I welcome the decision of the French Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) to launch a new revolutionary anti-capitalist party, as reported on favourably by Peter Manson, the editor of the Weekly Worker (February 21, http://cpgb.org.uk/worker/709/defeatliquidators.html). The LCR has established itself as the most serious far left party in France, with just over 4% in last year's presidential election.

Calling the new party "anti-capitalist", rather than "socialist", "communist", "Marxist" or "Trotskyist", will have some advantages. I have long felt that calling themselves "communist" limits the LCR's appeal, due to the association with the Stalinist regimes that collapsed in the USSR and Eastern Europe, and the collapse of the vote received by the official Communist Party (PCF), to a meagre 1.9%, seems to confirm this hypothesis. Calling themselves "Marxist" would cause a similar problem, and using the term "Trotskyist" would limit their appeal to a subset of Marxists. Calling the new party "socialist" could make them appear less radical than they really are, due to the existence of the mainstream Socialist Party (PS), which is clearly in favour of the continuation of the capitalist system.

"Socialist" means different things to different people. I have a minor criticism of LCR leader Olivier Besancenot, who said that the new party will "counterpose, against the management of existing institutions, the perspective of a workers' government". The term "workers' government" would seem to imply a Marxist form of socialism, composed of hierarchies of committees based on workplaces, where the middle class has little or no say. Whereas I would support some degree of workers' control of industry, I am in favour of a government elected by proportional representation (PR) using single transferable vote (STV), and I wouldn't want the new party to exclude socialists like me. A good sign, however, that the new party would not do so is the fact that the LCR has held discussions with the anarchist grouping Alternative Libertaire (AL) and anarchists are massively opposed to hierarchical structures. Although AL has rejected joining, the new party could attract some anarchists to its ranks and win the support of others in elections; I have found that the best anarchists tend to welcome the efforts of genuine left-wingers who do stand in elections even though they do not want to participate in electoral campaigning themselves.

The sectarian Trotskyist group Lutte Ouvrière (LO), which had previously outpolled the LCR, has criticised the proposal for the new party by suggesting that it would attract "liberals and do-gooders". How could a revolutionary party ever come to power without attracting such well-meaning individuals? Many of them could of course be won to socialist ideas, but even those who aren't tend to play an important positive role in society. For me, the most important struggle is between good and bad, for a world in which people can democratically choose the form of society they want (and I would argue that the STV form of PR, which many liberals argue for, is important to enable such choices to be made), and against the drift towards a totalitarian society in which revolutionary change is impossible.

The front page article of today's Guardian, entitled "Government wants personal details of every traveller" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/feb/23/uksecurity.terrorismandtravel), points out that the British New Labour government is demanding that passengers travelling between EU countries or domestic flights would have to hand over a mass of personal information, including their mobile phone numbers and credit card details, which would be stored for 13 years and used to "profile" suspects. The article also states: "Brussels officials are already considering controversial anti-terror plans that would collect up to 19 pieces of information on every air passenger entering or leaving the EU". Whereas opposing terrorism would be used as an excuse, the real agenda is to prevent socialist revolution via the sort of society predicted by George Orwell in "Nineteen Eighty-Four".

New Labour is rejecting calls for a DNA database of every citizen, but that is probably because there would be mass defiance if they tried to summon people to give compulsory samples. It would be much easier for them to get away with preventing people from travelling if they refused to cooperate with Big Brother, in a similar way to their plans to gather biometric data from foreigners entering the UK and for those renewing passports, and put on the ID cards database. Hopefully the series of losses of data from existing government databases will ensure that ID cards are never implemented.

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Steve Wallis (Glasgow, Scotland)
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