Letter: The miners’ strike & the Socialist Party (1984)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard  

 

The miners’ strike & the Socialist Party

Dear Editors,

Naivete is not what one expects from the columns of the Socialist Standard but the article on the miners’ strike (September, 1984) comes very close to it in stating that the SPGB will support any strike between the robbers and robbed, except when they are political. It is implied that this strike is more than just a political action, thus qualifying it for SPGB support.

Well, as I think that it is just a political strike, and you think it isn’t the score is now one all, a draw. The article goes on to say that 120,000 miners can't all be wrong, to which I must reply that 60,000 other NCB workers say that they are. As you can't produce a ballot to show what the 120,000 think, and my 60,000 can, you lose on the re-count because you cannot substantiate your case.

You enter a very dangerous minefield in trying to decide what is a political strike and what is not. The SPGB has been explaining for eighty years that politics is but an expression of the economic facts of life, then, all of a sudden, hey presto . . . we have the purely political strike. The two examples given, "dockers against immigration" and “Labour’s day of Action” had their roots in economic problems confronting the working class and being directed to political ends. This is exactly how I see the miners’ strike. So what is the exact mix which will trigger off SPGB support for a strike? 85 per cent political and 15 per cent economic? Or 60 per cent and 40 per cent? Or even perhaps 51 per cent and 49 per cent? May we be informed please?

So, is the strike political then? Messrs. Scargill and Co. have made it very plain indeed that the mere mention of Thatcher gives them all indigestion and sleepless nights, and they want to bring down the government immediately. This strike was called when coal stocks were at an all-time high, summer time just round the corner, plenty of nuclear power and oil about and no ballot. It was either "daft" (Lord Gormley) or politically motivated. In your article you state that the Labour Government did exactly what the NCB now proposes but there was no strike. So, if given exactly the same conditions, the miners didn’t strike under Labour, and are striking under the Tories, what other reasons except political reasons can there be?

Will the SPGB support any strike? I can't believe that it would be so stupid. The Socialist Standard in the recent past has quoted items from the "propaganda press" showing that certain strikes are welcomed with gratitude and delight by the bosses and are pleased to prolong them to bring the workers to heel. Support for this kind of strike brings only extra poverty and extra subservience to the workers involved. You indicate that the miners’ strike may well be in this category.

The word "support” in my working class dictionary means "to hold up — assist - sustain”. Would the SPGB assist in the prolonging of these strikes? Did the early SPGB back the Hansom Cab workers in their struggles against the encroachments made by automobile manufacturers? Would they have backed the Sword-Pikestaff and Bow and Arrow Makers Union against the encroaching Rifle. Gunpowder and Bullet manufacturers? I think not. The kindest thing to do is sometimes to advise people to leave a dying industry and not support their unavailing efforts? If nuclear power eventually takes over from coal will the SPGB be there sustaining the last striking miners in the last pit?

Mr Scargill and the NUM Executive and their bully-boys remind me of an embryonic Hitler and his storm-troopers gagging the union and menacing those who disagree. The SPGB finds fault only with the gagging, keeping a respectful silence on the activities of Scargill’s storm troopers. Activities well known to everyone in England except the SPGB. This policy of putting all the violence down to police brutality can best be described as fifty per cent SPGB and fifty per cent Trotskyist. As the gagging of the union. the split in the union and the mass violence of the striking miners are all part of the same coin, your article betrays a dangerous naivete, the implications of which need to be debated. Working Nottinghamshire miners must be wondering who the SPGB thinks is harassing their homes, property and families if it isn’t the bully boys . . . maybe it’s the police. What is certain is that working Nottinghamshire miners will regard the SPGB as a party to shun, which is a very great pity, for even Mr Kinnock has come out of his mouse-hole and condemned all violence.

S Levitt

London NW3

Reply:

Against Capitalism

It is a clear sign that a critic is standing upon thin ice when he resorts to distortion in order to make a case. Consider these examples: 1) Levitt claims that the article in the September Standard states that the Socialist Party supports all strikes, except for those motivated by political intentions to reform capitalism. He then bases a large part of his criticism on the use of the word "support". If he re-reads the article he will see that the term he objects to is not even used. 2) Levitt claims that the article suggests that "120.000 miners can’t all be wrong". No such statement is made. Clearly, it would be foolish to say that because a number of workers are taking an action they must be right. 3) Levitt — whose silly hysteria about "storm troopers" we deal with below — claims that the Socialist Party has kept “a respectful silence” on the question of violence by picketing strikers (unlike Mr Kinnock whose moral stand wins the approval of our critic). As a subscriber to the Socialist Standard, our critic will have read the article "An Open letter to the Miners” (July, 1984) in which it is stated that "insofar as the reports of workers persecuting those who disagree with them are not false or exaggerated, socialists condemn unreservedly the anti-working-class intimidation of fellow miners”. Of course, this condemnation might not satisfy Levitt, whose own exaggerated description of the picketing resembles some of the most ignorant comment of the gutter press. 4) Levitt claims that the Socialist Party attributes all the violence to the police, whereas no such point is made in the article. In fact, the Socialist Party is not in the business of blaming one group or another for the violence which is endemic to the class war. So, four distortions in eight paragraphs: now let us try to make sense of the other fifty per cent.

Our critic suggests that it is difficult to determine what is a political strike, in the sense in which the term was used in the article. The difficulty does not trouble the Socialist Party: as far as we are concerned, the role of trade unions is to defend and improve the wages and conditions of workers under capitalism. In short, they have a defensive, economic function. Strikes intended to use working-class combination for the purpose of affecting the overall administration of capitalism are politically reformist and socialists oppose them. For example, when miners went on strike to oppose immigrant labour being introduced into British pits this was not an economic action; neither was Labour’s Day of Action, which was an attempted strike designed to show that a Labour government of capitalism would be better for workers than a Tory one.

Of course, no strike is entirely economic because there is no separation of politics and economics under capitalism. So, while the miners' strike is an economic strike, not very different from others conducted by other unions, it has a political dimension insofar as its result can affect the balance of political strength between organised labour and organised capital. It may well be true that the officials of the NUM want to get rid of the present government (so does the Socialist Party), but it is naive of our critic to think that 120,000 strikers have somehow been hoodwinked into striking for such a purpose.

Levitt cannot believe that socialists would be so stupid as to support any strike. We cannot believe that Levitt can be so stupid as to think that we might, when only four paragraphs earlier he acknowledges our opposition to strikes designed to reform capitalism. As for the question of "support" — a term not introduced by us — let us be clear that, as early as 1905, when the Manifesto of the Socialist Party of Great Britain was published, the socialist view has been that trade unions are a necessity under capitalism and “any action on their part upon sound lines should be heartily supported". We do not exist as a party to advise unions on how to conduct their necessary struggles within capitalism, although, as socialist trade unionists, we do our best to ensure that our unions act on sound lines and that we support union action to the best of our abilities. We might add that socialists within the NUM have done precisely that during this miners’ strike. The role of the Socialist Party is to advocate socialism and to point out that beyond the sectional, limited and repetitive struggle of trade unions there is a revolutionary struggle to establish world socialism which is both urgent and more important than mere defensive actions.

Levitt suggests that the Socialist Party — in a spirit of kindness — should advise the miners to leave their dying industry. Having issued such advice, does he propose that we urge them to buy some bikes and travel the country looking for thriving industries? The Socialist Party does not exist to urge workers to fit in with the absurd economic priorities of capitalism. What we can say to the miners is that, with an estimated 300-years’ supply of coal underneath Britain, there is no reason why a socialist society need let the coal industry die. Of course, a socialist society might decide that there are other energy sources which are preferable to coal; if so, such a decision would neither be based on profit calculations nor cause hardship to men who had been miners in the past. We think that the growing rejection of the profit-based priorities of capitalism, which has led mine workers to challenge the NCB’s definition of “uneconomic", should be regarded with enthusiasm by socialists. Our task is to show the miners that only in socialism can the economic priorities which offend them be eliminated.

The remarks about picket-line violence are stale and naive. Certainly, socialists have emphasised time and time again, both in our propaganda and in our unions, that violent tactics should be avoided by workers who can win by force of numbers. But the state, which is an institution of legalised violence, will not simply sit back and let workers picket as they please. Laws allowing pickets to persuade non-strikers have been largely ignored during this strike — vans carrying strike-breakers (‘‘rebels”) have driven through picket lines at such speeds that it has been impossible for pickets to speak to their fellow-workers. So, mass picket lines have been formed in order to ensure that the strike-breakers either stop and listen or stay out of the colliery.

Does our critic really think that the condemnation of picket-line violence by Neil Kinnock will make any difference to the class struggle? After all, Thatcher. Kinnock and the other hypocrites who are appalled by picket-line violence are the same leaders who support the creation of war machines designed to murder civilian populations. The Socialist Party does not issue moral condemnations of selective acts of violence — we are busy advocating the case for the abolition of the social cause of such behaviour. We did not notice the Fleet Street propaganda rags condemning the picket-line murder of seven striking miners in South Africa (reported briefly on BBC’s Newsnight on 18 September).

Our critic is concerned that the working miners of Nottinghamshire will shun the Socialist Party because of what we have written about the strike. Well, they were shunning us before the strike started, but that did not stop us from trying to convince them of the validity of our case, which applies to all workers, whether unionised or not. striking or working, militant or conservative.

Editors.

Letters: Two leaflets (1999)

Letters to the Editors from the November 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

As a Libertarian Socialist I send you an “Open letter— Alliance & Solidarity for a New Left/European New Left”, that is a translation (bad I’m sure) into English of an idea that started in Portugal during the last European Elections. Let me know what you think:

“—MAY 68— PARIS/FRANCE —APRIL 74/75— LISBON/PORTUGAL —CUBA/NICARAGUA and after?

For some the Left is dead, for others, the Left is the ‘Third Way’. But the reality is that we don’t know what’s meant by being ‘Left’. What do we stand for? What sort of Left in Europe for the 2000s?

It’s time to re-invent, to re-think, the Left, and in ‘Alliance & Solidarity’ to rebuild a New Left/European New Left.

For us the New Left will be a project for a new society, more democratic and alternative, socialist, libertarian and Ecologist/Green .A more free and less consumerist society.

This project must come from local community experiences, and not from ready-made theories. It must be a project capable of changing relations between human beings; producers; consumers; development— environment; sex—religion; working relations—leisure; racism—culture; nation state, etc. A project with new experiences for new communal relations and relations between peoples and countries.

There are no ready-made answers, neither will the answers be for sure. But in ‘Alliance & Solidarity’ with the contributions of all interested, Socialists, Libertarians, workers’ co-operatives, ecologists, green activists, lesbian/gay movement activists, New Age groups; trade unions, etc. we can rebuild step-by-step a new project, the New Left/European New Left.”

Emmanuel, 

Bracknell, Berks

Reply: 

The Old Left with its project for state capitalism has certainly failed but we don’t think what you propose is the answer. Certainly, all the groups you mention have an interest in getting rid of capitalism—and so, if only they knew it, of establishing a socialist society of common ownership, democratic control and production directly for use—except the New Agers (though perhaps they too will find what they’re looking for in socialism). But before bringing together various disparate interest groups, some of whose demands can be accommodated within the context of capitalism, we would need to be clear on the goal aimed at. We would need to be clear what the more free, libertarian and democratic and less consumerist society respecting ecological principles that you rightly want can only be achieved on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the Earth’s productive resources. This understood, it would follow that all our political efforts should be exclusively directed to achieving that goal.

Editors.

* * *

Dear Editors,

The enclosed “Election Leaflet” represents a fictitious attempt by a World Wide Free Access Party in support of an equally fictitious candidate for Parliament. I was inspired to write this because of the recent correspondence in the Socialist Standard regarding changing the name of the Party. This leaflet is a fallout from it:

“Many voters will be learning about Free Access for the first time as a political force although the practice of Free Access is as old as mankind itself, in fact it worked inside every family in the past and so it does today. Whenever did you hear of parents selling food to their children or making them buy it from them? Never. That’s Free Access at work.

This long history of Free Access has been further developed by small groups all over our planet and advocated by poets and philosophers down the ages. Indeed the use of money as a total exchange unit is a comparatively modern thing, societies getting along without it for thousands of

years and, if using it at all, only sparingly.

World Free Access! What does it mean? Will it work today?

1. No, it can’t work because firstly it must be mentally accepted, then it will work.
2. It requires no leaders. They tend to freeze the mind. Free Worlders have no leaders and don’t need them—we know what we want.
3. We just need to be able to produce abundance for all—we can, right now!
4. A moneyless, frontierless world society will release a mighty flood of hitherto unproductive labour. No armed forces or armaments, no banks, no insurance, no income tax, no ticket collectors or travel costs, no customs, etc.
5. The rape of the planet for profit leading to global warming and danger to all life will cease instantly.
6. Numerous wars, always raging somewhere, will cease.
7. The elimination of life on earth will no longer be a possibility.”

Sam Levitt, 

London NW3

Reply: 

Your leaflet is certainly better than the one from Portugal. We will let readers judge for themselves whether separating the concept of socialism from its history and the class struggle doesn’t make it sound a bit insipid.

Editors.

Letters: Legal war? (1999)

Letters to the Editors from the June 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Legal war?

Dear Editors,

I am horrified to watch that NATO are waging war on Yugoslavia without declaring war, in fact, no UN Resolution was passed by the Security Council permitting NATO’s barbaric bombing of Serbia.

I do not condone ethnic cleansing anywhere on this planet, equally I cannot condone Anglo-American-led NATO International Gangsterism in the Third World, getting one country or religion against another and promoting proxy wars for hegemonistic goals.

The Western alliance which arrogantly describes itself as the “International Community” has now embarked on a multi-faceted aggressive campaign to bring Iraq, Yugoslavia and other Third World countries to their knees.

Curiously, Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council of the UN, are not being consulted; on the contrary they are being rebuffed. China is more interested in her world-wide economic interest and as such China is not challenging the Anglo-American aggressive designs anywhere. The US has become the UN and Kofi Annan its General Secretary, is reduced to an American stooge.

I often ask myself: what have we done to deserve this. “New World Order” or more appropriately “New World Disorder”, especially after the ending of the Cold War.

Is this what is called the “Ethical Dimension” of foreign policy? The self-appointed “International Community” has become judge and jury and executioner.

In the political dictionary, the word “imperialism” is out of style but the barbaric bombing in Serbia, Yugoslavia tells us that “imperialism” is alive and kicking, bullying, intimidating, bombing and killing small nations of the third world.

Avtar Pabla, 

Coventry  

Reply:

It is true that, unless they conform to the UN Charter, wars are technically illegal under international law. Yet even since it was adopted in 1946, wars have gone on in some part of the world, the biggest of which, the Korean War, was waged under the UN flag. This merely illustrates what Socialists have always argued, that peace treaties are merely worthless scraps of paper. We have never placed any confidence in the UN as a means of stopping war. As wars are caused by the rivalry between capitalist states over markets, trade routes, investment outlets and raw materials that is built into capitalism, only the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by the world-wide system of common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit can do that- Editors.  

Mistaken identity

Dear Editors,

I can’t work out your rationale on Serbia—Stop the bombing!!—Stop the bombing!! And? Then what? Count how many hundreds and thousands of Albanian Kosovan refugees have been forced out of their homes?

Count how many unmarked, mass, civilian Albanian Kosovan graves are currently being filled over by Serb tractors?

Count how many Albanian Kosovan women, young and old, have mysteriously “disappeared” into “Serb safekeeping”?

Count how many Albanian Kosovan houses, shops, workplaces, villages and small towns have been left in smoking ruins by the Serb military?

Count how many mines the Serb authorities are placing around all the Kosovo borders so that Albanian Kosovans “who have nothing to fear” can feel safe and wanted in their own country?

Is this the same SPGB who claim to be on the side of the oppressed and powerless? Supporting the demands of one of the most brutal, right-wing, authoritarian, unreconstructed, military regimes in Western Europe? With the Serbs’ proven track record in Bosnia and Croatia over the last 10 years?

Shame on you?

“Uncle Vladimir”, 

London N16

Reply:

Although we are in favour of the immediate stopping of all wars, i.e. of the killing of innocent workers on both sides, the posters you have seen proclaiming “Stop the Bombing” have not been put up by us, but by some Trotskyist group which is no doubt supporting Serbia as the lesser evil in the current NATO-Serbia war. So your criticism is misdirected. Besides, of course, as V.I. Lenin you may be their uncle but you’re no relation of ours.

And just because we don’t support the NATO bombing campaign does not mean that we therefore support the Serbian army. We are against both sides, Serbian capitalism as well as NATO imperialism who are fighting over an issue—who should control the territories of the former Yugoslavia—which is not worth the sacrifice of a single worker’s life- Editors.  

“Socialism” or what?

Dear Editors,

Your pathetic reply to Paul Azzario’s letter (April Socialist Standard) illustrates quite convincingly the need to change the name of the party.

When the “S” word is propagated by Socialists, the bemused recipients will have mental pictures triggered of anything stretching from the Labour Party, the “Socialist” countries via Russia’s Soviet past. Surely, even you must admit that nearly 100 years of dedicated slog, has produced no discernible dent in the solid front of political ignorance.

Socialist propaganda goes in and out of the mind with the greatest of ease, because actual examples of Socialism in action are difficult to point to, thus the mind has nothing to work on.

Whatever Socialists do, life will be difficult, so I am suggesting that they try “Lateral Thinking” to assist in getting around part of the problem.

At the moment Socialists use “Direct Thinking”!, e.g. we are “Socialists”! and refuse to change our name no matter how great the confusion! It is the “Charge of the Light Brigade” mentality, the ruinous head-on clash! We count the few survivors and honour them but we are no nearer to Socialism.

Why not attack from the flank. Disarm the enemy by changing your name and use only meaningful words, where others cannot follow. E.g. “One World, Free Access to Everything Produced”. This is a bit of a mouthful, but it is pure Socialism, where no-one else can follow!

I am sure that a competent wordsmith can improve on such a heading, which cuts out all mistaken ideas associated with that “S” word. Supporters of Blair, Benn, Yeltsin, Castro, Trotsky and others will have the ground cut from beneath their feet and be forced to start thinking positively—for the first time.

Sam Levitt, 

London NW3

Letters: Clique of Political Gangsters (1997)

Letters to the Editors from the April 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Clique of Political Gangsters

Dear Editors,

Writing in the February Socialist Standard ("Militant Dishonesty”), Adam Buick comments: "Imagine what a Trotskyist dictatorship would be like; not too different from a Stalinist one. we would suppose." Very true.

Leon Trotsky was every bit as ruthless as Joseph Stalin. His only problem was that he lost out to Stalin in the inevitable power-struggle following the Bolshevik coup d'état in Russia, in 1917, and was expelled from the country, and ultimately killed in Mexico City by one of Stalin's henchmen.

It should not be forgotten, however, that Trotsky supported the dissolution of the democratically-elected Constituent Assembly on January 6, 1918, because the Bolsheviks were in a minority; that Trotsky, together with Lenin, argued that the trade unions should be subordinated to the government; and. following Trotsky’s appointment as Commissar of Military Affairs, he established the death penalty for disobedience under fire into the Red Army, and restored the saluting of officers, of whom many were former Czarist officers, and other privileges for senior officers. In December 1919 Trotsky submitted his proposal for the "militarisation of Labour"; and on December 27, the Soviet government, with Lenin’s approval, set up their Commission on Labour Duty, with Trotsky. as Commissar for War, as its President. Trotsky stressed that coercion, regimentation and militarisation of labour were not mere emergency measures; but that the Soviet state had the right to coerce any citizen to perform any work, at any time of its choosing. Just as Stalin did, with his forced labour camps, ten years later. In February 1921 strikes broke out in Petrograd and Moscow, after the government had announced that the very meagre bread ration was to be cut by a third. In the Kronstadt naval base, the sailors rebelled; and, on March 5, Trotsky issued an ultimatum, demanding the immediate and unconditional capitulation of the sailors, saying “only those who surrender unconditionally may count on the mercy of the Soviet Republic".

And so on . . .

Had Trotsky won and Stalin lost in their struggle for power, the outcome in the Soviet Union would most certainly have been the same: the emergence of a state-capitalist dictatorship (Lenin admitted that Russia had become a state-capitalist dictatorship even before he died in 1924). ruled by a privileged and parasitic minority of bureaucrats and apparatchiks. Even limited bourgeois democracy was anathema to Leon Trotsky.

And this is the man that the Militant Tendency, now masquerading as the Socialist Party, eulogise. Socialists must confront them, demand to speak in opposition at their meetings (as socialists allow opponents at theirs), and expose them for what they are—an anti-socialist clique of political gangsters. There is no alternative.

Leading members of "Militant/Militant Labour" might well argue that they were unaware of the existence of the Socialist Party. However, Peter Taaffe. editor of Militant since 1964. and now general secretary of their party, has mentioned us, as "Socialist Party" (without the "the") in writing, in his long and turgid tome. The Rise of Militant (Militant publications, London, 1995. Chapter 54. p.544). "Euro-Elections": "Militant Labour and Scottish Militant Labour decided to nominate Tommy Sheridan as a candidate for the European elections in Glasgow . . . He beat the Tories, Liberal Democrats, Greens, Socialist Party, Natural Law Party and the Communist Party of Great Britain” (emphasis mine).

So, there we are.

Peter E. Newell, 

Colchester, 

Essex

What’s in a name?

Dear Editors,

The news that the Trotskyite wing of the Labour Party is to call itself "The Socialist Party" has rightly caused consternation among true Socialists. But then, so many other bodies have adopted similar tactics this century. Even the New Labour Party, under Tony Blair, has many members chaffing at losing their "Socialist” identity.

The trouble is that nowhere in the world is that word “Socialism” recognised in its true meaning, apart from by an insignificant few, who ruffle no political surface anywhere . . . after ninety-two years of intensive propaganda.

The word "Socialism" in its true meaning has always failed to communicate itself, simply causing greater confusion.

Why not shut the door on this useless piece of baggage and let your objectives be your title? For example: “The One World Moneyless Society Party"?

In one stroke confusion is ended. Only true Socialists can follow you down that path. That word is made redundant. It has never served its purpose and has no future.

Sam Levitt

London, NW3

Reply:
We don't agree. While it is true that the word "Socialism" has become distorted this century to mean state capitalism even for most of those who consider themselves socialists, the word still does convey, better than for instance "moneyless society" which suggests a mere economic change, what we stand for: a society where productive resources are commonly, i.e. socially, owned and where people cooperate. i.e. act socially, to produce what is needed. After all, we say that humans are social animals, and what better name for a society where humans can develop their social potential to the full than "socialism".

Editors

Marxian purity?

Dear Editors,

I’ve been generally looking sympathetically at the website of your Canadian counterparts for a few months now, and have finally decided to write to you with some general enquiries vis your organization: some statistical and some theoretical, since what is said in the web-site intrigues me. If I may then, I have some questions to ask:

What are your general political activities? If you’ll forgive me, from the tone of the website you seem to adopt an approach of revolutionary predeterminacy (it will come when it comes) and of Marxian purity, gained at the expense of activity. It sounds like your general support for the abolition of property is your only goal, and that you do not work to oppose (by actions) capitalism as it stands but defer all action to the time of the "inevitable revolution". This rather strikes me as a theoretical purity gained by a loss of effectiveness.

Something that has happened to myself, when arguing for socialism and against vanguardism. is that I have been presented with two arguments: 

1. That how will it be possible to bring the proletariat round to a revolutionary consciousness without a minority vanguard (and further what use then is such a party as yours?).
2. That a world-wide revolution is not possible both because of the impossibility of the world-wide proletariat rebelling simultaneously, and further that the capitalist imperialist system has damaged the development of many countries, thus preventing them from having the infrastructure necessary to progress to communism. And I wonder how your party can answer these arguments, because my usual response is to bluff my way out of them, as I can't see a real answer (particularly vis the awakening of revolutionary consciousness of the people).

I would be grateful if you could help my curiosity—thank you.

Bill Martin

Lancashire

Reply:

Our general political activities consist in propagating the idea of socialism. This involves publishing leaflets, pamphlets and a monthly magazine, holding meetings, debating with other groups, contesting elections, all with the aim, at the moment, of spreading a knowledge of what socialism is and of inciting a desire for it. Later, when a majority have come to want socialism, the aim will be to dislodge from power, through democratic political action, the supporters of class privilege and the profit system.

We certainly do not believe in "predeterminacy": that all we have to do is sit around and wait for socialism to come. Capitalism certainly paves the way for socialism, but people make history and it is people who will have to make the transformation from capitalism to socialism. What socialists can— and must—do is accelerate this.

In one sense we who are already socialists are a "vanguard": we have become socialists before the rest. We are certainly a minority. But the question is: how should that minority act? Lenin’s answer (echoed today by the myriad Leninist. Trotskyist. Maoist, etc. groups throughout the world) was that it should seek to lead the workers; this was reinforced by his (mistaken) assumption that the mass of workers were not in fact capable of understanding socialism anyway and was accompanied by advocacy of a rigidly centralised and top-down form of organisation. This is what "vanguardism" generally means and what we mean by it when we denounce it.

The answer we give as to what a socialist minority should do is that socialists should seek to “agitate, educate and organise" workers for socialism. This is based on the assumption that not only can workers understand socialism but that a majority of them must before socialism can be established. It follows from this that seeking to be a leadership cannot advance the cause of socialism, only the spread of socialist knowledge can. It also follows that Socialists should organise themselves, not as an elite general staff, but as an open democratic party, so prefiguring the mass socialist party they expect to emerge and indeed so prefiguring the inevitably democratic nature of a socialist society.

Is the idea of a world-wide revolution realistic? Why not? After all, capitalism is already a world-wide system, in fact it is now more than ever a single world system. Even theorists of capitalism are beginning to recognise this with their talk of "globalisation". They are right. What it means is that if global capitalism is to be replaced it can only be replaced globally, by another global system, world socialism.

It is up to those who think it unlikely that when the idea of (world) socialism catches on it will do so more or less evenly in all parts of the world to explain why they think it will catch on first in some countries before others (and in which). To us, the more realistic supposition is that of an even growth, because conditions are essentially the same everywhere and because socialism is the idea of a world society (and also, of course, because the international socialist movement will be consciously working to try to ensure an even development of socialist ideas).

Capitalist-imperialist development has certainly held back the development of many parts of the world, but remember socialism is not something that is (or could be) established separately in different countries one by one; it is a world system. Like capitalism. When we socialists say that the resources of the world are (more than) sufficient to eliminate world hunger and poverty and provide a decent life for the whole world's population we are talking about productive resources on a world scale.

Editors