modern capitalist countries. The second serves as the basis of the tactics of the bourgeoisie.

A logical deduction from the second theory is the tactics of ordinary bourgeois progressives: always and everywhere support “what is better”; choose between reaction and the extreme Right of the forces that are opposed to reaction. A logical deduction from the first theory is that the advanced class must pursue independent revolutionary tactics. We shall never reduce our tasks to that of supporting the slogans of the reformist bourgeoisie that are most in vogue. We pursue an independent policy and put forward only such reforms as are undoubtedly favourable to the interests of the revolutionary struggle, that undoubtedly enhance the independence, class-consciousness and fighting efficiency of the proletariat. Only by such tactics can reforms from above, which are always half-hearted, always hypocritical, and always conceal some bourgeois or police snare, he made innocuous.

More than that. Only by such tactics can real progress be achieved in the matter of important reforms. This may sound paradoxical, but its truth is confirmed by the whole history of the international Social-Democratic movement. Reformist tactics are the least likely to secure real reforms. The most effective way to secure real reforms is to pursue the tactics of the revolutionary class struggle. Actually, reforms are won as a result of the revolutionary class struggle, as a result of its independence, mass force and steadfastness. Reforms are always false, ambiguous and permeated with the spirit of Zubatovism31; they are real only in proportion to the intensity of the class struggle. By merging our slogans with those of the reformist bourgeoisie we weaken the cause of revolution and, consequently, the cause of reform as well, because we thereby diminish the independence, fortitude and strength of the revolutionary classes.

Some readers may ask: Why repeat these elementary principles of international revolutionary Social-Democracy? Our answer is: Because Golos Truda and many Menshevik comrades tend to forget them.

To forget the real significance of such a reform, as an attempt on the part of the Cadets to strike a bargain with the autocracy, means substituting the liberal-bourgeois philosophy of progress for Marxism. By supporting such a reform, by including it among our slogans, we dim the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat and weaken its independence and fighting capacity. By upholding our old revolutionary slogans in their entirety, we strengthen the actual struggle, and thereby increase the probability of reforms and the possibility of turning them to the advantage of the revolution, and not of reaction. 
June 1906    Once again about the Duma cabinet
             
The aim of the proletarian party is not to do deals or haggle with the powers that be, not to engage in the hopeless patching-up of the regime of the feudalist-bourgeois dictatorship of counter-revolution, but to develop in every way the class-consciousness, the socialist clarity of thought, the revolutionary determination and all-round organisation of the mass of the workers. Every step in the activity of the Duma group must serve this fundamental aim. Therefore more attention must be paid to promoting the aims of socialist revolution from the Duma rostrum. Efforts must be made to ensure that speeches should more often be heard from the Duma rostrum propagandising the fundamental conceptions and aims of socialism, namely, of scientific socialism.

The group must not whittle down its slogans and the demands of our Party's minimum programme, but draft and introduce its Social-Democratic Bills (and also amendments to Bills of the government and the other parties), in order to unmask to the masses the hypocrisy and falseness of social-reformism, in order to draw the masses into independent economic and political mass struggle, which alone can bring real gains to the workers or transform half-hearted and hypocritical ‘reforms' under the existing system into strong-points for an advancing working-class movement towards the complete emancipation of the proletariat.
June4 1909 Conference of the extended editorial board of Proletary 

It is a foul distortion to tell the working class that the Lenin quotes in EPSR 1021 were 'untypical' and from a 'special period, with special circumstances'. In terms of dates, 1910 is obviously near to 1917 but as late as January 1917 Lenin is famously down on record as still regretting little signs of revolutionary mass spontaneous activity anywhere, and imagining it might be another ten years before any explosive uprisings might occur. The world-shattering February Revolution, 1917, which brought the 800-year Tsarist empire crashing down, erupted just days later. So nothing about those quotes can be dismissed as "on the eve of revolution" 'special' conditions. The above quotes demonstrate the same point. The aim of the only real socialists, Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, is TOTALLY DOMINATED AT ALL TIMES by one thing only, to further the REVOLUTIONARY CONSCIOUSNESS of the working class and all who want social progress.

Build Leninism. A. Lea

World Socialist Review
 (Edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles)

In April 2000, the South Summit will be held in Havana, and for that purpose the member countries of the Group of 77, plus China, are now meeting. This is the message that President Fidel Castro sent to the dignitaries in the current United Nations General Assembly session.

As we stand on the threshold of a new millenium, we face the enormous challenges arising from a unipolar world order and a globalization process that advances impetuously, shaping up a world with greater technological potential than ever before but also with greater inequalities and exclusions.

With its impressive technological achievements, globalization holds tremendous potential for development, the eradication of poverty and fostering well being in conditions of social equality for all humanity. Never before had the world commanded today's formidable technological resources.

However, the world is still very far from materializing the potentials of globalization. It develops today under the aegis of neoliberal policies that impose unregulated markets and unbridled privatization.

Far from promoting the expansion of development throughout an increasingly interdependent world badly in need of sharing the progresses achieved, neoliberal globalization has aggravated existing inequalities and raised to inordinate heights social inequities and the most irritating contrasts between extreme wealth and extreme poverty.

In 1960, the difference of incomes between the wealthiest 20% of the world's population living in the developed countries and those of the poorest 20% living in the Third World was 30 to 1. By 1997, that ratio was 74 to 1.

The cult of deregulated markets had promised a progressive convergence of development levels. However, the last two decades have brought an even greater concentration of revenues and resources of all kinds and a wider gap between developed and underdeveloped nations.

The OECD member countries, with 19% of the world's population, account, for 71% of the international trade in goods and services, 58% of direct foreign investment and 91% of all Internet users.

It is obvious that the opportunities offered by globalization are distributed very unevenly in the conditions created by the cult of market competitiveness and the reduction of the governments role to passive recipients of decisions taken by the financial power centers.

Third World external debt and the heavy burden imposed by interest payments are truly suffocating for many of our countries; the international monetary and financial system, frequently shaken by financial crises that destabilize the world economy and hit the poor countries with particularly brutal force; the multilateral trade system, currently dominated by extreme liberalization measures imposed by developed countries and which they themselves violate on a daily basis through selective protectionism; and the unfavorable trends in the price of commodities, in a world market increasingly controlled by large transnational corporations whose annual sales exceed the gross domestic product of many of our countries.

The inequalities and dangers contained in the prevailing rules for trade in services and intellectual property, as well as the reduction of official development assistance to levels that fall increasingly short of the commitments made by the developed countries are equally relevant issues that call for an analysis.

The South needs the South. Cooperation among our nations is one of the areas to which the Havana Summit should make the greatest contribution through concrete action and innovative mechanisms. The promotion of South-South cooperation is instrumental in sharing our experiences and capabilities.

We urgently need to confront the extreme poverty of our group of countries concerning global information networks, Internet and all the state-of-the-art means for disseminating information and images. That shining world where knowledge and images are thus exchanged remains unfamiliar and out of reach to our countries.

This extreme inequality rests on the meager opportunities for development oriented research. A mere 10 countries account for 84% of worldwide spending on research and development.

The new communications technologies have divided the world into those who are, and those who are not connected  to the global networks.

Being connected to this knowledge and participating in a true globalization of information that amounts to real sharing as opposed to exclusion, and that puts an end to the widespread 'brain drain' is a strategic imperative for the survival of our cultural identities in the coming century.

For Cuba, it is vitally important that the 133 countries that make up the Group of 77 discuss their views on these decisive issues and adopt common strategies to defend their interests in this unipolar world, characterized by increasingly obvious attempts by a small minority to wipe out the principles of International Law enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, which has presided over relations among all countries for over half a century. Actually, not only the principles of international law are in jeopardy but also the very existence of small and medium-sized states. They are even demanded to stop breathing, so that huge transnational companies and a few over-powerful states under the aegis of one of them, can make all the decisions. Such a philosophy is inadmissible and unsustainable.

The South Summit in Havana will provide a favorable environment to coordinate our positions with a view to the Millenium Assembly and Summit and in defense of a world where social justice and real possibilities for development are available to all the peoples on Earth. Cuba can offer the Group of 77 its experience in the area of cooperation. Just in health care, over 25,000 Cuban doctors have provided their services in dozens of Third World countries. There are currently over 1200 doctors and other health care specialists offering those services free of charge in Central America, Haiti, and northern sub-Saharan Africa. By the same token, several thousand more are ready to take on the same task. They do not work in national capitals or big cities but rather in villages, townships and isolated settlements, where they are needed most. Millions of lives can be saved with this modest yet sincere gesture of solidarity that contributing the necessary human resources.

At present, a total of 2000 students from 18 countries throughout the region are already studying in a Latin American Medical School recently established in Havana. That figure will grow to 3000 within a few months, and in three more years, the number of Caribbean and Latin American medical students in Cuba will reach 6000. In Africa, we are cooperating in the creation and development of higher education institutions in the medical field.

We are also working tirelessly in the development of vaccines against AIDS and a number of lethal tropical diseases. A new concept on the role of doctors in human society is developing with irrepressible force.

A similar plan to encourage the development of physical education and sports in the Third World is already in progress. It includes both sending highly specialized trainers to other countries and the establishment of a high level school in Cuba to train young people from other countries as physical education and sports instructors. Cooperation in the training of scientific and technical personnel is expanding to other sectors as well.

We have practically completed and will soon be trying out a system to teach reading and writing by radio. Thus, with an extremely small number of teachers and a low spending in financial and material resources, it would be possible to bring the gift of literacy to hundreds of millions of people in the Third World living in isolated areas. To do so in any other way would require millions of teachers and billions of dollars a year, something completely beyond reach.

I hope you will forgive me for referring to these data. I simply wanted to point out how infinite our possibilities are and how much can be achieved with a bit of international cooperation and a spirit of solidarity. Cuba is but a small country, which has endured 40 years of uninterrupted, rigorous and relentless economic warfare. What would we not be able to attain if our countries worked closely united? We would not only be able to preserve our current civilization. but also ensure the very survival of the species.

The only way to succeed in making ourselves heard, in fighting for our interests, and in defending our right to life, development and culture is to stand united.

We hope that along with my sincerest greetings and respect, each one of you will pass on to your Heads of State and Government these reflections, as well as Cuba's sincere wishes to welcome them all in Havana next April, as promised when we agreed to host that meeting.                       

World Socialist Review
(Edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles)

Irish national-liberation struggle pushes its self-determination cause into the north Assembly phase, Republican News reports.

Sinn Féin is not a purely parliamentary party and republicans have no intention of being cornered in the cul-de-sac of parliamentarianism. The lessons of Irish history and our own contemporary experience of political struggle have made us all too aware of the folly of such a singular course of action.

The Six-County Assembly is for republicans but another front in the struggle for Irish unity, a struggle which has many other avenues for the pursuit of our objectives. Sinn Féin is not a purely parliamentary party and republicans have no intention of being cornered in the cul-de-sac of parliamentarianism. The lessons of Irish history and our own contemporary experience of political struggle have made us all too aware of the folly of such a singular course of action. Sinn Féin has always been and remains a campaigning party. It has been through campaigns that its greatest successes have been recorded over the years and campaigns around the pressing issues will be essential in the coming months....

Nothing can be taken for granted in the days ahead. None of the gains that have been made would have been made without struggle. The danger of complacency setting in among those who have political responsibility must be guarded against. 

The great strides which have been made towards building a lasting peace by providing a path to justice in Ireland must now be consolidated and built upon.

The Six-County Assembly and the Executive should not be seen as the 'be all or end all' for Sinn Féin in the days that lie ahead. All of these institutions are entered into by Sinn Féin on the basis of further pursuing republican objectives. The core objective of republicans remains a united, independent and sovereign Ireland.

Sinn Féin cannot afford to be distracted from its task of building a 32-County political struggle. Nor will it.

The Six-County Assembly, just like Leinster House, is merely another vehicle through which Sinn Féin intends to represent the interests of Irish republicanism. The uneven development of Sinn Féin in the two states in Ireland may have obscured the reality that the 26 Counties is as important an arena of struggle for republicans as the occupied North. This is something which Sinn Féin is determined to overcome. Sinn Féin must seek to increase its party political strength North and South and to increase its level of representation at all levels of government in both states.

Unlike those who were frustrated by the banality of the Assembly republicans never had any illusions about its place in the wider scheme of things. Sinn Féin's strategy is to pursue the Good Friday Document to its outer limits. This involves relentless pursuit of short and medium-term objectives such as the establishment of all-Ireland structures, the abolition of the RUC and delivery of the equality agenda. The Assembly is a forum where these issues will be thrashed out and through which attention will be drawn to them.

The entirely reasonable nature of nationalist political demands for justice and equality can only be further highlighted through the Assembly debates and coverage of them. Apart from continuing with the task of building Sinn Féin's strength throughout the 32 Counties, republicans must not cease in deepening our contacts with other political forces and constantly working to strengthen the Irish nationalist consensus. Republicans must ensure that Dublin does not now take its eye off the ball in relation to the North. We need to seek a continued and increased focus by the Dublin government, and indeed all of the Leinster House parties in the day-to-day affairs of the Six Counties in the time that lies ahead. Sinn Féin will continue to push the case for representation in the Oireachtas for residents of the Six Counties. This is an important issue for northern nationalists and would be a concrete expression in the post-Good-Friday era of the promises made to nationalists of the North by the Dublin government.

There is a significant element within the SDLP whose inclination would be to view the Good Friday Document and the institutions which have arisen from it as a political settlement. They are vulnerable to the traps of parliamentarianism and cannot be allowed to evade the need to pursue continued political progress towards justice and a national democracy.

The struggle for peace with justice has entered a new phase. It is still a significant way to the achievement of republican goals. What is needed now are those qualities which have seen us through the worst and the best of the past 30 years — dedication, patience, loyalty, courage, flexibility, integrity and above all our clear vision and total commitment to a free and united Ireland.

Conversely the spotlight should also be thrown on the naked sectarianism and blind obduracy of those reactionary unionist politicians who will attempt to limit the scope and application of the Good Friday Agreement and who will use their numbers in the assembly as a block to political progress.