Workers' Weekly V.28 No.22

FOREIGN SECRETARY ROBIN COOK has once again been shooting his mouth off in demanding that Saddam Hussein must give way over UN weapons inspections. He was speaking as the United Nations' chief arms inspector, Richard Butler, made his way back to New York where he is to brief the Security Council on the new "crisis".

The UN team, acting on behalf of the United States in this matter, is pushing for blanket "inspection" to find "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq. The Iraqi government has said that it is determined to get UN sanctions against Iraq lifted, defend Iraq's national interests and halt the injustice against it. It points out that there are now no "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, and while monitoring may be allowed to continue, enough is enough when it comes to further prolonging the "inspection" under which the team, primarily Americans, arrogantly trample all over Iraq.

Demonstration against war in Iraq, Whitehall, February 14

Robin Cook's response has all the features of a nineteenth century imperialist to whom other nations apart from the Anglo-Saxon "west" constituted the "white man's burden" and needed to be taught to be civilised. Not only this, but Britain has made clear that it is ready once again to rain down bombs on Iraq, on the basis of the medievalist doctrine that "might makes right". Robin Cook refers to the "Iraqi government's antics", treating the sovereign state of Iraq in an entirely non-serious manner, indeed as though the Iraqis were sub-human, which of course is what exposes the thinking of the British government and its "ethical foreign policy" and its contempt of international legality.

Robin Cook continues to peddle the lies about Iraq and foster as a given that Iraq possesses "weapons of mass destruction". There is no such evidence. The UN inspection team itself has already combed virtually every inch of Iraq, including agricultural land. In any case, it is not continued monitoring that the Iraqi regime is at present objecting to, but the pretext that it is necessary to continue to scour the country for these weapons so as to block the lifting of sanctions. Britain, together with the US, is also blocking the oil-for-food deal with the UN, according to an Iraqi Trade Ministry source. "The US and British representatives … have suspended 22 contracts for food, medicine and other essentials," the official Iraqi News Agency quoted the source as saying on July 28. It added: "The value of the suspended contracts totalled $120,227,934. … The US administration and its ally the British government are still intensifying their anti-Iraq efforts by their mass-killing policy to claim lives of as many children, elderly and women as possible."

The resolution adopted by the UN Security Council on March 2 ended many of the sanctions imposed on Iraq at the conclusion of the 1991 Gulf War, and marked a peaceful resolution to the crisis at that time. But it appears that the US and Britain find it sticks in their gullets to proceed to the entire lifting of sanctions without placing obstructions at every step of the way, while continuing to put the entire onus of the blame on Iraq.

The British working class must demand that the government stop its arrogant behaviour based on outdated conceptions of Britain lording it on the world stage and come down to earth. The government's criminal behaviour towards Iraq is of a piece with its refusal to place the wellbeing of the people in this country at the centre of decision-making, and underlines the necessity for the working class to make a clean break with the programme of New Labour.

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NATIONAL CONSULTATIVE CONFERENCE

The Present Situation Nationally and Internationally

The following are some of the points made in the paper on the present situation, nationally and internationally, presented to the first session of the National Consultative Conference of RCPB(ML) on July 18 by a member of the Central Committee.

The speaker began by saying that on March 19, 1994, the Party had presented for discussion its draft general line entitled There Is a Way Out of the Crisis. In this document, he pointed out, the Party had stated that its main preoccupation remained seeking a way out of the deepening all-sided crisis. The then Conservative government of John Major claimed that there was no way out of the crisis except by subordinating the interests of the whole society and all individuals to those of "business". Such policies had only deepened the crisis. There could be no other way out of the crisis except in rejecting the government's policies and charting a course which puts the people's wellbeing at the centre. A change in the direction of government policy and in the motive of production, in accordance with the needs of the people, would be the starting point for deep-going reforms which are necessary to get the society out of the present crisis, and construct a modern socialist society.

The speaker went on to say that today, in 1998, it must be stated that not so much despite a change of government with the election of Tony Blair but because of a change of government the issue remains the same. The election of New Labour has been the lifeline of the bourgeoisie. The demand remains that the interests of society and all individuals be subordinated to those of "business", to those of the financial oligarchy and the great monopolies, even more to the success of "business" in the global market. The all-sided crisis of the society has only deepened. The anti-social offensive against the people has intensified. The great class struggle in society continues to be around the question of the "cuts". It remains a great struggle between those who want to withdraw all public guarantees, who want to push society back towards medievalism, who are robbing the state treasury and holding back progress for their own benefit, against those who are fighting to increase the public guarantees, and go forward to a modern society which fully provides for the needs, the wellbeing, the lives and liberties of all.

THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION

Referring to the international situation, the speaker said that the final collapse of pseudo-socialism in the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar division of the world at the turn of the present decade was accompanied by an unprecedented attack not only on communism but also on everything progressive. This made clear, he said, that the present period is one of retreat of revolution, within the overall era of imperialism and proletarian revolution. The big powers, led by the United States, had set out to impose on the peoples of the whole world their "free market" economy, political pluralism, and concept of "human rights" based on private property, as set out in the Paris Charter. The medieval principle of "Might Makes Right" was taken up with a vengeance, and all the agreements made at the end of the Second World War of territorial integrity, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, peaceful coexistence of different systems, and so on, were not only ignored but blatantly declared to be no longer applicable in the modern world. The result, as was all too clear, was not world peace, stability and prosperity, but precisely the opposite.

These last years of the 1990s are characterised by growing disequilibrium, arbitrariness and sharpening contradictions between the big powers as they jockey for position and struggle to redivide the world. The dangers of a new world war are becoming more evident. At the same time, the factors for revolution are also growing. The contradiction between imperialism and the oppressed peoples has not disappeared. The contradiction between labour and capital remains unresolved. In fact, it continues to sharpen, particularly in the advanced capitalist countries, on the political questions, especially on the right to govern, and in the economic sphere on the question of guarantees of social wellbeing. There are signs that the working class, which has taken centre stage in all the great battles of the 20th century, is once again emerging to play its role in history. The fundamental contradiction of the epoch remains that between capitalism and socialism and the objective conditions are ripe for the creation of a new system.

One indication that this is so is seen in the fact that, faced with a growing revolt against the Thatcherite-Reaganite neo-liberal policies, in a whole number of countries the bourgeoisie has once again turned to its agency social democracy, to so-called "Left" governments or Left-Centre Coalitions, to pull the chestnuts from the fire. In India, France, Poland, Albania and others, the bourgeoisie has seen that such administrations can be a device to carry on the anti-social offensive against the people, to achieve the same economic and political aims, but beneath the cloak of reform and bringing "fairness" and "justice" into government.

To be concluded in the next issue

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Conscious Participation

The following deals with the important problem of conscious participation which was taken up in an intervention given at the National Consultative Conference. The intervention has been edited to clarify this theme. It was made as a contribution to the discussion in the session dealing with the role and work of RCPB(ML) at the present time.

It is important to get to the profundity of our thinking, to get to what is the thinking behind these programmes we are developing, what are our guiding principles. We say very often that in putting forward our programme for the class and working out a programme for the Party, we have to be guided by the most advanced thinking. For example, we talk about modern definitions. Some people say, why do you need these modern definitions, what is wrong with the old definitions? Lenin set out what the Party is, surely that is enough? However, it is clear that Lenin himself was not simply taking over the work of Marx and Engels, which was appropriate to the particular conditions of their time. Lenin developed and built on the work of Marx and Engels. He responded to the particular problems of his age and solved them. So we are faced with the problems of our time. It does not mean we in any way go against any of the Leninist principles. But, as the 20th century comes to its conclusion, we are faced with very particular issues. In tackling them, we take into account the experience of the whole of the century and of the whole of the movement, being alive particularly to the developments since Lenin's time.

One question, one principle, which is extremely important is that of the empowerment of the working class and people, that is, of people themselves having the power to make all the decisions which affect their lives and actually doing so. Our Draft Programme speaks about how the working class itself has to elaborate this programme for the working class, has to make it its own. With our newspaper, we do not say that this is an instrument by which we, the experts, are going to come to the workers to provide them with their ready-made consciousness. Our theoretical consideration here is that the revolutionary consciousness of the workers has to come from within, not from without.

This is a very profound question. If you look at the experience of the 20th century, what you can say is that communism came into being, in the sense that a socialist workers' state was set up in the Soviet Union. It made the most unprecedented advances in world history. Then it suffered a setback, and now the whole thing has gone. What do we learn from that? The bourgeoisie tells us that what you learn from that is that communism simply does not work. It is a jolly good idea and any decent person would like such a thing to happen, but we are human beings, we fight each other and we are out for our own interests. That is not our assessment. The fact is that as communists we look at this set-back to see what we must learn from it, which means that as we carry on the fight for socialism – because none of the problems of society have been solved which communism emerged to solve – what conclusions do we draw so that the next time we profit from summing up that experience. This is far from being a question of saying, oh yes, now we find Stalin made this mistake or that mistake, and then having these great debates which actually go on in some political circles – was Stalin right in 1936 to do this or was he wrong to do that – and these arguments rage and rage. Great meetings are held. Stalin has been dead for over 40 years now. Defence of Stalin in that sense is not the issue. History has already recorded what Stalin's achievements were. One thing that has to be said in looking back – and this is in no way to attack the achievements of socialism – is that, as fellow communists, we have to look at that period and see what the problems were that had come up for solution but which were not solved. History has laid it on us, the communists of today, to solve these problems. For instance, there was a workers' state in the Soviet Union. Then under Gorbachev and before, they started to sell off this state to western investors and others. Did the workers rise up and say, what is going on, this is our state, we own all this property! How can you sell this building in Moscow to McDonalds or whatever? It is ours! No such thing happened in Albania either, where they tried to learn the lessons of revisionism, from 1990 on when they started selling off the state enterprises. The workers there did not rise up precisely at that time and seize guns and say, look, we are not having this, you simply cannot do this.

The point is that in these places it was not absolutely in the consciousness of the workers that this is our state, this is our property, and nobody is going to touch it. So the question comes up of the consciousness of the workers and other sections of the people that they actually run the society. If you look at the achievements of the Soviet Union, which were of course massive – on the question of the nationalities, of raising the country from destitution after the first world war, of victory over fascism, one of the greatest victories – all those are recorded. But problems did arise which were not solved and which in the end led to the downfall of the Soviet Union. For instance, they had the most modern constitution in the world, but had not solved in practice the question, which particularly needed to be addressed from 1950 on, of how people actually govern themselves. By governing themselves is meant that they are not represented by anybody, but in fact run the country themselves. They actually decide what their wages are going to be and how the economy is to be run. That should have been the next stage. But from Khrushchev on the society was taken in an opposite direction. The people were actually deprived of power.

Now take this country. The issue poses itself as to how a political process can be organised where the people actually govern themselves. The present political system we have stretches back for as long as 350 years. It is the system of the men of property, and the people have no say whatsoever. This question of people actually participating on that broad scale is crucial. And it is crucial at every level. The Internationalists made a very important step forward by raising the question that in a communist party, one major issue is that everybody has to participate in reaching decisions, and then in implementing them. They put forward the slogan, Understanding Requires the Conscious Participation of the Individual, An Act of Finding Out. It is not enough in a communist party these days to simply "follow the line" – that the Party has its general line and you merely say, oh, I agree with the line, that is fine. That is no longer sufficient at this historical period when the socialist system is no longer a given. Things have to be taken beyond this conception when the issue is to lead the way out of the crisis, as our general line declares.

The point here is that there must be a thinking out, a deepening and broadening of the general line in the course of revolutionary practice. It is this role that gives the communist party of the present period its quality. The communist party actually has to be transformed into that political force which will become the instrument of the empowerment of the working class and people. It can be said that the task of the Party is to make the working class conscious of its historic role of building socialism, while it is the working class itself which will accomplish this task. If we bring the discussion back to the question of the role and work of the Party at the present time, the question must then be asked, within that framework, what must the Party be concentrating on. The programme that we have put forward for the working class is summed up in the Draft Programme. The instrument for building the Party into a vibrant political force and for getting the working class to take up the programme as its own, and for forging the vital link between the two, is the Party's newspaper Workers' Weekly.

To consolidate that instrument is the vital task of the moment. This is what we have chosen and we stick to this plan. It does not matter what anyone tells us, we should run here, run there, protest here, protest there, help this section, help that section. We doggedly say, our programme is Improve the Content, Extend the Readership. You can give us any argument you want. We will listen to it. But we are absolutely convinced. Our focus has to be our paper. While we wholeheartedly agree with putting the people's concerns at the centre of our considerations, we are not going to be diverted from our focus precisely because without this focus everything else will be lost.

The question of conscious participation applies also in our basic organisations. They implement the guideline that everyone has to participate in making the decisions. If a decision is to be made, you have to give your view and participate and then when the decision has been arrived at you have to participate in implementing it. When you make decisions that way you will carry them out because they are your decisions. In other words, the crucial element is that of participating in arriving at decisions in order to guarantee that they are implemented. And we work to develop this principle throughout the whole society because without it it is not possible to take control of one's life. Fighting for this principle goes against the whole pressure that you don't participate in the polity, that everyone should be marginalised. You should leave it to those who know better, people with billions, the Rupert Murdochs and Tony Blairs of the world. You should rely on them. They've been trained to do these things, they've got the wealth and the power. Even this conference embodies this principle. We're developing something new here. It is not that the Central Committee comes and says this is our programme, do you agree or don't you agree. The Central Committee puts the positions forward and everyone is encouraged to participate on the basis of these positions. Everyone has the opportunity to give their views and every view is appreciated and respected, and contributes to enriching the discussion and elaborating the line and programme. That is what our rules of procedure are for. At the same time we preserve the Leninist principle of democratic centralism. It is, for example, the Central Committee in between congresses that leads the work of the Party. But we are building a modern communist party which takes into consideration the most advanced thinking of this century. At the end of last century you couldn't even have had a party of that type. But at the close of the 20th century, this is the way a modern communist party has to be organised and it is a principle which goes through all of the work.

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Conference

Dear Editor,

Although work would have gone on had there been no conference, it would not have been with what now invigorates it through and through with the inspirational content of the conference. Nothing could have been more timely; nothing more apposite or more a presage of a healthy political future for the Party.

Past political events had a significance and a continuity for the Party that sustains it and were links in a chain unbroken in its forward movement, but this event achieved such a completeness of purpose with its inspiring political testament from the platform and its contributions from Party activists and guest speakers enlivening the conference, it could be said to be a new threshold on the path to the emancipation of the working class and people from the increasing oppression of the capitalist system.

We salute the Party, and along with such documents the Draft Programme that have already been our guide to action, look to the political content of the conference for guidance now and in the future.

From South London activists,

With greetings to all Party activists and Workers' Weekly readers.

A Model of How Issues Should Be Addressed

Dear Workers Weekly,

The African and Caribbean Progressive Study Group (ACPSG) wishes to send its greetings to RCPB(ML) and to express our thanks for the invitation to your recent National Consultative Conference. In our view this was an extremely timely and important meeting for the Party, and showed that the entire Party is making strenuous efforts to solve the most pressing political problems of the day.

Indeed, we consider that it was a unique event, it presented a model of how political issues and all problems should be addressed in society. It created a forum where, on the basis on their experience, the Party's activists and supporters could all contribute through discussion to summing up the Party's work and to charting the way forward for the Party and society as a whole. In this discussion all the participants had equal rights and were treated accordingly. The national minority communities and their organisations were well represented and played a full part throughout the proceedings and in all the discussions. We in the ACPSG were able to share our experiences and present our views, and at the same time learned from the experiences and views of other participants.

In conclusion, we would like to say that we were greatly encouraged by the support we have received from the RCPBML and from Workers' Weekly for our work and for our publication Progress. We are firmly committed to continue and strengthen our work and look forward to working with RCPBML in the future.

African and Caribbean Progressive Study Group

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NEWS OF THE FIREFIGHTERS:

Surrey Review Agreed

Surrey County Council backed down in their plan to cut back on firefighting services. In response, the Surrey firefighters have called off their planned series of strikes which were due to begin on August 4.

The Surrey Fire Brigades Union and the Surrey County Council agreed on July 30 at talks at the conciliation service ACAS that a review of the service would be undertaken, to be completed on December 1. The Surrey Authority has pledged not to go ahead with the cuts in services and the loss of 52 jobs until the review has been carried out, even if in the meantime the Home Secretary agrees the cuts, as he did in the case of the Essex Combined Fire Authority. Essex FBU Branch Secretary Paul Adams said: "The Surrey councillors should be proud of themselves for listening to public opinion and acting upon it in such a sensible and positive way."

The Essex firefighters are still continuing with their series of strikes, and their 22nd one-day strike is taking place until 1.00pm today, August 8. Talks between the Essex FBU and the Essex Authority have led to a dead-end, since the Authority said it had nothing new to offer. Essex FBU spokesperson Keith Handscomb said: "It is quite clear that the councillors neither understand nor care about the extreme dangers caused by their cuts or about the public feeling against them."

Services are under threat across the country because of the cuts in revenue by the Labour government to local authorities, who then try to make "savings" in essential services. The government then turns round and washes its hands of the matter by claiming that the allocation of resources is a matter for the local authorites and that fire services must be subject to the same "financial disciplines" as all other local authority services. Furthermore, they blame the firefighters when they take a stand against such cuts for adding an "additional burden" on resources.

This underlines the necessity for the working class and people to become the decision-makers in society, when they can then put the well-being of the people at the centre of all decision making.

The Aims of the Fire Brigades Union

"The immediate aims of the Fire Brigades Union are to serve its members by winning for them the best possible conditions and to serve the community by encouraging its members to be skilled at their craft.

"The Fire Brigades Union recognises that workers, however employed, can only improve their lot by their own endeavours and organisation. A richer and fuller life can be achieved only by similar means.

"To this end the Fire Brigades Union is part of the working-class movement and, linking itself with the international trade union movement, has as its ultimate aim the bringing about of the Socialist system of society."

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Condemnation of Genocidal Sanctions against Iraqi People

OPPOSITION has continued in recent months to the genocidal policy of the US government against Iraq and actions taken in opposition to the punitive sanctions. Eighty-two delegates participated in the Iraq Sanctions Challenge, delivering more than $4 million in donated medicines to Iraq on May 6-13.

The International Action Centre based on New York condemned the sanctions as follows: "UNSCOM has carried out 7,800 inspections and visits looking for Iraqi weapons in the last seven and a half years and they have been cynically used as a pretext to carry out a genocidal policy that has killed more than 1.5 million Iraqis from hunger and disease. In the name of eliminating weapons of mass destruction, US/UN sanctions are actually a device to strangle Iraq's economy, destabilise the country and then overthrow the current government and replace it with a client regime.

"The US government's criminal policy has succeeded in killing many people but it has failed in accomplishing its political objectives. The Iraqi people feel that their very sovereignty and independence are at stake and consequently their anger is directed at the perpetuators of the sanctions policy. "Moreover, even those Arab governments that are seen as US allies in the Middle East are alarmed about the seething anger from their own masses who want this slaughter ended. It is really the growing world-wide movement of tens of millions of people that is forcing the US and UN to adopt a different political posture toward sanctions."

The IAC held a protest on July 11 in New York, demonstrating against US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, as one of the architects of US foreign policy against Iraq.

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For Your Reference

NATO in the Balkans

MORE THAN 100,000 US and NATO troops are surrounding Yugoslavia. There are now NATO bases in Croatia, Bosnia, Hungry, Italy, Albania, and Macedonia. They are backed up by missiles, tanks, fighter jets, and aircraft carriers. This force represents the biggest war build-up since the 1991 US destruction of Iraq.

It is reported that US President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair talked for 30 minutes by telephone on August 6 about the situation in Kosova. "They discussed ways to increase the pressure on Milosevic and ways to put a stop to the offensive that is going on," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said. Lockhart said the two leaders agreed that a negotiated solution to the conflict was preferable but that contingency planning for dealing with Kosova was "intensifying" within the NATO military alliance. Defence Department spokesman Ken Bacon told reporters that NATO contingency plans for possible military intervention in the Kosova crisis were "largely done". On August 7, a NATO diplomat in Brussels said that the alliance had finalised planning for possible air operations. NATO sources have said that the alliance was ploughing on with these military plans, and are determined that Russia, which has up to now rejected NATO intervention, should not prevent military action. If it continued to oppose them, NATO reasons, Russia would become isolated and pressurised to act.

The Pentagon announced on August 6 that NATO and European troops will hold exercises in Albania in the week from August 17 to 22, and in Macedonia from September 10 to 18. Both countries border Kosova. The military exercises would involve forces from a large number of NATO countries and European nations under the NATO alliance's "Partnership for Peace" programme. In Brussels, NATO's Military Committee said forces from 14 countries, including Russia, would take part in the exercises in Albania, called "Co-operative Assembly". It named the countries as Albania, Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the United States.

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