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Trotskyism No. 18
1 waged, 50p unwaged/low waged, 1.50
Contents
Vote Yes: For the Socialist United States of
Europe! By Gerry Downing...p. 3
The EU referendum and class independence
By Ian Donovan ... p.15
VOTE NO! NO SUPPORT TO THE EU
NEO-LIBERAL CARTEL!
By Graham Durham ... p. 20
End austerity. vote to leave the EU
By Michael Calderbank ..p. 25
Joe Stalin (enhanced by airbrush and complete with adoring halo!) personally oversaw the 1951 British Road to Socialism:
There is nothing socialist let alone genuinely communist about this ultra-patriotic
bourgeois reactionary nonsense. The narrow and ignorant nationalist outlook of the
bureaucrat found its expression in the programme of socialism in a single country,
the corollary of peaceful co-existence with
imperialism and the reformist theory of
stages in the revolution, originating in the
Second International. It amounts to the
indefinite postponement of the struggle for
socialism, the idealistic and impossible
peaceful parliamentary road to socialism,
openly embraced in 1951
Socialist Fight is a member of the Liaison Committee
for the Fourth International with the Liga Comunista
of Brazil and the Tendencia Militante Bolchevique of
Argentina.
IDOT and SF are Printed and Published by:
Socialist Fight PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ,
Socialist_Fight@yahoo.co.uk.
Liga Comunista, Brazil:
http://lcligacomunista.blogspot.co.uk/
Tendencia Militante Bolchevique, Argentina:
http://tmb1917.blogspot.co.uk/
Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views
of IDOT or SF
We should call for a Yes vote in the coming in-out referendum on membership of
the EU. As socialists and Trotskyists we must ask and answer the question, is it in the
interests of the working class and oppressed in Britain and internationally for the UK
to remain in the EU or to leave it? That is our sole criterion. We are for a Yes vote
primarily because we recognise that socialism in a single country is impossible. Indeed
as Trotsky points out above capitalism has long ago become impossible to sustain and
develop in a single country and socialism must be built on a far higher level of wealth
and productivity. An exit from the EU would inevitably strengthen the nationalism
and patriotism not only in the British ruling class but also in a big section of the British working class.
Trotsky, If the problem of socialism were compatible with the framework of a national state, it would thereby become compatible with national defence.
Economic nationalism, calling for import controls and the exclusion of immigrants
and foreign workers, would be enormously strengthened by an exit. This would
3
strengthen the right wing of the Tory party, the United Kingdom Independence
party (Ukip) and fascist groups. It would also strengthen the aristocracy of labour, those skilled and privileged sections of workers with relatively good jobs,
on whom the trade union bureaucracy essentially rests. As the spokesperson for
the trade union bureaucracy and primary ideologue of and defender of this layer
of workers the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and their mouthpiece, The
Morning Star (MS) are the foremost ideological advocates of exit from Europe in
the labour movement.
We clearly saw this danger in the strike wave in 2009 over British jobs for British workers. As we wrote then:
Socialist Fight (SF) unequivocally opposes the current wildcat strikes because they
were called on the reactionary basis of British jobs for British workers (BJ4BW), it
was on this xenophobic basis they were spread, with the assistance of the right wing
media and on this basis they were tacitly endorsed by the entire Unite and GMB leaderships. We place the blame for this situation squarely on the backs of the reactionary
Labour movement leaders; Gordon Brown and the Labour party leaders for endorsing the reactionary slogan, borrowed from the BNP, the Unite, GMB and other TU
leaderships for tacitly endorsing and pursuing negotiations on that basis. A major
weight of responsibility also rests on the shoulders of those left groups and organisations, the Communists Party of Britain (CPB), the Socialist Party of England and
Wales and others who have acted as left apologists for these bureaucratic misleaders
of the working class. When similar demands were made on the French TU leadership
they immediately rejected them as reactionary chauvinism and insisted on the demands like we will not pay for the bankers/capitalisms crises.
These are reactionary strikes for reactionary ends which can only win by driving
foreign workers out of the country and setting in train the destruction of the entire
working class and its organisations and all their historical gains. Fight them now,
fight the reactionary leadership of the class who are responsible for this appalling
situation or it will get worse. Do not try to find the silver lining; it is not there. They
do mean what they say. If they occupied the plant and forged international solidarity
that would be an entirely different strike, with entirely different leaders. To pretend
otherwise is to defend the existing leaders and to prepare more defeats. This is differentiating the left in Britain; it goes to the core of class politics. Fight the reaction
without reservations and you will find new revolutionists who will come forward to
champion the interests of the class as an international whole. [2]
In the last referendum in 1975 the MS could boast that they were the only newspaper to support the No campaign then, gathering under their banner Michael
Foot, Tony Benn, Barbara Castle, Enoch Powell, Ian Paisley, the Communist
Party of Great Britain, the Scottish National party, Plaid Cymru, the Ulster Unionist party and the Democratic Unionist party. A truly revolutionary popular
front who shared platforms without regard to class, creed or politics but which
nevertheless failed in its endeavours!
4
The split in the ruling class over Europe is a historic one which is based
on economic factors which have existed since after WWI but have developed
strongly in recent decades.
The British economy, particularly since the Thatcher epoch, relies very heavily
on the City of London; its manufacturing base has shrunk dramatically since the
1970s, diminished by her assault on the working class and its historic vanguard, the
miners. Economics Help tells us:
Manufacturing as a share of real GDP has fallen from 30% in 1970 to 12% in
2010. [3]
The UK had the second largest stock of inward foreign direct investment and the
second-largest stock of outward foreign direct investment. The UK is one of the
worlds most globalised economies the service sector dominates the UK economy,
contributing around 78% of GDP; the financial services industry is particularly important and London is the worlds largest financial centre (tied with New York). [4]
Britain exited from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), which was
preparing for monetary union, in Black Wednesday 16 September 1992 because
the run on the pound showed it could not compete economically with Germany.
Germany is a far different type of economy to Britain:
In 2014, Germany recorded the highest trade surplus in the world worth $285 billion,
making it the biggest capital exporter globally. Germany is the third largest exporter in
the world with $1.511 trillion exported in 2014. The service sector contributes around
70% of the total GDP, industry 29.1%, and agriculture 0.9%. Exports account for 41%
of national output. [5]
more reliant on the City of London and more of a tool of the USA and will follow
it even more obediently into every war and conflict without the counter-balancing
weight of the EU.
A big section of the British ruling class do not welcome this prospect. It is significant that Britain along with Germany, France and Italy defied the USA and
joined the China-dominated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The fact that
the USA and David Cameron oppose exit from the EU is not an argument for
exit, they are opposed to a downward spiral towards WWIII subjectively whilst
supporting the system that is driving it. We do not oppose them in order to bring
that prospect closer politically.
The TTIP is a thoroughly reactionary agreement negotiated by the EU. However Comrade Carl neglects to tell us in what way the British government, or indeed the Labour opposition up to the election of Jeremy Corbyn, has opposed
the TTIP. And if Corbyn proves the champion to fight against it would he not
be more likely to succeed within Europe? We have just seen an absolutely huge
German demonstration in Berlin of 250,000 against it on 10 October. That is
surely the united force we need to tackle this global attack. Because along with
TTIP is TiSA and TPP, this is a global offensive by global imperialism, its great
finance houses and its transnationals. A global response is called for. But Pacman demurs:
The second reason is the existence of the EU means neoliberalism is here to stay. I
recently spoke with some Greek trade union representatives who told me the best
they can hope for is a social EU that tones down the neoliberal agenda. This lack of
hope is tragic. In any case, it is also fantasy. The troika has effectively won its battle
with Syriza in Greece since Alexis Tsipras has backed down. The upshot for the
country is more austerity with privatisation measures. The likelihood that the EU is
about to go softer on neoliberal austerity measures is highly unlikely.[9]
ment, were unsustainable. The conditions for these loans imposed austerity
measures made things even worse and the economy shrank by 25 per cent from
2007-2014.[10]
Again telling us what a terrible thing has happened to Greece without posing
anything other than a nationalist solution is worse than useless. Even more so
for Greece than for Britain, if in a very different way. An independent Greece in
the midst of a raging global financial crisis that could survive without the immediate assistance of the working class of Europe and the world coming to its assistance is a fools illusion.
Others to have presented basically the same MS arguments are Owen Jones
and George Monbiot. Jones begins his 13-7-15 Guardian article, The left must put
Britains EU withdrawal on the agenda, thus:
Everything good about the EU is in retreat; everything bad is on the rampage, writes
George Monbiot, explaining his about-turn. All my life Ive been pro-Europe, says
Caitlin Moran, but seeing how Germany is treating Greece, I am finding it increasingly distasteful. Nick Cohen believes the EU is being portrayed with some truth, as a
cruel, fanatical and stupid institution. How can the left support what is being done?
asks Suzanne Moore. The European Union. Not in my name. There are senior Labour figures in Westminster and Holyrood privately moving to an out position too.
If anything, this new wave of left Euro scepticism represents a reawakening. Much
of the left campaigned against entering the European Economic Community when
Margaret Thatcher and the like campaigned for membership. It was German and
French banks who benefited from the bailouts, not the Greek economy. It would
threaten the ability of leftwing governments to implement policies, people like my
parents thought, and would forbid the sort of industrial activism needed to protect
domestic industries. But then Thatcherism happened, and an increasingly battered
and demoralised left began to believe that the only hope of progressive legislation
was via Brussels. The misery of the left was, in the 1980s, matched by the triumphalism of the free marketeers, who had transformed Britain beyond many of their wildest ambitions, and began to balk at the restraints put on their dreams by the European project. [11]
Having rejected the left wing politics of his parents, who were Ted Grant and
Militant supporters, Jones in now busily advising Jeremy Corbyn to tack to the
right, to adopt politics in defence of British capitalism and basically abandon any
arguments for socialism or real leftism. He wrote the following disgraceful tract
in an article on 16 September:
That means adopting an inclusive, cheerful, positive approach: love-bombing opponents, even. Nearly 4 million people voted for Ukip at the last election. If they are
dismissed as racists rather than working-class people who often have unanswered
fears over jobs, housing, public services and the future of their children and grandchildren, they will be lost forever. [12]
stead of fighting reaction and demonstrating to them how wrong they are. This is
what produced Milibands racist immigration mug (logo, controls on immigration,
Im voting Labour 7 May) that went a long way to persuade those voters that their
racist views were legitimate. Enough of the love-bombing nonsense, fight the capitalist class and show these backward workers the bosses are the real enemy and not
the immigrants.
His arguments in Europe are from the same perspective. A sort of a right wing
version of the old Militant programme of Enabling Acts passed through parliaments
with the working class as a stage army to assist the real revolutionaries and workers
in uniform and defence of British interests in foreign wars etc. so as to mollify reaction. The blueprint for The Morning Star and Owen Jones arguments is the bourgeois
nationalist nonsense that is Joe Stalins 1951 British Road to Socialism and its global
counterparts for almost every country approved by Joe in that period. His arguments on Greece and TTIP are the rehashed The Morning Star arguments.
The basic task of unification (of Europe GD) must be economic in character, not only
in the commercial but also productive sense. It is necessary to have a regime that would
eliminate the artificial barriers between European coal and European iron. It is necessary
to enable the system of electrification to expand in consonance with natural and economic conditions, and not in accordance with the frontiers of Versailles. It is necessary to
unite Europes railways into a single system, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. All this,
in its turn, is inconceivable without the destruction of the ancient Chinese system of custom borders within Europe. This would, in its turn, mean a single, All-European customs
union against America. [13]
But surely we must not attempt in any way to confuse the Socialist United States of
Europe with the present imperialist cabal that is the European Union? The United
States was established in the War of Independence and maintained in the Civil War
in revolutionary struggles. Frances internal customs borders were demolished along
with the ancien regime by revolution. However both Germany and Italy were unified
from the top down basically by reactionary political movements. Trotsky explains:
It has happened more than once in history that when the revolution is not strong
enough to solve in time a task that is mature historically, its solution is undertaken by
reaction. Thus Bismarck unified Germany in his own manner after the failure of the 1848
revolution. Thus Stolypin tried to solve the agrarian question after the defeat of the 1905
revolution. Thus the Versailles victors solved the national question in their own way,
which all the previous bourgeois revolutions in Europe proved impotent to solve. The
Germany of the Hohenzollerns tried to organize Europe in its own way, i.e. by uniting it
under its helmet.
The leadership of the Comintern, and particularly the leadership of the French Communist Party are exposing the hypocrisy of official pacifism The slogan of the United
10
States of Europe is not a cunning invention of diplomacy. It springs from the immutable
economic needs of Europe which emerge all the more painfully and acutely the greater is
the pressure of the USA In the person of the Opposition the vanguard of the European proletariat tells its present rulers: In order to unify Europe it is first of all necessary to
wrest power out of your hands. We will do it. We will unite Europe. We will unite it
against the hostile capitalist world. We will turn it into a mighty drill-ground of militant
socialism. We will make it the cornerstone of the World Socialist Federation. [14]
The leadership of the Tory party, the Labour party (with the small opposition
above), the Liberal Democrats (almost no opposition here), the Scottish National
party, Plaid Cymru (Welsh nationalists), the DUP, UUP, SDLP and Sinn Fein (the
four north of Ireland parties) are in the Yes camp. The nationalist parties all hope to
attract US investments by low corporate tax and large tax breaks and that vitally
depends on staying in Europe, hence the big change there since 1975. Of the far left
Workers Power, the Alliance
for Workers Liberty and the
CPGB (Weekly Worker) are
for Yes. The SSP in Scotland
and Left Unity in England and
Wales also support a Yes vote.
Socialist Resistance are undecided although Alan Thornett
is for Yes and has strongly
argued for it.
The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency
(RCIT, British section) are for
abstention, on the basis that
this referendum is the equivalent of an inter-imperialist war
on which Marxists must be
A stereotypical vision of the newfrom-the-old Europe?
dual defeatist. [15] Obama has
urged Cameron to fight to remain in Europe and Cameron visible strengthened his
stance as a consequence, the leadership of France and Germany want the UK to
remain in. Opinion polls put the Yes camp in the lead by approximately 39-44%, an
insignificant margin.
Of course we acknowledge that the EU is a bosses club that its structures are
undemocratic even in the very limited terms of bourgeois democracy, that it does
not have the advantages of a federal capitalist state in terms of bourgeois democracy, that monetary union is not fiscal union so all the weaker states in the EU are at
the mercy of German imperialism in particular which exploits the size and strength
of its economy to oppress all other nations. But revolution against the British State
would be in a far better position to defend and extend itself with the assistance of
11
Conclusion
As one comrade commented on Owen Jones Guardian article, British progressives and
the European Union: should we stay or should we go? on 16 July:
A question for Owen Jones: why is it that the radical left in Greece (apart from the Stalinist KKE) is desperate to remain part of the EU despite suffering at the hands of the
European bankers and rightwing politicians. The answer is that the European left are united in wanting to see a peoples Europe not a bankers Europe. The British left walking
away from this fight will only strengthen those who represent the City of London and
reactionary, bigoted, backward forces in British society and culture. Nick Long, London.
[16]
Spot on there, Comrade Nick. Of course the collaboration between the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the CPB/MS and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) under late general secretary Bob Crow and now
under Mick Cash in No2EU, yes to Democracy and in the Trade Union and Socialist
Coalition (TUSC) was partly on the basis of their mutual opposition to Europe and
softness on immigration controls apart from the SWP who oppose immigration controls but manages to collaborate with the other two without any problem in TUSC.
The SWP say Our role in the referendum is to try to carve out a space for an internationalist No campaign [17] The SP have a position of opposition to racist immigration controls, the traditional hypocritical position of the old CPGB. As Peter Manson explained in Weekly Worker:
In fact the policy of the official Communist Party of Great Britain (and, after it, the
CPB) has been one of non-racist immigration controls for over half a century. Here I am
grateful to Dr Evan Smith and his website, Hatful of History, for having collated the statements of the CPGB on this question since the early 1960s. [20] For example, Evans
12
quotes the Communist Party weekly, Comment, which in 1963 stated that the previous
years Commonwealth Immigrants Act must be opposed, because it was not an act to
control immigration in general, but constituted colour discrimination in immigration.
[18]
The SP have not softened their position on immigration control here in their British Perspectives 2013:
We staunchly oppose racism. We defend the right to asylum, and argue for the end of
repressive measures like detention centres. At the same time, given the outlook of the
majority of the working class, we cannot put forward a bald slogan of open borders or
no immigration controls, which would be a barrier to convincing workers of a socialist
programme, both on immigration and other issues. Such a demand would alienate the
vast majority of the working class, including many more long-standing immigrants, who
would see it as a threat to jobs, wages and living conditions. Nor can we make the mistake of dismissing workers who express concerns about immigration as racists. While
racism and nationalism are clearly elements in anti-immigrant feeling, there are many
consciously anti-racist workers who are concerned about the scale of immigration. [19]
It really does not take a very bright spark to work out where Owen Jones gets his
views from. And what is the source of the labour movement support for EU exit. It
is all there in that 1951 British Road to Socialism inspired by Joe Stalin himself. All
the more reason to oppose it and vote Yes.
On a final theoretical point. The imperialist nation state is not counterposed to
the interests of multinational corporations as many are claiming or at least implying
in relation to TTIP. This argument is a reflection of Karl Kautskys theory of imperialism that said that these monopoly corporation would grow so large as to eliminate competition. In fact every large corporation has a home in one of the imperialist powers and that government acts on its behalf in diplomacy and in war when
necessary. This argument appeared before WWII and every multinational found its
home and its champion as soon as the war began. TTIP is the means used by the
imperialist powers of the US and Europe to exploit the working classes of the
world and the semi-colonial nations.
Roger McKenzie Assistant General Secretary of Unison said at the Labour CND
Conference on 30-1-16 that he opposed TTIP because the nation state was marginalised by global corporations. Michael Calderbank says in this pamphlet that TTIP:
allows multinational corporations to bring legal actions in offshore courts against
the governments of nation states for loss of potential profits. Alex Gordon said
when President of the RMT a few years ago that: all nation states must have democratic control over their own immigration policy and have the right to apply national legislation in defence of migrant and indigenous workers and Graham
Durham says in this pamphlet: For what else are the TTIP measures but an encodement of the process by which corporations assert their dominance over national governments and trade blocs.
13
No, the imperialist governments are the executive committees of finance capital and
the transnational corporations representing Wall Street, the City of London, Paris,
Hamburg and Tokyo. The great corporations and their governments (executive committees) can only be defeated when we understand and fight them from the perspective of the world revolution like Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks did in 1917.
Notes
[1] Leon Trotsky, Disarmament and the United States of Europe, 4 October 1929, https://www.marxists.org/archive/
trotsky/1929/10/disarm.htm
[2] Socialist Fight No. 2 Summer 2009, p 10, No support for these chauvinist, xenophobic strikes, https://
suacs.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/socialist-fight-no-2.pdf
[3] Economics Help, Relative decline in UK manufacturing, http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7617/economics/
economic-growth-during-great-moderation/
[4] Wikipedia, Economy of the United Kingdom, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_Kingdom
[5] Wikipedia, Economy of Germany, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Germany
[6] Trade Unionists against the EU, Social Europe is a con,
http://www.no2eu.com/?page_id=263
[7] Karl Marx London, 1870, Letter of Marx to Sigfrid
Meyer and August Vogt In New York, https://
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/
letters/70_04_09.htm
[8] The Morning Star, Socialists should lead the bid to leave the
EU, the case for why Britain must exit the neoliberal empire of
the EU. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-5c07Socialists-should-lead-the-bid-to-leave-theEU#.VhvMCyupfSo
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Owen Jones, The left must put Britains EU withdrawal
on the agenda, http://www.theguardian.com/
commentisfree/2015/jul/14/left-reject-eu-greeceThe SPEW still bad on immigration controls:
eurosceptic
[12] Owen Jones, The Guardian 16 September, If Jeremy At the same time, given the outlook of the
Corbyns Labour is going to work, it has to communicate, http:// majority of the working class, we cannot put
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/16/ forward a bald slogan of open borders or no
jeremy-corbyn-labour-twitter-media
immigration controls, which would be a barri[13] Trotsky, Disarmament, Opus cit.
er to convincing workers of a socialist pro[14] Ibid.
gramme, both on immigration and other is[15] The RCIT maintains that authentic Marxists must sues.
refuse to support either of these two, equally reactionary,
imperialist camps. The most important task now is to fight
for the political independence of the working class and the oppressed vis--vis either of these imperialist camps. There
is no lesser evil for the working class. http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/british-left-and-eu-referendum/part-1/
[16] Owen Jones, The Guardian, 16 July, British progressives and the European Union: should we stay or should we go? http://
www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/16/british-progressives-and-the-european-union-should-we-stay-or-shouldwe-go
[17] Joseph Choonara, EU referendum: Should we stay or should we go? August 2015, http://socialistreview.org.uk/404/eureferendum-should-we-stay-or-should-we-go
hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2013/07/27/the-british-left-and-immigration-controls.
[18] Peter Manson, Playing a fools game, Weekly Worker, Issue 1014, 12.06.2014, http://weeklyworker.co.uk/
worker/1014/playing-a-fools-game/
[19] British Perspectives 2013: a Socialist Party congress document, 28 March 2013, http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/
campaign/Anti-racism/Immigration/16413
14
Such minimal but important protections as the EU Social Charter of yesteryear, and no doubt other similar concessions that have at times cut against the
grain of the British Tories particular brand of neo-liberalism would be for the
chop and a Yes victory would be the signal for that to be done. As indeed
would also be true for whatever attacks on workers rights including those of
migrant workers that Cameron is able to garner.
As such varied phenomena as the Greek austerity in defence of the Euro, and
the advent of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)
show, the EU is not only not a barrier to neo-liberalism, but also a locus of its
deepening. TTIP is the joint US-EU proposal for a transatlantic free trade zone
that contains a further ratcheting up of neo-liberalism and further attacks on
the rights of national governments to institute or defend gains such as free
public healthcare, as with Britains NHS. Thus one important view of the rightwing of the British trade union bureaucracy in recent times, that the EU was
some kind of shield against privatisation and attacks on workers rights, has
gone up in smoke.
A No vote would not improve things. On the contrary it would be certain
to also lead to intensified neo-liberalism in a different, basically English nationalist form. The driving force of the No campaign from the Tory right and
UKIP is hostility to workers rights (including the right to free movement of
workers), residual social democratic interference in the free market, and
human rights laws. If the left were to join in the current No campaign, with a
reactionary Tory government in power pressured further right by its own antiEU wing and their sometime UKIP allies, it would be cutting its own throat. It
would also further entrench the nationalist division between English and Scottish workers epitomised by the wipe-out of Labour by the SNP in last years
General Election, as Scotland would likely vote to separate rather than be
dragged into a Little Britain dominated by the anti-Scottish English right.
The victory of the anti-European right would mean further attacks on migrant rights, the destruction of limitations on exploitation such as the working
time directive, compulsory holidays, the rights of agency workers, not to mention a possible exit from the Council of Europe and thus from the European
Convention on Human Rights. And no doubt, as the British ruling class are
lackeys of the US ruling class to a considerable extent, such projects as TTIP
would not be halted one iota.
So there are plenty of reasons why it would be wrong for the left to actively
support either side. We should be for an active boycott by the workers movement of Camerons referendum, which is not, contrary to the fraudulent and
deeply reactionary campaigns of UKIP and the Tory right, anything to do with
national self-determination. This is about reactionary nationalism opting out of
16
The European Union does contain as part of its economic ethos one thing that
is of net benefit to the working class on a continental level the right of free
17
movement of labour within the EU. This is not a product of altruism or a progressive, internationalist intention on behalf of the rulers of the EU far from
it. Their aim is to wider the sphere of the exploitation of labour, and to undercut so-called labour monopolies particularly in the richer imperialist countries.
This often means attacks on established gains of unionised workers in these
countries.
There is a balance to be struck here, and it is not always easy to see where the
line is to be drawn. It is said that there is only one thing worse than being exploited under capitalism, and that is not being exploited under capitalism. That
is, being thrown on the scrap heap as a worker. This applies just as much to a
worker from Poland or Romania as it does to a worker from Britain. The right
to migrate in search of work is just as much a right that must be defended for
all workers as the right to strike and
picket for better pay, or to defend existing gains of the working class. All such
rights must be defended tooth and nail.
The effects of migration are contradictory and in local situations do indeed
lead to established sections of the working class being undercut by migrants
who are not in a position to demand the
kind of terms and conditions more es- Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway
tablished sections of the class have pre- have both reversed their positions in reviously been able to demand.
cent times in opposite directions.
That is the negative side. The positive
side, however, is the creation of a more internationalised working class, with
the potential to enhance its power and breadth in the future. Not least through
overcoming local chauvinisms that often are steeped in class collaboration with
sections of local employers, at least implicitly against foreign workers. That is
always the effect of labour mobility under capitalism, through assembling
workers from diverse origins and uniting them under the cosh of exploitation,
it creates its own collective gravedigger for the future.
This is again another good reason why it would be fundamentally wrong to
support either side in the bourgeois referendum debate over the EU. Capitalism creates its gravedigger in the proletariat, but we do not thereby support
capitalism. We are opposed to the exploitation of migrant workers, and their
use to undercut previous working class gains. And we cannot endorse the capitalist institutions that are responsible for promoting this, which obviously includes very centrally the EU. We oppose all attacks on gains of the working
class inherited from the past.
But we also oppose reactionary, chauvinistic opposition to these capitalist
phenomena. We oppose any opposition to them that seeks to exclude workers
18
from poorer EU countries from migrating to seek a better life. These are also
the rights of part of the working class under capitalism. We are not defenders
of any national section of the working class against other national sections. We
seek to represent the interest of all workers, to unite the working class. Any
opposition to capital that seeks to exclude foreign workers is in fact helping
capital to poison all sections of the working class against each other, with the
kind of chauvinism that in the past produced its logical consequences with
workers killing each other in two World Wars.
The more consistent left-wing opponents of the EU in times past, such as
No2EU in Britain, no matter how many working class demands they raised that
were supportable, always had as their fundamental weakness a hostility to migrant workers, even if expressed in a cryptic and embarrassed manner. This is
the dangerous political logic to this kind of opposition to the EU, it is damaging
as is the logic of those who seek to promote internationalism by support for
the EU.
Both of these false positions represent at least an implicit break with class independence, and see a bloc with different bourgeois factions as the way forward.
Neither of these bourgeois factions is being pushed by independent working
class forces into taking positions that in some way contradict the interests of
capital. Both are pursuing anti-working class aims, albeit different ones, with
considerable determination and clarity. For the purposes of class independence,
socialists must counterpose themselves to both camps.
Such is the complexity and problematic nature of this question that the most
advanced elements of British social democracy have tended to flip-flop from
one position to another on the basis of empirical events.
For instance Jeremy Corbyn and George Galloway have both reversed their
positions in recent times in opposite directions: Galloway, who was in the past
an outspoken critic of No2EU for its exitism, under the impact of the EUs
humiliation of SYRIZA in Greece, shifted to supporting British exit. Corbyn,
on the other hand, appears to have shifted from an anti-EU position at the beginning of his campaign for the Labour leadership to a pro-EU position now,
partly under pressure from the PLP mainstream (i.e. the remnants of New Labour) and partly through worry about the nationalist consequences of a British
exit.
Such flip flopping really is pretty subjective, shallow and empirical and represents an inability to formulate a coherent class alternative to both bourgeois
camps. It is not surprising that even the best elements of left Labourism have
been so empirical; what left Labourism lacks above all is a coherent socialist
worldview. Only Marxism can provide that.
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VOTE NO!
NO SUPPORT TO THE EU NEO-LIBERAL CARTEL!
NO SUPPORT TO CONTINENTAL CHAUVINISM IN
ANY CONTINENT!
NO SUPPORT TO NATIONAL CHAUVINISM IN ANY
COUNTRY!
WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES UNITE!
By Graham Durham January 2016
For what else are the TTIP measures but an encodement of the process by which
corporations assert their dominance over national governments and trade blocs.
Capitalism is international and dominates all the world, even where, as in China
and Vietnam for example, so-called Communist Parties are in government presiding over the free market (we can exclude only Cuba which continues to defend the
social gains of the 1959 revolution from this total US dominance).
In this sense, and allowing for the rivalries and tensions between competing and
growing economies such as China, the shrinking economic power that is the EU
cannot be even a capitalist rival for the US and increasingly China. To try to tie the
interest of workers internationally to the EU is an absurdity. Ask the redundant
steel workers of Teesside or Port Talbot how they were defended by the EU or the
British government against the cheaper labour extracted in China which cut the
profits of steel corporations and led to ruthless closures and redundancies. In the
21st century only an international planning of all world resources through workers
governments across the planet can achieve solutions to the problems facing the
oppressed in all nations.
Only with this internationalist perspective of the world struggle of the workingclass can we address the pro-EU Yes voters in the labour movement. These broadly fall into two camps - the pro-Europe social democrats such as Hilary Benn and
the orthodox Trotskyist Yes voters such as comrade Gerry Downing in this pamphlet. In Downings case this orthodoxy on Europe mainly consists of examining
the writings of Trotsky. Before the Stalinists murdered him in 1940 the then triumphant Nazis were engaged in world war; Downing is desperately trying to restate
Trotskys formulations in the stubborn face of the facts that capitalism has become
a worldwide system able to operate across continental borders with ease. We return
to these errors later.
First to deal with Hilary Benn and co, who may have captured Jeremy Corbyn in
recent weeks, and many trade union leaders, with the idea that the EU is a glorious
defender of workers; interests. The Stay in Europe campaign for example (backed
by Billy Hayes and Caroline Lucas amongst others) argues that although there are
faults in the EU, British citizens stand to lose amongst others: the right to study in
Europe, workplace rights, human rights and environmental agreements.
Putting aside for now the fact that the European Convention on Human Rights
has nothing to do with the EU, these arguments are an uncomfortable mix of pure
European workers privileges at the expense of the rest of the world and abandon21
The crushing by the EU and the European Central Bank allied to the IMF and
World Bank of the attempts by Syriza to resist, at least in a token way, austerity
shows clearly that the EU is a reactionary force allied to the US against the interests
of European workers. The weakening of the capitalist EU cartel could strengthen
the ability of the US to impose its will unless there is a mobilisation of the workers
worldwide against US imperialism. Our task is to build international working-class
solidarity against European and US imperialism. That is the true legacy of Bolshevism and Trotskyism.
Interestingly Downing focuses on the strikes by German workers and ignores the
struggles in Egypt, China, Syria etc. by workers internationally. Here he falls into
European continental chauvinism which makes no sense in a neo-liberal world.
Other Marxists who fall into this trap quote the rise of Podemos in Spain and other parties of the left calling for European solidarity. Of course solidarity with all
23
There is a socialist case for Brexit (From The Independent 3 December 2015)
By Michael Calderbank, Co-Editor of Red Pepper magazine
25
26
Boycott Camerons Trap: Neither Brussels, nor Downing Street! For Abstention in Britains EU-Referendum!
For international Unity and Struggle of the Workers and Oppressed! Fight
against both British as well as European Imperialism! Forward to the United Socialist States of Europe. Statement of the Revolutionary Communist
International Tendency (RCIT) and the RCIT Britain, 2 August 2015
1. Socialists have to explain that it is in the interest
of the working class and the oppressed of Britain to
oppose any form of imperialist state. They should
refuse to be dragged into giving their support as
gullible voters to either of these alternative forms of
imperialism. Consequently, the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and its supporters in Britain call upon workers and oppressed
to vote neither YES or NO to UK membership in
the EU. Instead, they should write on the ballot:
Neither Brussels, nor Downing Street! For international Unity of the Workers and Oppressed, i.e.,
effectively casting a vote of abstention.
3. The huge majority of Britains ruling class
wants to stay in the European Union as this is consistent with their political and economic interests.
In contrast to its role in the 19th and early 20th
centuries, British imperialism is far too weak to
have any global influence as an isolated state. Its
only real options are acting as a junior partner to US
imperialism or to a European Union led by Germany and France. While the British bourgeoisie have
and will to continue to maintain special relations
with Washington (especially militarily), its economic
interests are closely aligned with the EU. 51.2% of
UKs Outward Foreign Direct Investments are
concentrated in the EU (2010), compared with only
17.5% for the US. (49% of the UKs Inward FDI
originates in the EU while the source of 30% of
these investments is the US.) Similarly, the EU is by
far Britains biggest trading partner: In 2013, 44.5%
of UK exports went to other EU countries, while
the EU contributed 52.2% of total imports to the
UK. (The US accounts for only 17.6% of UK exports and 9% of its imports.)
4. Characteristically, the pro-Zionist and socialimperialist centrist, Alliance for Workers Liberty
(AWL) also supports a pro-EU vote, claiming that
this would be a vote for more democracy and
against racism. This is a rather bizarre position of
for this so-called Trotskyist group, given the fact
that the EU doesnt even have an elected government and in light of the EUs standing aside while
thousands of migrants drown in the Mediterranean
27
revolutionary Marxists for over 100 years. The perspective that such independence aids the creation
of socialism in single countries is even more reactionary now that it was when Stalin proclaimed this
doctrine.
6. Cramping the productive forces back into national states, reimposing border controls and customs barriers, severing ties of economic and cultural
exchange, increasing interstate rivalries, dividing yet
further the working classes of these states in the
name of a bogus national independence can only
foster economic collapse and imperialist war.
7. Nevertheless, the crisis which has wracked the
EU since 2008 shows that the capitalist classes of
the continent are unable to perform the historically
progressive task of unifying the continent. The dominant powers of the continent especially the reunified Germany have proved unable to transcend
their national capitalist egoism. As the fate of
Greece and to a lesser degree Portugal, Spain, Italy
and Ireland shows, the imperialist centre has, via the
Euro, subjected the periphery to trade domination
and debt bondage. If not overcome, this domination
will inevitably lead to revolt and fracturing of the
Union. Even if David Cameron returns with concessions from the EU, this should not change our view;
it only reinforces the point that the competition and
manoeuvring of national capitalisms will continue to
obstruct the historically progressive task that faces
us.
8. The task of unifying Europe a task communists realised was necessary a century ago, before
the carnage of the two world wars exterminated
millions of European workers, peasants, oppressed
nations and races, falls to the working class. The
means by which it can achieve this is the Europewide revolution.
9. The actuality of this revolution, i.e. its potential
to be realised by European workers and its objective
necessity to avoid the material and human destruction of crisis and war was already clear in all the
great general crises of the twentieth century. These
dangers and this potential solution both exist today.
11. Revolutionaries cannot support for one minute
the European Union as it is with its institutions like
the European Commission, the European Central
Bank with its Euro, and the rules that underpin
them the bludgeoning of southern European
29
pendence, the Labour leaders and the Tories openly betray Britains national interests and the unity of all true patriots! (FFS).
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel Samuel Johnson once said, although Boswell issued hasty assurances that he was only referring to false patriotism. Presumable
Joe Stalin and Harry Pollitt discovered the genuine variety, the we are all in this together kind espoused by Tories like Winston Churchill and David Cameron. And to champion the national sovereignty of an imperialist power like Great Britain is beyond
revisionism, to use a hackneyed Stalinist word.
The fact that Stalin, and not Khrushchev, initiated this absolute drivel has given rise to
big problems about Khrushchevite revisionism. Vijay Singh, Editor of Revolutionary Democracy, an Indian Stalinist publication favoured by many internationally including the
New Communist Party in Britain, asserts:
From back page
However, in the absence of the relevant documentation the nature and significance of Stalins
contribution (in The British Road to Socialism GD) was always opaque. There were clear grounds
for supposing that the interpretation of Khrushchev and the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU
of the peaceful and parliamentary path to socialism did not correspond to the known views
of Lenin and Stalin on these questions The methods whereby the organised working class
would counter and defeat the resistance of the capitalists were not spelt out but it may be reasonably supposed that the methods adopted by the Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution and
the Communist and Workers Parties in the revolutionary process in the Peoples Democracies
of Eastern and South-East Europe and the national liberation war in Greece were not unknown
to the CPGB. [2]
This is a very weak argument; the clear grounds that are not clear at all. Everything in the
extract given here endorses the peaceful and parliamentary road to socialism by loyal
British patriots for even the most naive of political thinkers. It directly equates the antiimperialist nationalism of the oppressed in the semi-colonial world with the chauvinist
nationalism of imperialist Britain, an oppressor nation.
This amounts to endorsing the imperialist prejudices of the labour aristocracy via the
trade union bureaucracy who, together with the Labour party leaders, form the twin pillars of capitalism in the working class in Britain. This also endorses British imperialisms
exploitation of the planet, as the French Communist Party endorsed French Imperialisms
war in Vietnam on Uncle Joes instructions. Decisive action to win a Parliamentary majority and form a Peoples Government is clearly a parliamentary road to socialism. And
of course the methods of the Bolsheviks had nothing to do with the ultra-bureaucratic
revolutionary process in the Peoples Democracies.
Contrary to Comrade Singh it may be reasonably supposed that this has nothing to
do with the known views (and methods) of Lenin and everything to do with the know
views (and methods) of Stalin since 1924 when he imposed the gross revision of Marxism,
socialism in a single country, on the former Bolshevist party and extinguished its revolutionary soul.
Notes
[1] Communist Party of Great Britain, The British Road to Socialism, Programme adopted by the Executive Committee of
the Communist Party, January, 1951, accessed 13-10-2015, https://www.marxists.org/history/international/
comintern/sections/britain/brs/1951/51.htm
[2] Vijay Singh, The British Road to Socialism of 1951: A Programme of Peoples Democracy, accessed 13-10-15, http://
www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv13n2/brs1951.htm
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There is nothing socialist let alone genuinely communist about this ultra-patriotic bourgeois reactionary nonsense. The narrow and ignorant nationalist outlook of the bureaucrat found its expression in the programme of socialism in a single country, the corollary of peaceful co-existence
with imperialism and the reformist theory of stages in the revolution, originating in the Second
International. It amounts to the indefinite postponement of the struggle for revolution, the idealistic and impossible peaceful parliamentary road to socialism, openly embraced in 1951.
The class collaboration that assumes a community of interests between British capitalists and
British workers drips from almost every sentence; our country has lost its indeGo to p.31
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