108991491 new interventions volume 11 no 4

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New InterventionsVolume 11, no 4, Autumn 2004

Current Business The European constitution the left and the elections the crisis in Iraq Respect and Islam Europe and British politics counterfactual history Israel and anti-Semitism

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Al Richardson, A Forgotten Work of Leon Trotsky 18

Introducing Trotskys History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk

John Sullivan, Rolling Your Own 23

Handy hints for setting up a left-wing group

Walter Kendall, Isaac Deutscher as a Prophet 25

How Isaac Deutscher got the Soviet Union wrong

Eric Shelton Jones (1919-2003) 29

Remembering a former New Interventions Editorial Board member

CLR James, Intervening in Abyssinia 31

An article and a letter on the war in Abyssinia

Paul Flewers, A Happy Land Far Far Away 35

Fellow-travelling with Sir Bernard Pares and Sidney and Beatrice Webb

A Basic Guide to the Butler Report 50

Lord Butlers Report on the Iraq WarLoren Goldner, Didnt See the Same Movie 51

The strange story of Maoism in the USA

Glyn Beagley, Workers Democracy in the Revolutionary Process 62Democracy and workers revolution the Russian and Spanish exam-

ples

Nigel Balchin, Trotsky or Notsky 83

Taking the mickey out of the Moscow Trials

Paul Flewers, Paul Foot (1937-2004) 85

Farewell to an irreplaceable figure

Reviews Rod Shearmans songs, the Yugoslav catastrophe, British tradeunionism, democracy and the Third World, the story of Gareth Jones

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Letters Iraq and the USA, the left in New Zealand 97


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Current Business

The Proposed European Union Constitution

THE government has decided to allow a referendum on the draft European Consti-tution, although they do not say when this is going to be held. Socialists must de-cide, nonetheless, whether to recommend a Yes or a No vote.

It should be said at the outset that a referendum is a crazy way to proceed,since the draft contains many provisions that are unexceptionable alongside a num-ber of insalutary ones, so that asking people to accept or reject it wholesale is some-thing of an insult. In what follows, I will try to indicate some sections which deserveour support, as well as those we should condemn.

The first obnoxious feature of the draft Constitution lies in the procedure foramending it. A proper EU Constitution ought to finish once and for all with the pro-cedure whereby every time fundamental changes are tabled in the EU, a new treatyhas to be negotiated. This method inevitably leads to progress at the pace of theslowest, and affords ample scope for nationalist objections and roadblocks. Insteadof recognising this, Article IV-7 provides for the signing of a new treaty to amend theconstitution as and when required. A much better way would be to have a vote onthe amendments in the European Parliament, changes to be adopted on a two-thirdsmajority. It should also be possible to propose constitutional amendments in nation-al parliaments, to be sent afterwards to the European Parliament.

None of this was to the liking of the special European Convention which draft-ed the Constitution, the reason being that in its view the EU was still significantly aEurope des patries, as General de Gaulle once famously expressed it. The constituentnation-states still determine the political direction of the EU: the EU powerhouse isnot the Parliament, nor even the Commission, but the Council of Ministers, which iscontrolled by the various national governments. The draft Constitution proposesthat decisions in the Council of Ministers shall be taken by qualified majority, that is,either a bloc constituting 62 per cent of the population of the EU or two-thirds of themembers of the Council of Ministers as well (Articles I-22, 24). (This proposal firmsup what, very broadly, happens now.) Short of abolishing all national governmentsand having an EU-wide ministry commanding a majority in the EU Parliament, one

cannot envisage the abolition of the Council of Ministers, and that may not even bedesirable there are arguments for and against but what one can do is work to-wards the diminution of the Council of Ministers powers. The EU Parliamentshould, in the immediate future, be the locus of sovereignty within the EU.

Under the draft Constitution, it is envisaged that the EU Parliament will havenot more than 736 members (under current proposals the number is 732). This seemsa shade large, and points to the somewhat unwieldy nature of a grouping of 25states. It would make more sense to split up the continent into some four distinct re-gional groupings, viz: A West European Federation, comprising the Iberian Peninsula, France, Britain

and Ireland (possibly), the Benelux countries, Germany, Switzerland, Austria,Italy and Malta with the possible addition of Poland and the Czech Repub-


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lic. A Scandinavian Federation, including the Baltic States and possibly also Britain

and Ireland. An East European Federation (Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, the states of the

North Caucasus, plus possibly Poland and the Czech Lands). A Balkan Federation.But all this is music of the future: right now we are saddled with the current set-up,with a Parliament to match. A key requirement is that the powers of this Parliamentbe maximised. It is allowed under the draft Constitution to elect the CommissionPresident (Article I-19). It should be given the power to ratify all the Commissionersas well, and, contrary to Article I-33, should have power to override the Council ofMinisters in cases where the two bodies are in conflict. It should also be allowed toappoint the EU Foreign Minister, a role reserved in the draft for the otherwise whol-ly advisory European Council a body which would appear to serve no usefulpurpose whatever (see Article I-20). The EU Parliament should also be empoweredto remove individual commissioners if so desired, not being obliged (as at present)to sack the whole Commission if it wishes to censure that body (see Article I-25.5).

Interestingly, the draft Constitution specifies a procedure whereby states canwithdraw from the EU if they wish. This procedure should be retained.

The draft contains a Charter of Fundamental Rights, containing much that so-cialists would support, and one formulation that they would not endorse. The draftspeaks of the need to promote balanced and sustainable development involvingfree movement of persons, goods, services and capital (Preamble).

Article III-46, however, states that: The European Parliament and the Councilof Ministers shall endeavour to achieve the objective of free movement of capital be-tween Member States and third countries to the greatest extent possible and without

prejudice to other provisions of the Constitution.The right of free movement of capital is thus qualified, even if it can apparentlymove unhindered between EU member states. It will presumably be up to the judi-cial authorities to resolve any disputes that may arise in this area, but we cannot relyon the judges to rule in the desired direction. What the working class requires is aclause upholding the right to work, with provision for adequate income for thoseunemployed or disabled or otherwise unable to work. Such a clause requires para-mount status. It is here that we see the real deficiencies of the draft, not in the re-strictions upon national sovereignty, or voting rights in the Council of Ministers.

Similar objections can be made as regards the EU competition rules as set out.Article I-3 upholds a single market where competition is free and undistorted, asdoes Article III-69 on economic and monetary policy. Furthermore, Article III-70states that: Member states shall conduct their economic policies in order to contrib-ute to the achievement of the Unions objectives, as defined in Article I-3 TheMember States and the Union shall act in accordance with the principle of an openmarket economy with free competition, favouring an efficient allocation of resources,and in compliance with the principles set out in Article III-69.

All this is reprehensible, as it clearly prescribes any kind of democratic plan-ning. Such principles ought not to feature in the Constitution at all, and it is on thatground that the draft should be condemned in a referendum.

Similar considerations apply in the case of the independence of the European

Central Bank as set out in Article III-80. The rationale behind this, of course, is thatmonetary policy is technically complex and best left to experts but then, if so, why


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should elected representatives be given a free rein in other matters which are alsotechnical?

Per contra, there are several sections of the draft which deserve our support. Ar-ticle III-108, for example, defends the principle of equal pay; Article III-116 statesthat the Union shall aim at reducing disparities between levels of development of

the various regions and the backwardness of the least favoured regions or islands,including rural areas.

This is fine, even if virtually impossible to achieve under capitalism. The sec-tion on the environment also seems acceptable. Finally, it is worth noting that ArticleIII-193 calls on the Union to foster the sustainable economic, social and environmen-tal development of developing countries, with the primary aim of eradicating pov-erty. We cannot oppose that.

All in all, it would be better if the draft Constitution could be amended, butsince we are not given the opportunity to do this, we must reject it. The argumentthat by voting No we will reduce Britains influence in the EU to a negligible quan-tity can be treated with the contempt it deserves. Rejection, however, is insufficient.The left must intervene in any referendum with its own propaganda, calling (interalia) for: A republican United States of Europe. The Commission to be responsible to the EU Parliament. Nationalisation of banks and the subordination of the European Central Bank

to the European Parliament. Progressive taxation. A 35-hour week. A common minimum income based on the agreed decency threshold. Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. Citizenship rights for all qualified individuals resident in the EU for over sixmonths.Chris Gray

The Left and the Elections

SO-CALLED Super Thursday, 10 June 2004, saw elections for the European Parlia-ment, the Greater London Authority and a significant number of English local au-thorities. At those elections, New Labour received, in John Prescotts words, a kick-ing over the war in Iraq (with the Labour Party reportedly receiving its lowest shar eof the vote since 1918). The only bright spot in the results for Labour was winning

the London Mayor election and that was only made possible by Blair eating hum-ble pie and readmitting the wholly unrepentant Ken Livingstone to the party.Nevertheless, the results were hardly encouraging for those of us on the left

who still hope to see the Blairite project derailed at long last, and the opening up ofsubstantial political space for conventional left-of-centre politics.

There seems not the slightest possibility that Labours electoral drubbing willprecipitate the removal of Blair, lead to a change of policy on Iraq (or any other is-sue), open splits in the party or aid the emergence of a credible Labour left. The La-bour leadership remains supremely confident that the party is on course to win anunprecedented third term at the general election that will probably happen in thespring of 2005. Super Thursday showed that the opposition to Labour, from bothleft and right, remains far too weak to have any chance of dislodging this govern-ment especially given that many who abstained or registered a protest vote at


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these, relatively unimportant, elections will return to Labour when the general elec-tion comes. The smug, self-satisfied arrogance of the Labour Party establishment iscertainly galling but, sadly, in the continued absence of New Labours nemesis, itcan hardly be said to amount to hubris.

The supposed victors on 10 June, the Tories, also suffered, especially in the Eu-

ropean elections, where they lost both seats and votes to the UK Independence Par-ty. The Liberal Democrats made modest gains, but the idea that they could ever beserious contenders for government is as much a fantasy as its always been.

A section of the far left, most notably the Socialist Workers Party, invested itshopes in an organisation that appeared on ballot papers as Respect the Unity Co-alition (George Galloway), and in leaflets targeted at mosques as Respect theparty for Muslims.

Respect is an attempt to turn the heterogeneous and disparate movementagainst the war in Iraq into a coherent, and election-winning, political platform. Ac-cording to the scribes of the SWP, Respects electoral performance on 10 June fullylived up to expectations and more than justified the SWPs decision to go down thistactical road. Respect is the beginning of the politics of hope. It is the beginning of amass, left alternative to New Labour, gushed John Rees after the results were in.There is more than an element of delusion in this.

It is true that in the GLA (that is, London Mayor and London Assembly) elec-tions Respect polled somewhat better than the Socialist Alliance did in 2000 (stand-ing in the London Assembly election); and it beat the fascists of the British NationalParty in the Mayoral vote (albeit by only a whisker). But an analysis of the geograph-ical distribution of Respects vote within London makes clear that this was almostentirely because of the addition of Muslim votes. And Respect still received less thanfive per cent and won nothing.

At the council elections, held in much of England outside London, Respectstood few candidates and won not a single seat. Much has been made by the SWP ofthe fact that Respect polled well (albeit without winning) in inner-city wards of Pres-ton, Birmingham and a few other areas. Once again, these results seem to have beenentirely down to Muslim votes.

In the European elections, there is no hiding the fact that Respect did abysmal-ly. Its overall share of the vote across England and Wales was only 1.7 per cent, withregional results as low as 0.6 per cent (Wales and the South East), 0.7 per cent (theSouth West) and 0.9 per cent (Eastern). Only in London was the result anywherenear being, as it were, respectable (4.8 per cent as per Respects London Assemblyvote).

The breakdowns of the European results by local-authority district confirm thepattern apparent in Respects performance at the GLA elections, and in the few Eng-lish council wards they contested. The only areas where Respect polled more than ahandful of votes were those with significant Muslim populations. In the Eastern re-gion, for instance, Respect barely registered at all in some key working-class areas but there were significant spikes of support in Luton and Peterborough, which havesizeable Muslim communities. At the regional level, it seems clear that those regionsin which Respect did worst (Wales, the South East, the South West and Eastern) arethe ones with the smallest Muslim populations.

Attempting to build an electoral platform on the basis of effectively calling for a

vote from Muslims along sectional / religious / communal lines, as Respect appar-ently did, clearly goes way beyond forging tactical alliances with Muslim groups in


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opposition to racism, Islamophobia and war. Those socialists who supported Re-spect need to ask themselves whether this compromising of the secular traditions ofthe British left is a price worth paying for the addition of a few extra votes espe-cially when, even with those votes, Respect is still clearly incapable of actually win-ning anything.

As for the performance of rest of the left on 10 June, theres little of encourage-ment to report.

In Scotland (arguably the last remaining redoubt of the British far left), theScottish Socialist Party polled modestly well in the European elections (5.2 per cent)it didnt win, but then it hadnt expected to. These results are neither a cause forcelebration nor a reason for despondency, said the SSPs Alan McCombes. Thosesections of the left in England and Wales that supported Respect could perhaps learna thing or two from the SSP about level-headed political realism and the managingof their own members expectations of electoral success.

Dave Nellist and another Socialist Party member kept their council seats inCoventry but the Labour Party took the third sitting SP councillors seat with amajority of just 16 votes. In Lewisham, where the SP has one councillor, the partypolled 12.9 per cent in a council by-election on 10 June; but the SP candidate for theLondon Assembly in the Greenwich and Lewisham constituency polled only 2.6 percent. SP candidates in other parts of the country polled moderately well.

In Liverpool, socialists who stood as Socialist Alliance candidates failed tomake any impact. Elsewhere in the country, other elements of the SA who declinedto support Respect (mainly the Alliance for Workers Liberty) contested councilwards in a few places under the name Democratic Socialist Alliance, to little effect.

The Independent Working Class Association (essentially Red Action by anothername) stood in the London Mayor election, and predictably failed to make any im-

pression. However, the IWCA did get two more councillors elected in Oxford, add-ing to the one it already had albeit on the basis of an insipidly non-political brandof community politics.

Arthur Scargills Socialist Labour Party, which contested the European elec-tions across the country in 1999, only managed on 10 June to contest just a handful ofcouncil seats in the North West, with no success.

The Alliance for Green Socialism contested council seats in Leeds, without suc-cess, and picked up just 0.9 per cent of the vote at the European elections in theYorkshire and the Humber region.

In Wales, John Mareks Forward Wales picked up a council seat in Wrexhamand scored just 1.9 per cent in the European elections.

The sad, bleak truth is that the left in England and Wales has substantially rot-ted away at the grassroots. Most of the time, and in most places, participation inelections (long regarded on the far left as the lowest form of the class struggle) isclearly no answer to this situation. Far from being a shortcut to rebuilding the left,contesting elections with no hope of a significant vote actually serves to burn outand demoralise those activists that remain.David Turner

The New Iraqi Puppet Show

ON 28 June, two days early in order to avoid any untoward actions spoiling the cer-emony, the Interim Government took office in Baghdad. Not took power, as thatstill remains with the US forces occupying the country and with the US embassy


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with its bloated complement of 1500 American staff and another 1500 locally em-ployed staff. The Interim Government has about as much independence from Wash-ington as the old East German government had from Moscow. In short, the quislingGoverning Council has been replaced by a quisling government. The fact that one ofthe members of the government was assassinated and pot-shots aimed at others pri-

or to its inauguration shows that its puppet nature is obvious in Iraq, and the factthat the inauguration was quietly brought forward and conducted in secrecy indi-cates that neither the occupying forces nor the new government has any real controlover events in the country.

Apart from the scandal of the systematic ill-treatment of Iraqi prisoners causinggreat embarrassment for the USA and its allies around the world, there are definitesigns that important figures within the US and British ruling circles recognise thatthings have gone terribly wrong. A US Senate intelligence committee report madesevere criticisms of the CIAs intelligence upon which US government policy to-wards Iraq was based. Senior US diplomats and military leaders have openly criti-cised George W Bushs foreign policy. Bush and his teams response to the attacks of11 September 2001, their war on terror and the fiasco in Iraq have come under in-creasingly strong attacks in the US media. The use of Iraqs Weapons of Mass De-struction as a casus belli has been totally discredited, and the search for them haslong become a farce. Whatever Bushs and Tony Blairs insistence to the contrary, thelinks between the Baathist regime and al Qaeda have been shown as non-existent,and whereas Islamic hot-heads were previously kept firmly down under the for-mers stern rule, Iraq is now crawling with them. The situation in Iraq is still veryunstable, resistance to the US occupation and their puppets continues unabated, re-construction is slow, amenities and social services remain in a parlous condition, un-employment is still very high, and general discontent is evident in much of the coun-

try. Blairs behaviour has been remarkable. Showing about as much grasp of thesituation as Hitler in his Berlin bunker as the Nazi state collapsed around him, Blaircontinues to deny that he has done anything wrong, and he still pledges his total de-votion to Bush. Although the Butler Report did not actually accuse Blair and hisgovernment of deliberately misleading parliament or the public, it was no Hutton-style whitewash, and criticised both the intelligence work and government proce-dures. Like the open letter signed earlier this year by 52 leading British diplomatswhich condemned Blairs Middle East policies, the Butler Report was an indicationof the disquiet within the British ruling class at the governments involvement inBushs adventure in Iraq. If Blair wishes to ignore these warnings, it will be at hisperil.

The Interim Government in Iraq is effectively the Governing Council mark two,a carefully-selected team of US place-men. Its premier declared that he wants UStroops to stay until Iraqi forces can contain any problems, whilst Bush and his teamhave already stated that the new government will have no control over US forces inIraq. Within two months of its inauguration, the new government had imposed mar-tial law, reintroduced the death penalty, closed down Al Jazeera television, and en-dorsed a massive military assault upon Najaf. Washington is gambling on the oppo-sition to its occupation going into decline and sufficient indigenous police and mili-tary forces being built up, so that its objective of a solidly-based pro-US regime can

be achieved, with plenty of opportunity for US corporations to get their hands onIraqs vast resources.The USAs rivals are hoping that the forthcoming elections will


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produce an anti-American government in Baghdad that will demand a US with-drawal, and be more accommodating to them both diplomatically and economically.Should anti-US forces mobilise politically, we should not be surprised if the InterimGovernment postpones or even cancels the promised elections, if it appears that thepotential victors will be calling for a US withdrawal. As it stands today, a new dicta-

torship is being imposed, but it is one, however, that is totally reliant upon foreignsupport, and is facing resistance from the start.

Whatever happens, it is clear that the hopes of Bush and his neo-conservativeteam that Iraq would become a secure base from which the USA could project its de-signs in the Middle East and beyond have been severely dashed. To continue to oc-cupy Iraq, whatever fig-leaf of self-government might exist, is to court growing re-sentment in both Iraq and the region as a whole; to withdraw would be to admit de-feat and we are not talking about a minor foreign policy issue here. The SecondGulf War was to be the first major move of the New American Imperium, the controlof the Middle East as the starting-point for the extension of US imperialism on aEurasian scale. It is truly an irony of history that the quest for the New AmericanImperium has gone horribly wrong at the first real hurdle thanks to the headstrongapproach of its most fervid protagonists.Paul Flewers

A Respectable Result?

THE Respect Unity Coalition, the first major initiative launched by the SocialistWorkers Party since the death of its founder and leader Tony Cliff, has been a matterof considerable controversy on the left in Britain. Much of the left has treated Respectwith circumspection, and some of it with downright hostility, mainly over the pro-motion of George Galloway as its figurehead, particularly after his announcement

opposing abortion, its downgrading of socialism to just one of the words making upthe acronym Respect and the absence of this word in its election flyers, its mild pro-gramme, and, most of all, its orientation towards Muslims as a religious group. I willconcentrate here upon the last point.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with left-wingers working with religiousorganisations in respect of, say, a demonstration or some other single-issue cam-paign, or with religious people in day-to-day work in trade unions. Socialists wouldnot present ultimatums in such circumstances; for instance, we would not demandthat, for example, Catholics must come out in support of abortion before we willwork with them. But we cannot make concessions to our principles either, and wewould have to assert our own viewpoint if, say, Catholics started openly to opposeabortion rights, or if anyone espoused anti-gay or racist sentiments (as has been thecase with extreme Muslims), on demonstrations.

Things are different with an intervention in an election, where the left is pro-moting a broad political programme, covering all aspects of peoples lives, and pro-moting a vision of society that we would like to see come to fruition. In such circum-stances, any potential alliance with non-socialist forces must be looked at with greatcare, and no concessions can be made in respect of political principles.

So what did Respect do? A Respect flyer aimed at Muslims emphasised thatGalloway was a tee-totaller, and proudly proclaimed Respect The Party For Mus-lims. (It should be noted that no corresponding flyers aimed at Christians, Jews,

Hindus, etc, were produced.) In South London, the Respect branch reserved two ofits committee places for South London Mosque, thus not only allowing a persons


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religion to be the determining factor in his selection, but also leaving the organisa-tion vulnerable to infiltration by extreme Muslims with all their reactionary baggage.A Respect branch in north-east London tagged onto a Muslim church parade cele-brating the birth of Mohammed. A Respect branch in the Midlands entered into anelectoral lash-up with a Kashmiri communalist organisation, the Peoples Justice Par-

ty, which had just issued a flyer denouncing the Liberal Democrats on the groundsthat they defended gay rights. Respects candidate in the Leicester South by-electionwas Yvonne Ridley, whose main claim to fame was being kidnapped by the Talibanin Afghanistan, and promptly converting to Islam. One suspects that her religiousoutlook was what inclined Respect to parachute her in as the candidate, as her gen-eral political outlook remains obscure. What any of this has to do with the cause ofsocialism is anyones guess.

Some of Respects results have been good, most notably its winning 15 per centin the City and East London constituency and 12.6 per cent in Leicester South, andgaining a council seat in Stepney. It is, however, fair to ask how much of this waswon by means of the communalist orientation towards Muslims, with all that thisimplies for future elections when the Iraq business has blown over, as people votingfor a party on a specific issue and because of its specific orientation can easily switchtheir votes to another party should circumstances change. Many other results wererather poor, and it is valid to ask whether many of them would have been any worsehad the candidates stood under the Socialist Alliance banner.

Socialists defend any religious group against repression and prejudice, albeitwithout compromising our principles and without defending reactionary practicesin which religious groups may engage. However, socialists do not approach reli-gious groups as an undifferentiated mass. Going for the Muslim, Christian, Jewish,Hindu, etc, vote is utterly alien to the left-wing tradition. Touting for the Muslim

vote inevitably means orienting towards the more religious elements amongst Brit-ains Muslims, and avoiding the question of class politics. This is clear when one con-siders SWP leader Lindsey Germans words about Muslim womens involvement inthe Stop the War Coalition:

Young Muslim women, most of whom wear the hijab, have played a cen-tral role in organising, speaking at meetings, fundraising and debatingpolicy. Many say they dress in this way not out of deference but becausethey want to show pride in their culture and religion. (Guardian 13 July2004)

Germans celebration of their promotion of their culture and religion is dumb-founding. In one sense, of course, its good to see patriarchal norms being challengedby women. But its not much consolation when this challenge takes on an ultra-religious form. Whilst socialists defend the right of Muslim women to wear a hijab ifthey so desire, we must not forget that it symbolises ideas and customs far removedfrom socialism.

It is extremely unlikely that they and Muslim men politicised in a similar waywill find their way to the left. The left has long recruited people from communitieswith a religious identity, but they have customarily been those who were alreadyquestioning the communitys religious and cultural tenets from a secular direction.Not only will Respect fail to recruit devout Muslims to the left, its approach will

more likely than not repel the lefts natural constituency amongst the more secular-minded people from a Muslim background.


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Respects orienting to Muslims is an opportunist venture based upon a tempo-rary factor the war on Iraq and once that crisis is over, there will be little or nomore point of contact with them than with any other group of people. The alliancewith Muslims will come under pressure in respect of the new law against incitingreligious hatred. This law, which socialists must necessarily oppose on the grounds

that it gives religions a privileged position within society, and poses a threat to asecular approach as criticisms of any religions reactionary practices could be con-strued as inciting hatred, was largely the result of lobbying by Muslim politiciansand clerics as a misguided response to anti-Islamic sentiments. The alliance will alsobe put under pressure in respect of the question of Muslim schools. Socialists cannotdefend religious schools, as they are intended to ensure that children from one reli-gion, and one sect within any one religion, are carefully segregated from other kid-dies. Socialists demand the closure of all religious schools and the incorporation oftheir resources into the state system. Respect will carefully tip-toe around the newlaw and the calls for Muslim schools, trying to avoid these questions in order to keeptheir coalition together.

The Respect coalitions dipping into communal politics through its chasing theMuslim vote is by far the strangest venture embarked on by the SWP. It illustrates adisastrous lack of political sense and a high level of desperation on the part of thepartys leaders. It is impossible to envisage Tony Cliff thinking up something as op-portunist as this, whatever the circumstances facing the party. If the left is to makean impact both in elections and generally, it will have to do much better than this.Arthur Trusscott

Europe and British Politics

THE question of Europe has been conspicuous in the news of late, what with the

surprise electoral success of the UK Independence Party, the endorsement by the Eu-ropean Union leaders of an EU constitution, which will be voted on in EU states inthe near future, Tony Blairs announcement that there will be a referendum in Britainon the EU constitution, and his sponsorship of Peter Mandelson as a EuropeanCommissioner.

The brash unilateralist stance of the present US government has acceleratedboth the rise of the ParisBerlin axis in Europe, and the centripetal integrationisttendencies within the EU. Whilst the new constitution is not, as Europhobic com-mentators claim, a recipe for a federal Europe, it certainly points the way towardsconsiderably increased European integration.

Blair, as an uncritical Atlanticist, is sitting upon two stools that are being pulledfurther apart. He is hoping that the status quo can be maintained, that integrationcan be stalled, that transatlantic tensions can be overcome, and that Britain can optout of any EU measure that does not meet with Westminsters approval. That hisendorsement of the constitution was combined with caveats in respect of a Britishveto over foreign and defence policies, taxation, welfare and workers rights, showsthis clearly. However, further EU integration will eventually squeeze out that option;Britain will have to go along with the ParisBerlin axis, or face relegation to the farfringes of Europe with no hope of influencing events.

Blairs stance on the EU is little different to that of the mai nstream Tories, inthat both combine Atlanticism with a recognition that a British withdrawal from the

EU is a hugely problematic issue, as it would almost certainly provoke a deep eco-nomic and social crisis in Britain. Just like Blair, Michael Howard and his team hope


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that the British fudge over Europe will be able to endure. However, the Tory leaders,directly threatened by Europhobes both within and outwith their party, must por-tray Blair as little short of a Euro-federalist. Howards problems will only emergewhen he has to give a recommendation in the referendum, as he is unlikely to op-pose the constitution outright, or should, by some unlikely twist of fate, his party

win the next general election, and he has to work within the framework of the EU.The intertwined processes of deepening transatlantic tensions and accelerated

European integration will before too long lead to a profound debate within the Brit-ish ruling class in respect of the position of Britain within Europe and the widerworld. Factions will be formed, ranging from those who favour withdrawal from theEU to those favouring European federalism, with all points in between. What willstart as an internal debate within big business and the state machine will be mud-died by the way that opposition to Europe has become the focus for all manner ofright-wing views, from mild chauvinism to outright fascism.

It will not be hard for the right-wing press to whip up anti-EU sentiments, seiz-ing on justified complaints that the pro-EU brigade delicately avoid tackling cor-ruption, bureaucracy, pointless meddling along with silly scare stories and out-right chauvinism. The pro-EU lobby cannot respond in kind, as it is extremely diffi-cult to enthuse the general public about institutional Europe. Pulled on the one sideby pro-EU forces within big business and the state and the pressure of European in-tegration, pulled on the other by a strong Europhobic press and public opinion andcontinuing Atlanticist sentiments, and mindful of the focusing of right-wing ideasthrough the prism of Europe, any future British government will have a difficulttime steering through a veritable political minefield. The debate over Europe will in-troduce a high degree of instability within British politics.Paul Flewers

Marxism and Counterfactual History

THE appearance of a collection of counterfactual essays under the editorship of An-drew Roberts, What Might Have Been: Imaginary History From Twelve Leading Histori-ans (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004), provoked an angry response from the radicalacademic Tristram Hunt in the Guardian on 7 April. Branding, slightly inaccurately,the contributors as a ragged bunch of right-wing historians, Hunt accuses them ofpresenting history as wishful thinking, providing little insight into the decision-making processes of the past, but pointing up preferable alternatives and lamentingtheir failure to come to pass.

Roberts collection is not the most inspiring of its kind, and does not measureup in depth to, for example, Niall Fergusons much more substantial collection Vir-tual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (Macmillan, 1998). It does show the prej-udices of its young fogey editor, as Roberts, like Ferguson before him, and seem-ingly using the same quotes as Ferguson from EH Carr and Eric Hobsbawm (the onefrom EP Thompson was in too unparliamentary language to be repeated here, Rob-erts says), rails against Marxists for having the cheek to denounce the concept ofimaginary pasts when we peddle the most ludicrous of all imaginary futures,where the state withers away leaving the dictatorship of the very class of peopleleast qualified to exercise power. Leaving aside his snobbish assertion about thecongenital inability of workers to wield power, and also his ignorance of basic Marx-ism it is painful to have to tell a learned historian that Marx and Engels consid-ered that the dictatorship of the proletariat withers away alongside the state, and


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that communism emerges as the state and the division of humanity into social clas-ses disappear it must be emphasised that authentic Marxism does not rule out thepossibility of alternative courses of history.

Of course, if one restricts oneself to Plekhanovs terribly mechanistic view inThe Role of the Individual in History, whereby if Robespierre or Napoleon keeled over,

another one would come along in a minute the individual in history as a Londonbus and the Stalinist view that history inexorably led up to Stalin (or Mao, orHoxha), then Marxism might be interpreted thus. However, in his key work TheThird International After Lenin, Trotsky provides a different perspective. After ventur-ing that the October Revolution was the result of a particular relation of class forcesin Russia and in the whole world and their particular development within the pro-cess of the First World War, he declared:

Nevertheless, there is no contradiction whatever between Marxism andposing, for instance, such a question as: would we have seized power inOctober had not Lenin arrived in Russia in time? There is much to indi-cate that we might not have been able to seize power.

Vulgar materialists might wish to exclude the role of individuals within historicalprocesses, but Marxism does not deny the role of individuals in history; it rather at-tempts to explain their role within the general course of the historical process, tocomprehend how the actions of an individual at a certain juncture can affect thecourse of history. The role of Lenin in Russia in 1917 is a case in point.

As luck would have it, Roberts or Andrei Simonovich Robertski, as hesomewhat excruciatingly calls himself at one point tackles this very topic, and hasLenin assassinated by a certain Lev Harveivic Oswalt (no, it actually gets worse) on

his return to Russia in April 1917. Roberts course of events is, one must admit, im-aginative. We have the Provisional Government, led by Kerensky and includingPrince Lvov, Miliukov, Guchkov and the rest, withdrawing from the First WorldWar in April 1917, renouncing its territorial claims upon Turkey, permitting thepeasants to seize the land, giving the workers councils legal parity with the indus-trialists, and jailing employers who staged lock-outs. The Bolsheviks themselveslined up with the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries behind the government,and, in the hopeless atmosphere of a burgeoning liberal democracy, disbanded theirparty in the mid-1920s. And with a sense of humour that clearly has not risen abovethat of an undergraduate rag-mag (I did warn you), he has Trotsky ending up flog-ging mountaineering equipment in Mexico.

Counterfactual history, however, only makes sense if the imaginary events fol-lowing the breaking-point from real history bear some realistic relationship withwhat was likely to occur. Roberts himself is aware of this, saying that characters inWhat Ifs must act according to their true personalities. Yet Roberts does preciselythe opposite. The idea that Miliukov would have dropped Russian claims upon theStraits, that the Provisional Government would have so rapidly dropped out of thewar, that Kerensky would have championed militant peasants and workers, is risi-ble. To proceed from characters to broader factors, whilst it is true that Lenin steeredhis party towards accepting the idea of the seizure of power, not all leading Bolshe-viks would have meekly dropped behind the moderate socialists. The depth of classconflict in Russia did not depend upon Lenins presence and ability to steer his par-ty. Under the conditions that pertained in Russia in 1917, workers would havefought for their demands and imposed their authority within the workplace and in


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the political arena, and the peasants would have seized the land, without any by-your-leave from the Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks, or anyone else.

Roberts is only half right about the Bolsheviks rapidly tail-ending the Menshe-viks. In Lenins absence, the likes of Kamenev, Rykov and Tomsky would have grav-itated towards the left-wing Mensheviks, perhaps even joining the Provisional Gov-

ernment. The more impulsive ones, such as Bukharin, would have taken a more mili-tant line, and without Lenins restraining influence would almost certainly have

joined with anarchists and other maximalists to launch ill-prepared and ill-fatedputsches. In short, the Bolsheviks would have split in two, probably with Trotskyvainly attempting to hold both halves together, but without the authority or mecha-nism to do so.

Russia was undergoing a deep and worsening crisis throughout 1917. The Pro-visional Government was facing economic collapse, military failure, sharp class con-flict in both urban and rural areas, and territorial disintegration. How could anygovernment successfully deal with all that within the framework of a liberal democ-racy? The only thing that rescued the reputation of liberal democracy in Russia wasthat the Bolsheviks seized power before its bankruptcy was fully evident. Had theBolsheviks failed to seize power, the severe and deepening crises affecting Russia inthe agricultural, industrial, national and military spheres would have been well be-yond the capability of a parliamentary regime to deal with. Even as the ProvisionalGovernment was floundering around and Bolsheviks were gearing up for power, theright-wing was mobilising, and, in the absence of a government based on the soviets,it is far more likely that Russia would have faced becoming a harsh right-wing dicta-torship than a liberal democracy. The sorry fate of parliamentary democracy in East-ern and Central Europe during the interwar period gives a clue to what would havehappened in Russia, where social contradictions were considerably more acute.

Despite their deep differences, Roberts and Hunt are both wrong. Hunt iswrong to say that counterfactual history is necessarily synonymous with the greatmen theories of history, or incompatible with theories of history that base them-selves upon an investigation of deep-running social forces. And Roberts is wrong toconsider that Marxism excludes the idea of different courses in history. History isfull of opportunities that were lost, courses that were not taken, and who can denythat on many occasions the reason that history went one way rather than anotherwas because of the actions of one or another important figure in a key position. In hisHistory of the Russian Revolution, Trotsky made the point that the driving force of theRussian Revolution was the power of the militant masses, but that power had to beguided, as with steam in a cylinder, if it wasnt to be dissipated. We can add that thecylinder needed a hand on the regulator to control the steam, that is, to guide themasses. That regulator was the Bolshevik party, and Lenin had his hand on the regu-lator at a crucial point in history. Without him, the course of world history wouldhave been very different. One cannot accurately understand history if one views (touse Hunts words) the rigorous, data-based study of class, inequality, work patternsand gender relations and the story of what generals, presidents and revolutionariesdid or did not do as polar opposites, rather than being intertwined in a complex re-lationship.Paul Flewers

Des Warren Dies

ON 24 April 2004, Des Warren died of pneumonia aged 66, the obituary by Kevin


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Maguire, accompanied by a tribute from Ricky Tomlinson, in the Guardian on 1 May2004, announced.

The obituary is very sympathetic and relates the basic details of the frame-up ofthe building workers in North Wales who had been active in picketing during the12-week strike in the summer of 1972. The Independent has an obituary by Chris Cor-

rigan in its 28 April edition, Although shorter, it too is sympathetic and provides abrief outline of the case, supplementing to some degree that by Kevin Maguire. DesWarren wrote a pamphlet on the case, which was reprinted later by the WorkersRevolutionary Party, and a book, The Key To My Cell (London, 1982), which all givethe details of what he insisted was a conspiracy between the then Tory government,the building employers, and the police. It was to criminalise picketing, particularlythe flying picket. And he noted the links between the police and McAlpines. Sixmonths after the end of the strike, huge numbers of police were drafted into NorthWales to find the guilty men, whom the police had not charged with anything dur-ing the strike. The first trial, in Mold, with a jury drawn from peers of those accused,didnt give the necessary verdicts, so the next one was shifted to Shrewsbury, wherethe atmosphere was not as friendly, and it led to guilty verdicts, the catch-all chargeof conspiracy being used, as its vagueness guaranteed success, after the failure inMold. It led to Warren getting a year sentence, Tomlinson getting two years, and

John McKinsie Jones nine months.Tomlinson emerged from jail and became a popular actor and TV personality,

whereas Warren was broken in health due to the onset of symptoms akin to Parkin-sons disease caused by the drug cocktail administered in jail known as the liquidcosh. Des wanted to expose the conspiracy that led to Shrewsbury by issuing apamphlet, taking action against the Home Office over his treatment, and trying to setup a public enquiry into the whole affair. Then he came up against the Communist

Party leadership, which was not interested. He discovered that CP Industrial Organ-iser Bert Ramelson had been kidding him while he had been in jail, not only was theShrewsbury Two campaign wound down, but it had never gone beyond appealingto the TUC and gestures to let off steam,. The support that existed within the work-ing class had been held back. The CP refused to provide medical advice, refused toprint his pamphlet or promote it, and even suppressed an article detailing the drugabuse that he suffered in jail. He was confused by this, and he met many CP mem-bers who were just as puzzled, frustrated, even angered by the partys attitude. Itwas rank-and-file members like Jim Arnison who eventually published Des pam-phlet. Eventually he resigned from the CP in early 1980, later that year joining theWRP, whose building workers in Wigan had given him strong support.

Des attributed the CPs failure to organise an effective campaign to get him andTomlinson released, as well as the subsequent behaviour, to its upholding of the par-liamentary road to socialism. In general that is true, but specifically it owed every-thing to its trade union policy. Des refers to the fact that the people who most infl u-enced me in the first place to join the Communist Party were full-time officials of thetrade unions by the time of the Shrewsbury case. One, a former friend, unashamed-ly saw trade unionism as being about doing deals. Des mentions the CP memberswho were elected to full-time union posts after promotion through the partys rec-ommended list. Though he sees nothing wrong with supporting left-wingersagainst the right, he implies that once they become officials they get caught up in

the rottenness of bureaucracy. And:


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In some cases there are careerist elements who use the partys recom-mended list to get jobs. Others get sucked into the bureaucracy and selltheir principles. I dont believe this is the fault of the members themselves,but it comes from the policy of the party. (The Key To My Cell, p313)

The policy of building broad left groupings in unions, in which CPers and LabourParty left-wingers could successfully combat right-wing sell-out merchants was jus-tified in general, as it led to Hugh Scanlon becoming AEU President, the left in theNUM becoming dominant, etc, but in other cases it resulted in dubious charactersgetting elected to top posts. In the ETU postal-ballot-rigging scandal when the rightwing took over, for example, those elected to the Executive recommended by theCP kept going over to the right wing. Eric Hammond was a CP-favoured candidateat one time (I have a collection of ETU election addresses going back to the 1960s).Des Warren experienced it in UCATT. What happened in UCATT was shameful, theCP official policy seemed to be one of pardon the expression arse-licking theright wing. It had a soft relationship to UCATT General Secretary George Smith, forwhom the often over-used term betrayer was apt in general, in the Shrewsbury casefitting. Until their long-term practice of ballot-rigging was exposed and they werevoted out of office and replaced by the new left-wing leadership, which found thatnot only had ballot-papers been removed from head office but the coffers were emp-ty, many CPers and people elected on the recommended list were a part of that set-up.

Des saw this process in the Merseyside area and North Wales. I can relatemany instances. One good friend of mine, active with Des and a UCATT lay official,resigned his post and membership when he found that UCATT was selling unioncards to lumpers. Head office and the Liverpool office hounded Chester branch over

many years, the secretary whod been active during the strike part of the conspir-acy as he took part in the official Action Committee discussions on the picketing was suspended for using bad language to the crooks in head office, his successorwas constantly accused of not paying in the dues (he registered them and kept cop-ies of all correspondence), observers were sent from Liverpool for key meetings,but members always voted to exclude them. One left-wing official had his union carremoved after attending a meeting at Sellafield, a bastion of the right, where hefound strippers being brought in after work to keep people around for the keybranch meetings. Friends of mine told me how, upon being taken by Barry Scragg(UCATT official, ex-CPer aligned with the left) to the Christmas beano in the Liver-pool office, they were mixing with building employers. Brickies in jeans and muddy

boots surely lowered the tone of the occasion. (I remember reading in the press ofScargills and Heathfields mortgages, money donated by Gadaffi, but nothing aboutthe goings on in UCATT, not much about Roger Lyons escapades in the MSF, northe skullduggery in Sir Ken Jacksons failed re-election campaign in Amicus RoyGreenslade has apologised over the Daily Mirrors Scargill stories, an MI5 plot.) DesWarren paid a heavy price for that CP policy.

When it was discovered that people taking designer-drugs in California weredeveloping Parkinsons symptoms, Des was offered 3000 in an out-of-court settle-ment. Not much considering how his health declined. However, he fought to the end the last five years confined to a wheelchair and will probably get more appre-ciation for what he did posthumously rather than when he lived. He fought theShrewsbury case as a political one, as an attack on trade unionism, on picketing, and


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was abandoned by the movements leaders and those of his own party. There wouldbe no movement without the Des Warrens.Mike Jones

Sharansky and the New Anti-Semitism

NATHAN Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident and Minister for the Jewish Dias-pora in the Sharon cabinet, has been touring US campuses and European capitals,busily waging the Campaign Against the New Anti-Semitism.

One of his arguments deserves special attention. Sharansky claims that evenwhen criticism of Israels policies is shown to be factually correct, voicing it may stillbe branded as anti-Semitic unless the critics can show that they devote an equalamount of time and energy to criticising and condemning each and everyone else inthe world who also deserves to be criticised. In short: Singling Israel out is anti-Semitism.

Neat and simple. But is it so?

It is unquestionably true that Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians andthe Arab world are getting a disproportionate global attention. In fact, it quite oftenworks in Israels favour: the killing of 20 Israelis would definitely get far more inter-national attention, a far bigger volume of world-wide sympathy for the victims andcondemnation of the perpetrators, than the killing of 20 Africans often, far morethan the killing of 200 or 2000 or even 20 000 Africans. A positive move on the side ofIsrael would get far more international attention than a similar move by anothercountry; an Israeli leader signing a peace agreement would be more likely to get theNobel Peace Prize than a leader from a less well-known war-torn country, and so on.

Still, in times like the present, the dominant fact is that official Israeli policies

do come under intensive fire in many countries around the world, and that manycritics do indeed devote far more attention to Israeli acts of oppression and viola-tions of human rights than to similar acts by other regimes around the globe. Arethey all anti-Semites?

Not necessarily. Several other, plausible explanations could be found to fit thephenomenon: Not every state that resorts to oppression claims to be a Western democracy,

indeed the only democracy in its region, and asks for international support onthat basis. Isnt it natural for citizens of other Western democracies to lookmore closely at the behaviour of a family member?

Not every state that resorts to oppression has been founded by people whowere themselves the victims of very cruel oppression, who asked the world forits sympathy and support on that basis, and who often declared that the statethey would found would be no ordinary state, but a light unto the nations.Isnt it natural for outsiders to judge the actual Israel by the criteria set by Isra-els own Founding Fathers?

Not every state that resorts to oppression has been founded by an ethnic groupwhich claimed the unique privilege of taking back a land where its ancestorslived 2000 years before and got this enterprise recognised and approved by theLeague of Nations and later by the United Nations but with the specific res-ervation that this enterprise not be at the expense of the people then living inthe land. Isnt it natural for outsiders to scrutinise closely whether this stipula-tion had been adhered to?

Not every state that resorts to oppression had been founded by people who


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came from Europe and settled in an already inhabited land. Isnt it natural forpeople in countries that put such behaviour behind them to inquire into the be-haviour of those who still act in such a manner?

Not every state that resorts to oppression is the recipient of three billion dollarsa year in US aid, or the beneficiary of an almost automatic US veto in the UN

Security Council. Nor do other states resorting to oppression enjoy the kind ofinfluence in internal US politics that Israel has. Isnt it natural for US citizens toinquire more closely into the affairs of such a state and for that matter, thecitizens of other countries in a world so dominated by the US?

Not every state that resorts to oppression is the possessor of a considerable ar-senal of nuclear warheads and missiles, which it refuses to submit to any inter-national inspection. Isnt it natural for outsiders to look more closely into thedoings of such a country?

Still, given all these legitimate reasons, there might well be people and groups whoare not motivated by any of them in singling out Israel and its policies, people whosemain or only motive is that Israel is a Jewish state, and who would care nothingabout its doings were most of its citizens other than Jews. Such people and groupsare indeed anti-Semites, and they deserve to be castigated as such. But you need towork at providing a clear proof, Mr Sharansky!Adam KellerFrom the April-May 2004 issue of The Other Israel, POB 2542, Holon 58125, Israel.

Which is the Greater Evil?

IT may sound like a strange question: which is the greater evil: the US empire, or theregime of Saddam Hussain that was toppled by the former?

But I think it is a question that needs to be answered. To refuse to compareamounts of evil is a cop-out.

In my opinion, evil has at least two dimensions: intensity and scope.By intensity I mean the degree of evil deeds committed. Clearly, some crimes

are worse than others; this is recognised by all legal and moral systems.By scope I mean the size in area and population directly affected by the

evil deeds.The amount of evil is measured by the product of intensity and scope.Let us compare the US empire with the Saddam regime.As far as intensity is concerned, the comparison is difficult. Saddams methods

of murder, torture and terror were arguably worse even than those employed by the

USA. Also, he used poison gas on a large scale against the Iranians and his ownKurdish population.On the other hand, even ignoring the fact that the USA supported the Saddam

regime until quite recently, we must take into consideration the fact that the USA isthe only state to have ever used real weapons of mass destruction nuclear bombs and it has used them against civilian targets. Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But as far as scope is concerned, there is simply no contest.Saddams evil was confined to Iraq (a country the size of California and popu-

lation of some 24 million); and it was also deployed against Iraqs immediate neigh-bours, Iran and Kuwait.

The US empire is global. Its gulag of concentration camps and chambers of

abuse and torture is spread over several regions of the planet. It acts in a lawlessway, violating international humanitarian law, refusing to accept the jurisdiction of


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international courts. It has abducted tens of thousands of people in many countriesand holds them illegally for an indefinite and unspecified terms in conditionsamounting to torture, without any recourse to legal aid or family visits. All theseprisoners abducted by the USA are presumably innocent, for they have not beenproven guilty of any crime.

And we must presume that the reason they are held incommunicado is that thisenables their US abductors to subject them to abuse and torture.

Remember: any one of us, wherever we are can in principle be abducted by USgovernment personnel (including civilian mercenaries regularly employed by theUSA) and held indefinitely, at the whim of our captors, in one of the USAs manyprisons and prison camps, where we may be abused and tortured without any re-course to any form of law or justice, be in Guantnamo Bay or Abu Ghraib.

So, taking both dimensions of evil into account, there is no doubt whatsoeverthat the US empire is by far and away the greater evil.Mosh Machover

Al Richardson

A Forgotten Work of LeonTrotsky

The unexpected death of Al Richardson last November has robbed the socialist

movement of a powerful intellect, a dynamic personality and, especially for his com-rades, a good friend. As a tribute to Al, we are publishing for the first time an intro-duction he wrote in 1998 to a projected, but so far unpublished, new edition of Trot-skys History of the Russian Revolution to Brest Litovsk.

* * *

LEON Trotskys History of the Russian Revolution to Brest Litovsk came out in thesummer of 1918,1 and was subsequently translated into 17 languages, including evenChinese, Turkish and Yiddish. This English version was first published by Allen andUnwin for the general market in the middle of April 1919, and released immediatelyafterwards in a cheap edition by a special arrangement with the Socialist Labour Par-ty. It has only once been reprinted, in 1963 on pages 23-111 of Unwins The EssentialTrotsky, as part of a series of the works of modern thinkers including Marx, Engels,Lenin, Schopenhauer and Vasari. Called by Deutscher one of his minor classics,2and by Segal an incisive recital of events,3 the first edition sold out in only threeweeks.4Even its opponents at the time described it as very skilfully written clear,readable, vivid,5essential to read if one is to have any understanding of the pre-

1. The postscript is dated 29 May 1918.2. Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Armed, Oxford, 1976, p378.

3. Ronald Segal, The Tragedy of Leon Trotsky, London, 1979, p200.4. Trotskys Great Book, The Socialist, 24 May 1919, p222.5. HS, Trotskys Apologia, The Manchester Guardian, 22 April 1919.


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sent position in the east of Europe,6 and drafted out with political and forensic skilland a mastery of narrative.7 It is difficult to account for its neglect since.

One reason may be that it was soon overshadowed in scope and scale by hisclassic History of the Russian Revolution, compared to which it seemed to be only abrief aperu of Soviet history.8 It does, indeed, suffer in comparison with the later

history, which compacted character, imagery and rhythm, to recreate rather thanmerely to relate events. But it would be a mistake to explain the larger books supe-riority merely by the refinements of time and a very different enforcement of le i-sure.9 Assuming this would be to misunderstand the very different purposes behindthe two books. The later book is a history of the entire revolution, with all its back-ground, origins, development and motor forces made clear; it was intended to ex-plain to the world labour movement how real revolutions are made, at a time whenpeoples memories about this were being dimmed in the fog of Stalinist propaganda.This earlier book does not aim to be a history of the revolution as a general process,but is a study of the 1917 insurrection in particular.10 It was dictated to a staff of for-mer Duma stenographers in the intervals between the negotiating sessions at Brest-Litovsk, intended primarily for foreign workers due to the necessity of explainingto them what had happened.11 Only when we analyse the circumstances in which itwas written does it become clear exactly what this overriding necessity was, whichTrotsky had discussed with Lenin before going to the Brest conference.

Neither Lenin nor Trotsky ever believed in socialism in one country. They didnot expect the revolution to survive without spreading abroad, and the book endswith the hope that the Imperialist ring which is choking us will be broken by a pro-letarian revolution (p111).12 Truth is always the first casualty in any war, and by thetime of Brest Litovsk the world war had been going on for over three years. Thesympathy of the working class abroad for the revolution could only be gained by

piercing the curtain of wartime propaganda surrounding the Soviet Union with aclear explanation of its causes and aims. Unless they were understood it would notbe possible for others to imitate the Russian example.

Much of the opposition of the working class to the First World War interna-tionally was on a confused pacifist basis, wrapped up with vague democratic senti-ments. Trotskys first need was to explain to the working class in the rest of the

6. Who Ruined Russia?, The New Statesman, 5 July 1919, p350.7. Trotzkys Apology, The Morning Post, 17 April 1919, p5. Those who were shortly to join the

Communist Party were, of course, even more enthusiastic. Frank Horrabin describes it as i n-tensely interesting and valuable (The Plebs, June 1919, p76), and William Paul as a brilliant his-

tory (Trotskys Reply to Churchill, The Socialist, 8 May 1919, p197).8. Joel Carmichael, Trotsky: An Appreciation of His Life, London, 1975, p225.9. Segal, op cit. The anonymous reviewer for The New Statesman, disappointed in the hope of a full

narrative of the expos type, also commented at the time upon its rather thin pages (see WhoRuined Russia?, in The New Statesman, 5 July 1919, p350). For a similar attempt to reduce Trot-skys later history to drama, see Baruch Knei-Paz, The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trot-sky, Oxford, 1978, pp497-513, plagiarised by Peter Beilharz in History Workshop, no 20, 1985, andTrotsky, Trotskyism and the Transition to Socialism, London, 1987, pp41-8.

10. Despite this, Trotsky does point out that for several years the book served the party as a text-book of history, was translated into a dozen languages and was issued by the Comintern in in-numerable editions (My Life, New York, 1960, p370; History of the Russian Revolution, London,1965, p1134).

11. Trotsky,My Life, p370. A considerable feat of memory, according to the editor of the 1963 edi-tion (p22).12. Page numbers refer to original edition


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world why it had been so necessary for the Bolsheviks to resort to armed revolution,and then to use force to dissolve the Constituent Assembly. Kautsky almost immedi-ately denounced the dissolution of the Constituent (p94), and Kerensky was about toappear before the Labour Party Conference in June 1918 to attack the overthrow ofthe Provisional Government.13 Commentators in this country were quick to pick up

on Trotskys long apology for the forcible dissolution of the Constituent Assem-bly,14 and even WN Ewer, who was shortly to become a communist himself, admit-ted that the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was an affront to democraticinstitutions as the West knows them. We have already had M Kerenskys version ofone episode of the autumn of 1917 in Russia, he noted. Now comes Trotskys ac-count of events from the March revolution to the Brest Litovsk Treaty. It is shorterand vastly more readable than the Kerensky apologia.15 The bourgeois press, whichwas backing Kolchak at the same time as attacking the Bolsheviks for being anti-democratic, naturally highlighted those parts of the book where Trotsky explains thenecessity for armed revolution and the superiority of soviets over bourgeois democ-racy. The publication of the book should do good service in certain quarters in Eng-land which persist in seeing a connection between Bolshevism and democracy, anddenounce as a threat to democracy any attempt to upset the Bolshevist government,wrote the reviewer in The Morning Post: These gentlemen had better read what Trot-sky has to say about democracy. He has no use for it at all.16 We need not take tooseriously The Morning Posts own democratic pretensions at this time. Its review ac-tually began with the words The Jew Bronstein, and the anti-Semitic tone it usedwhenever it talked about Russian affairs was so pronounced that Lord Rothschild,Gollancz and others were obliged to write in to welcome the suggestion that Bri t-ish Jews should disassociate themselves from a course which is doing the Jewishpeople harm in all parts of the world.17

The second need was to explain why the Russian government had been obliged

13. Kerensky was, of course, wholly unknown before the events of 1917 catapulted him so unex-pectedly into the limelight, his case for the Provisional Government was far weaker than thatfor the Constituent Assembly, and he was in any case a theoretical lightweight (see The Crucifix-ion of Liberty, London, 1934). But as the world authority on Marxism, Kautskys argumentsagainst the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly were far more serious. He first publishedthem early in 1918 in Demokratie und Diktatur (Leipziger Volkszeitung, nos 8, 9-10, 11.I; Sozi-alistische Auslandspolitik, Volume 4, nos 1-3.I), which must have been known to Trotsky when hewas writing this book. Kautsky later developed his thesis in full in The Dictatorship of the Prole-tariat (August 1918) and Terrorism and Communism (June 1919), to which Lenin replied withThe Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (Collected Works, Volume 28, Moscow,1965, pp227-325; also pp105-113), and Trotsky with Terrorism and Communism (London, 1975).Trotskys History was in turn quoted as part of the polemic in the Leipziger Volkszeitung (18 Oc-tober 1918).

14. Trotzkys Apology, The Morning Post, 17 April 1919, p5.15. WN Ewer, The Birth of the Soviets, The Daily Herald, 26 April 1919, p8. Ewer was among the

first to attack Trotsky when the signal went out from Moscow six years later, only himself to besubjected to the same ignominious treatment shortly afterwards. See S Bornstein and A Rich-ardson,Against the Stream, London, 1986, p7.

16. Trotzkys Apology, The Morning Post, 17 April 1919, p5. See also HS, Trotskys Apologia,The Manchester Guardian, 22 April 1919.

17. Bolshevism and Jewry, The Morning Post, 23 April 1919, p6. The next day the papers readerswere treated to another anti-Semitic article, this time on Jewry and Germany. It is amusing to

recall that Gollancz was later to be the publisher of Trotskys full-length history, and later stillfor the Left Book Club, which spent the years before the war accusing him of being an agent ofHitler.


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to drop out of the war and conclude a separate peace on such damaging terms withthe most reactionary force in Europe, the German Imperial government. There weremany revolutionaries, both in Russia and outside, who firmly opposed the signing ofthe Brest peace,18 not to mention the disquiet felt in democratic circles, or the out-raged hostility of Entente propaganda. Ewers review concentrated wholly upon the

point that Russias need was peace, and peace was literally inevitable, for the armywas incapable of further fighting. The Bolsheviks alone were prepared to makepeace. Therefore they came to power.19William Paul, quoting a remark of Mr Brim-stone Churchill to the Aldwych Club, that every British and French soldier killedlast year was really done to death by Lenin and Trotsky, not in fair war, but as theresult of the treacherous desertion of an ally without parallel in the history of theworld, used the book to reply that every honest and intelligent person knows thatthe Allies were invited to participate in the peace conferences which took place be-tween Germany and Russia. Whatever doubt anyone may have in the matter is com-pletely swept away by no less a person than Trotsky himself.20 To this extent thebook is a logical extension of the revolutionary propaganda made by Trotsky at BrestLitovsk, and has to be understood in that context.

To say this does not mean that the book has only an ephemeral and purely his-torical value. It includes amazingly compact theoretical summaries of such things asthe superiority of soviet power over bourgeois democracy (pp46-7, 93), why work-ing-class consciousness develops so rapidly in crisis situations (p47), the necessityfor armed insurrection to overthrow the old order (pp51-2), and how the revolution-ary party gains a majority for this insurrection by placing the demand for working-class power on the reformist leaders (pp31, 34, 51, 52). These are what gives the bookits permanent value. And we should not be surprised to find such gems in such ashort booklet. Many of the greatest Marxist theoretical expositions, including The

Eighteenth Brumaire and State and Revolution were quickly written at particular times,and for particular purposes. Extracting the general from the particular is one ofMarxisms essential disciplines.

At the same time its laconic style and the circumstances in which the book waswritten often require further elucidation. Here we are helped by the fact that also onthe staff of the Russian delegation at Brest Litovsk was Karl Radek,21 subject to thesame periods of enforced inactivity and at work on similar writing projects, whomust have discussed many of the points at issue with Trotsky. For example, withoutany further identification Trotsky refers to the theoreticians of our party who for-mulated the theory of permanent revolution, foreseeing that it would inevitablyplace the power of the state in the hands of the proletariat, supported by the wide

masses of the poorest peasantry (p25). The fact that he says that this was the caseeven before the Revolution of 1905 shows that he not only had himself in mindhere, and a comparison with the text of Radeks Paths of the Russian Revolution showsthat it was Plekhanov who was intended by this remark.22Trotskys analysis of how

18. For the opposition inside the Bolshevik Party, see Theses of the Left Communists (1918), Critique,1977; Robert V Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution, Oxford, 1960, pp70-91; Ronald L Kow-alski, The Bolshevik Party in Conflict, London, 1991. Some Left Communists such as the ICC de-scribe the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Peace as a betrayal even today.

19. WN Ewer, The Birth of the Soviets, The Daily Herald, 26 April 1919, p8.20. William Paul, Trotskys reply to Churchill, The Socialist, no 212, Volume 18, 8 May 1919, p197.

21. Segal, op cit; Carmichael, op cit.22. Plekhanov became a defencist during the First World War. The Plekhanov group to which

Trotsky refers on page 32 was the extreme right wing of Menshevism, grouped around the pa-


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John Sullivan

Rolling Your OwnA Guide to Forming Your Own Political Group

Another blow to the socialist movement and to this magazine was the sudden deathof John Sullivan last October. An expert on Spanish politics, John was also responsi-ble for a number of satirical pieces on the British left, and readers will be delighted tolearn that Socialist Platform has recently republished Johns peerless Go Fourth and

Multiply and When This Pub Closes. The essay below, which was written during themid-1980s, has not previously appeared in print.

* * *

I: The Material Base

ONLY incurable idealists can believe that a viable group can be formed without amaterial base. You will need to maintain yourself while you write the key docu-ments which expound your theory and develop your programme. Many potentiallyviable groups used to fall at this first hurdle, but fortunately the Department of Em-ployments Enterprise Allowance Scheme (EAS) now gives you 40 per week (butfor only one year) while you do the preliminary spadework which will establishwhether your group has what it takes to survive in the competitive world of political

sects. Formally, political and religious projects do not qualify for the EAS, but thehelpful officials at the Department of Employment inform us that the technical diffi-culty can be avoided if you describe your group as a research agency.

If there are half a dozen of you, register with the EAS as a cooperative; if thereare more of you, individuals should register as separate schemes, which need notamalgamate until you are at the stage of issuing a journal and going public. The re-search project will be more plausible to the EAS if you are a social science graduate,but that is seldom a problem, as few people feel ready to launch their own groupwhile they are undergraduates.

II: Franchising

Before embarking on the onerous task of elaborating your own ideology, ask your-self: Do I really need to? Why not apply for the British franchise of an existing In-ternational? Recent bust-ups have left some Internationals without a British franchi-see (Lambert) or with one which they are dissatisfied with (Mandel, Moreno). Youmay be pleasantly surprised at the latitude which Internationals allow franchisees intheir domestic policies as long as they accept the Internationals line on matters offaith and doctrine. If you become a franchisee, you will have the considerable ad-vantage of becoming the recipient of a body of theoretical work which no new groupcould produce quickly.

Those reluctant to accept a franchise sometimes argue that they do not relishhaving to defend the record of long-established groups in countries which theyknow little about. That will probably be less of a problem than you might think. Po-


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tential members of your group will be impressed by the existence of prestigious al-lies, and will be prepared to accept their correctness, rather than agonise about theintricacies of the labour movement in foreign countries.

A Friendly State? Should you aim to be the franchisee of a state, not just of anInternational? It is a possibility, but do be careful. The officials who determine such

things usually demand a proven track record. You should also remember that cur-rently popular dictators can easily become discredited. If you think you are up tothis, then neither the North Koreans nor Romanians currently have a British franchi-see. If you do put in such a bid, insist that you are publicly recognised as the author-ised agent. Groups which have acted as unrecognised supporters of specific regimeshave often been shabbily treated. In this area, it is not better to be a mistress than awife.

III: Ideology

We recommend that you choose between one of two options. Invent a doctrine which only you understand. You will then be the sole reposi-

tory of truth and judge of its application (examples Gerry Healy WRP, DavidYaffe RCG). Potential dissidents will be in the unenviable position of a grum-bling peasant faced with a priests fluent Latin.

Discover an obscure, preferably dead, theoretician whose thought you can in-terpret. You will, of course, need to master the appropriate language. Resist thetemptation to invent an imaginary figure, as such a ploy would soon be un-masked. It is too late to choose a major figure as a surprising number of peoplehave read Trotsky or Bukharin. But what about Brandler, Thalheimer, Bordigaor Sacristan? For all we know, there may be obscure gems which would glowin the mystifying half-light of translation. There are, for example, Japanese

Marxists whose thought processes are incomprehensible to the Occidentalmind. A partnership with a Japanese who can write English (but not too clear-ly) might net you a marketable product.

Whether you choose option A or B, it is essential that you study the accounts of ex-isting groups inAs Soon As This Pub Closes in order to differentiate your own groupfrom what is already on offer.

IV: Recruitment

The dense population of existing political groups makes this the most daunting taskof all. Having accomplished tasks 1 to 3, do we sally out to the highways, bywaysand Labour Party branches to trawl for support? Some people in Labour Party

branches where all the activists already belong to entrist groups have suggested thatthe scene is too crowded and that it would be sensible to aim at hitherto untouchedsocial strata such as manual workers, women without higher education and the lowpaid.

We take the point, but all the market research shows that you should stick tothe existing market, rather than pursue a new untried one on working-class housingestates. That market consists of students and members of a few white collar unions(NALGO, NUT, AUT, NATFHE). Purely student groups do not survive. Neither dothose who recruit significant numbers of manual workers. Why, in any case go to thetrouble of recruiting, people completely new to politics when there are about 600people leaving the Socialist Workers Party each year and a proportionate numberfrom the smaller groups. Concentrate on such people, but avoid ex-members of Mili-tant, whose limited conceptual abilities cripple them once they cut loose from their


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organisations guidance. Once you become established, you might pay some atten-tion to members of Anti-Apartheid and Friends of the Earth.

We do not propose to give more detailed advice here as you should get used toad-libbing. However, we are cooperating with five separate ventures all still at theEAS stage. We suggested that the projects be amalgamated, but all five refused, al-

leging irreconcilable differences of principle.

Walter Kendall

Isaac Deutscher as a Prophet

Another friend of New Interventions who died last autumn was the labour movement

historian Walter Kendall, who died after a long and debilitating illness. As a tribute,we republish his critical assessment of Isaac Deutscher which first appeared in theNew Interventions pamphlet Isaac Deutscher 1907-1967in 1992.

* * *

SOMEWHERE in the voluminous tomes of his journalism and historical commen-tary (I believe in Heretics and Renegades but in a hurried search have been unable tounearth and confirm the precise text), Isaac Deutscher writes that our own age hasbeen one analogous to that which followed the Great French Revolution:

One might see that the Revolution of 1789 had been betrayed, one might

be unable to support the men and the monarch that now controlled theFrench state. Yet one could not oppose them either; for that would be tofall into the camp of reaction and (very often) absolutist monarchy. Forthe prescient man (or woman), political activism was no longer possible.One must remain au dessus de la Mle, seek to comment upon eventsand enlighten the combatants concerning the great issues of the day.1

Deutscher saw himself, it seems to me, very much in the same light, this the titles ofhis three-volume history of Trotskys life and times respectively the Prophet ArmedUnarmed and Outcast themselves demonstrate.

Deutscher certainly saw himself as a prophet, and once he had been involuntar-

ily expelled from the Communist Party of Poland, once he had subsequently broken(probably with good reason) from the nascent Trotskyist movement, finally freedhimself from the moil and toil of day-by-day journalism, he certainly sought to act inthe fashion that such a world-view might demand. There are two points at issuehere: firstly, the extent to which Deutscher was genuinely an objective observer audessus de la Mle; secondly, the validity of his expectations, the extent to which hisown prophecies have been validated or invalidated by the subsequent course of

1. I finally found this extract, of which I have given my own paraphrase, but only after this articlehad closed for the press. It appears on pages 20-22 of Heretics and Renegades. Readers can decide

for themselves whether I have properly given Deutschers sense. They may be surprised to ob-serve, what I had forgotten, that Deutscher implicitly compares himself with Jefferson, Goetheand Shelley.


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events. Nor is this in any sense an idle exercise. Deutscher was very much a man ofhis time.

Deutschers writings were, I believe, immensely influential, they both shapedand in turn reflected the attitudes of a large part of informed public opinion at thetime in which they were published and written. A judgement on Deutscher is in

large degree a judgement on a generation and seems worthwhile undertaking evenfor this reason and this reason alone. Given the limitations of time and space, I willrestrict myself to two volumes, each readily accessible to the general reader. Thefirst, from which I take a single text, is the very revealing volume of essays entitledHeretics and Renegades, which appeared in 1955. The second, from which I abstractmore fully, is the work entitled The Great Contest: Russia and the West, which waspublished by the prestigious Oxford University Press in 1960.

Deutschers style is a fascinating one, at times orotund, always seemingly pre-cise, appearing astonishingly well-informed, confident, secure, he gives the impres-sion of one who has visited the very inner recesses of the soul of History, upon hisreturn, out of sheer good will, tells us for nothing what he has there discovered, allunveiled and for the first time.

A clear judgement on the Russian Revolution which has dominated so much ofour recent epoch is contained in a passage from the essay Two Revolutions whichappears in Heretics and Renegades. Few anticipations can have been more misplaced.

In the countries which France united with her territories, Deutscher tells usthat the historian Sorel found occasion to write: she proclaimed her principles, de-stroyed the feudal system, and introduced her laws. After the inevitable disorders ofwar this revolution constituted an immense benefit to the peoples. This judge-ment, two centuries later, the present author considers will be widely, although byno means universally, accepted. Deutscher now goes on to consider the case of the

Russian Revolution which he considers analogous to that of France. I do not believethat the verdict of history on the Stalinist system of satellites will be more severethan it has been on the Bonapartist system, he opines.

Few anticipations can have been more misplaced. Over the last few years, wehave seen the disintegration of the (socialist) command economies, the discreditingand final dissolution, then the banning of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,a headlong rush to capitalism undertaken by the first elected Russian Presidentbacked by a whole galaxy of informal advisors, and with it would seem the tacit, ifnot explicit, support of the large majority of the population. The true conquests ofOctober, by contrast, melt like the winter snow before bright spring sunshine, infront of our very eyes.

Of the four essays which comprise the 86 pages of The Great Contest, three werespecifically commissioned by the wealthy Dafoe Foundation, and delivered beforespecially invited audiences under the auspices of the Canadian Institute of Interna-tional Affairs in turn at Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg. The fourth was speciallyprepared for an audience at the University of Manitoba. One presumes therefore thatDeutscher gave serious consideration to preparing these texts for his lectures, andyet more deliberation before deciding to give them final printed form. This their sub-sequent publication under the title The Great Contest: Russia and the West makes quiteplain. The quotations which I intend to use originate in the main from Deutscherslast chapter entitled East and West: The Implications of Coexistence, and deal with

the pro

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