The left and general elections
Steve Wallis
newspaper (www.cpgb.org.uk), which will hopefully appear in Thursday's
issue:
John Masters (Letters, October 1) admitted he was wrong to exclude
former Militant MPs Dave Nellist and the late Terry Fields from his
analysis of the 1992 general election, and that including them would
have led to an average of 1,370 for left-wing candidates, exceeding
the 1,000 mark he said had not been reached since 1966.
However, his analysis is still flawed because, according to Wikipedia,
the 20 non-Militant far left candidates in that election were of tiny
sects - the Workers Party, Revolutionary Communist Party and Communist
Party of Great Britain (PCC). It is frankly ridiculous to equate such
electoral forays with that of Militant (which obtained over 5,900 for
all three candidates) or the far more important left unity projects
which stood in later elections, specifically the Socialist Alliance,
Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and Respect. These projects largely
arose due to the successes of Militant (including Scottish Militant
Labour's Tommy Sheridan who he did count) in that election.
Militant did so well in the 1992 general election due to its role in
leading the mass non-payment campaign which had by then defeated the
poll tax. I joined Militant during that campaign, in 1990, when it was
proving itself serious rather than just urging people not to pay. I
left the Socialist Party of England and Wales (which it had become) in
1998, due to its shift towards sectarianism and to expose
infiltration, which I believed was behind its failure to support the
establishment of the SSP. I'd argue that the presence of significant
forces within these broad formations and Marxist organisations within
them not committed to achieving socialism are a major reason for their
problems since.
Masters' pessimism about opportunities in the upcoming general
election is not justified either. Mainstream politicians are more
unpopular than ever due to the expenses scandal (which is in the
headlines again), the credit crunch has exposed the flaws in the
capitalist economic system (which would make socialism popular if
argued for skillfully) and the main parties promise a future of
massive cuts hitting the living standards of ordinary working and
middle class people.
Whatever programmes socialists put forward at the next general
election, we must say where the money will come from to be seen as
credible. And I say, use the money left from the massive bank bailouts
- by nationalising all banks, only compensating pension schemes! And
more power should be in the hands of borrowers and savers than workers
(but the trade unions and government should have representatives on
the boards).
But be warned - David Cameron, in his speech at the Tory conference,
has prepared the ground for a big attack on welfare, particularly
single parents, by highlighting the case of a single mother with two
children earning £150 a week who would only receive an extra 4p with a
£1 pay rise. Also, elements within the BBC are encouraging fascism by
allowing BNP leader Nick Griffin MEP on Question Time and providing
biased coverage of the English Defence League (EDL). National BBC TV
and radio news said 2,000 EDL supporters protested in Manchester on
Saturday without mentioning the protesters opposing them (a local BBC
text report said there were 700 EDL supporters and 1,400 on the Unite
Against Fascism counter-protest) and Jeremy Paxman cut off an
interviewee on the October 12 Newsnight when he started talking about
anti-fascists.
--
Steve Wallis (Manchester, England)
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philip....@ntlworld.com
snip
> Masters' pessimism about opportunities in the upcoming general
> election is not justified either. Mainstream politicians are more
> unpopular than ever due to the expenses scandal (which is in the
> headlines again), the credit crunch has exposed the flaws in the
> capitalist economic system (which would make socialism popular if
> argued for skillfully) and the main parties promise a future of
> massive cuts hitting the living standards of ordinary working and
> middle class people.
communist organisations are either now so sold out to capitalism or so
parochial so as to be of no relevance.
On top of that the struggle is utterly one sided since the capitalists
control the press, the process and the enforcement of law and order.
> Whatever programmes socialists put forward at the next general
> election, we must say where the money will come from to be seen as
> credible. And I say, use the money left from the massive bank bailouts
> - by nationalising all banks, only compensating pension schemes! And
> more power should be in the hands of borrowers and savers than workers
> (but the trade unions and government should have representatives on
> the boards).
never win an election playing by the rules set by those who wish to preserve
their power.
When a truly socialist movement gets power it will promptly scrap the
currency that has been used up to that point. Thus making it impossible for
existing cash wealth to be moved out of the country and it will seize all
the assets of the wealthy.
There should be zero personal borrowing, the use of debt is what empowers
the capitalist system and makes slaves of the workers. All the wealth and
the power to produce it is ours, the issue is simple. Work or starve and
those that work will not need to borrow money since the essentials of life
will be freely distributed to all the workers.
As for saying that the workers should have less say than people who are
empowering capitalism (lending and borrowing at interest on 10x the asset
they have) what sort of capitalist nonsense is that?
We don't want to run the banks we wish to close them down. There is the need
for only one bank and that should operate on a no interest basis on both
deposits and any other transactions.
There are 3 things we need to create
1) A just legal system
2) A democratic government
3) A socialist economy
The capitalists and rich will never agree to these things so we will not ask
them. Instead we must take them from them and empower the working man to
seize his destiny.
You are asking turkeys and wannabe turkeys to vote for Christmas when you
expect to gain a socialist state by using the means of our enemy to control
us.
Wake up and walk past Starbucks comrades!
Phil