(Or: SES at Marxism 2008, part 2)

This time around I managed to gather myself from slumbers early enough to show up in time for considerably more sessions than the day before, albeit not nearly as early as the brisk 10.00 start that the meetings began with. I actually underestimated my lateness and ended up ploughing into what I thought was Labour and Alienation soon after starting but which was in fact Historical Materialism about to finish. Consequentially entry was a matter of ease; although in hindsight I probably left a SWP doorperson or two baffled.

I honestly can’t remember a lot about historical materialism, but as far as I can tell there was somehow a conversation about ethics going on, which was topically innappropriate but entertaining all the same, if only for a chap with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair who took to the floor and began talking about Kronsdat.

Now if I was looking for a sharp start to my day here it was: once this world was uttered things seemed to ripple and the effect was as delightful as I had imagined ennounciating such syllables in a room full of Trotskyites would be. Indeed, I merely deemed it a pity that I hadn’t beaten the chap to the bunch.

He was immediately followed by a bleached-blond lass who would later turn out to be somehow important who gave it some typical blather. Safeguarding the Revolution and so on, you know the drill. Never mind that their hero had overseen and executed the crushing of the epitome of the revolution, had to be done to protect a structure that they didn’t even agree with, see? The alternative being a far more popular brand of socialism than the Bolsheviks seeing control of the country and that…Uhm…Anyway…

The room was still left unsettled. The topic moved on and it was about some other stuff, with my recollection failing me over the materialism stuff. What was interesting was that as he was headed out of the room the chap who had asked was verbally hailed by a pair of Marxism “Staff” t-shirt wearers from behind a table, who wanted to give him the Kronsdtat Chat. I stuck around to hear this and the first man was firm and pulled away quickly by duties while the second was softer but spoke to us for longer, accompanying us to the lift and staying with us for a while.

Their arguments seemed to consist of a mixture of emphasising the importance of crushing the Kronsdtat threat, claiming that there were none of the original Kronsdtat sailors left owing to attrition from the revolution(s) against the Csar and the heavy losses of the Civil War (concerning this, as with all other matters of detail, you must consult Douglas or some other historian who is of this field rather than early Medieval as I am) , launching ad hominems (those that bring this up are bourgeois or anarchists aiming to discredit Trotsky rather than achieve anything productive) and talking about how the Bolsheviks agonised over the decision.

They also stated that the Kronsdtat make up was Socialist Revolutionary rather than Bolshevik, and this irked me: even I am aware that when Lenin briefly allowed an experiment in democracy the very reason he rejected the outcome was that the SRs won in a landslide, crushing the Bolsheviks electorally and demonstrating a level of support for the militants of an immensely smaller scale than they liked to presume. This considered, that there were plenty of Kronsdtat sailors Social Revolutionaries is hardly surprising at all.

Unfortunately all Bolshevik apologists dislike you bringing up their almost total absence of mandate about as much as Trots do his authoritarian atrocities. So we didn’t get far but the people we spoke to were perfectly friendly and their response seemed more an earnest attempt to explain their position rather than intimidation or anything of the sort. As ever the SWP seemed like a misguided but ultimately lovely bunch.

As we headed outside I encountered a large number of groups that thought otherwise. This was a set of people who’d cleared off before I arrived yesterday and were in some ways who I was there for. The SWP I’d already heard plenty from and now it was time for The Rest of The Left.

The first chap I came across wore a baseball cap and plunged me in at the deep end. He was a member of the International Bolshevik Tendency and by the looks of things was there most definetly not for the lulz. I asked what they stood for, although the black and white photo of Middle Eastern chaps touting rocket launchers while covering their faces with scarves gave my something of a hint. Apparently they are of the view that revolution is not only essential but can not occur without the bourgeoisie killing plenty of revolutionaries, something that they intend to mitigate. Towards this end they are aiming at eventually creating a New Red Army but for the time being are settling for pulling together worker’s militias.

The exact legality of this immediately seemed dubious to me, especially given that he was seemingly advocating assembling squadrons of class warriors in a country that has outlawed handguns. His reply was simple: laws made by the bourgeois are for the bourgeois. The Bolsheviks were not obliged to follow them and could make their own.

He pointed out to me their newspaper proudly bearing the number 1917 and told me that they were of the view that the (second) Russian Revolution was basically correct and a worthy model for emulation by Communists in an(industrialised)other country. This brought to mind my longstanding observation that the harking back to history seen on the left is often just as reactionary, if not more so, to that on the right.

They were determined to halt the rise of fascism and said that they aimed to be active in preventing its further advance. I pondered this for a moment and then asked him if they were going to use Socialist Worker Party or Socialist Party tactics or Antifa tactics. He replied, immediately, “Antifa tactics”. Apparently the IBF follow a “No Platform” position (damn silly while there’s an internet around) which holds that the far-right, as a group which organises a bunch of thugs in a manner that borders upon paramilitary, can not be treated or dealt with as a standard rightist opponent and must not be defeated in debate but on the streets.

He told me that they were the most left group going and when I replied that I was certain all the groups in attendance would say much the same he was confident that I was wrong. The commies behind me, he told me, would call his own faction “Anarchism Light” but otherwise there was a consensus that none could match the extremist credentials of his group. The IBT advocates no concessions towards the bourgeois and states that the SWP operate in a fashion far too close to the ruling class to be deemed pleasing.

The commies in question were the delightfully acronymed Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) who are on no account to be confused with the sadly absent Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) who are the type of far-leftie who will publish a magazine that has a front page railing against attempts at “Regime Change” that would unseat “Comrade Mugabe”, followed with much the same claims made about the Burmese Junta, before moving on to a special feature about on Kim Jong Il and what can be learnt about revolution in an industrialised country from his illustrious example.

Instead CPGB are probably the friendliest openly Communist Party going (with SWP perhaps being the friendliest not openly Communisty Party going). The fellow I spoke to was superbly affable and quickly outlined what they stood for, how they operated and what distinguished them from the SWP (a common theme, it would seem, which was expected as the SWP are a common whipping-boy for other, perhaps a tad envious, far-left groups; as well as quite possibly exacerbated by their surroundings). This was very happily and surprisingly convincingly done.

CPGB, I was told, were anti-Soviet and anti-China (two ticks there) as well as opposed to the internal democracy of the SWP (my main problem as well). He told me that he knew a man that had worked in the Stalinised Communist Party throughout the eighties before leaving to join the SWP in the nineties and found more official outlets for internal criticism in the former than latter. They pointed out that there was no discussion concerning Respect at this Marxism (as did the IBT representative) and this is rather remarkable once considered.

They informed me that they had a meeting on Iran which they had invited the SWP to debate at but seem their offer declined for. I had a busy schedule as it was but decided to give them a fair listen (as I will the IBT for their meeting on Respect tomorrow, albeit quite possibly in my fake role of founding member of the Menshevik League).

For the time being, though, I had a meeting to attend. Unfortunately this meant missing the chaps from Permanant Revolution, but with any luck they’ll be around tomorrow.

The meeting was on Marxism and something else I can’t quite remember, but for some reason there were plenty of teachers there. It was a “For beginners” session, so the speaker was quite clearly moderating the esoteric language; that was a relief. Dirty blonde fellow was back and upon this occasion underwent a fairly brutal but entirely correct hammering of her argument that the division of Labour caused alienation (which, now I consider it, was the theme: Labour and alienation) to which he responded that it was this division that had made the industrial revolution possible. Indeed, he pointed out, “Division of Labour” was the title of the first chapter of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.

The talk was good, once again staged by a woman which was somehow pleasing, although the performer babbled at the end and flushed with embarassment. Still, for the most part it outlined Marxist positions with copious clarity.

After this it was off to the Iranian meeting, but on my way I got waylaid by more leftist groups. Worker’s Power was an interesting bunch, basically with a similar motivation to the Campaign for a New Worker’s Party but arguing that any solution had to be from within the Trade Union movement if it was to be successful. They, like most of the groups present, talked about the dire state of the left and remarked at the failure of Respect.

I then moved on to the Alliance for Worker’s Liberty, who seemed to have similar aims but told me that Worker’s Power uses a model of “buraucratic centralism”, which is apparently like Democratic Centralism but with less voting. They invited me along to their own mini-version of Marxism, named Ideas for Freedom. The AWL seemed to believe in an unclear but highly pleasing mish-mash of things but basically are Trotskyists who seemed to follow the standard template of anti-wage cutting, pro-strikes and pro-worker’s rights and so on.

Indeed the only people who seemed to deviate much from anything were the Campaign against Climate Change. I was perhaps hoping for some utterly radical ecologists; but these were largely standard fare and indeed the extent to their propoganda bearing the slogan NO NEW COAL above a picture of a pair of dinosaurs looming over sinister looking chimmneys spewing out gaseous sludge. This was rather provocative, I’d imagine, to a considerable portion of present company; to who the word coal has some very precise connotations.

Indeed, this insensitivity was indicative of the fact that they had seemingly borrowed only the tactics of our hosts. CCC organise a large number of protests and seem to think that getting climate change opponents out on the streets is the only wa to get the results they desire. This was one of the occasions I failed to get into a deep chap, simply because it’s fairly obvious what they (or pretty much any environmental group) stood for.

By this stage, though, I was simply getting myself late for the Iranian thing. The CPGB had obtained themselves a room in Birbeck College and they didn’t much mind me showing up after they’d started (in fact I was far from the latest). They had invited an Iranian woman, who clearly knew plenty about the topic at hand. She outlined that the approach of the Hands Off the People Of Iran campaign (HOPOI) was one opposed both to theocracy and imperialism. After this there was a long discussion amongst the communists (including a gradual but eloquent contribution from someone who shared my name but had impressively longer hair) and I asked her about the Iranian Marxist student movement and whether it was likely to spread; being as it was an anti-religious ideology in a highly religious country.

A moment of immense friction arose when the topic of Israel was brushed against and then snapped up by a CPGB member present. He accused the AWL member present of excessive Zionism since HOPOI’s charter included a line speaking out against Israel and their involvement; which had apparently been the sole reason AWL kept away. Their representative (by which I mean the only Ally there) took the line in favour of the Jewish State (which was quite a surprise, somehow the concept of a pro-Israel member of the outer-left is harder to anticipate than a contemporary outright Bolshevik) and said that if the definition of “Zionist” covered anyone who accepted Israel’s “Right to exist” then that would cover the overwhelming majority of Israelis, including the working classers who had protested against the IDF’s treatment of Lebannon.

This caused some tension.

After a long and rambling talk from one of the comrades (which is a downside of the every-comrade-gets-to-speak rule but not one suffeciently annoying for me to wish it jettisoned) we got back to the Iranian lady, who responded to me by saying that the Marxist take-over of the student movement was impressive (ten years ago they were all pro-Democracy pro-Americans) but largely confined to the students. More interestingly she told me that the power of religion (or at very least the accepted authority of religious leaders in government) in Iran had weakened as the populace had grown highly cynical. She was filled with such fascinating facts, such as the case where the workers had arranged themselves into a militia to fend off Saddam’s forces from their workplace and found themselves attacked by the Revolutionary Guard rather than the Baathist military machine.

She predicted, almost certianly correctly, that much the same would occur were America to invade.

As far as I could tell the meeting had largely the right idea and had certainly flanked the SWP on a vulnerable front: an invasion of Iran by America would have truly foul consequences but the status quo is hardly the optimum either. An oppressive regime that kills gays for having sex and trade unionists for demanding more rights is hardly the friend of any true leftist party.

Before I left the chairman of the meeting came over to talk to the AWL member about a matter concerning their involvement with a group that was government affiliated in some fashion and reportedely “In favour of bombing Iran”. The AWL chap said that he couldn’t comment and it was pointed out that the CPGB’s paper, the Weekly Worker, had published an expose on the matter a while ago and received no response.

I spoke briefly to the brilliant Communist who’d invited me along and got a leaflet from a friend of his (who wore an “Anarchist Federation” t-shirt and had barbed wire tattoos along his arms) which I since lost. A pity, it seemed to be some anti-Zionist event which would have been delightful to troll.

Well, that, and there weren’t any anarchists around. I found that really quite a pity as I disagree when them but they’re an interesting and often exciting bunch. Presumably they thought that there would be slim pickings at an event called Marxism, because it can hardly have been that they were excluded given that a set of firmly SWP groups (AWL, CPGB, IBT, ETC) were in attendence and distributing leaflets and flogging papers.

A group who were present, much to my surprise, were the Sparticist League of Great Britain. They had set up shop in a room across from the CPGB’s meeting room. I had not anticipated encountering any from this sect, one that I was amazed existed in the 21st century. Named after the armed street gangs that had fought throughout the existence of the Weimar Republic (and largely lost, as their foes were fierce nationalists that were largely veterans of the First World War who had kept their guns) this group ran a publication named the Worker’s Hammer and were largely advocating the “Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal”, a black panther who they say was framed with murdering a policeman. It seems that the Spartacists very much like black nationalism and think that reparations are going not nearly far enough in terms of recompense for the slave labour that built the American capitalist system. In their view getting blacks cared for as first class citizens by a vast socialist state is the only way to make up for the former oppression. This type of rhetoric rather distracted us from matters closer to home but although they kept the militia stuff considerably more quiet than the IBT (if indeed it was there at all) when I mentioned that group and noted the similarity they bristled. Apparently the Tendency was formed by a small break-away faction from within the Sparticists and consists of a few “Dubious characters”. The man I was speaking to reckoned that they do a far worse job of holding the SWP to account and seemed to deem them a thankful cast-off.

I walked past the AWL, who consisted of the two teenagers I’d seen at the stall and the older chap (who reminded me awkwardly of Stephen Pollard) who was at the meeting. He asked me for my take on events as I’d been there and I said I didn’t not the exacts of their situation. I told him that I had been informed there was an article published a while ago outlining their criticisms and he told me that he was not a regular reader of the Weekly Worker.Perhaps rather harshly I replied that few were. I was interested in his position though and asked him if he was an internationalist. When he replied in the alternative I questioned how it could zionist internationalism could be reconciled. He responded that he had never called himself a Zionist and simply said that if they considered anyone who supported the right to existence of Israel to make somebody a Zionist then he qualified.

It was here that I got to work, saying that I did not accept that right; but not for the usually cited reasons of land thievery and so on but instead along exactly the same lines that I accepted the existence of no nation. As Benedict Anderson outlines (he had not read Imagined Communities, so I reccommended it and he to me Lenin’s writings on the subject) a nation is effectively an idea and as far as I am concerned it is a highly bad idea. I was then accused of being abstract and pointed out that the results of nationalism (inherently present along with any nation) were very much physical and visceral and that the carnage caused by nations outweighed the benefit they brought.

I doubt that this was the line of reasoning expected and it was replied that it was overly abstract, not something that you could tell people working on either side of the Palestine Wall: just work towards some nebulous goal of statelessness that at some point in the far future would solve all of your woes. I replied that it could happen quickly, indeed instantly. But his point was taken, yet mine was not one related to pure practicalities but merely meant to explain why I could not deem Israel a “legitimate” nationstate. Not because it has an exceptionally grim formative history (it’s brutal, but it doesn’t) but purely because it was no exception to my opposition to national existence, I opposed it just as I did Germany or Holland. But Germany’s right to exist was not under question by the left, it was replied (I find this a pity). I said that I could not speak for them but as far as I was concerned Israel being Israel was causing problems just like all nations were. He asked if I was willing to discuss the matter further (I was, naturally) and invited me to the Ideas For Freedom events, which I had already taken two leaflets for from his younger comrades. He told me that it sounded like an Anarchist idea and I replied I was no anarchist before biding him a good day and heading towards Howard Zinn.

Zinn was communing with us over video-link up, the very first time that such technology has been used at Marxism. The reason for this was most likely a mixture of him being elderly and on the other side of the Atlantic. He was discussing his memoirs of life in the Sixties South and his first-hand view of the Civil Rights movement and the other assorted leftist projects of the time. He looked remarkably like Ron Paul and in his tone was not entirely different: revolution, an over-turning of the old order, freshness. He was a fine wit, replying when asked his views on “Political organisation” by an audience member “I believe in it” and overcoming the technical difficulties inherent in such a method of contact with good grace.

He outlined his philosophy in easily understood terms, quoting one of the Hollywook Ten in saying he supported “Socialism without jails”. He clearly had a lifetime of activism behind him but no urge to cease his writing.

Afterwards an SWP member was rather unenthusiastically partaking in his duties, enquiring “SWP, remember them?” as we left and engaging me in a brief, bemused discussion about the way the chairman of that meeting had brought up the recent death of Zinn’s wife and stated that the room offered “Condolensces and solidarity” with him over the matter. As if anyone else wouldn’t feel sorry for him, he remarked. “Those neo-liberals fucking hate wives” I replied.

As I was headed out I met a former Palestinian in the big empty tent that I was raiding food from. He was born on the Gaza Strip and spent some time there but “moved around a lot” and thus had no fixed home before coming to England. This is the sort I was expect to be fiercely backing the SWP’s anti-Israel line but he took a perhaps rather surprisingly calm line on the affairs. He stated that the only way peace was ever going to come was if both sides stop bombing each other, which sounds reasonable and obvious enough but is probably not what a party backing “Resistance” would go along with. He was not, more predictably, a party member.

I find it highly valuable to get an opportunity to speak to the people actually affected by the issues so commonly discussed. On Friday I met an Iraqi attempted to gather names on a petition for his friend who was to be deported by the Home Office, while on that day I had signed the petition he sent around for himself. It had been the idea of a Socialist Worker he spoke to to place the paper onto a clipboard and send it around a meeting while we were all seated and gathered and this was highly wise. The Home Office will happily deport those Iraqis who no fuss is made over (as well, perhaps, as those who are) as Iraq is now entirely safe and nobody should feel concerned to return there.

When propoganda and the official lie are of more value than human life things have become severely perverted.

I headed off to poetry, the first event which I had some problems sneaking into. A chap with dreadlocks stopped me entering on account of having no ticket and when I told him the sub prime victim, seeking employment stuff he said he’d be happy to let me in but for the fact that the room would be packed. So I sat around waiting until it became clear there’d be some extra room and then he allowed me in, requesting that I be honest and buy a ticket the next day.

I’d never been anything but honest.

Performing first was John Hegley, who’s delightfully comedic tones allowed him to make reading a note about a “Great grey gadget” off of the table presumably left for an SWP member rather than him highly amusing. He read out play about Romans with regional accents (with one American), performed an ode to a volumptuous girlfriend with the response line of “What, you mean fat?” and played the ukelele while singing about gay bus drivers. He then had to hurry away since this was the first of three gigs he had to perform that night.

Then Adrian Mitchell, who Red Pepper magazine declared “Shadow Laureate” in the 1960s, who performed a variety of verses. Largely his work is political but he pursued an almost unbearably tense, deeply dark & disconforting poem about an instance of desperate working class infanticide with a happy poem about walking down the stairs with his wife. He also performed his most famous piece “Tell me lies about Vietnam”, with a modified intro and an ending adjusted to include Afghanistan, Palestine, Iran and Iraq. Like much of his work this one revolved around a tight chorus; which was returned to after each verse. He suffered from occasional lapses of speech, which he referred to as Alzheimers, resulting from a nervous laugh from a roomful of people not quite sure if he was joking. Regardless, he had enough courage to continue performing and I admire his efforts: lesser performers would have been scared off the stage and that would have been an awful loss given the quality of his work. He performed a poem about the loss of Labour’s soul in exchange for that offered by Blair and left to immense applause. A hard act to follow.

Lemm Sissay, however, was up to the task. He was artist in residence at the South Bank Centre, he told us while plugging his books, and had been working on selling out for a number of years. Lemm is a young black poet, but launched diatribes against being called a “human being” (which he compared to telling a mathematics teacher “You’re using numbers”) and “urban”. He also talked about how racism is not a product of language, but the unspoken meanings between language and how those signals from anti-racists were often just as revealing (they don’t want too much). His style of performence involved a good deal more talking than it did actual recital and occasionally he even snapped off mid-performance to give us another piece of his mind, returning to it only eventually. This was bizarre initially but towards the end of his performance served to soften up the mind and expand it into a state suitable to receive his verse.

He was a master show-man, working the crowd with skill and obtaining constant reactions. He ensured this by almost immediately staging a poll on the exact wording of Marx’s notorious statement on religion, asking whether it was “Opiate” or “Opium”. This was a matter of some importance, so much so that he’d consulted a Guardian journalist over it (”Not that that means anything…” he added) as he had a quote saying that if that was true then nationalism was the crack cocaine in the front of his book. He ribbed a tender spot of his hosts by mimicking a Marxist, utterly baffled and bewhildered, whining “We should have had a meeting on this…” before telling those who thought it was “Opiate” to raise their hands first. I was amongst them.

Apparently this was correct but he didn’t give “Opium” a chance to raise, wondering how many of those left would have voted for this option and how many were just avoiding voting at all. He never made the audience participation this explicit again but had us in the palm of his hand from then on. He left after a lengthy part of a poem he’d done as part of a broadcast named The Queen’s Speech he’d written for Radio 4, a rabbi (or rabbit) who gave a lengthy advocacy of immigration revolving around the line “Let them come”. Everyone clearly fucking loved it and he’s an outstanding performer I’d love to see again.

Then it was off to the bar, where I had no money to obtain drinks but decided to have a go at this “Gregariousness” stuff that apparently socialists are meant to find important. I struck up a talk with some SWP member (as identifiable by the “Marxism 2008 Staff” t-shirt) and another girl by pretending I thought that they were with the SWP area which would be my lot were I in the party. They told me otherwise and the SWPer went off to get a drink while I met the frien of the wench left, Tim. They’d met yesterday and spent a night together on the floor of the Turkish Community centre, along with a lot of other Marxists.

No, it wasn’t an orgy. Speaking of which, Revolution weren’t around. Which was a damn shame…

Anyway, this is worthwhile because “Moins” as Tim called her (Moina was her real, less memorable name) didn’t know a lot about Marxism. I had to explain the concept of the bourgeoisie to her, for instance. This was valuable in some ways as I got to tell her my take on Democratic Centralism before the SWP could tell her theirs. It’s always fun being formative.

More importantly though, she asked a question which I actually hadn’t considered but should have done. She didn’t want to offend anyone, she said, but had we noticed that for all the talk of “Workers” that had permeated the day almost everyont there was…Well…Middle class?

Not an incorrect observation, comrade, perhaps that’s why the air of abject failure was so heavy…

Awards

‘Ending of Animal Farm’ Award - To the chap who asked me if I was going to pay my £2 for the food first time I entered the Marxism tent and didn’t realise you had to, then gave me a stern look that led to me leaving empty handed and hungry.

‘Upstanding, non-Hypocritical Socialist’Award - Both to the CPGB & AWL for giving me their newspaper for free. There, how does that shared platform feel?

‘Crowd Pleaser’ Award - David Hilliard for being advertised as “Black Panther coming to Britain” across numerous walls on SWP/Marxism 2008 posters and speaking under the title of “The Black Panther Party” and then…Not talking about his involvement with the Black Panthers.

‘Balls of the Day’ Award - Mr. “What About Kronsdtat?”

‘Person of the Day’ Award - Lemm Sissay, well worth enraging the historical materialists for.