Comments on: Facing reality – after the crisis in the SWP

By: Tom Dunbar

Tom Dunbar — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:09:05 +0000

Believe it or not John I stuck to the end of you guy’s commentsboard ‘discussion’. In my opinion it proved extremely unhelpful in seeking some political light at the end of the interminably long tunnel for a generation of ‘lost’ lefties in answering ‘where the left can go from here’. Memories of Trotskyist infighting and split came firmly to mind.

Having recently discovered ‘Red Pepper’ online I was interested to read the new co-editor Michelle Zeller’s blog piece ‘Meet Red Pepper’s new co-editor, Michelle Zellers’ and take the liberty of quoting from it as follows:

“In 1971, discussing how patriarchy had influenced Western literature, poet Adrienne Rich said, ‘We need to know the writing of the past, and know it differently than we have ever known it; not to pass on a tradition but to break its hold over us.’ ”

Could that quote have relevance to the ongoing use of Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyist/Luxemburgist thought in the Left’s dogfight for theoretical supremacy? Can the Left learn to ‘know its past differently’ together and ‘break its hold over us’?

I don’t subscribe to the irrelevance of ‘Dead Russians’ but would welcome a more coherent left view of ‘where the left can go from here’ into the future.

Thanks John for your thoughtful article. My Trot days are sadly clouded by pints of Watneys Red Barrel in the Prince of Wales pub in Wimbledon! Did Roger Protz (ex-editor Socialist Worker) see the light in transferring his energies and vision to become the leading-light in CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale). I salute his endevours nightly.

Just spent 2 weeks in Cuba. Amazing people – intelligent, friendly, open minded, with an enormous generosity of spirit and sense of humour. This depite average wage approx £17 a month and regular shortages despite the Government’s best efforts and intentions. Death of Chavez a blow to the political outlook. Recent ‘liberalisation’ a very astute move in my view which does not open the country to foreign capital and exploitation. The Revolutionary Government has made regular well-measured policy initiatives in the past e.g. allowing the ‘Enemy Within’ i.e.bourgeois Cubans, depart to their spiritual home Miami. Did Maggie consider sending Arthur there in 1984? Wouldn’t have cost more than the flowers for her funeral!

By: Will Podmore

Will Podmore — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:58:44 +0000

Ever since 1956, if not earlier, some have tried to achieve a “historical settling of accounts with Stalinist totalitarianism” in order “to rebuild a vibrant left capable of influencing the future.”
Results so far?
You have not responded to my remarks about Cuba.
Is Cuba, in your view, an example of ‘Stalinist totalitarianism’? If so, yours is a remarkably flexible definition.
You questioned Cuba’s socialist credentials, using an article which cited not one single instance of the persecution of gays.
You still cannot find a word in praise of Cuba.
So it seems that you have not settled your accounts with Trotskyist totalitarianism.

By: John Palmer

John Palmer — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 09:10:02 +0000

Will – Those who do not understand the tragedies of history are at risk of repeating them. This protracted exchange started with a difference of opinion over EU social and trade union reforms. However it quickly turned into a denial by you of the terrible crimes of Stalinism which have done so much to alienate people from the socialist cause. Without a historical settling of accounts with Stalinist totalitarianism it will be difficult to rebuild a vibrant left capable of influencing the future. As far as I am concerned (since it appears no one else is listening to us any longer) that is that.

By: Will Podmore

Will Podmore — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:44:11 +0000

Castro admitted his mistakes and has progressed to today’s position in Cuba, where the article that you cited as backing for your claim that Cuba persecuted gays did not give us a single current instance of persecution of gays.
As for the political prisoners, again, you confuse the past with the present: the US Interests Section has recntly admitted that Cuba’s ‘human rights groups’ “lack demonstrable evidence of persecution … Almost none show proof of house searches, interrogations, detention, or arrest.”
Cuba has admitted its mistakes and does not live in the past, unlike ex-SWPers, who cannot move beyond their ancient prejudices.

By: John Palmer

John Palmer — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 08:31:26 +0000

Will – I leave to you the task of defending as socialists mass murderers like Stalin and to you to defend Cuba’s record in imprisoning political prisoners
and in treatment of gays which – as you acknowledge even Castro has admitted was “a great injustice.” Isn’t it strange that you cannot find the elementary humanity to make a similar apology for your apologia to a creature like Stalin whose crimes rank only second to those of Hitler.

By: Will Podmore

Will Podmore — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:34:16 +0000

John claimed on 18 March that “gays are still persecuted so I am not sure I would describe Cuba as a socialist society.” The article he cited – and thank you for drawing it to my attention, John – is illuminating.
Here are quotes from it, but the whole piece is well worth reading.
“The daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro has for years campaigned for the rights of homosexuals and even made calls to allow same-sex marriage. Much has already changed in Cuba. Several years ago, hardly anyone contemplated openly coming out on the island. Until the 1990s, homosexuals were socially excluded: they got disapproving looks around the neighbourhood and even lost their jobs.
“In the first few years after the 1959 Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro went as far as to brand homosexuals as “counterrevolutionary” and had them sent to labour camps. He made it clear that such dissent was not tolerated in Cuban society.
It was not until 2010 that the Fidel – the Maximum Leader – expressed regret for his attitude and policies, and he described the decades-long persecution of homosexuals as a “great injustice.”
“If anyone is responsible, it’s me,” he said in a groundbreaking interview with the US magazine The Atlantic.
“Now, the Cuban government officially rejects discrimination against homosexuals. The Communist Party has even stated that it is in favor of allowing same-sex marriage, but the necessary legislation has yet to be drafted.”
Does this really amount to persecution of gays? Does this really disqualify Cuba from being called socialist?

By: Will Podmore

Will Podmore — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:53:03 +0000

You repeat all the old canards. Especially egregious is the claim that Stalin ignored warnings about the danger of Nazi aggression.
As Geoffrey Roberts explained: “Stalin also feared that premature mobilisation could accelerate the outbreak of hostilities with Hitler. ‘Mobilization means war’, he told Zhukov, mindful of the precedent of the July Crisis of 1914 that led to the First World War” when Germany declared war on Russia in reply to Russia’s mobilisation.
The Soviet government did all it could not to provoke Hitler, not to provide him with any excuse for accusing the Soviet Union of aggression, an excuse that the pro-Hitler groups in the British and French governments would have seized on to justify joining Hitler’s attack.
Right up to the invasion, the British government thought that Hitler was just using military pressure to intimidate the Soviet Union, and expected more Nazi demands, or an ultimatum, not an invasion. Nor did the Soviet Union know the date of the invasion. Only on 30 April did Hitler decide the date. The Nazis over and over again provided disinformation on the date.

By: John Palmer

John Palmer — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:23:49 +0000

As this dialogue continues the more ridiculous your interventions have become. You know perfectly well that if I meant to mention the Gulags I would have done do. I referred to the NKVD/KGB execution centers. Some were in prisons and some were in private houses. Tens of thousands of socialists and other opponents of Stalin were summarily executed – on occasions a hundred or more were shot in the back of the neck each day (or more often night.) Untold thousands died in the Gulags too but they were not normally executed – they died of starvation, disease and ill treatment. By the way among the those slaughtered were the cream of the Red Army in the 1930s which left the Soviet Union desperately militarily vulnerable to Nazi invasion in 1941. But Stalin ignored warnings about this and about the danger of Nazi aggression because he said he was confident that Hitler would not break the terms of the Stalin-Hitler Pact!

By: Will Podmore

Will Podmore — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:49:19 +0000

OK, you’ve made your mind up, and you have rejected the evidence presented by recent scholars based on extensive archival studies.
You write of ‘execution centers’. Stephen Wheatcroft, another recent scholar, wrote, “the Gulags were not death camps and should not be confused with Auschwitz.”
Nobody can know what a hypothetical EH Carr of today would or would not ignore. It is odd that you prefer to have recourse to an unprovable fictional character rather than to study what recent scholarship has to say on these matters.
Or perhaps not so odd after all. It wouldn’t do to disturb the prejudices of a lifetime, would it?

By: John Palmer

John Palmer — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:16:47 +0000

Will – I will leave the honour of being “the defence” of Stalin and his crimes to you. But I counsel you to study first the records left behind by the NKVD/KGB which are now available to scholars. This evidence would make it impossible for an EH Carr of today to simply ignore what was happening in the thousands of Lubyanka style interrogation and execution centers across the Soviet Union. Maybe that is why the first thing Stalin’s colleagues did after the monster died was to murder his NKVD killer-in-chief Lavrenti Beria.