[Those of you uninterested in points about the Weekly Worker, and who want to
read my views on the crisis in the European Union, strike action around the G8
summit and how to build socialist parties capable of challenging for power, can
skip this preamble and go to the text after the row of minus ('-') signs.]
I am sending the following submission to Peter Manson, the editor of the Weekly
Worker (the newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain), for publication
in this week's issue (which normally appears at http://www.cpgb.org.uk on
Thursdays). [I'm also sending it to letters editor Steve Cooke in case Peter
doesn't check his emails in time.] I also intend to send it to hundreds of
activists via email, over 200 groups at Yahoo!, plus further groups at Google,
the anarchist site http://lists.riseup.net and groups at Facebook (and possibly
MySpace and Bebo but I've not used those facilities yet). See my signature at
the bottom of this message for my pages at those social networking sites.
I have had letters published in the Weekly Worker in the past, but they have
always been edited, sometimes more drastically than others. That newspaper has
played a very important role in debating issues on the left, and its
contributors have made important and often correct criticisms of other left-wing
parties/groups. It has an on-line readership of around 30,000 unique visitors a
week. I did suggest its publication on newsprint (mainly recycled paper); I
suspect many environmentalists are put off buying the paper, when they see it
being sold or getting subscriptions, because the paper is bright white and
clearly not recycled. Peter said (rightly or wrongly) that their printing
machine could not cope with newsprint; they have switched to printing it
commercially after the breakdown of their printer so they could easily shift to
newsprint. Indeed, I strongly urge Peter to do so for this week's issue -
especially if he decides to print my contribution.
The main problem with the Weekly Worker is that it tends to demobilise people
rather than put forward positive arguments for change. This would change
massively with the new issue if he prints my submission; a call in its pages for
a worldwide general strike at the time of this year's G8 summit (which according
to Wikipedia is from the 7-9 July, and being Monday-Wednesday this is more
practicable than in 2006 when it started at a weekend, with a bank holiday in
Glasgow on the final day). The official summit website used to say when it was
on according to the Wikipedia page, but it doesn't any more - our enemies don't
want to help us mobilise against them!
The food and fuel price increases impact on Western countries as well as the
so-called Third World, and it really is on the cards if the left gets their act
together. I think I was correct to call for such a strike in 2005, when the Make
Poverty History campaign and Live 8 concerts brought the world's attention to
problems in Africa (particularly), without mobilising people enough to change
the system. However, I was only able to publicise my call in Britain, apart from
what I did on the internet, and activsits here prefered to go to Scotland where
the summit took place than mobilise in their own areas. This year's summit is in
Japan, so the vast majority of left-wing activists, in the West and "third
world", would find it much more effective to mobilise in their own countries
than trek over to Japan (although those who do go to Japan to demonstrate will
be playing an important role too).
Anyway, I'm in danger of going past the deadline for submissions to the Weekly
Worker. At one point in the past, the CPGB admitted to having made a big mistake
with an article on a strike that criticised strikers for taking action, and
Peter accepted responsiblity for it. They even said that all copies of that
issue should have been pulped rather than distributed. I'm sure when Peter reads
this submission, plus the preamble I am currently writing, he will realise that
it should appear in the issue out tomorrow.
I would ask for it to appear either as an article or the first item on the
letters page. I don't want some sort of irrelevant tittle-tattle (as some
letters consist of) putting off readers coming to my submission. I also demand
that my submission is not edited at all. Ideally, I'd like the main front page
headline to be the call for a worldwide general strike, but maybe that's asking
too much!
If Peter (and anybody else in the CPGB who he needs to consult with in deciding
to publish it) refuses to publish it in full, then I refuse him permission to
publish it at all, and I would then remove his email address from those I send
my important messages to and refuse to submit anything to that newspaper in the
future. In making these points, I am not being hostile to him - I have had some
very friendly chats with him when I phone him (he is normally in the office
during the daytime on Wednesdays) and indeed had such a conversation this
morning, and since he hadn't received a letter about Europe I told him I would
submit one. However, I need to push him a little to ensure that my points are
carried in full. I don't want my arguments on Europe to appear, without
mobilising ordinary working and middle class people around the world so that
this year's G8 summit becomes the point at which socialist forces worldwide
compete for power.
The following text is my submission to the Weekly Worker.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
I was going to criticise Anne McShane ('Left plays nationalist card', June 12)
for her suggestion that the left should have campaigned for voters to spoil
their ballot papers in the Irish referendum on the Lisbon treaty (revamped
European Union constitution), rather than uniting with the far right in opposing
it.
The Irish no vote is a big setback for the forces of big business, who wanted to
give extra power to ministers and unelected beaureaucrats and take it away from
national parliaments. If the treaty was giving a lot of power to the European
Parliament, whose members are elected by proportional representation (even in
the UK), then it could have been a treaty worthy of support. We should defend
the (limited) democracy we have, and opposing the treaty on that basis is
certainly not a right-wing position.
The Republic of Ireland has a government (the Dail) elected by proportional
representation (PR), and indeed a fairer one than a choice of party lists (where
voters can only put a single  'X' on the ballot paper) which we have to put up
with to elect our MEPs.
The form of PR used in the Irish republic is single transferable vote (STV), the
fairest form of PR because it (almost completely) removes the incentive to vote
tactically. You can choose between candidates of the same party (removing power
from party machines) and specify transfers between different left-wing parties
so that your vote is transferred to your second preference if your first choice
is eliminated (or a proportion of the vote is transferred if he/she gets more
votes than necessary). This form of PR enabled the Socialist Party's Joe Higgins
to get elected to the Dail - although the Socialist Party took a sectarian
attitude to other left-wing parties, refusing to get involved in a socialist
alliance, and he subsequently lost his seat.
Your newspaper has extensively covered debates about what sort of party the left
needs to get out of its current predicament. Some say you should fight within
mainstream parties such as Labour, or even the Scottish National Party or Plaid
Cymru. Others say revolutionary socialists should unite with reformists (who
ridiculously argue that socialism can be achieved by a series of small steps) or
Muslim businessmen in broad socialist parties (or parties so broad they are only
vaguely socialist as with Respect). I have at times argued for a revolutionary
socialist party - Revolutionary Socialist Party would be a good name for such a
party, and this name has recently been adopted for a new party in Australia. The
French LCR's idea of a revolutionary anti-capitalist party, with revolutionary
socialists uniting with people of an anarchist/autonomous persuasion or others
opposed to capitalism without a clear idea of what to replace it by, seems to be
a good move
in that country but probably isn't in Britain.
Your party (the CPGB) argues in favour of a Marxist party, through the Campaign
for a Marxist Party and your calls for an EU-wide Communist Party. Quite
frankly, few ordinary Irish working and middle class people would support the
idea of removing the fairly good electoral system they have (though it would be
better to have larger constituencies with more than the current five or so TDs
elected in each) and replacing it by hierarchies of committees based on
workplaces. Middle class people need to have a say, and not just with token
represenatives like in the soviets in Russia where the peasantry (over 90% of
the population) were disenfranchised by the "dictatorship of the proletariat". I
would support some degree of workers' control of industry, but in a fairly
non-hierarchical way and not to determine the socialist government.
I was a member of the Militant Tendency (becoming the Socialist Party of England
and Wales) from 1990-98. I fully supported the "open turns" in Scotland and then
the rest of Britain, in which we left the Labour Party. Revolutionaries outside
Labour have played a crucial role in popularising socialism, and winning elected
representatives has been vital for propaganda purposes and proving that
socialism is popular. However, Labour is now in crisis and those revolutionary
socialists still in the Labour Party (plus those who have rejoined such as
myself) can make a big difference in British and therefore world events. I am
not so naive as to think that it is at all likely that Labour can be transformed
into a socialist party, but a significant left split-off from Labour (including
a sizeable number of MPs) could massively transform the political landscape. In
fact, it is only a party arising out of a Labour split, and uniting with
non-aligned socialists and
members of left-wing parties/organisations, that stands any realistic chances
of preventing the Tories from winning the next general election. The Convention
of the Left, which will bring left-wing activists outside and inside the Labour
Party together, at the time of Labour's September conference will present a
marvellous opportunity for the formation of such a party.
The resignation of Tory David Davis to fight his seat on the issue of civil
liberties presents a brilliant opportunity for the left, particularly now that
both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have said that they will not contest the
election. The Socialist Alliance is discussing standing in that seat, supporting
civil liberties from a left-wing perspective, and I hereby recommend that they
decide to put up a candidate. The two Respect splinters are in disarray, and the
terms "socialist" and "alliance" on the ballot paper would attract a lot of
voters. Even if one of those splinters does stand, arguably the Socialist
Alliance should still stand against them - who cares about splitting the
left-wing vote when only one MP is at stake and you have the opportunity to put
forward genuine socialist views rather than the mealy-mouthed anti-privatisation
and anti-war stuff Respect/Galloway and Respect/Left List come up with. If
another left-wing party does
stand, it would be a brilliant opportunity to test who puts forward the best
politics. The Socialist Alliance should not be put off by lack of members on the
ground in the constituency; a manifesto/leaflet can be distributed by Royal Mail
to all voters. Incidentally, I considered standing in the 2005 general election,
but couldn't get nominated in time and suspected that a Royal Mail bureaucrat
would throw my leaflets away rather than moving them to the various distribution
centres. However, I don't think such a bureaucrat would sabotage the Socialist
Alliance in this way, and if he/she did that would provoke a massive storm of
protest.
Where I agree with Anne McShane's article, having thought more about it, is that
launching a mass campaign to spoil the ballot paper in Ireland could have been
very effective. With massive food and fuel price rises around the world, it is
both timely and important - with millions literally dying in underdeveloped
countries, and working class people in the West having to resort to strike
action for a decent pay rise (or rioting as in Spain) - for socialism to be put
on the agenda.
I would disagree with Anne's recommendation to put "For a workers' Europe" on
the ballot paper, however, for reasons I outlined above. Working and middle
class people opposed to the rule of big business should unite together, with
coordinated strike action around the world. "For a socialist Europe" would be
better.
I called for coordinated strike action around the world to take place at the
time of the 2005 G8 summit (which took place in Gleneagles, Scotland). I wrote
songs called "Do They Know It's G8 Time?" (to the tune of the Band Aid song "Do
They Know It's Christmas?") and "The Revolution Starts Now!" (mainly consisting
of original lyrics), and my short-lived band Galaxia recorded versions of them.
Strike action in Western countries as well as the so-called Third World at the
time of the G8 summit is more practicable this year, because big increases in
food and fuel prices are affecting ordinary working class people everywhere -
although obviously the number of people who die as a result of such price rises
will obviously be much higher in underdeveloped countries.
Strikes, demonstrations and riots are taking place all around the world as it
is, and coordinated action at the time of the G8 summit this year could put
socialism on the agenda.
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/34th_G8_summit), the 2008
G8 summit in Japan was planned to be from the 7th to the 9th of July (Monday to
Wednesday), but details of the date have been removed from the official website
that Wikipedia used as the source. Presumably they don't want to tell us when it
is because knowing that will help us mobilise against them. I wouldn't put it
past the G8 bureaucrats to change the date of the summit in a desperate attempt
to frustrate us!
I am now in a band called Red Day, based in Glasgow. Hopefully we will record a
new version of "Do They Know It's G8 Time?" next week. We might try to get it on
music download sites like iTunes and Napster as a charity single, but it will
also be downloadable for free from the Red Day website http://www.red-day.net
and various social networking sites. If you have problems accessing that website
(due to internet censorship perhaps), go to
http://www.last.fm/music/Red+Day (and look at the bottom of the page). I have
put a few of our songs there already, including "9/11 Inside Job".
 
--
Steve Wallis (Glasgow, Scotland)
For important/urgent communications, please email:
warcrysteve@...
Blogs: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steve-wallis-socialist-blog,
http://blog.myspace.com/galaxiasteve
My socialist website: http://www.socialiststeve.me.uk
My pages at MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/galaxiasteve, Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=731729407 and Bebo:
http://www.bebo.com/SteveW519
Founder, Good Intentions Network: http://www.goodintentionsnetwork.org 
Founder, Ethical Capitalism Network: http://www.ethicalcapitalism.net
Founder, Foundation for PR-based Socialism: http://www.PRsocialism.org
Founder, Revolutionary Platform Network: http://www.revolutionaryplatform.net
My socialist band, Red Day: http://www.red-day.net
Author, "Revolution Destroyed? Have I ensured that a world socialist
revolution will never happen?": http://www.revolutiondestroyed.net

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