Communist Review Winter 2009

COMMUNIST REVIEWCR

●● Gregor Gall The Potency ofOccupations to Resist Redundancy

●● Bill Greenshields and Graham Stevenson Trade Unions and Internationalism

●● Peter Latham Theories of the Stateand Local Government, Part 3

●● Prabhat Patnaik Is the WorldCapitalist Crisis Over?

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Theoretical and discussionjournal of the Communist Party

Number 55 • Winter 2009

£2.50

COMMUNIST REVIEWCR★

EDITORIAL BOARDMartin Levy editorJoginder BainsMary DavisJohn FosterMarj MayoGraham StevensonSteve SilverNick Wright

ADVISORY BOARDMichal BoñczaKenny CoyleRichard HartJohn HaylettKate HudsonJerry JonesEmily MannSteven MartinAndrew MurrayJean Turner

Advertising rates on request.Signed articles do notnecessarily reflect the views ofthe editors orthe Communist Party

Front cover: monument to theFlint, Michigan, sit-down strike(see article p.5)

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JENNY CLEGG teaches Asia-Pacific Studies at the University ofCentral Lancashire.KENNY COYLE is a former Associate Editor of Communist Review.GREGOR GALL is Professor of Industrial Relations at theUniversity of Hertfordshire and Director of its Centre forResearch in Employment Studies. He is a member of the ScottishSocialist Party and writes a regular column in the Morning Star.BILL GREENSHIELDS is a former President of the NationalUnion of Teachers and is also an Executive Committee member ofthe Communist Party of Britain.PETER LATHAM is a member of the Economics Committee ofthe CPB and was formerly Secretary of the Labour Campaign forOpen Government. He taught housing policy to students workingin the public sector before becoming a full-time official in UCU.

MARJORIE MAYO is a member of the EditorialBoard of Communist Review.PRABHAT PATNAIK (pictured) is Vice-Chairmanof the Kerala State Planning Board and Professor inthe Centre for Economic Studies and Planning atJawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.MIKE QUILLE is a poet, socialist andprobation officer, living on Tyneside.GRAHAM STEVENSON is NationalTransport Officer of Unite the Union and also amember of the Executive Committee of theCommunist Party of Britain.JONATHAN WHITE is Secretary of theNorth London Branch of the CPB.

contributors

Agitate, Educate, OrganiseOccupy! Examining the Potency ofOccupations to Resist Redundancy

The International Crisis and Trade Union Organisation12 Internationalism Begins at Home by Bill Greenshields15 Organising Internationally by Graham Stevenson

18 Orthodox and Marxist Theories of the State andLocal Government, Part 3 by Peter Latham

26 Is the World Capitalist Crisis Over? by Prabhat Patnaik

28 International Marxists Debate Global Problems at aTime of Crisis by Jenny Clegg

Discussion29 On Stalin’s Philosophical and Political Testament

by Hans Heinz Holz by Kenny Coyle31 Marxism and the Laws of Motion in Historical

Materialism A response to Mary Davis by Jonathan White35 Letter to the Editor

Book reviews29 Comrade or Brother? A History of the British

Labour Movement Review by Marjorie Mayo31 Was Mao Really a Monster? Review by Kenny Coyle

26 Soul Food Selected by Mike Quille

By Gregor Gall page 5

Theoretical and discussionjournal of the Communist Party

Number 55 • Winter 2009ISSN 1474-9246

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contents

IN DECEMBER, delegates from 192 countries will meet in Copenhagento try to decide a follow-up treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on greenhousegas emissions.

The problems that the world faces areformidable. According to theIntergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange, there is a 90% probability thatthe recent warming is due to humanactivities – principally emissions ofgreenhouse gases like carbon dioxide,CO2, from burning of fossil fuels torelease energy. Those emissions increasedfrom 21.3 billion tonnes in 1990 to 25.6billion in 2003. Britain’s MeteorologicalOffice has predicted that, at this rate, theworld will experience an averagetemperature rise of 4°C by 2060.

The consequences are likely to bedrastic: a sea level rise of 2 metres or so,threatening many highly populatedcoastal areas; the release of methane,another potent greenhouse gas, fromArctic tundra – so providing positivefeedback; the end of the Gulf Stream,which paradoxically would make Britain’sclimate colder, threatening our domesticagriculture; more frequent and moreviolent hurricanes, of the sort which costsocialist Cuba 20% of its GDP in 2008;changed rainfall patterns, leading todesertification and loss of foodproduction; and, following on from this, civil breakdown in manyunderdeveloped countries, massmigration and widespread deaths fromhunger and disease.

The Kyoto Protocol itself was notthat great: it did not cover transport,including the rapidly growing aviationsector; the USA opted out, on the basis

that controls would damage its economy;and the market principle underpinnedthe whole agreement, including anemissions trading scheme at its heart.The consequence, as one financialconsultant admitted, is that carbon hasbecome “a new commodity, a newcurrency”,1 while emissions have risenyear on year. Big polluters are capped,but they can get round this by investingin dubious “emissions-cutting” projectsin the developing world, generatingcertified reductions which they can offsetagainst their own emissions. There isalso a growing “voluntary” market inunofficial carbon credits, into whichspeculators, middlemen and financialinstitutions like Crédit Suisse andMorgan Stanley have moved, evenbuying options on credits not yetgenerated or which might be awarded inthe European Emissions Trading Scheme,starting in 2013.

All the signs are that the developedcapitalist world will flunk the challengeat Copenhagen. True, the USA will takepart, and there is recognition that an80% reduction in CO2 emissions by2050 is needed; but the arguments areabout who will bear the brunt and whatthe baseline year will be. There are alsocomplaints about the expense of doingthis at a time of economic crisis. Again,a carbon trading scheme is beingproposed; and the EU is challengingpoorer nations to cut emissions, in orderto get more aid – when the USA,Germany and Britain have been the top 3 per capita emitters over the last 125 years, and are thereby responsible for much of the current problem.

In fact, even Britain’s claimed

communist review • winter 2009 • page 1

editorial

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By Martin Levy

emissions reduction since 1990 is anillusion, as the new Chief GovernmentScientist, Prof David Mackay, haspointed out. During the last twodecades, he says, we have exported much of our industry to countries likeIndia and China. If the “embedded”emissions from this industrialproduction, exported back to Britain,were included, then the British emissionstotal would have risen 19% since 1990.Professor Dieter Helm of OxfordUniversity estimates that roughly halfthis country’s energy footprint actuallylives overseas: consumption rather thanproduction is important.

The market cannot solve the problemof climate change, because it is based onmaximising private profit. In itspamphlet A World to Save, publishedback in 2003, the Communist Party ofBritain argued that the priority inreducing emissions had to be a massiveenergy conservation programme,planning now for increased comfort butreduced consumption. This wouldinclude: insulation of homes, workplacesand public buildings; shifting freightfrom road and air to rail and sea; movingfewer goods, and transporting themshorter distances; and moving jobs toworkers rather than workers to jobs.

The pamphlet also argued for aplanned energy production programme,to minimise greenhouse gas emissionsand to maximise the energy fromrenewables, with all sectors of the energyindustry brought under public ownershipand control. It recognised an importantrole for British deep-mined coal; andmore recently the CPB has extended this policy by endorsing the NationalUnion of Mineworkers’ call for carboncapture and storage (CCS) at coal-firedpower stations.

At long last government and EU approval has been given for one CCS scheme, at Hatfield near Doncaster.Yet this falls well short of a plannedenergy policy. It is only one plant; and,to limit costs on energy producers, thegovernment is only insisting on captureof 20-25% of the emissions.

Meanwhile the government’s inactionover the Vestas closure in the Isle ofWight demonstrates again their

subservience to the market. Vestas hasmoved its wind-turbine production tothe USA, after pocketing a £3.5 milliondevelopment grant to come to Ryde inthe first place. The tragedy is that this isnot only a loss of British manufacturing,but of the ability to build those veryproducts that could make a majorcontribution to reducing our dependenceon fossil fuel energy sources.

The Vestas closure decision sparkedan inspiring response by the workforce –the occupation of the factory in anattempt to preserve both the jobs and thefacility. The workers in turn may wellhave been inspired by the Visteonoccupations in Belfast and Basildonearlier this year. Yet, as manufacturingcontinues to haemorrhage, workeroccupation remains an infrequentresponse. In the lead article in this issueof Communist Review, Gregor Gallexamines the tactic from a historical andcontemporary standpoint, identifying arange of factors to help explain whyoccupations occur in some cases, but notin others. He calls for politically engagedacademics to undertake primary research,interviewing different groups of workersin order to understand their differentreactions. Without this detailed level ofunderstanding, he says, “the tactic ofworker occupation will not becomesufficiently widespread and powerful tobe able to force employers to recalculatethe costs and benefits facing them.”

In the previous issue of CR, wefeatured a number of contributions fromthe Communist Party’s Trade UnionCadre School in February. Here, weinclude two more, both on the theme oftrade unions and internationalism.Graham Stevenson looks at how theneoliberal economic policies of the last25 years have forced many trade unionsinto an increasing internationalisation oftheir work. Partly it is a question of jointcampaigns targeting corporate offices oftransnational corporations, opposinganti-union policies; but also internationalcontacts, often in creative ways, cansecure a successful outcome to a domesticdispute when the employer has extendedsupply lines.

Bill Greenshields takes a somewhatdifferent theme: the implications of theinternational crisis for how trade unionsand the Left should operate at home. He notes that, while the crisis hasdiscredited neoliberal claims that themarket can determine everything, there isnothing new in the state “standing four-square for capitalism, and makingworkers pay for its crises”.Neoliberalism, he says, is simply a mask

for the ugly face of the state in thishighest stage of capitalism. And,although the mask has slipped, the rulingclass still has its structures intact, nowglobalised and most concretelyentrenched in the European Union.

At the basis of our problems, hecontinues, is the promotion in the EU ofthe “free” movement of capital, goodsand labour – the last-mentioned beingmore correctly described as forcedmovement. We need to tackle thisinternationally, he says, because it runscompletely counter to a just political andeconomic system for working people.However, to make such endeavours areality we have to start at home. That, hestates, is why the Lindsey refineryworkers’ action was “spot on”. In eachindividual country, workers can influencetheir own unions to demand decent jobs,security, pay and conditions; in helpingourselves we also help our sisters andbrothers overseas.

The role of the state is picked upagain in the third and final part of PeterLatham’s Orthodox and Marxist Theoriesof the State and Local Government. Here he looks at non-communist Marxistand radical work from the late 1960s,giving particular credit to RalphMiliband for identifying that the state isnot simply a servant of the ruling class –indeed it could not carry out its functionof appearing to be neutral if that were so.Rather the state has a degree ofautonomy, but acts in partnership withthe ruling class, to contain class conflictand pressure from below. Since nationaland local governments may be temptedto make too generous concessions topopular demands, non-elected parts ofthe state – like top civil servants, police,judges and the mass media – are vital tothe ruling class.

It is in this context that centrally-imposed changes on local governmenthave to be viewed. Quoting ChristopherStoney, Peter Latham points out that,quite apart from the controls on localcouncil expenditure, and privatisation oflocal services, there has been a shift inbalance from democratically electedcouncillors to quangos with appointed,faceless and elite groups of people and toa corporate management, pro-business,approach within local government. He argues that, to combat this, analternative national economic andpolitical strategy is essential – one whichexplains the economic crisis, advancesimmediate proposals but also opens theway for more fundamental change. Both the Labour RepresentationCommittee’s Left Economics Advisory

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Panel, and the Communist Party’s LeftWing Programme provide the basis forsuch an alternative, he says. One mightalso add that the People’s Charter is thefirst step towards such an alternative,especially as it has now been adoptedoverwhelmingly at the 2009 TradesUnion Congress.

The 2009 TUC was also noteworthyfor carrying some other positive motions:for the first time, a decision to boycottgoods from Israeli settlements in occupiedPalestine; and the resolution takenforward from the Annual Conference ofTrades Union Councils, calling for thenational launch of several campaigns asthe basis for the TUC’s response to theslump – campaigns for state interventionto protect jobs, for protection of workersfrom unfair dismissal, for saving theremaining TUC unemployed workers’centres and against poverty for workers,whether employed or out of work. With unemployment already at 2.5million, including nearly 1 million 16-24year-olds, such a programme is absolutelyvital. But will the General Council pickup the ball and run with it? The signs arenot good. The aim of the 2009 Congressseemed to be that nothing that urgedmobilisation, and would thereforeembarrass the Labour government, wouldget through – at least, not until the finalday, when the media spotlight was turned

down, and when most of the controversialmotions were tabled.

The Labour Party conference twoweeks after the TUC was characterised byan even more supine approach. And sowe had the spectacle of the Chancellor ofthe Exchequer and the Prime Ministerpromising cuts in public services to payfor the bankers’ bail-out, without anyhowls of protest from the major tradeunions. Small wonder then that theTories were able to go one step further attheir own conference, threatening of evenmore draconian cuts: New Labour hadprepared the ground for them.

It is not as if the world economiccrisis is over. In this issue of CR we printan analysis by Indian Marxist economistPrabhat Patnaik, which shows clearly thatin the USA – whose economic activitymatters for the world – real earnings peremployed worker are declining,individual state government expenditureshave also fallen and even the current levelof federal stimulus is unlikely to besustained, because of opposition byfinance capital. He draws an analogywith 1937, when President Roosevelt cutback the federal deficit, plunging the USeconomy once more into a depression.Prabhat Patnaik also argues that thepresent crisis is not just recessionary, but rather a whole new historicaljuncture. Getting out of one form of the

crisis means getting into another, that ofescalating inflation: in Joan Robinson’sterminology, the “inflationary barrier”has been lowered.

Prabhat Patnaik writes that thisconjuncture has arisen because of, on theone hand, the enormous concentration of finance capital, looking for speculativegains wherever there is a scarcity; and, onthe other, the exhaustion of the scope foreasy increase in supplies of a wholenumber of commodities, whetheragricultural produce or raw materials likeoil. Capitalism can get out of this crisisin the end, but only after much time,and at the expense of working people. In Britain, the budget cuts, whether bythe Tories, LibDems or New Labour, arejust the start of a coming ruling classoffensive to solve the crisis in theinterests of big capital.

The labour movement in Britaincannot afford to stand idly by. Inaction, in the hope that Labour will bere-elected, is not a solution. At present,there is little to prevent a Tory victory,unless traditional Labour supporters canbe galvanised to vote – and they areunlikely to do that on the promise ofpublic spending cuts after the election.However, a Labour government wouldcertainly provide more favourableconditions for the working class to resistthe ruling class onslaught. So the trade


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The 2009 TUC passed important motions on the People’s Charter and on campaigning against the effects of the recession. But will the GeneralCouncil pick up the ball and run with it?

union movement needs to wage a vigorousfight on two fronts – firstly, for a changeof policy, using the People’s Charter as abasis for mass campaigning; and secondly,for the maximum vote to defeat theTories. The degree to which that fight iswaged now will determine thecombativeness with which any post-election resistance to the ruling classonslaught can be sustained and developed.

At the time of writing, theCommunication Workers’ Union has justannounced plans for industrial actionagainst Royal Mail. In the media, somepremature parallels have already beendrawn with the great Miners’ Strike of 25 years ago. However, although the scaleof the dispute is not the same, theimplications for the trade union move-ment are no less profound. Victory for theRoyal Mail management would be the

green light for a massive attack on workingconditions and trade union rights across thepublic sector, if not the economy at large.If the strikes go ahead, therefore, the wholetrade union movement will need to backthe CWU and pressurise the governmentinto bringing the Royal Mail managementto heel. Since the CWU remains affiliatedto the Labour Party, there is still somesignificant leverage to be exerted. If thegovernment fails to respond, it will notonly be risking Labour’s relationship withthe CWU, but threatening its lastremaining chances for re-election in 2010.

This issue of CR contains threediscussion contributions (one a letter) onarticles from previous editions. We hopethat this will stimulate more. We alsohave two book reviews and our regularSoul Food poetry selection, which for thefirst time includes reader suggestions:may the trend continue! ■


■ Communist Review welcomes submission of articles (normally up to 5000 words),discussion contributions and letters – send to [email protected] will be reviewed by members of the Editorial Board and/or Advisory Board,and we reserve the right not to publish.

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1 Tom Whitehouse of Carbon International,quoted in New Scientist, 19 April 2008, p 38.

Notes

Agitate, Educate,Organise Occupy!Examining the Potency of Occupationsto Resist Redundancy


IntroductionWorker occupation –alternatively known as a sit-inor a sit-down strike – ishistorically a well-known, ifrather infrequently used,response of organised workersto aggressive employers. The Flint car workers’ sit-down strike of 1936-1937 inthe United States1 is a primeexample of this, while theUpper Clyde Shipbuilders(UCS)2 work-in of 1971-2 inScotland is another. Bothwere successful, the former in gaining union recognitionand the latter in preventingyard closure.

Occupations have beenused for an array of reasons,ranging from resistingvictimisation of union activistsand unilaterally imposedchanges in working conditionsto demanding higher pay.Indeed, the tactic is potentiallya particularly powerful tool by

which workers can respond toand resist redundancy, since itprovides the sort of leverageagainst employers that strikescannot. But the globalrecession of late 2007 onwardshas witnessed very fewexamples of workers deployingthis tactic – certainly far fewerthan might have beenexpected, given the depth andextent of this recession whencompared with that of theearly 1980s. For example, inthe United States, there hasbeen just one worker occupa-tion (Chicago Windows andDoors) and one threat(Hartmarx) so far in thiscurrent recession.

This article seeks toexamine the conditions andcharacteristics of those workeroccupations that have takenplace, in order to understandtheir social and politicaldynamics, and thereby to

explain the current infre-quency of this form ofresistance. Drawing on anarray of media reporting,comprising qualityestablishment media as well asleft-wing and progressivemedia, I shall examinecontemporary workeroccupations in nine westerneconomies – primarilyAustralia, Britain, Canada,Ireland, France and the US,but also Greece, Italy andSpain. From this, I shallelaborate a series of grounded3

factors which can helpaccount for action rather thaninaction over deploying theoccupation tactic. In this way,the counterfactual method4

can then be used as a device totry to open up anunderstanding of why the vastmajority of workers in theseeconomies have not used thistactic, when faced with

comparable situations ofredundancy and workplaceclosure to those who did use it.

The choice of countriesallows both comparisons andcontrasts to be made since –on an array of key indicatorslike union strength, uniontraditions and labour marketregulation – each country canbe placed in a differentposition. If we take uniondensity as an institutionalproxy5 for union strength,then the countries vary fromthe very low – like France and the US – to the quite high – like Ireland and Italy.When talking of unionmobilising traditions,countries like Australia,Britain, Canada, Ireland andthe US are quite conservativein comparison with the moremilitant, direct action andstreet mobilising traditions in ➔

By Gregor Gall

France, Greece, Italy andSpain. Finally, in terms ofemployment relations andlabour markets, Britain,Ireland and the US aretowards the deregulated, neo-liberal end of the spectrumwhile France, Greece, Italyand Spain are more regulatedon the basis of social clauses.

I consider that this micro-level approach is moreproductive than a macro-levelone which would emphasisegeneral factors such as declinein worker consciousness,union presence and unioncombativity in an ungroundedand abstract way. With thelatter approach, there wouldbe a level of disengagement inexplaining differences in thefrequency of occupation, sinceunion decline (measured byunion density) has occurred inall the countries, albeitunevenly. Rather, the micro-level approach is based on

being able to focus on moreimmediate and meaningfulfactors and processes whichconcern and affect workers inthe decisions about whether tobe active or passive in the faceof redundancy.

However, because thisarticle is not based on primaryresearch – ie direct interviewswith the participants at thetimes of their occupations –there is a limit to how far itcan explore an importantvariable in accounting foraction or inaction. This is thesocial psychology of theworkers – the cognitiveprocesses by which theyinteract with each other indiscussion and possible pursuitof ideas. Faced with com-parable situations, differentgroups of workers have actedin quite different ways andonly a very small minorityhave responded by takingmilitant action. This suggests

that the differentiating factormay be the collective socialpsychology of the differentgroups. Nonetheless, thepresent article can provide avaluable role in flagging upthis aspect.

Occupation versusStrikeIn responding to a sizeablenumber of (compulsory)redundancies, usuallyinvolving workplace closure –whether through divestment(like offshoring andoutsourcing) or outrightclosure – control of the plantand machinery is a strong cardfor workers to play. Thus, thetactic of occupation is superiorto that of the strike becausethe latter presumes that workwill resume in the end.Moreover, striking hastraditionally been defined, notjust as a withdrawal of labourat the points of production,

distribution or exchange, butalso as walking off the job –which in turn means leavingthe workplace. In a situationof closure, striking putsworkers on the outside andthis places them in a weakerposition. It means standing atthe entrances, and trying tostop goods, machinery, plantand so on leaving. Given thatworkers are restricted by whatis lawful for picketing, and bythe practical difficulty ofsustaining mass pickets inorder physically to barentrances, the employer islikely to be able to vacate thepremises without too muchtrouble. So striking allows theinitiative to stay with theemployer. Indeed, it oftenplays straight into theemployer’s hands because it isa civil breach of theemployment contract. This means that employerscan effectively let workers sack


Upper Clyde Shipbuilders (UCS) work-in

themselves – and withoutreceiving any pay-off.

Alternatively, workplaceoccupation offers thepossibility of maintainingcontrol of the employer’s assetsfrom the inside andpreventing their being seizedback. The leverage therebycreated revolves around theassets, which may include: (i) stocks of goods – whichstill have a marketable value orwhich are needed fordelivering orders; (ii) plantand machinery – which couldbe either transferred toanother part of the employer’sbusiness or sold on; and (iii)the land and buildings –which have a value whichcannot be realised, since anysale is stopped. Again, andcompared with striking andpicketing, it is physically easierwith occupation to preventasset removal because theworkplace can be barricadedfrom the inside. It allows theinitiative to stay with theworkers, requiring theemployer to break into his orher own workplace.

So worker occupation canallow effective action againstemployers – which ispreferable to ineffective actionlike striking (in this case) aswell as to accommodation andpassivity. However, it shouldnot be assumed that it is asilver bullet: occupations canraise employer costs of closureand of doing businesselsewhere, but they do notnecessarily prevent these. The latter outcome wouldrequire either state inter-vention or effective solidarityaction from the employer’sother workers. Moreover, anadditional aspect is thatoccupations are a much moredemanding activity thanstriking: they are “24/7”; theyinvolve challenges to theproperty rights of employers;and they require much moreplanning and organisation –supplying and cooking food,providing washing facilities,bedding, entertainment and soon. Finally, the one clear riderto the superiority of theoccupation over the strike,

particularly in terms ofoutcomes, concerns thesituation where workers areconfronted by outsourcing oroffshoring of their jobs. In these instances, and wherethe strike affects theproduction of goods and thedelivery of services (ratherthan the movement of plantand machinery), some leveragecan be exerted if theemployer’s new facility is notup and running to take overproduction of goods ordelivery of services from thesoon-to-be closed-downworkplace. In these specificsituations, the strike is notsuperior to the occupation butis more of a match.

Worker Occupationsin Historical andContemporaryContextsOccupations as a historicalphenomenon most starkly em-erged in the twentieth century,in Russia in 1917, Italy during1919-21, the US during 1936-7 and France in 1936 and 1968 (although studieshave noted their use in Britainand the US in the nineteenthcentury). In Britain, KenCoates argued that “Before[UCS in] 1971 the vocabularyof sit-ins was hardly ever used.”6

Thereafter, Coates7 recordedsome 250 worker occupationsbetween 1971 and 1976; and,from his figures (and those ofothers), it is clear that some 100occupations took place between1979 and 1985. Subsequently,in Britain there have been atmost two or three workplaceoccupations per year.

To some extent this lowlevel – at least from the mid-1990s – can be accounted forby relatively low rates ofunemployment, massredundancy and workplaceclosure. However, thecontinuing haemorrhaging ofmanufacturing capacitythrough plant closuresprovided – and continues toprovide – a seemingly amplecanvas upon whichoccupations could have beenstaged. Indeed, the tactic ofoccupation was far more

commonly used in the post-1980s period by protestersagainst closures of schools andsocial amenities (communitycentres, leisure facilities) andby students in their collegesand universities.

This same pattern of farmore occupations in priorperiods can be detected incountries like Australia,Canada and the United States.However, probably only inArgentina – as its economyimploded in the early 2000s –has there been a large wave ofworkplace occupations to resistredundancy. These were work-ins similar to the UCS one butdiffered in that the employersoften took flight so that defacto ownership passed into thehands of the workforce and the workplaces becamecooperatively and collectivelyowned by their workers.

ContemporaryWorkplaceOccupationsThe numerical roll call ofoccupations since late 2007 is given in Table 1; for abalanced perspective weshould bear in mind therelative labour force sizes, alsoshown. In Australia, Britain,Canada, France, Ireland andthe US, the overwhelmingmajority of occupations havebeen in factories rather thanoffices in the public or privatesector. This is indicative ofthe greater availability ofresources like machinery andstock, which have a morevaluable and manifestly

physical nature and can bemore easily captured thaninformation and data, whichare not necessarily physicallyembedded in a singleworkplace. The figures forGreece, Italy and Spain areharder to come by – primarilythrough limited Englishlanguage sources – and aretherefore less robust, but twopoints are worth noting. First, factories subject toclosure there have beenblockaded as well as occupied– the purpose, as withpicketing, being to prevent theremoval of assets. Second,occupation of governmentoffices has often been used tocreate political leverage, ie totry to force the government tointercede with employersclosing workplaces.

The fourth column of thetable, which is rough and notvery scientific, suggests thatthe countries fall into 3groups: the USA, with a verylow rate of workplaceoccupations; Australia,Britain, Canada, Italy andSpain, with comparable rates(although Italy’s is twice thatof Spain and Canada); andrelatively high rates in France,Greece and Ireland (althoughthe last two may be astatistical aberration as theyhave the smallest workforces).

One notable feature ofoccupations, particularlywhere they last for more thana week, is that they almostalways necessitate forms ofwider, extra-workplacepolitical campaigning. This is


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Table 1: Workplace Occupations Since Late 2007

Country No. of Labour Occupations Unemployment Occupations Force / per Million Rate June

Millions Workers ’09 / %

Australia 2 11 0.18 5.7Britain 7 31 0.22 7.6Canada 4 18 0.22 8.6France 28 28 1.0 9.3Greece 6 5 1.2 9.4Ireland 7 2 3.5 11.9Italy 9 25 0.36 7.4Spain 3 22 0.14 17.9USA 1 153 0.007 9.5

because social organisation toprovide the basics of life andintelligence is required tosustain the occupation. It isoften also required because theparties which the workers seekto develop leverage over, likeemployers or the government(where governmentintervention is demanded),have other points of externalleverage which the supportersof the occupation seek totarget. The significance of thisis that workplace occupationsshould not be counterposed topolitical campaigning in asimple “either … or” way (assome have done or may thinkothers have advocated), forthere can be an organic andcomplementary relationship.

Motivations andStimuli In the context of thediscussion of strike versusoccupation, we canpresuppose that thefoundations for the latter areaspects of consciousness –primarily anger andorganisation. Here, angerexists through being at the endof the line with nowhere togo, and wanting to dosomething to remedy thissituation. Existing socialorganisation – like a union –allows something to be donecollectively about this. Thiscontrasts with other facets ofworker consciousness, such asa fatalism and resignation thatnothing can be done, and thatthe workers themselves haveno power of remedy (evenwith the social organisation of a union or group thatrepresents workers’ interests).But this is insufficient toexplain action compared toinaction as per occupationsbecause there are manysituations where workers areangry and organised but takeno such action (nor any other,like a strike or a politicalcampaign); and the linebetween creative anger whichleads to action and angryfatalism which leads toinaction is not a clearlydefined and immutable“Chinese Wall”. So, to try to

flesh out the issues, it ishelpful to identify the mainand most frequent charac-teristics of the stimuli toworkplace occupations todate. These are:1 total redundancy of allworkers and closure ratherthan partial downsizing of the workforce;2 short timescale – notice of immediate redundancy and closure;3 no severance pay, and loss of pension rights as aresult of bankruptcy (genuineor otherwise);4 a unionised workforce;5 previous high profileexamples of workeroccupation in recent times.

Let us look at each of thesein turn: 1 The collectivised nature ofthe redundancy experiencehelps create a critical mass ofaggrieved workers where thereis a sense that they are “all inthis together” and that theycan make a united stand. This can be contrasted with asituation where only part ofthe workforce is being maderedundant and thus adivergence of interests opensup among the workersconcerned. 2 The immediate andunforeseen nature of theannouncement of redundancy,coupled with its beingeffective from the time ofannouncement, provides forno period of consultation ordialogue with the employerabout measures foramelioration or alternativework. Thus, there is a greater“shock to the system” of theworkers and their anger ispotentially greater. 3 The grave sense ofprocedural injustice isheightened by the materialinjustice of no redundancycompensation from theemployer and the loss ofpension entitlements (asdeferred wages and throughworker contributions), becausethe employer either becomesbankrupt, or goes intoadministration with manycreditors lined up to seekredress – putting the redun-

dant workers in the positionof being only one partyamongst many. 4 Those workers who arealready unionised display ahigher ability – all otherthings being equal –collectively to resist theredundancies because they donot have to undertake theadditional task of forming acollective association ofworkers at the same time asstaging the act of resistancethrough occupation. Existingcollective organisation,relations and consciousnessthus place them in a betterposition to step up to the plate.5 Workers in countries (orparts of countries) where therehave recently been otherworkers’ occupations againstclosure and redundancy standin a better position to deploythe tactic because they areaware of a living example. In other words, the tacticpenetrates their consciousnessand becomes a slightly morepossible form of collectiveresistance.

However, even this initialattempt to grapple with agrounded explanation foraction provides only limitedillumination, for not all theoccupations had all thesefeatures nor even a majority ofthem. The only featurecommon to all was the first,although the second was quitecommon. In a number ofcases workers becameunionised in the process of anoccupation so that socialorganisation precededunionisation (such as atPrisme, or Vestas in Britain);cases exist where redundancypayments were to be made butthese were felt to beinsufficient (such as Calcastand Visteon in Britain); andsome occupations took placewithout the benefit of recentexamples (such as RepublicWindows and Doors inChicago). Moreover, and justas importantly, there weremany cases where all thefeatures were present but no occupation took place.This suggests that other

factors, and workers’assessments thereof, were atplay. But before proceeding toexplore this avenue, it is worthunderstanding where and howsome of the five factors laidout above did operate and didso together.

In the 2009 Visteon casein Britain, it was not just thesix minutes’ notice ofimmediate redundancy, withloss of pension entitlementsand no redundancy pay(thereby reneging on thepledge to match the Fordterms and conditions after thesell-off from Ford) while theemployer’s other businessesremained in profitableoperation, that led to theoccupation. This is apparentbecause the notice wasdelivered to all threeworkforces simultaneously;but the Belfast workersresponded by immediateoccupation whereas theEnfield and Basildon workersleft the factories andadjourned to the pub todiscuss their fate. It was onlyafter hearing of the Belfastoccupation that the workers atthe other plants reappraisedtheir reactions and tried toemulate their Belfastcolleagues. In the case ofholiday company ThomasCook in Ireland in mid-2009,the occupation of the GraftonStreet office in Dublininspired their colleagues at theNorth Earl Street office inDublin to do similarly. The background was the bringing forward ofpreviously announced closureplans and the threat to awardpoorer redundancy entitle-ments unless the company’sinitial terms were accepted.By contrast, the Vestasoccupation in its pre-figurativeand initial stages was heavilyinfluenced by the Visteonexample, where Visteonworkers came down to the Isleof Wight factory to talk to theVestas workers.

In France, it can beventured that the high-profilemedia attention given toworker occupations (and theirsuccess), because of the


occupiers’ use of boss-nappingor threats to blow up thefactory, has helped theoccupation tactic enter theworkers’ lexicon. Here wehave the occurrence of what isknown as a positive demon-stration effect. The reverse isthe case in the United Stateswhere the sole occupation(despite some success) doesnot seem to have managed topenetrate workers’ conscious-ness in an enabling way. Someof this can be put down to therelatively low level of cross-states media coverage in theUSA. However, the Frenchpattern of replication throughthe conduit of the media doesnot seem to have occurred inBritain; despite the high levelsof attention given to both theVisteon and Vestasoccupations, no more havebeen forthcoming. The samecould be said of Ireland where,

following the Thomas Cookoccupations, the IrishIndependent 8 reported onemployer feeling with anarticle entitled “Bosses fearmore sit-ins in redundancybattles” – but no more havetaken place. This indicatesthat the transfer of knowledgebetween workers may be afacilitator rather than acreator, adding to an existingset of factors that may favourstaging an occupation.

National VariablesRegarding the material andcontextual factors, which varyby country, the key ones forworkers’ interests are thelabour market situation, unionstrength and traditions, andstate regulation of redundancyterms. Recalling what wasargued above about thesalience of macro-level factorsover action and inaction, it is

now appropriate to considertheir influence. Rather thangive a direct explanation of the actions of workers inregard to occupations, thesemacro-level factors paint thebackdrop against which therole of the micro-level factorsmay be observed.

Accordingly, some workerswill believe that they havebetter or worse chances offinding alternativeemployment (at whatever levelof pay) depending on the stateof the local labour market andthe technical and social skillsthey possess. Across the nineeconomies, as the finalcolumn of Table 1 shows,unemployment levels variedquite widely in mid-2009.Taking these figures inconjunction with the themicro-level factors examinedabove, it is clearly not a simplecase that workers with no

sense of alternative employ-ment opportunities are morelikely to think of organisingoccupations than those whofeel they have suchopportunities. If the formerwere indeed so, and inproportionate terms, then wewould expect high rates ofworker occupation in France,Greece, Ireland, Spain and theUS. As already indicated, thisis true only for France andpossibly Ireland. So there isno mechanical or automaticrelationship betweenunemployment levels andworkers’ actions – indeed,other factors must be at play.

Nonetheless, it can beventured that this sense of noalternative employment is anecessary factor – withoutbeing sufficient. That said,the terms of redundancy havean important bearing on thiscalculation, since pay-offs of


➔Vestas lock-in

certain sizes can blunt or delayredundancy’s impact. Someworkers will calculate thatthey have enough to ride outthe hard times. But again,there are still cases wherereasonable redundancy termshave not provided a bulwarkagainst worker occupation.

Turning to the issue ofunion strength and traditions,there are again markedvariations. Taking uniondensity as an obvious butadmittedly poor proxy forunion strength (given theabsence of other suitable directmeasures9), the latest availablefigures show that it is highestin Italy (35%) and Ireland(32%) while moderate(between 20%-29%) inAustralia, Britain, Canada andGreece. Within this, Britainand Canada have higherdensities than Australia andGreece. Meanwhile, Spain andthe US have union densitiesbetween 10% and 19% whilein France density is less than10%. As with levels ofunemployment, there is againa presumed correlationbetween union strength and

the frequency of occupations.For example, on thisindication, the lowest rateswould be expected in France,Spain and the US. This isespecially true for the US,partly so for Spain but notFrance. By contrast, the highlevels of union strength inIreland and Italy do seem to bea factor in the relativefrequency of occupationsthere, although again the Irishfigure may be anomalous,because of the small workforce;and in fact the correlationbreaks down for Greece, whichin fact should show a lowerfigure than Italy and Ireland,rather than a higher one.

In fact density is a veryinstitutionalised measure andcannot be used productively onits own as a guide. Therefore,the issue of union mobilisingtraditions now comes into play.The obvious point that standsout is that workers in France,with extremely low levels ofunionisation and highunemployment, would seem tobe heavily influenced by thequite pronounced traditions of direct action. In a sense, it is

a counterweight to low levels of unionisation overall. In contrast, the relativelyconservative traditions in theUS (along with low levels ofunionisation) may helpaccount for the abjectinfrequency of workeroccupations there.

On this basis of unionmobilising traditions, onewould also expect moreoccupations on a proportionatebasis in Greece, Italy and Spainand fewer in Australia, Britain,Canada and Ireland. There istruth in this but only partially.A further factor here is that thedominant traditions of directaction in the southernEuropean countries might actas both stimulant and barrierto occupations: some workersmay see them as a naturalextension to general strikemobilisations, which involvehuge mass demonstrations;while others may regard themas unnecessary, because of thestaging of these mass generalstrikes. The same point couldalso be made about thegenerally much higher level ofstrike activity in these countriesthan in the other five. But inboth cases, Spain may standout as an anomaly, for it hasexperienced far feweroccupations than might beexpected.

One final salient aspect of union mobilising traditionsis the presence of historicallylarge communist parties, inFrance, Greece, Italy andSpain. Largely excluded fromthe mainstream politicalprocess, these parties have atvarious times been able tomount major campaigns ofcivil disobedience and massmobilisation. Despite theCold War-inspired division ofthe trade union movement,the continued existence of left-wing trade union federationshas been an important factorin these developments. It isnotable that France, Greeceand Italy stand out as havinghigh incidences of workeroccupations, but again Spainremains an anomaly.

There are two furtherreasons why even less

significance should beattached to overall levels ofunionisation. First, since themajority of workers whoengaged in occupying wereunionised, their ability to doso does not appear to havebeen influenced by the issue ofwhether workers elsewhere intheir country were or were notunionised. Secondly, sincesome occupations (albeit aminority) involved non-unionised workers, the lack ofunion membership did notseem to be an impediment.

In terms of state regulationof the labour market andredundancy procedures, thereare some important differencesbetween countries. In Britain,redundancy of over 100employees requires a statutory90-day consultation period;and no government-subsidisedshort-time working schemeexists, except for a small one inWales. In Italy there is a safety-net scheme throughgovernment subsidy, to keepthreatened workers in theiremployment for severalmonths while they look fornew jobs. Moreover, insouthern Europe, collectiveconsultation over redundanciesand closure is interpreted asinvolving greater obligationsupon the employer either totake on board counter-proposals made by workers orseriously to consider these evenif they are subsequently refuted(especially following theEuropean Court of Justicejudgement on Renault’sunlawful closure of itsVilvoorde plant in Belgium in1997). This is not the case inBritain or Ireland, whichapproximate more closely tothe situation in Australia,Canada and the US.

On this basis, one wouldexpect more occupations in themore neo-liberalisedeconomies and fewer in themore socially-mindedeconomies of southern Europe.But again this is not the caseand not all countries can befitted easily into these twocategories. Ireland and Spainstand out as anomalies withinthe two groups.


French unions

OutcomesVery few occupations havewon outright victories in termsof saving all, or a substantialnumber of, the workers’ jobs,or of gaining significant offersof redeployment. Nonetheless,the leverage created – alongwith the ensuing employers’sensitivity to their brand andreputation – has facilitated anumber of gains: redundancypayments or theirenhancement; theimplementation of lawfulnotice periods; the extensionof the time before shutdown;and the guarantee of pensionentitlements. Occupationdoes appear to have been moreproductive than the use ofstrike action in comparablesituations. The outcomes havenot varied a great deal inrelation to the proportion ofthe workforce involved, theduration of the occupation orthe extent of solidarity supportraised for the occupiers. This isbecause an occupation whichprevents employer (or police)access to the premises does notrequire all or even a majorityof the workforce. Rather,there are minimum numbersof workers needed, relative tothe size of the occupiedbuildings, particularly inregard to strategic areas andthe number of entrances.

Union ResponsivenessOccupations in the ninecountries under study are anunlawful form of industrialaction, whether in terms ofviolating property rights (liketrespass or seizure) or ofballoting and notificationregulations. This potentiallybrings the workers – wheremembers – into conflict withtheir unions for failing tosupport their taking or seekingto take militant action. Forexample, in Ireland the TSSAdid not support its members’action in Thomas Cook; whilein Italy the metal workers’union, Fiom, did not endorsean occupation by its membersnear Milan. This contrastswith the RMT’s clear supportof the workers who joined itduring the Vestas occupation.

However, the position ofaffected unions has been alittle more complex thaneither outright condemnationand hostility, or support.Thus, many have made clearthat they cannot officiallyendorse such actions while atthe same time seekingfavourable resolution for theirmembers through acting astheir political advocates,lobbyists and negotiators.Moreover, some union leadershave given what may beregarded as tacit support orencouragement: forexample,Tony Woodley, Unitejoint-general secretary, saidthat he would not be surprisedif more occupations occurredin Britain, because of theinjustice done to workers andtheir anger at this.10 In thisregard, union attitudes havebeen broadly similar to thosefor their members takingunofficial strike action.

ConclusionThis article has sought toprovide a groundedexplanation of thephenomenon of workeroccupations of workplaceswhen faced with redundancyand closure. In particular, ithas emphasised that an arrayof factors is necessary toexplain why occupationshappen – but these cannot besufficient, given the paucity ofsuch actions. By examiningthose occupations that haveoccurred, it has been possibleto identify an array of factorswhich can on a counter-factual basis account for theinaction too.

In doing this, I have gonebeyond the tendency of someon the Left to shout from thesidelines, “Such and suchworkers have occupied theirworkplace – you should do ittoo, you can do it too”, as anact of voluntarism. If thiswere a valid approach, then wewould reasonably expect many more occupations.Because this has not been thecase, we can conclude thatsuch an approach is mistaken.It fails to appreciate thecomplexity and specificity of

the contingent social processesinvolving worker action aswell as the materialfoundations of concretecircumstances and how thetwo interact together. The complexity relates toworkers’ varying assessmentsof their situation and theirexpectations about whether anoccupation will bring usefulleverage over their employer interms of a basic cost/benefitcalculation. The contingencyand specificity relate to a seriesof micro-level factors whichcan help explain in generalterms – albeit in aretrospective way – whyoccupations take place (asopposed to predicting whetherthey will take place). I haverelated these to macro-levelfactors in order to appreciatehow wider societal processescan impact on them. But theaccent has always been onproviding a foundation innon-determinate and non-mechanical ways.

That said, this article hasnot been able to delve into theimportant area of the way inwhich workers’ consciousnessoperates, because of the natureof the material on which it isbased. The Visteon Belfastand Thomas Cook GraftonStreet occupations showedthat workers in the samecompanies, when presented

with the same situations, mayreact in quite different ways.Clearly, what is now needed isprimary research, interviewingthe respective groups ofworkers, in order tounderstand these differentreactions. Presumably, lines of investigation wouldconcentrate on the role of theshop stewards/unionrepresentatives and the natureof the workplace unionismwithin the local areas. Only through this level ofinvestigation can we hope todevelop a deep and holisticunderstanding of thephenomenon.

This is the kind of workthat politically-engagedacademics need to conduct tobe of good service to organisedlabour’s traditions of fightingback. Without this level ofdetailed understanding(amongst other things), thetactic of worker occupationwill not become sufficientlywidespread and powerful to be able to force employers to recalculate the costs andbenefits facing them. This wasthe case in the 1970s, whenworkers were more and betterorganised and moreoppositionally conscious,having emerged out of aperiod of sustained growth inworking class conscious-ness and action.


1 See J Brecher, Strike (revised andupdated edition), South End Press,Boston, MA, 1997, and A Preis,Labor’s Giant Step: Twenty Years of theCIO, Pathfinder, New York, 1974. 2 J Foster and C Woolfson, ThePolitics of the UCS Work-In: ClassAlliances and the Right to Work,Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1986. 3 “Grounded theory” is that sort oftheory in social science which isderived inductively. The researcherexamines data on one or severalparticular situations and aims,without any theoreticalpreconception, to understand what ishappening. Each different situation isconsidered to be a whole, in whichdifferent variables (factors) interact incomplex ways to produced theobserved outcomes. – Ed.4 A historical method whichexamines what would have happenedto the same people simultaneously

exposed and not exposed to the samefactor. – Ed5 An “institutional proxy” ormeasure is one which is widelyaccepted but without rigorousjustification. – Ed.6 K Coates, Work-ins, Sit-ins andIndustrial Democracy: the Implicationsof Factory Occupations in Britain in theEarly ‘Seventies, Spokesman,Nottingham, 1981, p11.7 Coates, op cit.8 15 August 2009.9 Using the annual level of strikeactivity per 1000 workers may seem anobvious alternative but the variations instrike patterns, regulation of theemployment relationship andlegislation governing industrial disputesare so great across the nine countriesthat this is not considered to be aparticularly useful measure. It wouldbe like comparing apples with oranges. 10 See Guardian, 25 July 2009.

Notes

■

arly in 2009 I spent some time inAustralia and then in Cuba,attending fantastic, militant

education union conferences on behalfof the National Union of Teachers. In Cuba there were 3,500 delegatesfrom all over Latin America and Africa,and a few from Europe and so on,finding out that outside of Cuba justabout everybody is facing exactly thesame kind of problems.

In Australia, for example, the people voted out the ThatcheriteHoward regime, and brought in John Rudd, who has modelled theAustralian Labour Party almost entirely on the New Labour projecthere. In terms of education, Rudd is introducing, blow for blow,programme for programme, what hasbeen imposed on British schools byNew Labour – “testing” and schoolleague tables, deprofessionalisation ofteachers, the commodification ofeducation and control by the privatesector, performance-related pay andother private sector management tools. This is no accident – it is a capitalistimperative.

Thus, international trade unionactivity is becoming more clearly


InternationalismBegins at Home1

The International Crisis and Trade Union Organisation

E

By BillGreenshields

significant to rank-and-file workers as they become aware that we are allfacing the same issues. But growingawareness is not enough. How do wefight at home, and in the internationalarena, successfully to confront thesegeneralised attacks?

You may have heard that the Chinesedo not have a single character for “crisis”,but rather two: “dangerous opportunity”.If we see the capitalist crisis as that,presenting us with a situation beset withdangers but one which is absolutely fullof fantastic opportunity too, then itunderlines the need for the CommunistParty, for analysis, for dialecticalmaterialism, for clarity and fordeveloping a way forward. Otherwise weare going to stagger from one position toanother, from one campaign to another –and the times are too dangerous for that.We have to be absolutely clear aboutwhat we are doing, and why.

The international crisis has resultedin something very positive for us. It hasdiscredited the claims of neoliberalismthat the market can successfullydetermine everything – though, withouta doubt, capitalists, their politicians andtheir state will want to return to this lie.Normal service, they hope, will beresumed as soon as possible.

But, as the very politicians who have peddled the lies of neoliberalism –many of the New Labour breed – havehad to use all the resources of the stateto “intervene” in the crisis, ordinarypeople who might have thought therewas some credibility to the notion of“the free market solution” becomedisillusioned in the true and bestmeaning of the word. Our role is toensure that such disillusionment doesnot result in demoralisation andcynicism, but rather in a convictionthat “another world is possible” – if weorganise and fight for it.

There is nothing new in the statestanding four-square for capitalism, andmaking workers pay for its crises. Marxwrote in Manifesto of the CommunistParty in 1848:

“The executive of the modernstate is but a committee formanaging the common affairs ofthe whole bourgeoisie.”2

Lenin was writing about statemonopoly capitalism in 1917. HisPreface to the First Edition of The State & Revolution begins:

“The question of the state is nowacquiring particular importance

both in theory and in practicalpolitics. The imperialist war hasimmensely accelerated andintensified the process oftransformation of monopolycapitalism into state-monopolycapitalism. The monstrousoppression of the working peopleby the state, which is mergingmore and more with the all-powerful capitalist associations, isbecoming increasinglymonstrous.”3

Understanding the strategic politicalimplication of the “merging” of thecapitalist state with capitalist monopoliesled communists to work for, and offerleadership to, broad anti-monopolistalliances as a critical step in thedevelopment of the working classstruggle for socialism. But the role of thestate as direct defender and prop of thecapitalist monopolies remains the “bigsecret” of capitalism – though it is asecret very poorly kept. Every workercan glimpse it whenever they areattacked, and see it clearly when they arein struggle against those attacks.

But still the state is presented as“mediator”, as independent of the classstruggle, rather than as the instrument ofclass rule. And the most enthusiasticpeddlers of this lie are in the leadershipof the Labour Party – who are best placedto know just how big a lie it is. As aresult, many workers who see the truthstill shrug their shoulders and believe thatit must ever be so. How do we break thatresignation, nationally andinternationally?

Neoliberalism, the false premise thatthe market can determine everything, issimply a mask for the ugly face of thestate in this highest stage of capitalism.That mask has clearly slipped at this timeof financial meltdown, coinciding with a deep economic crisis. But the rulingclass still has its political rules andstructures intact, and those structures are “globalised” in the furtherdevelopment of imperialism – mostfundamentally and immediately for us inthe European Union.

The EU is dishonestly promoted bysome within our trade union movementas an example of international co-operation, with potential for workers’internationalism to be expressed within it– the ever elusive “social model”.Nothing could be further from the truth.Just as the British state defends capitalismand prepares to make workers pay for its crises, so the European Union playsthe same role across its member states.

There can be no “social model” in thisaggressively capitalist club.

Others perceiving the fundamentallyanti-worker nature of the EuropeanUnion mistakenly see it as a “foreignenemy”, a new imperialist powerimposing its will on poor old Britain. But British capital and capitalists lie atthe heart of the EU. Clearly there areimportant national aspects to thestruggle, centrally questions ofsovereignty and democracy. But we haveto ask, “Sovereignty and democracy forwhat?” The European Union simplyrepresents state monopoly capitalism ona European-wide basis. The struggleagainst it is fundamentally a classstruggle, and one integrally bound upwith the struggle for genuine democracy.

What lies at the basis of the problemsfor us, and the perceived, at least short-term, salvation for capitalism, is thepromotion of the “free movement ofcapital, goods and labour”. The CzechPresident, the Guardian pundits, GordonBrown and his quisling party, JohnMonks of the ETUC, the Tories, leadersof our own TUC and many, many moreapologists for capitalism are all rushing tothe defence of the “free movement oflabour”, or – as we should recognise it –the forced movement of labour. Themovement of populations around theworld is just the internationalisation, ifyou like, of Tebbit’s diktat, “Get on yourbike and look for work.” That is what itis about.

So the fantastic and heroic actioninitially taken by the Lindsey refineryworkers and taken up by many others isspot on. We should have an absoluteright to work in our own country,though that doesn’t mean that thesolution is in expelling other workers.The Lindsey workers sent the racistspacking when they turned up with theiranti-worker slogans.

Anyone alleging racist motives amongthose fighting for the right to work hereis making mischief. It is a case either of jumping to a conclusion or ofdeliberately trying to mislead people. If employers choose to bring people fromother parts of the world, or if peoplefrom other parts of the world choose tocome, that in no way denies localworkers the right to work in their owncountry. A misplaced distortion of“internationalism” – often put forwardby naïve ultra-leftists – must not beallowed to undermine the class strugglein any one nation.

This is something we need to take upand universalise, through motions totrade union conferences, through the


➔

Left Wing Programme, through thePeople’s Charter. We need to fight for anabsolute right to work and an absoluteright to a home – for all workers, athome and abroad. That isinternationalism in action.

Whenever we put our unions at theheart of the community, with suchsimple demands – whether nationally,locally through trades councils, orwhatever – we get a tremendousresponse. If we fail in this the BNP willtake advantage: we know that they aredoing it now, they are on the streets, witha simplistic, racist, xenophobic message.That is a very dangerous side of thecurrent opportunity, that people will lookat the BNP and find what they see as aneasy answer.

There isn’t an easy answer tocapitalism, but it is a relativelystraightforward proposition to say, “If capitalism can’t provide you with theright to work in your own country, andthe right to a home, then what really isthe benefit of that system to you?”

Too many trade unions have got usedto “dealing with” redundancies, ratherthan fighting for jobs. The immediateresponse is often: “What is the best dealwe can get out of this for our members?”These are critical questions of a capitalistworld view and a socialist world view – abosses’ response and a workers’ response– that we have to tackle. We can’t allowthe trade union movement to set itssights so low – that the best we can hopefor is that people take their redundancypay and disappear quietly.

Internationally, we need to tackle thisissue of the free movement of labour,because it runs completely counter to thequestion of how to achieve a political andeconomic system that meets the needs ofits people. It turns workers into importsand exports. There is nothing “free”about the forced movement of millionsof workers around Europe. It has as itsobjective the super-exploitation ofmigrant workers, the devastation of theirhome economies – leaving themvulnerable to future capitalist exploitativeinvestment – and the undermining ofpay, conditions and job security of theworkers in those economies whichimport the cheap migrant labour.

We need to make, maintain and buildon direct contacts bilaterally with oursister unions in other EU member states,and through our international unionorganisations. The Party has a role in thistoo, meeting with our fraternal Parties incommon cause. The task is to “globalise”the battle for jobs, and to mobilise againstthe “free movement of labour”.

But how do we make suchinternational endeavours a reality? In fact internationalism begins at home.Most organised rank and file workersare not in a position to work directlywith workers and unions throughoutEurope beyond expressions of solidarity.But we can influence our own unions tomake absolute demands on the systemhere at home for decent jobs, security,pay, conditions. To do so directlydefends workers here, and also helps usmeet our international obligations tothe workers of other nations, who, like us, need to take up these class issues in their home countries. These things can be fought for in eachindividual country: there is nodistinction in my mind between thatstruggle and international struggle. In fact such struggles give solidfoundation to the building of practicalinternational solidarity.

We need a new unemployed workers’movement. My branch of the Party ismeeting with the Indian WorkersAssociation and the director of theUnemployed Workers Centre, to look atwhat we can start to do in our tradescouncils, pulling people together, inorder both to support the new movetowards a genuine fight for jobs and tobring out the political lessons about thenature of a society which cannotguarantee full employment. Capitalistsare determined to promote competitionbetween workers, and their systemprovides essential instability for workersthroughout Europe – throughout theworld. That instability and competitionis not an aberration, nor a problem thatcan be “reformed” away. It is an integralpart of capitalism, specifically used toprotect the capitalist system and tomaximise exploitation and profit.

We need, as a Party and in our tradeunions at every level, from workplaces,branches, trades councils, nationalexecutives, wherever we can, to assertthese things. The People’s Charter is a

very good starting point and we ought tobe cracking on with it. But we as a Partyhave a massive amount of policy already– embodied in pamphlets such asWorkers of all Lands, Halting the Declineof Manufacturing Industry and ThePolitics of the Economic Crisis. How arewe using them?

The question is, as ever, what are we,every one of us, going to do about it?We need to set ourselves something thatwe want to have done by the end of nextweek, by the end of next month, in ayear’s time that will transform thesituation, that will bring theinternational lessons home and enablethe British working class to fight back.

As Comrade Stalin said at one time,“Once the correct political line has beenlaid down, organisational work decideseverything”.4 We really have to take thatto heart and say, “What is our localbranch of the Party doing to make surethat the trades council is effective, tobuild the fight against unemploymentand against evictions, and really to playour part?”

I come back to where I started. Cuba is a fantastic internationalistcountry, sending doctors, nurses,educators, health workers, engineers andagronomists all over the world. But theirreal international contribution is whatthey do in Cuba. Their system survivesand grows stronger and they put theneeds of their people first – and that iswhat we have to put to workers withinour own trade unions: “How is our tradeunion putting the collective, the needs ofworking people, first?” That is ourinternational contribution, that willbreak down this false notion of the freemovement and migration of wholepeoples, dislocating them, destroyingtheir economies at home, and separating them from their families andtheir roots. Those things need to bechallenged on a world scale, but we haveto start here. Internationalism begins at home.


■

1 A contribution to the CPB Trade Union CadreSchool, 7-8 February, 2009.2 K Marx and F Engels, Collected Works, Vol 6, p 486.3 V I Lenin, Collected Works, Vol 25, p 387.4 J V Stalin, Report on the Work of the CentralCommittee to the 17th Congress of the CPSU(B) (26January 1934), in Leninism, Lawrence & Wishart,London, 1940, p 528; see alsohttp://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1934/01/26.htm. [The full quotation is: “Goodresolutions and declarations in favour of the generalline of the Party are only a beginning; they merely

express the desire for victory, but not the victory itself.After the correct line has been laid down, after acorrect solution of the problem has been found,success depends on how the work is organised; on theorganisation of the struggle for the application of the Party line; on the proper selection of personnel; on the way a check is kept on the fulfilment of thedecisions of the leading bodies. Otherwise the correctline of the Party and the correct solutions are in dangerof being seriously prejudiced. Furthermore, after thecorrect political line has been laid down, organisationalwork decides everything, including the fate of thepolitical line itself, its success or failure.” – Ed.]

Notes

OVER THE LAST DECADEand a half, the question ofinternationalism in tradeunions has been very muchframed in the context of“globalisation”. We hear it evennow: politicians say,“Globalisation is here, itchanges everything, there isnothing we can do.” And manytrade unions found the periodof neoliberalism of the last 25 years heavily characterisedby an increasing internation-alisation of the work in whichthey were engaged.

Of course, globalisation isa bit of a misnomer. You onlyhave to read the first few linesof the Manifesto of theCommunist Party, 1848, torealise that globalisation has been part of capitalism fora very, very long time. Having said that, there hasclearly been a surge in theinternational activities ofcompanies, the growth oftransnational corporations,largely associated with newtechnologies and newproduction methods.

Trade unions have for a

long time responded tointernational challenges.Indeed the First International,the International of what wasthen unfortunately named“Working Men”, was createdby Marx and his comradesprecisely for many of the samereasons that we conceive as thegrounds for internationalismtoday. Indeed, if you lookinto the archives of the First International, you willsee East Midlands textile tradeunionists very heavily obsessedwith the issue of importedFrench, Flemish or Germanworkers coming to strike-break, and the trade unionistsusing the First International as a means of attempting toprevent this and tocommunicate with theworkers.

In fact, the earliest episodeof that sort of activity that Ihave come across inresearching East Midlandshistory was in Derby in 1833;so this issue of “British jobsfor British workers” has beenwith us for a very long time –and it really is all about the

price of labour power, thestandards of labour and so on.The labour mobility that wehave seen, with the changes inEastern Europe, the growth ofthe European Union and nowthe crisis, merely adds to thisconstant threat that hasexisted as long as capitalismhas existed.

Of course the trade unioninternationals were paralleledby political internationals; andfor much of the 20th centuryinternational trade union linkswere very much influenced bythe way in which socialists andcommunists were either alliedor hostile. Very deep splitswithin international labourwere created by the Cold War– in many cases quitedeliberately by the forces ofreaction. We have seen agradual realignment take place,notably in Western Europe:many of the big trade unionfederations which historicallycame out of the communiststable, particularly in France,Italy, Spain and Portugal, havebegun to join with theinternationals that existed

throughout the Cold War.Actually, this beginning of

a realignment was not easilyaccepted. As recently as 10 years ago I found myselfon the board of theInternational TransportWorkers Federation, the ITF,arguing with American tradeunions that sections of theFrench CGT should beaccepted into affiliation – andthe Americans were hostile.Indeed there were Frenchtrade unionists who werehostile to it as well, so ithasn’t been that easy, and ofcourse the process is stillunfolding. In fact the Cubantrade union centre iscurrently investigating thepossibility of affiliating to thismainstream internationaltrade union federation in thetransport world.

The ITF is very much part of my role as head of thetransport division of Unite, soI shall refer to it a few times.It was not necessarily always aparagon of great virtue, I should say. During the1950s it collaborated with the


by Graham Stevenson

The International Crisis and Trade Union Organisation

➔

OrganisingInternationally1

CIA, to prevent workers inMarseilles from striking tostop munitions going torelieve the French at DienBien Phu in Vietnam. Theconsequence was that theFrench dockers’ federation stillrefuses to join the ITF – talkabout memories being very,very long!

What is of interest is theway in which internationalrelations between tradeunionists have changed in thelast 10 years or so. Before theturn of the century mostinternational trade unionactivity was almost of atouristic variety: it was aboutmeeting up, having niceexchanges and dinners, andgiving each other presents.Many of the bodies that grewup in that Cold War periodhave evolved into being reallyquite tame and often quiteuseless organisations, that donot really serve the needs ofindividual unions that areseeking to become fighting,organising trade unions.

An odd thing hashappened. When the biginternational federation, theICTFU, as it was called, wasfounded it permitted a certainnumber of industryfederations – one for transportworkers, one for metalworkers, and so on. There areabout eight left, and theybecame known during the1990s as Global UnionFederations or GUFs forshort. Some of the GUFs aremore effective while othershave not really reformedthemselves, have not becomevery relevant, have not takenon board affiliates frommilitant unions that used tobe outside the family. Butwhat a number of unions,working both within GUFsand on a bilateral basis, havebegun to do is to look at thecommonality and how theycan work together.

An example of that is thecampaign about contractcleaning workers to whichRhys McCarthy referred in theprevious issue of CommunistReview.2 Many of thesecompanies, like ISS – which is

actually a Danish-ownedcompany – are Europeantransnational corporations witha particular relationship with aparticular state in Europe,although they now operate inliterally scores of countries,maybe hundreds, right acrossthe globe. It has become veryevident that all the power anddecision-making in thesecompanies is at corporate level,ie they make decisions aboutclosure, expansion and all sortsof other questions on the basisof a global corporate approach.However, when unions worktogether across the globe,focused specifically on thatcompany, then it can beshifted. Joint union campaignshave involved e-mail and – 10years ago – fax blitzes, sendingthousands of faxes to the CEOof a particular corporation,saying “Why don’t yourecognise unions in … ?” – eg,the United States of America.

Indeed the USA has been afocus for a great deal of thisactivity because, despite recentgrowth, unions there are onlyabout a quarter of the size thatthey were 50 years ago. It isimportant to understand that,in America, union recognitionis a legal question. Individualsdon’t join unions – you can’tjoin just like that. You have tohave a legal contract with youremployer and that legalcontract is given to a uniononly after a great deal ofstruggle. Most employersengage in ferociouscampaigning activity of a kindthat you would not be able tocomprehend. Just forget whatyou think about as anti-unionism among Britishemployers: in the USA it is sovicious, so extreme, so personaland with so much resourceinvested into it, that it really isincomprehensible. And whenyou have a situation wheretransnational corporations –like ISS – begin to ownAmerican companies andBritish or French companies atthe same time, then they beginto import their Americanindustrial relations policy intomany other countries as well –because “if it works there, why

wouldn’t it work here? Let’s tryit.” So it is now in the interestsof trade unions to work closelyin cases like that, whether theyare in Australia, America,Denmark or wherever.

There are at least 20 majortransnational corporationswhere like-minded unions –sometimes with a global unionfederation, sometimescompletely apart from it –have been co-ordinating andcampaigning. I myself havebeen heavily involved incampaigning work to assistAmerican trade unionists togain recognition in companiesowned by British firms in thepublic transport arena: FirstBus, Stagecoach, Go Ahead,Arriva, and so on. Many ofthem own quite significantcompanies in America, mostnotably in the school busphenomenon, which for us is alittle bit unusual.3 A great dealof campaigning activity istaking place in this country toassist American trade unioniststo win greater footholds incompanies which in Americaare completely anti-union,whereas in this country theyhave accepted trade unionsover many years. To someextent that has been successful:the Teamsters’ union, forexample, last year alonerecruited 15,000 workers onsomething like 20 contracts inthe USA and Canada (to allintents and purposes a singleentity for North Americanunion organisation).

But we have also had alliedbenefits that are much closerto home. For example, car

delivery drivers in this country– those big transporters thatcarry cars from factories toports, to showrooms – are allorganised by Unite (formerlythe T&G) and are highly paid.That is quite unusual, since inEurope they are mostly self-employed and not unionised.For about 10 years now theFord motor company inBritain has been seeking towriggle out of its contract withAnsa, the firm that handlesthe car deliveries. You mightsay that Ford has been tryingto export peripheralemployment since they havebeen looking for a much morefluid, more flexible kind ofcontract – they don’t want anyunionised arrangements. And we have had a series ofdisputes with Ansa (althoughin reality it is Ford that is theproblem), culminating aboutthree yeas ago in what webelieved was going to be amajor national dispute, withall 700 or so drivers having tostop work. We knew we couldstop the 5000 car deliverydrivers in all other companies– that would of course besecondary picketing – wecould stop the car industrymoving in this country, but we had to face the reality thatthere are no cars manufacturedin Britain any more. They allcome from Spain or Germany.What to do about that?

What we had to do wasprepare in advance a very clearstrategy for tackling the supplyline. Where are all Ford’sfactories in Europe? How dothey get the cars from them, or


the parts, engines, bodies? We had to identify 30 factoriesacross the whole of Europe,supply lines that include portslike Barcelona, ports in Turkeythat nobody had ever heard of,railways even. To track all thisdown we found thatsometimes it was a good ideato bypass trade unions and getto workers themselves. The German unions were notvery helpful but the Germanworkers were: if you couldmake contact inside the factoryin Cologne you could find outwhat day the cars left thefactory and how they got to a scab port in Holland. Ford avoided the big unionisedport, so we had to find theexact supply line, whichincluded travelling on bargeson the Rhine and whichmercifully turned out to beunionised. And so we had todeal with the issues of languageand communication withindividual workers’representatives in smallcompanies, such as the 50-strong German company thathandled barge delivery on theRhine. “What would you doif we had a strike?” we said.“Would you take action,because we can’t, but you can?”“Oh yes, we’ll do it,” they said.Almost nobody knows aboutthis but we nearly had asituation where the whole ofthe European car industrycame to a standstill. What saved it was that theT&G General Secretary wasable to go to Ford Europe’smanaging director and say,“Here is our plan, do you want

to take us on? This is what weare going to do.” “Oh, no,no,” they said, “it’s all been amisunderstanding.” So thatissue has completelydisappeared.

Of course out of a processlike that you not onlyembolden workers, providethem with opportunities,because we’re talking abouthow could we get car workers,car delivery workers or theirfamilies to some remote placein Holland to picket the two-mile gap between the end ofthe canal and the beginning of the railway. We had tothink about that kind ofapproach. What it does isenforce the concept oforganising at the workplace aswell. So internationalism alliedto an organising strategy, usinginternational links in a verycreative and constructive way,is a very positive thing for us.

Now I must turn to thewhole question of the EuropeanUnion and the way in whichinternational trade unionactivity is conducted there.The first thing to note is thatthe European TUC actuallyreceives 85% of its fundingfrom the EuropeanCommission. So if you juststop and think about that for asecond, it may explain whythere is sometimes a tensionbetween what we want fromthe European trade unionmovement and what weactually get. The ETUC isfirmly wedded to a lobby-on-the-inside, softly, softlyapproach. They will engage ina little bit of demonstrationactivity, but not very much andit is all very polite. On theother hand some of theEuropean arms of these globalunion federations have engagedin combative activity to prevent further liberalisation.The European TransportWorkers’ Federation – theEuropean arm of the ITF – hasactively campaigned to stopfurther transport deregulation.

Most notably, the EUattempted to introduce a devicethat would have opened themarket in European ports.They have tried three timesover nine years and we havestopped them every time.Admittedly, the final time, itmay have taken an alliance withthe anarchist union inBarcelona to achieve quite thepunch that we had. 10,000dockers assembled in the streetsof Brussels, or maybe it was therockets from Barcelona goingthrough the Brusselsheadquarters that finallyconvinced them – I don’t know.However, we did have a verygood effect in lobbying and I have to say that even theEuropean centre parties weresometimes better than theBritish Labour Party, which was useless.

Finally I want to discussWorkers Uniting, “the firstglobal union”, bringingtogether Unite and the UnitedSteel Workers of America(which is actually from Canadaas well). One can draw aparallel between the engineersand Amicus, on the one hand,and the USW on the other,because steel-making hascollapsed in both Sheffield andAmerica, and the USW is aproduct of mergers – likeAmicus – and has nurses, traindrivers and all sort of otherworkers in it. There appears tobe a great deal in common inthe thinking about theinternational steel industry, inparticular: the EU is floodingboth the British and Americanmarkets with cheap steelcoming from Slovakia and thatis a matter of concern. So Ican understand where all thatcomes from.

What has actually beenagreed is that such a formationwill exist: precisely how it willfunction is still an openquestion. There has not beenan acceptance of the implicitlogic behind the plan – it hasjust been put forward in termsof like-minded unions indifferent countries workingtogether so well that what theyought to do is to join together.Well, if we were going to do

that then the T&G shouldmerge with the Teamsters, notthe Steel Workers, so why thelatter? It is a response to thefear that the GUFs, the biginternationals, are too looseand have not really beenengaging in organising andactivity. I have indicated thatthat is not actually so, thatwhere a deliberate strategy hasbeen engaged upon – as wedid in the T&G 20 years agowith the ITF and the ETF –then you can transforminternationals like these GUFsinto real live forces for theassistance of workers ininternational struggle. So astrategy just based uponinternational mergers isperhaps too limited anapproach – although onecannot rule anything out,because the T&G section ofUnite after all is aninternational union. There aremembers in the Republic ofIreland – a very significantnumber – in the UnitedKingdom and in Gibraltar.The T&G used to havemembers in Malta, thoughnot any more, but it does havea very close relationship withthe Maltese General WorkersUnion. International unionsare not per se necessarily awrong thing but it is not rightto imagine that somehow theyare a panacea, a singlesolution. What is clear is thatwe need an on-the-groundconnection between workersengaged in similar industries,with similar employers,working together in thecommon interest. If you dothat you can actually gainsomething out of international exchanges.


■

1 A contribution to the CPB Trade Union Cadre School, 7-8February, 2009.2 R McCarthy, Organising theUnorganised: Going Back to Basics, inCommunist Review No 54, Autumn2009, p 17.3 All children in America have toget bussed from where they live to acertain school, to ensure the racialcomplement of the school ismoderately balanced.

Notes

“the Teamsters’ union … last yearalone recruited 15,000 workers”

I: Ralph Miliband’sTheory ofContainment ofClass Conflict andPressure fromBelow

Ralph Miliband’s most famous andimportant intellectual contribution wasThe State in Capitalist Society publishedin 1969, and his ensuing debate with theAlthusserian Marxist Nicos Poulantzas.3As Michael Newman argues:

“Their most fundamentaldifferences were not in theirconclusions, but in theirmethods, their approaches, andtheir underlying attitudes.Miliband took both the theoryand practice of liberal democracyseriously, but aimed todemonstrate empirically that abroadly Marxist interpretation of

capitalist society was valid.Poulantzas was not primarilyinterested in liberal democracy orempirical evidence. His purposewas to establish a theory of the

political, which was based on aspecific reading of Marx andwhich was wholly separate from‘bourgeois’ approaches.”4

Miliband in his later work consideredthat:

“The notion of the state as an‘instrument’… tends to obscurewhat has come to be seen as acrucial property of the state,namely its relative autonomy fromthe ‘ruling class’ and from civilsociety at large.”5

He also wrote that

“The dynamic of state action isexplained by Marxism in terms ofthe imperative requirements ofcapital or the inexorable pressureof capitalists; and these are indeedof very great importance. But tofocus exclusively on them is toleave out of account other very


Orthodox and MarxistTheoriesof the State and Local Government

Part 3:

Other British Marxist and RadicalWork since the Late 1960s

Part 1 of this article in Communist Review 53 discussed themethodological and theoretical basis of my forthcoming pamphletentitled Local Democracy versus “Local Governance”; and criticallyanalysed orthodox non-Marxist theories of the state and localgovernment.1 Part 2 in Communist Review 54 focused on theMarxist theory of the state and local government in terms of statemonopoly capitalism.2 This final part of the article discusses, insections I-V, other British Marxist and radical work on the stateand local government since the late 1980s. Section VI summarisesthe article’s main arguments, and considers the alternative policiesneeded to solve the crisis of both state monopoly capitalism andlocal government as well as strategies required to implement them.

By Peter Latham

Ralph Miliband

powerful impulses to state actiongenerated from within the stateby the people who are in chargeof the decision-making power.These impulses undoubtedlyexist; and they cannot be taken tobe synonymous with the purposesof dominant classes.”6

Miliband therefore concluded that

“an accurate and realistic ‘model’of the relationship between thedominant class in advancedcapitalist societies and the state isone of partnership between twodifferent, separate forces, linked toeach other by many threads, yeteach having its own separatesphere of concerns. The terms ofthat partnership are not fixed but constantly shifting, andaffected by many differentcircumstances, and notably by thestate of class struggle.”7

Political-office holders have their owninterests – to stay in office – when theymake policy choices. Yet:

“This larger concern of political-office holders does not, in itself,present any threat to the long-term interests of capital… it is onthe contrary essential to theirpreservation. If governments areto defend these interestseffectively, they simply must havea considerable degree ofautonomy in deciding how this isto be done, what concessions areto made to other and conflictinginterests and forces, and by whatmeans pressure from below maybest be contained. This autonomyis indeed ‘relative’; but it isnevertheless real.”8

The danger then for capital is thatgovernments may be tempted to make toogenerous concessions to popular demands.This is why the non-elected parts of thestate are so vital. Thus top civil servants arecrucial for restraining ministers;9 themilitary, security services, police and judgesare crucial for containing pressure frombelow;10 and non-coercive institutions incivil society (such as the mass media) areconcerned with “hegemony”, which is “a process of struggle, a permanentstriving, a ceaseless endeavour to maintaincontrol over the ‘hearts and minds’ ofsubordinate classes”.11

The containment of class conflict andpressure from below was central to

Miliband’s analysis of both the nationalstate and local government. Orthodoxanalysts of local government admit therelevance of class analysis in the past, but– due to reform and democratisation –view it as largely irrelevant to the present.Nevertheless, there was a markeddifferentiation between Labour councilsand others in terms of both the classinterests they represented and the policiesthey typically adopted. Outrightrebellion – Poplar in 1921, Clay Cross in1972 – has been rare due to the reasonsgiven by Harvey and Hood:

“The government does have at itsdisposal a large arsenal offinancial, administrative andcoercive means to ensurecompliance, and the courts canusually be relied upon to act as astrong restraining force upon such councils.”12

However, things could have been very different if central government hadbeen faced with “twenty Poplars and anequal number of Clay Crosses”.13

The influence of senior officers in localgovernment – who have similarideologies to senior civil servants – is alsoconsiderable, because councillors relyupon their advice. Since the 1980s, asMiliband predicted, the trend towardscaution has intensified following thegreater concentration of power in thehands of chief executives, the adoption ofstrategic management techniques and theintroduction of the executive andscrutiny system by New Labour underwhich most councillors now have no rolein policy-making.

Miliband, as shown in Part 2 of thisarticle, is the only Marxist whose writingson the British national state and localgovernment acknowledged thesignificance of James Harvey andKatherine Hood’s earlier work, The British State. Moreover, theperspective in Miliband’s chapter on localgovernment in Capitalist Democracy inBritain – with its emphasis on class andpower cited above – is similar to thatadopted by Harvey and Hood. Probablythe major limitation of Miliband’sapproach is that the political economyunderpinning his analyses is theoreticallyand empirically under-developed –unlike earlier and current work using theperspective of state monopoly capitalismand some of the Marxist work on Britishlocal government since the late 1970s.Sections II to V below discuss the latterwork and subsequent studies based onthese earlier debates.

II: CynthiaCockburn’s“Structuralist”Theory of the“Local State”

The term “local state” was used byCynthia Cockburn as an alternative tothe traditional “public administration”approach to studying local government,which narrowly focused upon localgovernment institutions and ignored thewider economic, political and socialcontext in which they operated.Cockburn argued that we need to gobeyond the conventional framework andsee local government “for what it really is:a key part of the state in capitalistsociety”.14 In particular, as there is “noready-made theory of local government”,Cockburn maintained that

“It is necessary to piece together anumber of concepts about thestate as a whole and drawconclusions from them for localgovernment. There arefundamental ideas in the earlywritings of Marx on which laterwork has built. … The first ofthese is that the state can only beunderstood by looking at the waywealth is produced in a particularsociety … [and] is specific to themode of production … second …that the state in capitalism is aninstrument of class domination… third … its characteristicfunction is repression: its mainrole is to keep the working classin its place and to set things up,with forceful sanctions, in such away that capital itself, businessinterests as a whole, normallysurvive and prosper.”15

The work of Louis Althusser andNicos Poulantzas is then used byCockburn to update Marx’s views on thestate to include social reproduction andideology as important concerns of thelocal state.16 That is, education, housingand other social services are provided toensure a healthy and cooperative labourforce for capital; and the local state alsoinstitutionalises class conflict andencourages people to accept dominantvalues. Cockburn then uses thistheoretical approach to provide anexemplary empirical study of the LondonBorough of Lambeth.

However, as Simon Duncan andMark Goodwin observed in 1988, the


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major contradiction in Cockburn’s workis that the capitalist state

“is viewed functionally as a giventhing, a pre-existing instrumentpossessed by the capitalist class,rather than as a historicallyemerging, changing andcontradictory class relation. The local state then, is notdifferentiated from the nationalstate in terms of process, only interms of functions that happen tobe carried out locally.”17

Thus, as Duncan and Goodwinconclude, Cockburn

“reduces two contradictory socialprocesses of the local state – that itis simultaneously agent andobstacle for the national state – tothose of a one-way agent …. This results from the search for auniversal model of a thing – thecapitalist state – which can beapplied to all places at all timesusing one ‘model’ of activity as thebasis of understanding. This lineof reasoning is … misleading …historically and conceptually.”18

III: The “DualState”Theory ofAlan Cawson andPeter Saunders

Alan Cawson and Peter Saunders makeno distinction between national and localstates because they argue that distinctpolitical processes operate on each level:which require two different politicaltheories to explain them. The latter,according to Duncan and Goodwin,“begs the question of why the term andhence the concept of the local state isused at all.”19 Cawson and Saundersargue that central state interventionmainly occurs in relation to theproduction process and it proceedsthrough a policy process of corporatemediation; while local state activity ismainly concerned with consumptionprocesses, where policies are developedthrough competitive political struggles.Interests mobilised at the centre aroundproduction reflect the organised classinterests of industrial and finance capital,the professions and organised labour,whereas local mobilisation is usuallyformed on the basis of consumptionsectors such as council tenants.20

The major problem with thisapproach is highlighted by Saundershimself:

“Since most state policies willinvolve some relevance for bothproduction and consumption, itcan be difficult to disentangle thetwo and to distinguish empiricallybetween primarily-productionorientated and primarily-consumption orientatedinterventions.”21

Moreover, there is little empiricalevidence to support the “dual state”thesis. For instance, Patrick Dunleavy,using generous criteria, showed that inthe period up to 1914 only just over athird of local authority expenditure couldbe classified as social consumption; and in1984 roads, education and housing,which contribute to private productionand capital accumulation, accounted for65 per cent of local authority spending.22

The response of Saunders to suchcriticism was that the “dual state” thesis isan “ideal type” research strategy ratherthen an account of reality; but, asDuncan and Goodwin point out, if“corporatist bargaining over productionin the national state and pluralist conflictover consumption in the local state, arenot typical tendencies, or do not reflectsome social logic, then perhaps the ‘thesis’is not something to continue with.”23

IV: Simon Duncanand MarkGoodwin’s Theoryof “SocialRelations” and“UnevenDevelopment”

Despite the “unchanging local stateforms” that “the dual state thesis andCockburn’s structuralist thesis bothimply”, Duncan and Goodwin stillconsider that “the concept ‘local state’ is vital to a full understanding of thecurrent crisis of local-central relations”;but only if it is recognised that “local-level state institutions are constantlybeing restructured … and these changesare linked to changes in state relations asa whole and to changes in the overallform of capitalist social relations.”24

Social relations, including class relations,are “unevenly developed”, which “meansthat social groups are also spatially

constituted and differentiated, withvariable local strengths and importance”;and “locally constituted groups” can use“local state institutions to further theirown interests, perhaps in opposition to centrally dominant interests.”25

For example, farmers/landowners canmaintain a cheap local labour force viatheir domination of many rural localgovernments; and the provision of cheapand often good-quality council housingby Labour authorities was an essentialcomponent in the development of localcultures of Labourism.26

Duncan and Goodwin, drawing onGramsci, also do not see “unevendevelopment … simply as a matter ofcapitalist production – however, centraland wide-reaching this might be”,because the “practices of civil society …are also, like the processes of capitalistdevelopment, uneven in themselves andso create differentiation”.27 For example,in South Wales the relatively autonomousand egalitarian work practices of coalminers encouraged a combative andcollective outlook. Conversely, the morehierarchical and paternalistic workpractices of coal miners in North-eastEngland had the opposite effect.28

Duncan and Goodwin then applied theirtheory to the local government crisis inthe late 1980s.

The term “local government” ratherthan “local state” is used in this articlebecause the big difficulty with the latterterm is that it contradicts the Marxistconcept of state power as the manifoldcombination of formal and informalinstruments of ruling class power thatevolve and change in line with capitalism’sunfolding contradictions and with thetempo and character of class struggle.State power has to be understooddialectically – as a whole and as changingcontinually in response to overallcontradictions. In this sense state powercannot be anything but both local andcentral. Separating it does not makesense. However, what did make a keydifference, and what has rendered anyrepresentative form of government at bothnational and local level so problematic forcapital, has been the introduction ofdemocracy – and the continual battle overwhether it can be used as a tool to controlorganised labour, or used by organisedlabour to limit and contain the power ofcapital. All of which is consistent with themain thrust of Duncan and Goodwin’stheory which, unlike those of Cockburn,Cawson and Saunders, is still relevantwhen analysing post-1988 developmentsup to and including New Labour’s “localgovernance” project.


V: British Marxistand Radical Workon LocalGovernment sincethe Late 1980s According to Marxists, as ChristopherStoney observes, the contradictions andcrises inherent in the development ofcapitalism necessitated intervention bythe governments of advanced capitalistcountries “to sustain and promote theconditions required for profitableinvestment and accumulation”.29

Moreover, the “rising level ofintervention required to maintainaccumulation and legitimisation presentsthe state with contradictory pressuresboth to spend and to controlspending.”30 Hence, as “locally electedgovernment is important for thepurposes of legitimation, but at the sametime represents a barrier to the overallreduction in state expenditure, itsrelationship with central government is dialectical.”30

The post-1988 strategy did notrepresent a radical departure fromprevious policies. Stoney highlightedthree mutually interrelated features:1. There has been a continuation of the

concern to control local authorities’spending but this has resulted in areform of the system of localgovernment finance – which not onlyenhances the degree of central controlover spending but also reducessignificantly the power and discretionof local authorities in relation to thelevel of local taxation. Through theRevenue Support Grant (RSG) andUniform Business Rate (UBR), centralgovernment now controls over 80per cent of local governmentexpenditure, while authorities’discretion over the level of localtaxation is limited by thegearing effect of increasedspending on the Council Tax,and the Government’s powers tocap local tax increases.

2. Central government’s strategy aimedto reduce directly the scope ofinfluence and control of elected localauthorities over the economic andsocial welfare of local communities.For example, the 1988 EducationReform Act reduced the scope oflocal authority influence through thedelegation of budgets to schools andallowed schools to opt out of localauthority control and become grantmaintained, financed directly bycentral government.

3. The 1988 Local Government Actsubjected a range of services tocompulsory competitive tendering(CCT); and this was extended furtherby the 1992 Local Governmnet Actto include internal support servicessuch as personnel and finance. Such legislation led local authoritiesto reduce their involvement in directservices and to focus increasingly ontheir role as purchasers of servicesunder contractual arrangements, akey aspect of the marketisation ofpublic services.31

In its attempts to bypass elected localauthorities, central government has,wherever possible, given powers to non-elected agencies.32 The result has been a rapid expansion in the number of quasi-autonomous non-governmentalorganisations (quangos) which carryresponsibility for aspects of local publicpolicy and service provision. Examplesinclude the former Training andEnterprise Councils and the UrbanDevelopment Corporations. It wasestimated that the amount of publicmoney spent by quangos represented£46.6 billion in 1993, nearly one third oftotal public spending.33 Since then, thepercentage of public expenditureundertaken by quangos has risen:estimates suggested that, prior to the1987 general election, this figure wascloser to one half, and the proportion hasincreased even more under New Labour.

The shift in balance fromdemocratically elected councillors, whocan be held accountable to the electorate,towards appointed, faceless and elitegroups of people has serious implicationsfor public sector management and thelocal political economy. Paul Hoggettpoints out that some of the Training andEnterprise Councils and trusts set up tobypass local government were actuallyconstituted as private companies, andone casualty of their emergence has been“any semblance of open government, asmany of the new bodies resort to hidingbehind the shroud of ‘business secrecy’ asa means of avoiding scrutiny either bythe public or their own employees”.34

The emergence of “newmanagerialism” and the rapid growth inthe number of partnerships between localauthorities and the private sector, asAllan Cochrane argues, has been pivotalin the move from the traditional welfare state to the market-drivenenterprise state:

“...the importance of business inpolicy making at local level goesbeyond direct involvement,which is strongest in the fieldsmost directly relevant to businessinterests, such as economicdevelopment, education andtraining. It has substantiallyinfluenced more traditionalresponsibilities of the welfarestate, too, confirming the moveaway from the local state asprovider of collectiveconsumption, to local state asdefender of enterprise”.35

As a consequence of increased


➔

The shift in balance from

democratically electedcouncillors, who can beheld accountable to theelectorate, towardsappointed, faceless andelite groups of people hasserious implications forpublic sector managementand the localpolitical economy

business involvement, Cochrane suggeststhat traditional welfare problems, such asinner-city decay, have been reinterpretedas problems of economic growth, andurban regeneration defined as businessconfidence and growth. This tendencyto present contentious political issues as aset of technical business problems hasbeen further stimulated by the emergenceof partnerships. Encouraged by theAudit Commission, deregulation and acompetitive system of funding, localauthorities have had little choice but toenter into direct partnerships with theprivate sector in an attempt to securefinance for local regeneration.

The impact of private sectorpartnerships on local government was thefocus of a report cited by Cochrane whodescribed how it calls for business plans tobe drawn up and for the partnership to function as a Board of Directors whenco-ordinating activities. It alsorecommended the setting up of “executivepower and agency” separate from elected local governments. In addition to structural changes the report stressedthe need for accompanying changes in business practice and language which reflect the growing influence ofstrategic management:

“The language of business – thejargon of the new management –is used as a focus of development.Stress is placed on the need todevelop ‘mission’ statements, andbusiness plans, based on SWOT36

analysis. The new teams areadvised to aim for flagshipprojects, rather than integratedprogrammes which elected localgovernment is expected todevelop. They are exhorted to actlike business.”37

The importance of corporatemanagement in this context is incommunicating with business and increating favourable conditions for inwardinvestment from the private sector. In awider context, it instils potentialinvestors with confidence that “rational”economic strategy can be pursued locallywithout fear of political and bureaucratichindrance and without the uncertaintyand reversals in policy that used toaccompany changes in the politicalcomplexion of the council.

Pressures to transform localgovernment management have comefrom various quarters. Centralgovernment has consistently urged localauthorities to review managementmethods and adopt a more systematic

and strategic approach. Closer links andpartnerships with business havefacilitated the importation of privatesector management techniques;38 andsenior managers have, on the whole, beeneager to take up the enterprise mantra ofthe Audit Commission and the LocalGovernment Management Board with itsemphasis on commercial and businessmetaphors, and the promise of a moreinfluential role for themselves. The resulthas been an identifiable change in localgovernment management, the emergenceof “new managerialism” and its creationof managerial elites or cadres.39

The philosophy of “new managerialism”is elitist, essentially directive andauthoritarian and one which seeks toestablish management’s “right to manage”by excluding trade union and collectiveparticipation in the decision-makingprocess.40 Its introduction into thepublic sector, through innovations suchas strategic management, is seen as anattempt to change values, priorities andpractices, and by so doing gain supportand legitimation for a radical programmeof reform. This has involved extensivetraining and development for top publicmanagers, enhanced financial incentivefor managers willing to adopt these newprincipals and often redundancy forthose who resist.41 Cochrane describesthis new breed as “managerial careerists”and suggests that they no longer seeklegitimacy from the electoral process, butfrom their ability to fit in with the latestmanagement language, such as the shiftfrom “client” to “consumer”.42

In this managerial transformation,the traditional public sector themes ofcollectivism, welfare and civic duty havebecome unfashionable. “Personnel” isnow “Human Resource Management”;chief officers are recast as “directors” or“strategic executives”; and glamorous,career enhancing “flagship projects”compete with more prosaic day-to-dayresponsibilities for scarce resources. The development of a professional,corporate image is seen as vital and isoften symbolised by slick corporate logosdepicting local landmarks andattractions.43 “In this new corporateworld”, as Stoney notes,

“the language of local politics issuperseded by the anodyne andclinical discourse of managementspeak which is seen to legitimatemanagement authority as amorally and politically neutraltechnical activity. The veil ofrationality is spread overcontentious decisions concerning,

for example, the imposition ofstaff redundancies, pay freezes andcutbacks in services. Theemphasis is placed upon achieving‘leaner’, ‘fitter’ organisationsthrough a process of ‘downsizing’or ‘rightsizing’.”44

However, as Farnham and Hortonpoint out, this notion of rationality hidesthe fact that collectively senior publicservice managers are actually “agents” ofpolitical and economic change and, inthis sense, they argue that managementhas been politicised:

“Such managers may claim thatthey are neutral professionals,carrying out policy made by thepoliticians and committed toorganisational effectiveness andefficiency. In fact they have beenresponsible for driving through aseries of extensive and sometimescontentious programmes ofpolitical reforms in the publicservices in the name of managerialcompetence. With fewexceptions, they have providedlittle resistance to these changesand, some would add, many ofthem have been rewardedhandsomely for their efforts indoing so.”40

The primary objectives of publicsector reforms have been greater


economy and value for money. These aims, according to Stoney,

“have been pursued largelythrough a combination of costcontrol methods and an increasein the intensity and pressure ofwork for council employees.Compulsory CompetitiveTendering (CCT) has been themajor instrument used to enforceboth measures, replacinghierarchical control with themarket as a means of coordinatingactivity and resources, andcombining reductions in thenumber of staff with increasedworkloads, lower rates of pay andworse terms and conditions.”44

Central to these strategies have beensome classical examples of neo-Taylorismsuch as: tight cash limits and cashplanning; staff cuts; the introduction ofperformance indicators which stresseconomy and efficiency; staff appraisaland merit pay systems; more devolutionto line managers; short-term contracts;and a rhetorical emphasis onresponsiveness to the consumer.45

Such strategies shift attention away fromfundamental issues, such as public sectorfunding and the social distribution ofwealth, and onto labour who are blamedfor being inflexible and resistant tochange. A similar logic underpins therequirement that councils publish

performance indicators on a regular basis.The overwhelming constraints on localgovernment to maintain tight controlover spending have further necessitatedmore corporate forms of managementwhich protect and insulate strategicdecisions from local needs and demands.In this way, increased participation andrepresentation is limited to technical andoperational matters of finance as opposedto influencing the overall level of fundingand the way in which it is allocated.

Stoney in 1998 concluded that:

1. for Marxists the restructuring of localgovernment in Britain during theprevious two decades

“cannot be understood as simply acontingent response to externalpressures for innovation,efficiency and improvedperformance. Rather, it is a resultof the contradictory forces withincapitalism and the attempt byconsecutive ConservativeGovernments, and now Labour,to manage them …. [S]trategiesto control state expenditure haveinvolved increasing centralisationand fragmentation of the state,with many local governmentfunctions being removed intoenclosed, non-elected arenas,making them more amenable tocentral control and direction.These strategies are designed to

bypass or circumvent localgovernment which, because of itsdemocratic accountability to localelectorates and a traditionallyorganised workforce, has tendedto defend against cuts in localexpenditure.”46

2. where responsibility for statespending has remained with localauthorities,

“increasingly corporate andcentralised forms of managementand decision-making haveemerged with the capacity toinsulate strategic decisions fromcompeting local demands and the politics of welfare …. This process has involved areconfiguration of the balance ofpower in the community withsome sectional interests such asbusiness gaining greater influenceover key decisions. Internally thishas meant (re)establishingmanagement’s ‘right’ to manage… weakening the power andinfluence of local governmenttrade unions and ‘professionals’,through legislation andcontracting, and the creation ofwell rewarded managerial eliteswith the executive power and‘objectivity’ to enforce painfulcuts in services and jobs.”46

3. by insulating and de-politicisingthose aspects of decision-makingwhich are of direct significance tobusiness,

“local authorities have been ableto forge closer links with theprivate sector. Encouraged by anincreasingly competitive fundingsystem and a growing dependencyon private investment, localauthorities have establishedpartnerships and joint ventures…. The growing influence of theprivate sector is also reflected in,and reinforced by, the willingnessof many senior executives andmembers to embrace privatesector management techniquesand to cultivate a moreentrepreneurial and commercialspirit within the organisation.”47

4. the internal reforms within localauthorities have also been

“part of the overall strategy tomake local government a ‘safer’


➔

and more predictable institutionin terms of spending and financialcontrol. Though it is still possiblefor local authorities to becontrolled by left-wing members,their scope for delivering a‘radical’ agenda ha[s] been muchreduced through a combinationof the legislative and financialreforms of the last two decadesand by the process of internalrestructuring which has shiftedthe balance of power locally ….[A]lthough many councilmembers and senior officersobject to many of the enablingreforms and express concernabout the general direction andfuture of local government, inpractice … the scope for realstrategic choice has ironicallybeen severely curtailed.”48

Stoney’s main contribution has beenmeticulously to analyse within a Marxistframework the introduction of strategicmanagement into local government up to1998, that occurred after the originalCockburn/Cawson and Saunders/Duncanand Goodwin debates. Moreover, thetrends identified by Stoney, as shown bythe work of Dexter Whitfield, haveintensified under New Labour – forexample, the “Best Value” regime, whichremoved compulsory competition in localgovernment but extended competition toall services via options appraisals. A further phase in neoliberalism began inthe early 2000s with a new emphasis oncommissioning and contestability. The “state was not ‘rolled back’ or‘hollowed out’ but reconfigured andtransformed into making, supporting andsustaining markets”.49 There was also arapid growth in arms-length public/private organisations such as foundationschools and hospitals, and outsourcing tostrategic partnerships and local publicservice boards.

Furthermore, as Whitfield alsoemphasises, the different forms ofmarketisation do not take place inisolation: “They are part of a broaderrestructuring of the state in the interestsof capital”.49 For example, Essex CountyCouncil’s current plan for a mega-strategic partnership50 and Barnet’sproposal to shrink the council to a“strategic hub” with services delivered by“service delivery vehicles”51 indicate thatlocal authorities are “commencinganother spate of radical reorganisation”which, as Whitfield concludes, is rooted“in the same policies and ideology thatled to the current financial crisis”.52

VI: Summary ofMain Arguments,and AlternativePolicies andStrategies to Solvethe Crisis of StateMonopolyCapitalism andLocal Government The Marxist dialectical methodologyused in this article shows that:■ the social-democratic theory of the

central state and local government –with its stress on neutrality,responsibility, gradualism, efficiencyand rejection of class politics andstruggle as an instrument of change –is essentially an extension of 19th

century liberal theory to the 20th

century, when Labour replaced theLiberals as the second main party,following the gradual introduction ofuniversal suffrage.

■ Conservative New Right and NewLabour governments – despite theirneoliberal rhetoric emphasising“innovation”, “efficiency”, “enabling”and “community empowerment” – inpractice intervene in the statemonopoly capitalist stage on behalf ofbig business and the multinationals,to restore the conditions in whichprofitable investment and capitalaccumulation can take place.

■ despite New Labour’s acceptance of theJulius Report, recommending moreprivatisation, the banks are increasinglyunwilling to finance PFI programmes,so the government has taken on morerisk – which undermines the solejustification for the policy – and at amuch higher price to the taxpayer. New Labour’s 22 per cent share of the

vote in the June 2009 local elections wasthe lowest ever recorded for either of thetwo main parties. In European electionsat the same time they received only 15.7per cent, equivalent to only 5.3 per centof the electorate. Thus, we are at a pointwhere the working class has becomedetached from its traditional party due toNew Labour no longer being even a socialdemocratic party. Paraphrasing AntonioGramsci, “the old [New Labour] is dyingand the new [a mass democratic workingclass party] cannot [yet] be born”.53

An alternative national economic andpolitical strategy is therefore now essential– one which explains the current crisis,advances immediate proposals but alsoopens the way for more fundamental

change. The Labour RepresentationCommittee’s Left Economics AdvisoryPanel provides the basis for such analternative,54 as does the Communist Partyof Britain’s Left Wing Programme, whichincludes the following key economic,environmental and social policies:■ no more imperialist wars and

occupations for big business; scrapBritain’s weapons of mass destruction;

■ increased taxes on the rich and bigbusiness, including a wealth tax onthe super-rich and a windfall tax onenergy, banking and supermarketprofits, to boost public spending;

■ restoring the value of state pensionsand benefits and reintroducingstudent grants in place of fees;

■ price controls on basic foods,household fuel and petrol, and cuts inVAT on essential goods and servicessuch as children’s clothes;

■ a wages offensive by the trade unionmovement to increase public andprivate sector pay, including a driveto win bargaining rights for the TUCto negotiate with the government onthe national minimum wage;

■ state intervention to stop massredundancies in viable enterprises, toimpose import levies on companieswhich have exported jobs fromBritain and to rebuild Britain’sindustrial base;

■ controls on the export of capital anddirected investment into civilianresearch, development andmanufacturing production with anemphasis on green technology andsustainable energy production;

■ public ownership of the railways, bus transport, energy utilities,armaments and pharmaceuticals,together with the reconstruction of astate banking sector;

■ an end to all forms of privatisation,profiteering and marketisation in thepublic sector;

■ a massive programme of councilhouse building to provide affordablehousing and create jobs.55

This ten-point programme would notonly make the monopoly capitalists pay fortheir crisis and raise the quality of life ofmany millions of people. It would alsobegin to shift the balance of wealth andpower in favour of the working class,pointing the way forward to Britain’s roadto socialism. Repeal of the LocalGovernments Acts 2000 and 2007 – toallow all councils to re-introduce thecommittee system, restore the right of allcouncillors to make policy, abolish US-styledirectly-elected mayors and reinstatedirectly provided services – is also necessary.


The pre-condition for winning aprogressive and socialist alternative innational and local government remains amass democratic party of the workingclass and the labour movement, eitherthrough reclaiming the Labour Partyfrom the New Labour clique or throughthe formation of a new party. For, asJohn Foster argues:

“Without democratisation,progressive economic reform isnot sustainable …. [A]ll theproposals outlined … would bedeclared illegal under EuropeanLaw …. The trade unionmovement needs to lead acampaign to repeal the relevantsections of the EU treaties … inalliance with workers elsewhere inEurope …. Restoring thedemocratic powers of Parliamentis an essential precondition for anychallenge to the executive powerof state-monopoly capital … and

the …fight for the restoration ofinternal Labour Party democracy… could be driven forward andgiven momentum by masscampaigning in a way whichimpacts directly upon the strugglebetween left and right inside thetrade union movement and theLabour Party.”56

At the moment, across the publicsector, including local government, thegovernment pay policy and so-calledefficiency savings are cutting real wages,jobs and services with damagingconsequences for the local economy. This provides huge opportunities forbringing together local communitygroups and trade unions defending public and social services against NewLabour’s cuts and privatisation – toensure that the campaigns required tocombat these cuts are genuinely broad-based. Trades councils, in particular, canplay an important unifying role within

the labour movement and act as a bridgebetween the unions and localcommunities. Moreover, the People’sCharter – “a distillation of policies alreadyoverwhelmingly backed by the tradeunion movement” and now endorsed bythe TUC – is a unifying focus for suchwork; and “a united public campaign toraise a million signatures in its supportwould have a potentially transformatoryeffect on politics in Britain”.57

The current economic downturn –because of its high level of dependence onthe financial sector that is at the core of thecrisis – is likely to be more severe forBritain than in any other advancedcapitalist country. Hence, together withthe housing crisis and large scaleunemployment, the coming period will seefurther conditions created, if the politicalwill is there, for a new active unity betweencommunity groups and unions to defendwages and public services as they comeunder attack from cutbacks on an unprecedented scale.


1 See P Latham, Local Democracyversus “Local Governance”: How toDefeat New Labour”s Project for BigBusiness Control, a discussiondocument published by the EconomicCommittee, Communist Party ofBritain (forthcoming); and Orthodoxand Marxist Theories of the State andLocal Government. Part I: “Classical”Liberal, Social-Democratic andNeoliberal Theories, in CommunistReview, No 53, Summer 2009, p 16.2 P Latham, Orthodox and MarxistTheories of the State and LocalGovernment. Part 2: The Theory of“State Monopoly Capitalism”, inCommunist Review, No 54, Autumn2009, p 30.3 R Miliband, The State inCapitalist Society: The Analysis of theWestern System of Power, Weidenfeldand Nicholson, London, 1969. 4 M Newman, Ralph Miliband andthe Politics of the New Left, MerlinPress, London, 2002, pp 202-203.5 R Miliband, Marxism andPolitics, Oxford University Press,Oxford, 1977, p 74.6 R Miliband, State Power andClass Interests, in New Left Review, No138, 1983, p 62.7 Ibid, p 65.8 R Miliband, CapitalistDemocracy in Britain, OxfordUniversity Press, Oxford, 1984, p 99.9 Ibid, pp 100-109.10 Ibid, pp 109-121.11 Ibid, pp 76-77.12 Ibid, p 139.13 Ibid, p 140.14 C Cockburn, The Local State:Management of Cities and People,Pluto Press, London, 1977, p 41.

15 Ibid, pp 41-42.16 Ibid, p 47 endnote 7 and p 54endnote 18. 17 S Duncan and M Goodwin, TheLocal State and Uneven Development:Behind the Local Government Crisis,Polity Press, Oxford, 1988, p 33.18 Ibid. See also S S Duncan and M Goodwin, The Local State:Functionalism, Autonomy and ClassRelations in Cockburn and Saunders,in Political Geography Quarterly Vol 1,1982, pp 77-96.19 Duncan and Goodwin, op cit,1988, p 34.20 See A Cawson and P Saunders,Corporatism, Competitive Politics andClass Struggle, in Capital and Politics(R King, Ed), Routledge and KeganPaul, London, 1983. 21 P Saunders, Reflections on theDual Politics Thesis: the Argument, itsOrigins and its Critics, in UrbanPolitical Theory and the Managementof Fiscal Stress, (M Goldsmith, Ed),Gower, London, 1986, p 44.22 P Dunleavy, The Limits to LocalGovernment, in Local Socialism (MBody and C Fudge, Eds), Macmillan,Basingstoke, 1984, pp 54, 76.23 Duncan and Goodwin, op cit,1988, p 37.24 Ibid, p 38.25 Ibid, p 41.26 Ibid, p 42.27 Ibid, pp 68-69.28 Ibid, p 71.29 C Stoney, Lifting the Lid onStrategic Management: a SociologicalNarrative, in Electronic Journal ofRadical Organisation Theory, Vol 4,1998, pp 1-34, p 14,<http://www.mngt.waikato.ac.nz/ejro

t/>, accessed 7 January 2009.30 Ibid, p 15.31 Ibid, pp 16-17.32 D Burns, R Hambleton and PHoggett, The Politics of Decentralisa-tion: Revitalising Local Democracy,Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1994.33 See S Weir and W Hall, Ego Trip:Extra-governmental Organisations theUnited Kingdom and theirAccountability, London, Charter 88Trust, 1994.34 Cited in Stoney, op cit, p 18.35 A Cochrane, The Changing Stateof Local Government Restructuring forthe 1990s, in Public Administration,Vol 69, 1991, pp 281-302, 285.36 SWOT = strengths, weaknesses,opportunities and threats – Ed.37 Cited in Stoney, op cit, p 15.38 See D Farnham and S Horton,New Public Service Managerialism, inManaging the New Public Services(D Farnham and S Horton Eds),Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1993, pp 237-254.39 See C Hood, A PublicManagement for all Seasons, in PublicAdministration, No 69, 1991, pp 3-19.40 Farnham and Horton, op cit, p 248.41 Ibid, pp 248-249.42 Cochrane, op cit, p 290.43 Ibid, p 291.44 Stoney, op cit, p 20.45 A M Pettigrew, E Ferlie, and LMcKee, Shaping Strategic Change,Sage, London, 1992, p 11.46 Stoney, op cit, p 22.47 Ibid, pp 22-23.48 Ibid, p 23.49 D Whitfield, New Labour’s Attackon Public Services: Modernisation by

Marketisation?, Socialist Renewal, 5thSeries, No 3, Spokesman Books,Nottingham, 2006, p 29.50 UNISON Essex County Branch,ECC Outsourcing: UNISON MediaBriefing, 2 March 2009,<http://www.unisonessex.org.uk/Outsourcing>, accessed 2 July 2009. 51 London Borough of Barnet,Future Shape of the Council, report ofLeader of the Council, Cabinet,London, 3 December, 2008.52 D Whitfield, Shaping the Futureon Failed Policies, at eGov monitor, 15 December, 2008,<http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/22664>, accessed 2 July 2009.53 A Gramsci, Selections from thePrison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci(Q Hoare and G Nowell Smith, Eds),Lawrence and Wishart, London,1971, p 210.54 LEAP was set up in 2005 by theLabour Representation Committee“working with the Socialist CampaignGroup and the New Left Unions…tochallenge the economic hegemony ofour age”, <http://www.l-r-c.org.uk/policy/leap/> accessed 2 May 2009. 55 Communist Party of Britain, Fora Left-Wing Programme to Mobilise & Unite the Labour Movement, Main Domestic Resolution, CPB50th Congress Report, Croydon, 24-26 May 2007.56 J Foster, The Politics of Britain’sEconomic Crisis, 2nd Edn, EconomicCommittee of the Communist Partyof Britain, London, February 2009,pp 37-38.57 J Haylett, Taking the Charter tothe People, in Morning Star, 22 September 2009.

Notes

■

AN IMPRESSION has gotaround in India that the worldcapitalist crisis is over. It is nolonger front page news innewspapers. One scarcely hearsa word about it on television.And now that the Sensex2 hascrossed the 15,000 mark, upfrom 9,000 to which it hadplunged a few months ago,everything appears fine to theIndian elite, which has wastedno time in spreading thecheerful news around. To besure, the Indian elite is notalone in having this perception.An air of cautious optimismpervades even the elites inadvanced countries which havebeen the hardest-hit by thecrisis. They are more cautious,but optimistic nonetheless.

Much of this optimismsprings from the behaviour ofsome financial indicators,notably the stock markets,whose impact on the realeconomy, though existent, canbe tenuous. On the realeconomy itself, the mostoptimistic position is that wemay be nearing the bottom ofthe crisis, that things areunlikely to get worse, which isvery different of course fromsaying that things are back to“normal”. Thus British primeminister Gordon Brown hastaken solace from the fact thatthough unemployment inBritain is rising, the increase inunemployment across periods iscoming down. Much the samewas being said about theUnited States until the monthof June; but the increase inunemployment in June wasmuch higher than in May,which put paid to even thesehopes. Even on current figures,therefore, we cannot say we areat the end of the decline.

Three NegativeFactorsThere are three factorsmoreover, each relating to theUnited States (whose level ofeconomic activity matters themost for the world economy),though similar phenomenamay be occurring elsewhere aswell, which militate againstthe downturn itself coming toan end, ie which prevent thebottom itself being reached.The first of these is wagedeflation, ie the decline in thereal earnings per worker of the employed workers themselves.Now, the initial drop in thelevel of aggregate demandwhich triggered the crisis hasbeen getting aggravated by thedecline in employmentanyway; but this is furtheraccentuated by the decline inthe real earnings per head ofthe employed workers. This tertiary drop in demand,compounding the primarydrop owing to the initial jolt,and the secondary drop owingto the decline in employment,will contribute to a furtherprolongation of the decline inthe level of economic activityand employment.

The second factor is thedecline in the level ofexpenditures of the stategovernments in the US.While the federal governmentin the US is allowed to runfiscal deficits, stategovernments are not: whentheir revenue drops, as it doesin a recession, theirexpenditure too drops. Now,even though the federalgovernment in the US has runa massive fiscal deficit, most ofit has gone for shoring up thebanks, adding to their cofferswhere the money lies quietly,

but not generating demand inthe economy. That part of thefiscal deficit which constitutesfederal governmentexpenditure on goods andservices, and which thereforeadds to the level of demand inthe economy, is quite small,not much more than thecurrently-estimated decline inthe expenditure of the stategovernments owing to theirobligation to balance budgets;but if this decline persists, andexceeds anticipations, thenthis federal fiscal stimulus islikely to get swamped by thedecline in state governmentexpenditures.

The third factor consists inthe fact that even this level offederal fiscal stimulus isunlikely to be sustained overtime. Finance capital, as iswell-known, is opposed to anydirect State intervention indemand management: itprefers “sound finance”, ie theState balancing its revenuewith expenditure, or, at themost, running a small, pre-determined magnitude offiscal deficit relative to GDP.So, even the current level ofthe fiscal deficit, which theObama administration isrunning, is anathema tofinance capital, and the largenumber of conservativeeconomists and commentatorswho articulate its positions.The very suspicion that thebottom has been reached, if itgets spuriously confirmed by,say, the unemployment figurenot registering an increase fora couple of months, willincrease pressure on thefederal government to cutdown its fiscal deficit, whichwill once more push the USeconomy back into a decline.

This is exactly whathappened in 1937, when, afterthe initial phase of the NewDeal appeared to have endedthe decline started by theGreat Depression, PresidentRoosevelt was pressurised intocutting back the federal fiscaldeficit, with the result that theUS economy plunged oncemore into a depression, fromwhich it recovered onlythrough the resurgence inmilitary spending that markedthe onset of the Second WorldWar. At present, so strong isthe pressure for cutting backon the fiscal deficit in the USthat even if the bottom of therecession is not reached,President Obama will still findit hard to sustain the tempo ofdeficit spending; any suspicionthat the bottom has beenreached will make the pressureirresistible, pushing theeconomy back into a decline.

A Whole NewConjunctureAll this would suggest that thecrisis in the US is far fromover; and if so, then the crisisin the world economy too isfar from over. But there is adeeper reason why the crisis isnot over, and that is because thecrisis is not just a recessionarycrisis, as is commonly supposed.In fact the current worldcapitalist crisis is such that if itdoes not appear in oneparticular form, then it willappear in a different form.Recession is just one of theforms in which it appears. Ifthe recession abates, then thecrisis will appear in a differentform, namely that of a sharpinflation affecting in particularenergy and food prices, whichincidentally is the form in


By Prabhat Patnaik

Is the World Capitalist Crisis Over? 1

which it had appeared beforethe recession.

The crisis therefore mustnot be identified with onlyone particular form; itrepresents a whole newconjuncture. When we look atthis conjuncture in its totality,then it becomes clear thatovercoming it within theparameters of the capitalismwe have known till now, doesnot appear possible. To saythis is not to say thatcapitalism will collapse, thatnever happens; nor is it tosuggest that the crisis willnecessarily persist in oneparticular form, eg that therecession will never beovercome. The point beingmade is that capitalism, as ithas existed hitherto, hasentered into a period ofpermanent crisis, from whichthe system may still emergethrough substantialrestructuring (if it does not gettranscended altogether), butonly after a considerable time,through much groping, andthe creation, through suchgroping, of an appropriatepolitical balance of class forcesthat will carry out suchrestructuring. In short, as inthe inter-war period, we areentering into a phase ofcapitalism where a majorqualitative transition, asdistinct from the mere playingout of its immanent

tendencies, has come on theagenda. Where that transitionwill lead, will be decidedultimately by the outcome ofpolitical struggle; but theconjuncture that has broughtsuch a transition on to theagenda is the crisis.

Characteristics of thisConjunctureWhat are the characteristics ofthis conjuncture and why hasit come about? In a moderncapitalist economy, as is well-known, if the level ofeconomic activity is pushedbeyond a point, then this givesrise to an inflationary upsurge.This happens for a variety ofmutually-reinforcing reasons:as the relative size of thereserve army drops belowsome threshold, the workers’bargaining strength improves,money wage claims begin tomount, and – since capitalistsprice their products as a“mark-up” over their unitvariable costs – inflationensues. Likewise, when thelevel of activity increasesbeyond a point, raw materialprices begin to climb, whichagain get passed on throughhigher prices, calling forthhigher money wage claims(even to defend the prevailingreal wages), and hence, oncemore, escalating inflation.

This point, beyond whichan inflationary upsurge

ensues, and which, followingJoan Robinson’s terminology,one can call the “inflationarybarrier”,3 sets a limit to thefeasible level of economicactivity in a modern capitalisteconomy. The actual level ofeconomic activity can be lessthan this, but not above this,in any period, if capitalism isto remain viable. Now, theconjuncture constituting thecurrent crisis is characterised bythe fact that this “inflationarybarrier” has got lowered, ie thelevel of economic activity atwhich an inflationary upsurgewill arise has got reduced.The economy can performbelow this level, as it is doingnow in the capitalist world,but that constitutes recession.But as it gets out of therecession, precisely because the“inflationary barrier” has gotlowered, it would soon getinto an inflationary upsurge.Hence it is not the recessionalone that constitutes thecrisis, or inflation alone; it isthe totality of the conjuncturewhere getting out of one formof the crisis entails getting intoanother form of the crisis.

This conjuncture hasarisen because, on the onehand, there is an enormousconcentration of financecapital, looking around forspeculative gains, which canmove into particularcommodity markets whenever

there is a whiff of possiblescarcity, or of the possibility ofcreating a scarcity; and on theother hand, the scope for aneasy augmentation of supplieshas got exhausted in the caseof a number of commodities.In a whole range ofagricultural commoditieswhere production is carriedout by a mass of pettyproducers, the very fact oftheir impoverishment under aregime dominated byinternational finance capital,has made supplyaugmentation difficult; indeedeven simple reproduction ontheir part has become difficult,as is evident from the vastnumbers of peasant suicides inIndia. The withdrawal ofState support, which theyenjoyed under the post-independence dirigiste regime,but no longer do under neo-liberalism, has pushed largenumbers of them intounviability, where they cannotcope with the needs of thecapitalist world economy.

In the case of othercommodities, like oil, the end of the colonialarrangement has meant loss of control over this crucialresource by the capitalistmetropolis. Production isnow controlled to a significantextent by OPEC, which nodoubt is amenable to pressureby imperialism but cannot just be dictated to by it. And imperialism’s large-scalebid for re-colonisation,entailing a reacquisition ofcontrol over this resource,though persistent and contin-uing, has run into roughweather. It is this conjuncturethat constitutes the crisis,which must not therefore beidentified only with itsrecessionary form.


1 First published in People’sDemocracy (Weekly Organ of theCommunist Party of India (Marxist)),Vol XXXIII, No 31, August 2, 2009.2 The Bombay Stock ExchangeSensitive Index –Ed.3 J Robinson, The Accumulation of Capital, Macmillan, London, 1956, p 48.

Notes

■

UUSSAA''ss GGrreeaatt DDeepprreessssiioonn 11993377


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OVER 100 MARXIST politicaleconomists from 11 countries gatheredin Paris at the end of May to exchangeideas and discuss how to use Marxismat this time of crisis. This was theFourth Forum of the World Associationfor Political Economy (WAPE), aninternational academic organisationchaired by Cheng Enfu of the Academyof Marxism, Chinese Academy of SocialSciences, with vice-chairs, David Kotz(the University of Massachusetts) andHiroshi Ohnishi (Kyoto University), allleading world Marxists.

This year’s forum was titled Nation,State, and Democratic Governance of theGlobal Economy and Politics. Many of thepapers presented focused on the worldfinancial and economic crisis – itsnature and causes – as well asresponses to it. The related crises ofenergy, food, and climate change werealso hot topics of debate, whilst otherpapers discussed imperialism, China’seconomic reforms and democratisationas well as considerations of value andunequal exchange theories.

The global order clearly confrontsmany problems, demandinginternational dialogue and cooperation;what is lacking, however, are sharedvalues and a common goal given thatthe global rules are made by the richestand most powerful countries andreflect their concerns. Mainstreameconomics, unable to understand letalone respond to the crisis, has beenexposed as bankrupt. In contrast,WAPE provides an important meetingground for reinvigorating Marxistdebate through dialogue betweenChinese and Western perspectives. AsWAPE’s chair noted in his openingaddress, Marxist economics has notonly the capability but also theresponsibility to play an active role intackling world problems.

WAPE’s mission is to pass down,develop and carry forward the coreMarxian economic paradigms – thelabour theory of value, the superiorityof public ownership and the theory ofsocialism and communism – using theseto “analyse and study the worldeconomy, reveal the law ofdevelopment and its mechanism, offerproper policies to promote theeconomic and social improvement onthe national and global level, so as toimprove the welfare of all the people inthe world”.

According to the final statementdrafted from the Paris meeting, thecrisis is not just the result of badmanagement nor is it only aconsequence of deregulation but“mainly [it is] a consequence ofcapitalism, as a system, with over-exploitation of labour”. As such it ishardly surprising that “capitalistleaders are reluctant to changeanything in their previous behaviour”.And despite the G20 summit, “norare the powerful capitalistnations…ready to give up theirprivileges”. Given the currentuncertainties, “the design of globalgovernance is going to be the resultof contradictory strategies toreshape the world …. It is necessaryto get not only a democratic, fair butalso a peaceful globalisation”.

The Forum was hosted by theGabriel Peri Foundation, a non-partisanorganisation initiated by the FrenchCommunist Party (PCF) aimed atcarrying out research on matters ofcontemporary history, particularly thehistory of communist and workers’movements.

The theme of next year’s forum, tobe held in China, aims to link analysesof the causes of global problems withdiscussion of solutions.

International MarxistsDebate Global Problemsat a Time of CrisisBy Jenny Clegg

Hans Heinz Holz’s article in CommunistReview No 531 was a stimulatingcontribution to the debate about thereasons for the collapse of the USSR andthe nature of ”Stalinism”. However, I find myself in sharp opposition to anumber of Comrade Holz’s assertions,which seem to me to provide a false trailfor further discussion in this area.

Comrade Holz describesKhrushchev’s criticism against Stalin as“counter-revolutionary”. He says that asa result of the 20th CPSU Congress“Stalin’s works were subjected to a tacittaboo, which contributed from anideological point of view to thetheoretical decline of relevant Sovietsocial sciences.” He then goes on toargue that both Economic Problems ofSocialism in the USSR and Marxism andProblems of Linguistics represent planks ofStalin’s platform for a postwar re-evaluation of Soviet society, a reactionagainst bureaucratisation of politicalpower and the entrenchment ofdogmatism in ideology. Comrade Holzconcedes though that “nothingsubsequently happened to demonstratetheir effective validity.”

In short, Comrade Holz argues thatin the postwar period Stalin was about tolaunch a new programme ofdemocratisation and openness, a processcut short by his death in 1953 and thenbungled and betrayed by his successors.2

Since the collapse of the Europeansocialist states in 1989-91, there hasbeen a certain current in thecommunist movement arguing that theorigin of the collapse should simply bedated to the period following Stalin’sdeath and in particular thecondemnation of the “personality cult”at the 20th CPSU congress led byNikita Khrushchev. Previous failingsand problems were explained primarilyas the result of objective factors, such aseconomic backwardness, the lowcultural level, the continuous threat ofwar and the catastrophic losses causedby the actual experience of the 1941-45war against Nazism.

Of course, Khrushchev’s “SecretSpeech” has many weaknesses. The firstand most fundamental is that it wasnever publicly published in the SovietUnion itself, although it was read out tomeetings of CPSU organisations and the


By Kenny Coyle

Discussion

On Stalin’s Philosophicaland Political Testament by Hans Heinz Holz

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Nikita Khrushchev

Komsomol with the option to invitenon-members. Nonetheless, it washardly the best start for a process ofdemocratisation.

Second, as a once-ardent Stalinisthimself, Khrushchev could hardly beexpected to provide the systematic self-criticism that was necessary.3

Third, Krushchev’s criticismsremained at the level of the subjectivefactor. They were criticisms aimed at anindividual who promoted a personalitycult, not a party or state that toleratedand encouraged it. It is also the case thatsome of Khrushchev’s points wereinaccurate, for example the myth ofStalin’s incapacity during the firstmoments of the Nazi attack on the SovietUnion in 1941.4 These criticismsnotwithstanding, Comrade Holz’sdescription of the speech as “counter-revolutionary” is, at best, hyperbole.

Nonetheless, the 20th CPSUCongress stands out as the beginning of aprocess, incomplete and ultimatelyunsuccessful, to return the party todemocratic centralist procedures, widensocialist democracy in Soviet society andre-establish a socialist legality that wouldprevent the unrestrained and arbitraryrepressions that were the particularhallmark of the Stalin period.

The necessity for this approach waswidely accepted by the world communistmovement in those years. In reality onlytwo parties, at the time, dared to movethe debate beyond issues of Stalin’spersonality to a deeper, more substantiveanalysis of Soviet reality. Those twoparties were the Italian Communist Party(PCI) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

PCI leader Palmiro Togliatti’s longinterview with the PCI’s magazineNuovi Argumenti reflected not only hisown experience in exile in Moscow as aleader of the Comintern but also hisrole as leader of a mass party that hadexperienced both fascism and bourgeoisdemocracy. He criticised theKhrushchev speech on the grounds thatthe exclusive focus on Stalin’spersonality defects were hardly adequateto explain the degeneration of the Sovietpolitical system.5

The Chinese Communist Party onthe other hand had successfully carriedout its own revolution and Stalin’s roleand advice was by no means alwaysentirely helpful. In any case, subsequentChinese experience showed adetermination to hew their own path ofsocialist construction that differedsubstantially from Stalin’s methods in the USSR.6

The importance of this debate ishighlighted by the fact that within half adozen years, the PCI and CCP seemed tostand at opposite ends of the spectrumwithin a world communist movementthat no longer had a singleunchallengeable centre. For somecommunists, even today, 1956 was theFall of Eden.

But let us return to Comrade Holz’sperspective. In a separate discussion, heargued that:

“theory [in the USSR] began tobecome poor I would say afterStalin. During the period ofStalin’s power there were a lot ofintense theoretical discussion inthe scientific magazines and it isnot true that Stalin was the causeof the impoverishment of theory.It was after him.”7

A slightly different picture of thenature of academic debate in the Sovietnatural sciences comes from the IrishMarxist writer Helena Sheehan.Discussing the now infamous Lysenkodebates about genetics, she noted that:

“The growing ascendancy ofLysenko coincided with thepurges that reached into virtuallyevery Soviet institution during1936 to 1939. Already, before[leading Soviet scientist] Vavilov’sarrest, the losses among Sovietbiologists had been staggering. In 1936, Israel Agol, Max Levin,and Solomon Levit, allcommunists working in the fieldof biological theory, were publiclydenounced as ‘enemies of thepeople’ and arrested. With regardto Agol and Levin, the chargesinvolved vague references to‘menshevising idealism’ andassociation with a Trotskyistconspiracy. As to Levit, thedirector of the Institute of MedicalGenetics, his studies of humanheredity had supposedly made himan abettor of Nazi doctrines, or soit was declared at a meeting of thescience division of the Moscowparty organisation, presided overby Amost Kolman. Levit died inprison and his institute was closed.The other two were shot.

“They were followed by a hostof others. Many were arrested.Of these some were shot, whileothers simply died in prison.Others were witch-hunted, losttheir jobs, and were forced into

other areas of work. Instituteswere closed down. Journalsceased to appear. Books wereremoved from library shelves.Texts were revised. Namesbecame unmentionable. The 7thInternational Congress ofGenetics, which was scheduled tobe held in Moscow in August1937, was cancelled. When theCongress did take place inEdinburgh in 1939, no Sovietscientists were present, not evenVavilov who had been elected its President.”8

Political debate was of course evenmore directly affected. For example, it issomewhat eerie to see Comrade Holzquote Gramsci’s critique of NikolaiBukharin, one of Bolshevism’s mosttalented intellectuals, when we know thatStalin had Bukharin executed by firingsquad after a show trial. Marx’s remarkthat “The weapon of criticism cannot, ofcourse, replace criticism of the weapon”,9proved horribly prophetic, but in amanner which Marx would have beenhorrified to witness.

Whatever his theoretical weaknesses,primarily centring on his grasp ofdialectics, Bukharin was one of the greatintellects of Bolshevism and by no meansthe only one physically eliminated withStalin’s consent. The truth is that Sovietintellectual life in every sphere wasmarked by the mass repressions andpersistent violations of socialistdemocracy and legality.

If Comrade Holz is right that in thepost-war period Stalin was poised tolaunch a programme of democratisation,one is left asking why Stalin chose therelatively peripheral issues of linguisticsor economic textbooks as a guise to pushhis platform rather than a more directlypolitical programme. Was he scared ofbeing outvoted?

Stalin is also responsible forencouraging major illusions about thelevel of development of Soviet socialismthat persisted long after his death andbecame enshrined even in theprogrammes of the de-Stalinisers. In1939, at the 18th congress of the CPSUStalin said:

“We are going ahead, towardsCommunism. Will our stateremain in the period ofCommunism also?

“Yes, it will, unless thecapitalist encirclement isliquidated, and unless the dangerof foreign military attack has


disappeared. Naturally, of course,the forms of our state will againchange in conformity with thechange in the situation at homeand abroad.”10

Such an idea stands in completecontradiction of Lenin’s understandingthat one of the defining features of thetransition from socialism to fullcommunism was that the state would“wither away”. Yet this illusion wasretained during the Khrushchev period,when the Soviet party’s programmepredicted that the USSR would enter theperiod of communism during the 1980s.

The Stalin era is one of the mostcomplex and contradictory periods ofmodern socialism. It combined stunningmaterial advances with huge humancosts, it displayed mass heroism andcollective sacrifice alongside dreadfulbrutality and crimes. It is certainlynecessary to reassess Stalin and histheoretical work, but to detach this fromthe harsh realities of Stalin’s actualpolitical practice is impossible.


■

Discussion

1 H H Holz, Communist Review No 53, Summer2009, pp 32-7.2 Grover Furr has put forward the samearguments in his Stalin and Democratic Reform,Parts 1 and 2 athttp://clogic.eserver.org/2005/furr.html.3 On the Personality Cult and its Consequences,http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2007/apr/26/greatspeeches1.4 G Roberts, Stalin’s Wars: From World War toCold War, 1939-1953, pp 89-91, Yale UniversityPress, 2006.5 P Togliatti, Interview with Nuovi Argumenti(1956), in On Gramsci and other Writings, Lawrence& Wishart, 1979.6 On The Historical Experience of the Dictatorshipof the Proletariat (April 1956) and More On TheHistorical Experience of the Dictatorship of theProletariat (December 1956) can be found atwww.marx2mao.com/Other/HEDP56.html.7 From an interview in Dublin, published on theConnolly Youth Movement’s website athttp://www.cym.ie/documents/hhh.pdf.8 H Sheehan, Marxism and the Philosophy ofScience: A Critical History, Humanity Books, NewYork, 2nd Edn 1993, p 226; also athttp://www.marxists.org/subject/science/essays/sheehan.htm.9 K Marx, A Contribution to the Critique ofHegel’s Philosophy of Law, in K Marx and & FEngels, Collected Works, Vol 3, p 182; also athttp://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm.10 J V Stalin, Report on the Work of the CentralCommittee to the Eighteenth Congress of the CPSU(B)(Delivered March 10, 1939), in Leninism, Lawrence& Wishart, London, p 662; also athttp://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/03/10.htm

Notes

IN A CONTRIBUTION to arecent edition of CommunistReview, Mary Davis urgescommunists to embrace anon-dogmatic historicalmaterialism in the spirit of itsfounding thinkers whichrecognises struggle andcontradictions but whichrejects laws.1 In this rejoinderI want to argue that thiswould be a mistake. Drivenby a laudable urge to operatewith a living and non-dogmatic Marxism, I wouldsuggest that Maryunintentionally pushestowards a theory that has nosupport in Marx or Engels’writing on historicalmaterialism. Laws operateacross the whole range ofMarxist theory, runningthrough the texts that Maryherself cites in evidence. I alsoargue that the idea thathistorical materialism couldoperate without laws rests on amisunderstanding of howMarxian laws function. If they are understood properly,I contest, there is no need tofear them. Finally, I suggestthat to follow Mary’s path is torun into theoretical problemsthat take Marxism close to thevery idealism that she so ablydispatches in her own article.

Laws in Marxism The idea that laws can beidentified at work in society,economy and history is centralto the Marxist conceptualarmoury. But in making thisclaim it is important to realisewhat we are not saying.Marx’s laws, wherever applied,are abstractions that begin the process of cognition.They uncover the primary andgoverning tendencies at workin any given phenomenon.But they also enable their ownsubsequent refinement in theprocess of studying how theymanifest themselves incomplex and concretesituations. In part this isbecause the contradictorynature of reality gives rise tocounter-tendencies with whichthey interact in complexconcrete historical moments.Crucially, as a result, they donot necessarily lead directly topredictable empiricaloutcomes. It is this that mostobviously distinguishes themfrom the common-sensemeaning of laws in bourgeoisnatural and social sciences.

This has been helpfullyfleshed out by Ben Fine in hisintroduction to Capital, thework in which Marxian lawsare most obvious – and

Marxism and the Lawsof Motion in HistoricalMaterialism A response to

Mary Davis byJonathan White

contentious. In Capital, asFine explains,

“Marxian laws expressthe key material forcesconstituted by capitalistsocial relations ….[A]lthough Marxianlaws and tendenciesarise from the socialrelations defining themode of productionand are themselvesnecessary(unavoidable) they donot directly determineempirical outcomes.”2

Further, he suggests,

“For Marx, laws andtendencies have to belocated analytically inthe context of theirsources and the morecomplex ways in whichthey manifestthemselves. Forexample, tendenciesalways interact withcounter-tendencies aswell as in the contextof particular historicalcircumstances, leadingto undetermined – butin principleunderstandableoutcomes.”2

It is clear that this is howMarx himself understood hislaws to operate. There are twoobvious concrete examples inCapital, for instance. The firstis the General Law ofCapitalist Accumulation, inwhich Marx shows how theexpansion of capital creates, asa necessary corollary, theindustrial reserve army oflabour, swelling the ranks of the impoverished, marginaland the “socially excluded”, touse today’s jargon. This, Marxsays, is

“the absolute generallaw of capitalistaccumulation. Like allother laws, it ismodified in itsworking by manycircumstances, theanalysis of which does not concern us here.” 3

That analysis does notconcern Marx at this point ofthe discussion, as he isdeveloping a structuralargument about thefunctioning of the capitalistsystem at its most general andnot in any concrete context.

Similarly, there is thefamous Law of the Tendency ofthe Rate of Profit to Fall.Initially, the law is stated as ageneral law; but in the passagesthat follow this general law issaid to be subject to a numberof “counteracting influences atwork that cross and annul theeffect of the general law andwhich give it the characteristicof a tendency.” 4 This seems aclear statement of thefunctioning of laws in Marxism:the general law is general in thesense of being unavoidable andnecessary. But, through itscomplex interaction withcounteracting tendencies inparticular historical situations,its effects are manifested in theform of a tendency, not an“iron”, bourgeois law withstraightforwardly predictableempirical outcomes.

If we accept that lawsfunction in the capitalistsystem, can we say that it ispossible that other social orhistorical phenomena mightbe free of laws? No. For anytheory that aims at a totalview of the world, it is highlyproblematic to suppose thatlaws could pertain in onesphere of life but not in others– as the long running debateover the presence or absence ofa dialectic in nature shows.Aside from this however, there

is no justification for such aposition in the works of Marxand Engels.

In Ludwig Feuerbach andthe End of Classical GermanPhilosophy, Engels surveys theemergence of dialecticalmaterialist thought across thevarious fields of humanknowledge as a higher form ofolder “mechanistic”materialism and Hegelianidealism, encompassing,carrying forward andoverthrowing both traditions.Engels neatly summarisesdialectical materialism as

“the idea that theworld is to becomprehended not as acomplex of ready-madethings but as acomplex of processes inwhich apparentlystable things gothrough uninterruptedchange of coming intobeing and passingaway, in which throughall the seemingcontingency and inspite of all temporaryretrogression, aprogressivedevelopment finallyasserts itself….”5

It would seem clear fromthis that the discovery of lawsand tendencies, conceived as wehave seen above, is an essentialpart of any cognition based onsuch a view of science. Engelsmakes this explicit in his surveyof advances in the natural andhistorical sciences. In relationto the former, he explains how,by the nineteenth century, thedialectical interconnectednessof natural systems had forceditself into consciousness,overthrowing the metaphysicalconnections of idealist naturalphilosophy. Similarly, Engelsgoes on to show the sameprocess at work in the historical sciences:

“What is true ofnature, which is thusrecognised as ahistorical process ofdevelopment too, islikewise true of the

history of society in allits branches and of thetotality of all sciencesdealing with thingshuman (and divine).”6

Here too, Engels shows,the idealist histories ofinterconnections made in theminds of philosophers areoverthrown by a materialistdialectics that uncovers realprocesses at work:

“Here, therefore, just asin the realm of nature,it was a question ofdoing away with thesemanufactured artificialinterconnections byfinding the real ones –a task ultimatelyamounting to thediscovery of the generallaws of motion (myemphasis) which assertthemselves as the rulingones in the history ofhuman society.”6

Laws in HistoricalMaterialismSo what are the general laws ofmotion that assert themselves inthe history of human society?At the highest level of abstraction, the motor ofhuman history for Marx andEngels is the contradictionbetween humans and “nature”or the external world. In earlyworks like The GermanIdeology, Marx and Engelsdevelop their materialistconception of history on thebasis of their understanding ofthe motive power or productiveactivity. Humans express theiressence through productiveactivity, acting upon,appropriating and overcomingthe limits imposed by nature,transforming both nature andthemselves in the process.Humans produce throughsocial relations which becomeestablished; and then, as theprocess of productioncontinues, at a certain pointthese relations become fetters on further development,and humans begin to struggle to transform thesesocial relations.


Having established humanproductive activity as themotor of historical change, inthe famous Preface to AContribution to the Critique ofPolitical Economy which MaryDavis quotes, Marx can beseen to develop the analysis ata more concrete level, lookingat how this contradictionmanifests itself in thedevelopment of humansocieties. He achieves this by introducing a new set ofconcepts, identifying the contradictory unity of theforces and relations ofproduction – the complex oftechniques and tools ofproduction in any givenhistorical period – and theproperty relations throughwhich these are expressed. In explaining how thisdialectical relationship works,Marx establishes a general Lawof Motion of Human Historyat a lower level of abstraction,permitting more concreteanalysis.

It is a general law ofhuman history that therelations of production at anygiven historical period must beadapted to and correspond tothe character of production,but at the same time, that thedevelopment inherent inproduction will at a givenpoint come into contradictionwith the existing relations ofproduction. As Marx puts itin the Preface,

“In the socialproduction of theirexistence, meninevitably enter intodefinite relations,which are independentof their will, namelyrelations of productionappropriate to a givenstage in thedevelopment of theirmaterial forces ofproduction. Thetotality of theserelations of productionconstitutes theeconomic structure,the real foundation, onwhich arises a legal andpolitical superstructureand to which

correspond definiteforms of socialconsciousness. Themode of production ofmaterial life conditionsthe general process ofsocial, political andintellectual life. It isnot the consciousnessof men that determinestheir existence, buttheir social existencethat determines theirconsciousness.”7

But it is not simply thecase that productive forcesthrow up correspondingrelations of production. The relationship, Marx shows,is a dialectical one:

“At a certain stage ofdevelopment, thematerial productiveforces of society comeinto conflict with theexisting relations ofproduction, or – thismerely expresses thesame thing in legalterms – with theproperty relationswithin the frameworkof which they haveoperated hitherto.From forms ofdevelopment of theproductive forces theserelations turn intotheir fetters.”7

This is a general law ofhuman history that assertsitself beyond all setbacks. In all cases, it is thiscontradiction between forcesand the relations to whichthey give rise that generatesthe period of social revolution.

This produces a furtherlaw of human history – theLaw of Progress. History has aprogressive character becauseit is the vehicle for theunfolding and development ofhuman productive powers insociety. As Marx puts it,

“No social order is everdestroyed before all theproductive forces forwhich it is sufficienthave been developed,and new superior

relations of productionnever replace olderones before thematerial conditions fortheir existence havematured in theframework of the oldsociety. Mankind thusinevitably sets itselfonly such tasks as it isable to solve, sincecloser examination willalways show that theproblem only ariseswhen the materialconditions for itssolution are alreadypresent or at least inthe course offormation.”7

This is a huge area ofhistorical discussion, andspace precludes any serioustreatment of it here. However,it should immediately benoted that both the Law ofMotion of Human Historyand the Law of Progressembodied here in the Prefaceare to be understood in exactlythe same way as Marx’s generallaws elsewhere in his work.They arise from thephenomena under discussionand, while they are necessaryand unavoidable, they do notdirectly determine empiricaloutcomes.

To recall the earlierdiscussion, laws andtendencies always interactwith counter-tendencies aswell as in the context ofparticular historicalcircumstances. But they arealso the condition of study ata greater level of concreteness.And if theory, or historicalunderstanding, is going to be aguide to practice, the analysismust be developed at a moreconcrete level. Each mode ofproduction and each period ofsocial revolution must beunderstood in terms of itsparticular laws of motion andits own particularcontradictions.

Laws and Counter-Tendencies in the Eraof Social Revolution Both the general law ofhistorical development and

the law of the progressivedevelopment of the productiveforces are subject to counter-tendencies. For example, it isnot predetermined that the eraof social revolution producedby the growing contradictionbetween productive forces andthe relations that obtain at anygiven time will result in evendevelopment. In many cases,the dominant relations ofproduction can demonstratethe ability to permit expansionof productive forces for farlonger than elsewhere. This recognition arguablyunderpins Marx’s efforts todevelop a theory of the Asiaticmode of production, forexample, to explain how arelatively dynamic feudalsystem, whose contradictionsgenerated capitalism inEurope, was not reproducedoutside of that continent.8

The counter-tendenciesthat moderate the operation ofthe laws of historicaldevelopment were alsoexplored by the Soviethistorian Chistozvonov, asexplicated in John Foster’sarticle The End of History andHistorical Materialism.9Chistozvonov, according toFoster, set out to explain whyit was that during the 17th

century, feudal relations ofproduction were able to re-assert themselves as part of aperiod of historical reactionacross Europe, but wereunable to do so in England.To explain this “reversibility”of history, which might seemto undermine both the Law ofHistorical Development andthe Law of Progress,Chistozvonov examined therelative strength of thetendencies working toward thedevelopment of productiveforces and propelling statestoward revolutionary change,and those tendencies thatenabled the sustaining offeudal relations. The essenceof his argument was that thedevelopment of capitalismdepended on its ability toexpand the productive forcesin agriculture at a ratesufficient to feed the surpluswage- and food-dependent


➔

population it created. If it wasunable to do this, ademographic crisis enabled thereassertion of feudal relationsof production, through whichthe productive forcescontinued to develop at aslower rate. Where capitalistrelations were developed tothe point in which the newsystem was able to feed itsemerging agrarian proletariat,then the balance tipped infavour of the faster growth ofcapitalist relations, andfeudalism had no basis onwhich to reassert itself. The establishment of onedynamic capitalist economyhad a revolutionising effect onthe rest of Europe. The Lawof Historical Developmentthus asserted itself, but in anuneven way, always moderatedin its working by the counter-tendencies that push towardsthe maintenance of theexisting relations.10

At a more concrete level,each distinct mode ofproduction has its ownparticular contradictions andthrows up its own laws. As a practical revolutionary,Marx was impelled to spendthe largest part of histheoretical labour developingthe understanding of theparticular contradictions andlaws of motion of thecapitalist mode ofproduction. The structuralcontradiction in the capitalistmode is that between itscapacity to develop theproductive forces throughsocial labour, and the privaterelations of production whichbecome an increasing fetteron the further developmentof social labour and theproductive forces.

This structuralcontradiction in capitalism isthe source of Marx’s theory ofcapitalism’s tendency towardcrisis. The privateappropriation of productionfor the purposes of profit givescapitalism its tendency todevelop the productive forceswithout limit and at the sametime its limited ability toconsume the products created.Upon this contradiction arise

the two laws that we observedearlier as characteristics of thesystem as a whole. As we sawabove, these are the Law of theTendency of the Rate of Profitto Fall – the law wherebyliving labour, the source ofprofit, is expelled from theproduction process in thesearch for greater profit – andthe Law of CapitalistAccumulation, whereby theexpansion of value creates as anecessary corollary, a swellingreserve army of labour and agrowth in the ranks of theimpoverished.

The fundamentalcontradiction also createscapitalism’s gravedigger – theproletariat – and theconditions of its overthrow bya superior mode of production– a labour force able to takeover, control and expandsocial production. We can seefrom this that the era of socialrevolution in the transitionfrom capitalism to socialism(and possibly, partially, backagain) is governed by thestruggle between twotendencies. It will play outaccording to the relativestrengths of the tendencytoward the development ofsocial labour (and anorganised, class consciousworking class able to controlit) and the counter-tendencytoward the maintenance ofprivate relations ofproduction.

Base andSuperstructure in theEra of SocialRrevolution However, having asserted thecentrality of laws andtendencies to Marxism as awhole, it is important torecall, with Ben Fine,2 thattheir operation is not onlymoderated by counter-tendencies at a similar orlower level of abstraction, but also by the concretehistorical circumstances at anygiven moment.

It is in order to enablecloser and more concreteinvestigation of the way inwhich the period of socialrevolution manifests itself in

history that Marx thenintroduces a further set ofconcepts, the distinctionbetween the base and thesuperstructure of any givenhistorical society. The basedoes not correspond exactly toeither the forces or relations ofproduction. Indeed the base isreally an amalgam of forcesand relations. The force of thedistinction between base andsuperstructure is to giveMarxist analysis the tools withwhich to study theepiphenomena of humansocieties – the social andideological superstructureswhich rise up on the basis ofthe given state of productiveforces and relations ofproduction – while insistingthat the fundamental motor of change lies in the sphere ofmaterial production andreproduction.

Introducing thiscontradictory unity, betweenthe base and thesuperstructure, allows Marxiststo see once more how thesuperstructures of socialpractice, institutions andideological forms correspondto the development ofproductive forces andproduction relations but at thesame time become placeswhere the contradictionbetween forces and relations ofproduction is manifested inspecific historical societies andwhere change is forcedthrough the agencies of classesin struggle. This, as MaryDavis correctly points out,enabled Marxists to posit asuperior form of historicalexplanation to the idealisthistorians of the bourgeoisiewho are fixated on the formsof social and ideologicalsuperstructure as the sourcesof historical change.11

There is really nothingdogmatic about any of this. As we have seen, Marx andEngels were at pains to definethe precise meaning of theirlaws in every field and no lessin the field of historicalexplanation. Engels explainedthis in a series of letters onhistorical materialism, makingparticular reference to a

vulgarised and mechanisticinterpretation of Marxisthistory from which hedistanced their work. It isworth quoting one of theseletters at length as it is a fineexplanation of the limits of thegeneral law of historicalchange.

“According to thematerialist conceptionof history, theultimately determiningelement in history isthe production andreproduction of reallife. More than this,neither Marx nor Ihave ever asserted ….The economicstructure is the basis,but the variouselements of thesuperstructure –political forms of theclass struggle and itsresults, to wit:constitutionsestablished by thevictorious class after asuccessful battle etc,juridical forms andeven the reflexes of allthese actual strugglesin the brains of theparticipants, political,juristic, philosophicaltheories, religiousviews and their furtherdevelopment intosystems of dogmas,also exercise theirinfluence upon thecourse of historicalstruggles and in manycases preponderate indetermining theirform. There is aninteraction of all theseelements in whichamid all the endlesshost of accidents (thatis, of things and eventswhose innerinterconnectedness isso remote orimpossible of proofthat we can regard it asnon-existent ornegligible), theeconomic movementfinally asserts itself asnecessary. Otherwisethe application of the


theory to any givenperiod of historywould be easier thanthe solution of a simple equation of thefirst degree.”12

As with other areas ofMarxist theory, laws exist andpertain in historicalmaterialism and it is necessarythat they do so. But that is thepremise for more detailed andconcrete work, not a substituteand it does not mean thattheir outcomes are predictable.

The Political Price of aLawless World Finally, the concern is that thecall for the abandoning of lawsof historical developmentmakes theory incoherent andless able to direct practicalstruggle. The operation of lawsin the Marxian sense is, as wehave seen, anything butdogmatic. But more seriously,if we were to excise laws frommaterialist dialectics, thetheory would becomeincoherent and would becorrespondingly less able to function as a guide topractical action.

Without an understandingof, for example, the balance ofthe tendencies toward thecomposition of an organisedworking class, able to takecontrol of the means ofproduction through beingthrown together in complexorganisations of labour andthe tendencies toward theirdispersion or domination bymonopoly capital, the courseof the class struggle in anygiven instance is purely amatter of subjectiveunderstanding in the workingclass. Working class politicalstrategy is reduced to itsability to operate in the givensuperstructure, cut loose fromits moorings in the dynamicsat work in the basis. This isdangerous territory in whichone can only rely on a partialand one-sided understandingof the contradiction betweencapital and labour, detachedfrom anchorage in thedynamics of history and of thepotential transition between

the capitalist and the socialistmodes of production. On oneside lies a vulgar Marxism onlytoo familiar on the British leftand on the other lies theindeterminate and classlesspolitics of Eurocommunism.

I have tried to argue thatMarxists should not be afraidof the language of laws,properly understood. There isnothing vulgar or mechanisticabout Marx’s laws. Indeed,they are central to dialecticalmaterialism and operate at alllevels across the whole field ofknowledge, from politicaleconomy, to natural scienceand historical materialism.Properly applied, they are thecondition of a truly concreteunderstanding of concreteconditions and therefore, arethe conditions of trulyrevolutionary practice.

Professor Mary Davis ends her article, What isHistorical Materialism? in Communist Review No 53 withthe following:

“Without historical materialism, we cannotunderstand the past or the present. That is whywe need it; that is why we have to defend it –and we have to, free from dogmatism and thenotion that somehow there are laws.”

On the other hand, in his contribution in the sameissue, Professor Erwin Marquit quotes Engels thus:

“The fact that our subjective thought and theobjective world are subject to the same laws,and hence, that in the final analysis they cannotcontradict each other in their results, but mustcoincide, governs absolutely our wholetheoretical thought.”

Who is right – Davis, who denies the existence oflaws, or Engels, who asserts them? Quite clearly, it isEngels. A law is a statement that is thought to be true inall cases and may be used to predict future occurrences.Examples are endless. Davis herself quotesone:

“The history of all hitherto existingsociety is the history of class struggle.”

Another is F = ma2, where F isthe force applied to a body, m itsmass and a the accelerationproduced. And so on.

I would hazard a guess thatMary Davis is still too muchinfluenced by the collapse ofStalinist socialism and isthrowing the baby out with thebathwater. Laws are not forever,although they may have very longlives. But, if there were no laws,we revolutionaries would haveno guides to help us on our way.A lot of academics, divorced fromeveryday struggles, exaggerate inthis way; hence postmodernism,which also argues that the “old”laws of socialism, communism andMarxism are obsolete and must bethrown out of the window.


Letter to the EditorFrom Hyman Frankel

1 M Davis, What is HistoricalMaterialism?, in Communist Review,No 53, Summer 2009, p 10. 2 B Fine and A Saad-Filho, Marx’sCapital, Fourth Edition, Pluto,London, 2004, p 112.3 K Marx, Capital, Volume I(Progress, Moscow, 1986), p 603.4 K Marx, Capital, Volume III(Progress, Moscow, 1984), p 232.5 F Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach andthe End of Classical GermanPhilosophy, Foreign Languages Press,Peking, 1976, p 41.6 Ibid, pp 44-45.7 K Marx, A Contribution to theCritique of Political Economy,Lawrence & Wishart, London andMoscow, 1981, p 21.8 For a useful discussion of thisaspect of Marx’s thought, see EricHobsbawm’s introduction in K Marx,Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations,Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1964,pp 67-120.9 J. Foster, The End of History andHistorical Materialism: A Defence ofMarxist Dialectics, in Marxism andStruggle: Toward the Millennium (MDavis and M Mayo, Eds), PraxisPress, London, 1998, pp. 29-54.10 In this essay, the author drawsimportant lessons fromChistozvonov’s work for a Marxistunderstanding of the collapse ofSoviet socialism.11 Davis, op cit, p 11. 12 F Engels, Letter to J Bloch inKoenigsberg, London, September 21,1890, in K Marx and F Engels,Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol 3,Progress, Moscow, 1983, p 487.

Notes

■

MARY DAVIS explains in herintroduction to the second edition of thisimportant book that there had beenmany requests for it, once the firstedition sold out. The history of theorigins and development of the labourmovement is vitally important for tradeunionists, and indeed is a popular subjectfor labour movement activists – as theauthor herself testifies, on the basis ofmore than thirty years teaching in thisarea. She points out that:

“All oppressed and exploitedgroups have the right to reclaimtheir past – none more so than the working class itself. The inheritors of the struggle forworking-class rights and tradeunion freedoms are predisposedto want to know something oftheir past – if the labourmovement itself fails to impartsuch information, then it willeither filter through in a distortedform or remain unknown.”

However, books on the subject thatare both seriously analytical and readilyaccessible have been in short supply.Small wonder then, that the first editionof Comrade or Brother? sold out as it did.

In publishing this second edition,Mary Davis has set out to encouragediscussion and critical reflection on thekey ideological questions that have beenthe subject of so much debate in the past,debates that continue to have relevancefor the future of the labour movement

today. In particular, as a feminist and ananti-racist, she has been concerned toredress past imbalances, putting womenand black people back where they rightlybelong, as integral to the history of thelabour movement. Gender has been andcontinues to be central to the continuingrestructuring and renegotiation ofcapitalist relations, as she explains, andthis is also the case for the history ofblack people and the labour movement.

In addition, Mary Davis has takenthe opportunity to add material andemphases, bringing the history of thelabour movement further up to date.The first edition ended in the 1950s.This second edition draws uponmaterials that have become availablemore recently, including Cabinet andother state papers up to the mid-70s(more recent papers still being subject tothe rule that restricts their publication fora thirty-year period). These sourcesprovide the basis for critical reflectionson the period between 1951 and 1979,challenging previously accepteddescriptions of this period as one ofrelative consensus, pointing to theunderlying conflicts, even before theThatcher years in government.

Comrade or Brother? is organised inthree sections. Part 1 sets the economicand political context for the developmentof the labour movement with theindustrial revolution and the politicalstruggles of the late eighteenth and earlynineteenth centuries, which included theanti-slavery and Chartist movements aswell as the trade union movement itself.

Although the full extent of women’sinvolvement is under-researched, as Mary Davis explains, they were activelyinvolved in the Chartist movement, justas they were likely to have been activelyinvolved in the early labour movement.

Part 2 moves on through the middleyears of the nineteenth century – whenBritain was the “workshop of theworld”, but facing increasingcompetition from other industrialisingcountries – up to and including the FirstWorld War and beyond. The boom ofthe middle years of the nineteenthcentury was followed by the “GreatDepression” in the latter part, withsome recovery masking continuingunderlying problems in the earlytwentieth century. The boom years wereassociated with the ideologicaldominance of the labour aristocracy,those sections of the working class whocould identify tangible possibilities ofadvancement, whether individually orcollectively, through negotiation andarbitration – cooperation rather thanclass struggle. By the latter part of thenineteenth century, more militant formsof struggle developed, including those inwhich women played key roles – the riseof a mass labour movement. This wasalso the period of the establishment ofthe Labour Party, to break the thenrelative political consensus of rulinginterests, to represent the interests oflabour. As the book goes on to argue,by the end of the First World War, theLabour Party had gained a foothold, butwas becoming at least partially


BOOK REVIEW

Comrade or Brother? A History of the British Labour Movement

Review by Marjorie Mayo

incorporated into the state machine.Although there were honourableexceptions, the mainstream of thelabour movement was also marred by atbest silence on – and at worst aggressivesupport for – imperialism.

The third part of the book moves on tomore recent times, in the context of therestructuring between the two WorldWars, the General Strike, the role ofLabour governments and unemployment,struggles against fascism, post-warreconstruction, the development of thewelfare state and the Cold War. This section also explores the role ofwomen and black workers’ resistance in thecontext of struggles for colonial freedom.The final chapters challenge the moregenerally accepted view of the fifties andsixties, up to the end of the seventies, as aperiod of relative political consensus. Infact, both Tory and Labour governmentsdemonstrated concerns to limit the powerof labour, in a period of increasing tradeunion membership and confidence – the“Forward March of Labour”, as this periodhas been characterised. There was rank-and-file resistance (via the LiaisonCommittee for the Defence of TradeUnions) to these attempts to impose legalconstraints on trade union organising andpressures for equal pay.

The concluding chapter argues thatthe Thatcher years represented majorsetbacks. As Mary Davis points out, weare “in an era of declining trade unionmembership and high unemployment”,despite efforts to challenge these trends, aperiod in which “we have witnessed more

defeats than victories”. However, “The past is there and cannot be altered”– although we can learn by reflectingupon past experiences of organisationand struggle. Working classorganisations’ histories have not beenlinear – on the contrary, these historieshave been marked by peaks and troughs,partly related to, but not completelydetermined by wider economic pressuresand processes. The labour movement hasalso been characterised by on-goingstruggles between left- and right-wingtrends. Labour movement activists stillhave choices to make, in the currentcontext, including choices about whetherand how to build the movement in waysthat appeal to all workers, andparticularly to those most vulnerable tosuper-exploitation because of their raceor gender.

Comrade or Brother? is written in anaccessible style. Mary Davis has sharedher writing with students of tradeunionism over the years, engaging withtheir questions, comments and concerns.The book reflects these processes ofdialogue, making this a most valuabletool for discussion within the labourmovement, highlighting the key themesfor debate. Each chapter also includessuggestions for further reading. Thoseconcerned with education within theCommunist Party, at whichever level,will find Comrade or Brother? particularlyuseful. As John Foster has commented,this is “in a real sense a history for ourown times” – a key resource for the continuing battle of ideas.


■

Comrade or Brother? A History of the British

Labour Movement, 2nd Edition

BY MARY DAVIS (Pluto Press, London, 2009. 304pp. Pbk, £15.99, ISBN 978-0-

7453-25767; hbk, £60, ISBN978-0-7453-25774)


BOOK REVIEW

Was Mao Really a Monster?

Review by Kenny Coyle

THE PUBLICATION in2005 of Mao: The UnknownStory by Jung Chang and JonHalliday caused something ofa sensation. Written by aChinese best-selling writer andher Western historianhusband, the book appearedto strip away the mythology ofthe founder of the People’sRepublic of China (PRC) andreveal him as a bloodthirstysadist and unprincipledopportunist. Basing itself onapparently unrivalled sources,the book appeared to debunkmany of the heroic tales of theLong March. Mao was heldresponsible for deliberatelyorchestrating famines andwars, fomenting coups and soon. As a personality, Mao waspresented as a coward, anincompetent, a megalomaniacand a warmonger.

The book was embracedby many Western reviewers asturning our understanding ofMao, and thereby the PRC,on its head. Former HongKong colonial governor ChrisPatten and former Labourdeputy leader Roy Hattersley– among others – heapedlavish praise on the book andits authors. Its credibility wasapparently enhanced by thehuge number of references

that appeared to show aremarkable degree ofscholarship and research.

However, the book’sreception among scholars ofChinese history was verydifferent. Even profoundlyanti-communist reviewersexpressed their concern thatthe book was so irredeemablybiased, emotionally chargedand one-sided that it could notbe taken seriously as anintellectual study. Others questioned Hallidayand Chang’s research, pointingto the confusing structure ofthe reference notes and theimpossibility of verifying anumber of allegations. Stillothers found much of theevidence flimsy or simply false.

Gregor Benton and LinChun have brought together acollection of academic reviewsthat cast a sharply criticallight on Mao: The UnknownStory. In itself, this is avaluable venture, for Changand Halliday’s perspectiveboth reflects and in turnhelped shape a Western visionof Mao and China that seesrevolutionary struggle asoffering only destruction andbloodshed.

The reviews are by nomeans uncritical of Mao

himself, nor are they uniformin their criticism of Changand Halliday. One, by ArthurWaldron, in fact broadlyaccepts their vision. However, the others representa powerful rebuttal of Changand Halliday’s positions.Aside from somestraightforward historicalchallenges to Mao: TheUnknown Story by a numberof the contributors there arealso some other fascinatingperspectives showing how thedemonisation of the “evil”

Mao fits concepts familiar inWestern popular culture,where complex socialphenomena are reduced to theresults of individual psychosis.

Benton and Lin have donewell to bring together suchdiverse perspectives withoutlosing sight of the ultimateissue, that Chang andHalliday distorted history intheir book and departed fromthe most basic standards ofevidence and historicalargument. Any number ofexamples can be given.


■

Was Mao Really a Monster?:The Academic Response toChang and Halliday’s Mao:

The Unknown Story

EDITED BY GREGOR BENTON,LIN CHUN

(ROUTLEDGE, 2009, 208 PP, PBK£22.99, ISBN 978-0-415-49330-7;

HBK £85, ISBN 978-0-415-49329-1)

In one of their mostpublicised claims, Chang andHalliday disputed theexistence of the Battle ofLuding Bridge during theLong March, claiming that anunnamed eyewitness toldthem there had been noclashes at the time. Yet, whenan Australian news teamvisited the spot later, theyfound villagers who distinctlyremembered the battle. In fact, Chang and Hallidayrely a great deal on thecriticisms by the Cominternmilitary adviser Otto Braun –who hated Mao – as a reliabletestimony of the Long March,but omit to mention thatBraun’s memoirs, published inEnglish as A Comintern Agentin China: 1932-39, also give adetailed account of the Battleof Luding Bridge.

A number of contributorsnote that the book oftencontradicts Chang’s ownbestseller Wild Swans which,while critical of Mao, alsodetailed Chiang Kai-shek’scrimes and corruption. These have disappeared fromChang’s later work.

However, Jon Halliday,once a radical scholar inclinedtoward Maoism, gets off alittle too lightly. China is

not his area of specialism, but his academic credentialsare crucial to buttress Chang’sChinese background. An expert on Japan and Korea,Halliday is the author, alongwith the US historian of KoreaBruce Cumings, of Korea: TheUnknown War. Yet, despitethe many allegations regardingMao’s involvement in theKorean War, we find noreference in Mao: TheUnknown Story either toHalliday’s own previous workor that of his formercollaborator Cumings.

Just as, in years gone by,disgraced Chinese leaders likeLin Biao or Liu Shaoqi wereairbrushed out of officialportraits, so Halliday hassought to detach himself fromhis own scholarship, which heignores rather than disavows.

Also included in Was MaoReally a Monster? are reviewsby Chinese citizens, which canbroadly be described asbelonging to a school oftendescribed as the “Chinese NewLeft”. This current rejects oris critical of the currentChinese government’s policiesand sees attacks on Mao as theTrojan Horse for counter-revolution. Nonetheless thereis some serious discussion in

these contributions of issuessuch as the Great LeapForward and the CulturalRevolution that are well worthconsidering. Interestinglyboth Chinese contributorsundermine Chang’sbiographical credibility as oneof Mao’s “victims”.

Unfortunately there is no“official” Chinese response tothe book. Mao: The UnknownStory remains banned there,although I know of at leastone Chinese journalist whobought copies overseas. On asking my friend why hehad bought an English-language version of the bookon a trip, I was told that it wasbecause he wanted to compareit with the Chinese-languageversion he had already boughtfrom Taiwan. He wasintrigued to see how differentthe versions were, anddescribed the book as “nottelling the whole truth”. In fact, Mao: The UnknownStory was initially rejected bypublishers in both Hong Kongand Taiwan, on the groundsthat Chinese readers werefamiliar with many of thesources and arguments andwould question the book’scredibility. Substantialchanges had to be made in

Taiwan as a result of legalaction by pro-Chiang Kai-Shek veterans who feltslandered by the book’s claims!

Mao’s status as a therevered founding father of theChinese state is an obvioustarget for those who wantmore broadly to underminethe foundations of the PRC.In 1981, the CommunistParty of China adopted aresolution that weighed upMao’s strengths andweaknesses. It decided thatMao’s positive contributionsvastly outweighed his negativeinfluence, and established aratio of 70:30. Yet opendiscussion and research onmany periods of the PRC’shistory remains difficult andin certain areas taboo withinChina. The PRC will need totackle these issues openly andhonestly, however painful theymight be. The alternative is toleave the field open to theChangs and Hallidays.

Was Mao Really a Monster?is an excellent and stimulatingbook and, for those wantingto get a taste of contemporarydiscussion on Chinese history,it is an essential counterweightto what is in danger ofbecoming accepted orthodoxy.

LET US START with a few rathertopical lines about bankers, fromAmerica’s Ogden Nash:

Most bankers dwell in marble halls,Which they get to live in because they

encourage deposits and discouragewithdrawals,

And particularly they all observe onerule which woe betide the bankerwho fails to heed it,

Which is that you must never lend anymoney to anybody unless they don’t need it.1

In the last issue of Communist Review,Robert Griffiths called for thecommunist movement “to study anddevelop Marxist political economy”.2Clearly, an understanding of thecapitalist economic cycle, whichgenerated the banking crisis andsubsequent mass unemployment fromwhich we are currently suffering, isnecessary in order to mount a robustcritique of the economics and politics of capitalism, and to develop a moredurable and genuinely socialist political alternative.

What, you may ask, has poetry got todo with this? I hope that these Soul Foodselections, and the background notes,show that the answer is “a great deal”. In its content, its form and its purpose,poetry can contribute a great deal to

“heartening” our struggle for socialism;and that struggle can also inspire greatpoetry. They work together well onmany levels: as Tony Benn says in hisPreface to the recent (and highlyrecommended) anthology of poetry fromthe Morning Star, “both are internationaland both speak across the barriers oflanguage and local culture”.3

I also hope that the selectioninspires you not only to appreciate therichness and rightness of committedpolitical poetry, but also to write ityourselves. After all, the dialectical,materialist tradition of philosophy, or“creative Marxism”,4 calls for activeengagement with the world as anecessary part of understanding andchanging it. This active engagement isnot only about debates and charters andmarches and strikes, it is also aboutcreative activity, including writing. It isabout finding the right tone and mood,the words and the images, and therhymes and the rhythms, which willarticulate as powerfully as possible ourcommunist imagination, our feelingsand thoughts about life under, against,and after capitalism.

To illustrate this, let’s have a look atsome other American poems. In the lastissue, readers were invited to suggestpoems which were related in some way tothe current crisis of capitalism. Amongstsuggestions received were the poems

printed below, together with a fewbackground notes.

The first poem is by Charles W Woods, who lived earlier in the lastcentury. In those days, in America,poetry was a genuinely popularactivity. There were far fewer culturalbarriers preventing people from theenjoyment of not only reading butwriting poetry.

Like Nash’s poem, it has a comicaspect to it, expressed in the rollickingrhymes and rhythms, and made-upwords – especially when read out loud.But, as you can see, it also has a serious,indeed deadly serious message, as befits a poem written in 1914. And Idon’t suppose there can be many poems that express so clearly howcapitalist overproduction leads toimperialist aggression!


SOULFOA regular literary selection

Ogden Nash (1902-71)

Selected by Mike Quille

King of the Magical Pump

Oh, the loyalest gink with theroyalest wink

Is the King of the Magical Pump;Of the magical, tragical pump:The latest and greatest and

right-up-to-datestAnd finest, divinest old I-am-the-

State-istWho ever held sway for a year

and a dayIn the Kingdom of Chumpetty-

Chump.

And the magical pump in HisMajesty’s dump,

That too, is a wonderful thing,A wonderful, thunderful thing.It’s wonderful, blunderful,

thunderful, plunderful,Cranky and yanky and get-out-

and-under-ful:And what do you s’pose (if

there’s no one who knows)What it pumpetty-pumped for

the King!

It pumped up his prunes and hisnew pantaloons

And it pumped up his bibles andbeer;

His tribal old bibles and beer:For palaces, chalices, garters or

gallusses,

Or jeans for his queens or hisJulias and Alices,

The King of the Chumps, he justwent to the pumps

And whatever he wished wouldappear.

And the Chumpetty-Chumpswho were pumping thepumps

Which pumped up these thing-a-mum bobs,

These thing-a-mum, jing-a-mumbobs,

They humped it and jumped itand pumpetty-pumped it

And fearfully, tearfully liked it orlumped it;

While the King in his gleehollered “Bully for me!

Ain’t you glad that I gave youyour jobs?”

Oh, the Chumpetty-Chumpswere a wise lot o’ gumps

And they said a religious “Amen,”A prodigious, religious “Amen.”For ages these sages had had

(it’s outrageous)One jing-a-mum thing-a-mum

each as their wages:And pray, who could say, if he

cut off their pay,What on earth would become

of them then?

But the King of the Chumps wasa kindly old Umps

And he paid them as much as hedurst

(as much as all such as he durst)For humping and jumping and

pumpty-pump-pumpingAnything that a king could

imagine their dumping:Till he said “Go to roost, we

have over-producedAnd we’ve got to get rid of

these first.”

Then the Chumpetty-Chumpswent to bumping the bumps

In a tragic and thingum-lessplight;

In a thingum-less, jingum-lessplight:

They blubbered and lubberedand went to the cupboard –

“No pumpee, no Chumpee”they said as they rubbered –

Till the loving old King caught athought on the wing

Which was sure to seteverything right.

Said the King of the Pumps tothe Chumpetty-Chumps:

“It‘s as plain as the face on your nose,

As the face on the base of your nose,


OD

➔

The lesson this session ofbusiness depression

Points out beyond doubt thatforeign aggression

Has caused a big slump in thework of the pump –

So up men, and after your foes!”

Then in joy and in laughter, theyupped and went after

To fight for their country and King;For their pumpty old country

and King:And dashing in, crashing in,

bravely they’re smashing in;(One jingum per dingum they

get while they’re cashing in)Until the Big Umps want to

start up the Pumps:When they’ll work for one

thingum per ding.

Oh the loyalest Gink with theroyalest wink

Is the King of the Magical Pump;Of the magical, tragical pump:An oodle of boodle he’s got by

his noodleAnd umpty-nine Chumpties he’s

fed with flapdoodle –For we live for a thingum and

die for a jingumIn the Kingdom of Chumpetty-

Chump.5

The next poem is by Donald Justice,another American poet, who lived from1925 to 2004. He wrote in a wide varietyof styles, including in this format, calleda “pantoum”. This is a poem with four-line stanzas, where the first and thirdlines become the basis for the second andfourth lines of the next stanza, and so ontill the end, when the first and third linesof the poem reappear as the second andfourth lines. The almost hypnotic effectthat this pattern of repetition gives to the

poem, together with the stopped lines,evokes well the miserable, debilitatingdaily grind of hopeless poverty, amongstordinary people in the Thirties.

Perhaps also, in the background,there is a sense of the inevitablerepetition of economic crises. As we allkeep hearing, we are currentlyexperiencing the worst economic crisissince the Great Depression. I wonderwhether any of our readers could write amodern equivalent?

Pantoum of the GreatDepression

Our lives avoided tragedySimply by going on and on,Without end and with little

apparent meaning.Oh, there were storms and

small catastrophes.

Simply by going on and onWe managed. No need for the

heroic.Oh, there were storms and

small catastrophes.I don’t remember all the

particulars.

We managed. No need for theheroic.

There were the usual celebra-tions, the usual sorrows.

I don’t remember all theparticulars.

Across the fence, the neighborswere our chorus.

There were the usual celebra-tions, the usual sorrows

Thank god no one said anythingin verse.

The neighbors were our onlychorus,

And if we suffered we kept quietabout it.

At no time did anyone sayanything in verse.

It was the ordinary pities andfears consumed us,

And if we suffered we kept quietabout it.

No audience would ever knowour story.

It was the ordinary pities andfears consumed us.

We gathered on porches; themoon rose; we were poor.

What audience would everknow our story?

Beyond our windows shone theactual world.

We gathered on porches; themoon rose; we were poor.

And time went by, drawn byslow horses.

Somewhere beyond ourwindows shone the world.

The Great Depression hadentered our souls like fog.

And time went by, drawn byslow horses.

We did not ourselves knowwhat the end was.

The Great Depression hadentered our souls like fog.

We had our flaws, perhaps a fewprivate virtues.

But we did not ourselves knowwhat the end was.

People like us simply go on.We have our flaws, perhaps a

few private virtues,But it is by blind chance only

that we escape tragedy.

And there is no plot in that; it isdevoid of poetry.6

There’s a very interesting, dialecticalcontradiction here. The writer imaginesand expresses a state of affairs which ispowerless, meaningless, and “devoid ofpoetry”; yet he does so powerfully,meaningfully, and poetically.

There is of course a widespread view,unfortunately shared by many poets, thatpolitics is devoid of poetry, and poetryshould be devoid of politics. That politicsand poetry are like chalk and cheese, oiland water, the Moon and the Sun, theworking class and the capitalist class: theycannot, and should not, be mixed up.“Pure” poetry, in this view, transcends the


Donald Justice (1925-2004) William Blake

base and dirty business of politics,especially political agitation againstcapitalism. If they’re not interested inhymning the rich and powerful, poetsshould confine themselves to the eternalverities of human nature, pastoral idylls,or some supremely irrelevant piece ofclose observation of the hairs in yourright earhole.

William Blake did not agree with thiskind of view. And neither did theScottish poet and communist, HughMacDiarmid (1892-1978).

A pretty tribute to the old rural scene

Can mask a base betrayal ofMankind;

The mellowest religiousreference conceal

The Kruschen spirit of Fascism behind,

In short, any utterance that is not pure

Propaganda is impurepropaganda for sure!7

So shall we have a brief look at thisrather neglected poet? More than anyoneelse I can think of, his poems illustrate

the application of the philosophy ofdialectical or scientific materialism,discussed in Communist Review No 53, tothe writing of poetry.

First, some brief biographical details.Hugh MacDiarmid was the adoptedname of Christopher Murray Grieve.Politically and poetically, he was alifelong and active nationalist andcommunist, trying throughout his life tointegrate political insight with poeticability, in a kind of angry, argued roaragainst political and cultural oppression,wherever it came from. It probably goeswithout saying that he made quite a fewenemies. He was expelled in the early1930s by the National Party of Scotlandfor being too communist, and then a fewyears later by the Communist Party forbeing too nationalist. It should benoted, however, that he was laterwelcomed back into the CommunistParty in the 1950s.

MacDiarmid read voraciously andwrote voluminously. He tried to fuse allmodern strands of thought into an attackon the “belly-grip” of capitalism’seconomic determinism, with the aim of

….. establishing a right goodfellowship

Forever free of the belly-grip.8

Many of his poems have a dialecticalaspect to them. As a great example of aMarxian approach to poetics, considerthe following:

The Skeleton of the Future

Red granite and black diorite,with the blue

Of the labradorite crystalsgleaming like precious stones

In the light reflected from thesnow; and behind them

The eternal lightening of Lenin’sbones.9

Note how the use of geologicallanguage evokes as its “thesis” anunyielding, brilliant hardness. There is akind of glittering menace and sternness,and a sense of scientific and historicalmaterialism and objectivity. And yet, likethe contrasting colours of red and black,we can also detect a contrasting“antithetical” set of meanings. Weimagine Lenin’s message burning like anelectrical storm, and this evokes a morespiritual, subjective and imaginativeworld. And there is perhaps a “synthesis”in the overall movement of the poem, itsimplied promise of a positive, inevitably

socialist future. The poem is a wonderfulexpression of dialectical materialism, the“flower and iron of the truth” asMacDiarmid called it.10

MacDiarmid’s attitude to poetry andart in general was clear anduncompromising: it must not fall intothe trap of thinking itself outside, aboveand beyond history, real life, the actual,painful realities of an exploitativeeconomic system, and class struggle. Let him speak for himself, in theseextracts from a long poem called AgainstInfantilism:

Art must be related to thecentral issues of life,

Not serve a sub-artistic purposethat could as well

Be served by possession of anew motor-car

Or a holiday on the Continentperhaps.

What do we Scottish writersmost lack, most need?

– An immediate experience ofthe concrete,

A rich overflowing apprehensionof the definite

Day-by-day content of ourpeople’s lives,

A burningly clear understandingof the factors at work,

Of the actual correlation of theforces, in labour today;

A Dundee jute mill, Singer’s,Beardmore’s,

The ghost towns, ruined fishingvillages, slave camps,

And all the derelict areas of ourcountryside;

The writer not first andforemost concerned withthese

Lacks the centrality that alonecan give

Value to his work – he is atrifler, a traitor,

To his art and to mankind alike,A fool choosing flight and

fantasy,Not to be pitied, but despised.It is a lying cry to say That human nature cannot be

changed.(……….)There is nothing whatever in

contemporary biology,Either the science of heredity or

of genetics,Nothing we know of the

mechanisms of inheritance,Nothing in the nature of the

genes or chromosomes,


To stand in the way of theradicals’ enthusiasm

For social transformation – therevolutionists’

Advocacy of profoundly-alteredsocial systems.

On the other hand there is avast accumulation

Of evidence from thesociological sciences,

Economy, anthropology,sociology,

Politics, the philosophy ofhistory, to substantiate

The necessity, the sanity, and thewisdom

Of deep changes in allinstitutions, customs,

Habits, values – in short,civilizations.

Human nature is the last thingwe need to worry about.

Let us attend to thecircumstances that condition it.

(……….)Scottish writers, the height and

depth of your writings

Will be measured by the extentto which

The dialectics of our era findexpression

In the artistic imagery – howwidely, forcefully, clearly

The burning contemporaryproblems are expressed in it,

The class war, the struggles andideals

Of the proletariat bent onchanging the world,

And consequently on changinghuman nature.11

So there you have it. The challengeto writers is to express the “flower andiron” of the communist imagination; todevelop a Marxian poetics, in the samecreative, successful way that economics,politics, history and literature have beenre-imagined by communists; and aboveall, to help make sure that all that issqualid smelts into fair.

Back to America for the last word, the final poem in this selection. It is by Langston Hughes (1902-67).Hughes wrote many poems about the life

and struggles of black working classpeople, including this great short lyricabout “a dream deferred”. Is it theAmerican Dream? The dream of civilrights? Or the dream of a socialistrevolution? You decide………….

Harlem

What happens to a dreamdeferred?

Does it dry uplike a raisin in the sun?Or fester like a sore –And then run?Does it stink like rotten meat?Or crust and sugar over –like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sagslike a heavy load.

Or does it explode?12

In the next issue, let’s have somepoems to mark International Women’sDay. Comments and suggestions, and poems, are welcome.


Junk food: an irregular cartoon strip

1 From the poem Bankers Are Just Like AnybodyElse, Only Richer, in Ogden Nash, Collected Verse, J.M Dent and Sons, 1961, p 157.2 Robert Griffiths, Trends in the British Economyand Employment, in Communist Review 54, Autumn2009, p. 15.3 Well Versed (J Rety, Ed), Hearing Eye, 2009.4 M Levy, M Davis and E Marquit, Who NeedsPhilosophy?, in Communist Review No 53, Summer

2009, p 9 ff.5 M W Van Wienen, Rendezvous with Death:American Poems of the Great War, University ofIllinois, 2002, p 76.6 D Justice, Collected Poems, Knopf 2004, p 29.7 From the poem Poetry and Propaganda in TheSocialist Poems of Hugh MacDiarmid (T S Law andT Berwick, Eds), Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978,p13. Kruschen Salts are a kind of laxative, although

“crushing” is clearly not too far away as a meaning. 8 From the poem The Belly-Grip, in Law andBerwick, op cit, 1978, p 31.9 Law and Berwick, op cit, p100.10 From the poem First Hymn to Lenin, in Lawand Berwick, op cit, p 36.11 Law and Berwick, op cit, p 64.12 Langston Hughes, Selected Poems, Serpent’sTail, 1999, p 268.

Notes

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The Politics of Britain’s Economic Crisis

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Whose nation? Democracy & the national question in Britain

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