In thr same edition, Simon “Ted Crilly” Basketter writes of the Catholic Church:
Over a billion people will hope the new pope can put the
scandals and schisms of recent years away. It is unlikely. The
ongoing child abuse cover ups, for instance, will not simply
disappear
Well the numbers of those hoping for a benign resolution for the SWP crisis are much smaller, but similarly the stench of scandal will not go away.
Karl Stewart on said:
There must be a rogue oppositionist infiltrated into SWP Towers.
Jellytot on said:
No sense of irony or self awareness whatsoever
‘Irony’ and ‘Self-awareness’ are bourgeois.
Brianthedog on said:
#3 I was going to say given the make up of the SWP CC that bourgeois should come easy and then realised that that its far too lowly a class from them.
Jon Fanning on said:
Andy Newman: Simon “Ted Crilly” Basketter writes of the Catholic Church
when the old pope visited Simon wrote about the atheist demonstrators “while someone who actually a victim of abuse might have grounds for demonatrating that is not the case here” (not an exact quote) but it is a very bizzare view of who should demonstrate over anything.
Karl Stewart on said:
Someone I know who has left SWP following the gerrymandered conference told me that the SWP’s Unite “fraction” wanted to back Len McCluskey in the Unite GS election, but that they were over-ruled by the SWP CC, who imposed support for Jerry Hicks.
If this is true, then isn’t there an irony here?
Karl Stewart on said:
…or would that be a paradox?
Lurker on said:
#6 Correct.
Karl Stewart on said:
If it’s true, then someone should tell Hicks.
Hicks is all for rank and file democracy, and he’s opposed to unaccountable leaders imposing policies on the membership.
Dan on said:
Are you claiming something has happened in the SWP analagous to the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic church? For sure? You want to go on record with that or is it just speculation that’s never been proven in court?
Currently being circulated on Facebook, a status update from Alex Callinicos:
LETTER TO ORGANIZING COMMITTEE OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM CONFERENCE, DELHI
25 March 2013
Dear Organizing Committee,
I was very surprised to receive your communication. You ask me ‘to withdraw [my] decision to attend’. But I only made that decision in response to an invitation to participate in your conference. So what you are in fact doing is withdrawing your invitation, as is indicated by the fact that you have already deleted me from the conference programme. I think you should take full responsibility for the decision you are actually taking.
I understand of course how important the issue of rape and sexual violence is in India, especially after last December’s gang rape and murder in Delhi. It is also a very important question in Britain, and for me personally, as it is for the Socialist Workers Party. We are strongly committed to women’s liberation. We took the rape allegations against a leading member extremely seriously; the controversy over how the party handled these allegations is indicative of that seriousness. The special conference that we recently held to resolve this controversy has set up a committee to review our procedures, and we intend to use this to reinforce our efforts to combat the oppression of women.
It is not for me to judge how grave the danger of disruption to your conference is. But an appeal circulated by an academic at JNU does not reflect well intellectually or morally on those agitating against my presence at the conference. This document is a farrago of nonsense that treats allegations as proven fact, cites tendentious opinion pieces as ‘reports’, and includes the laughable assertion that ‘the journal Historical Materialism is allied, and … is known to be principally operated by Socialist Workers Party members and supporters’.
Since this is a conference sponsored by Historical Materialism, let me remind you that I am a longstanding supporter of the journal and, along with Marxist intellectuals of many political tendencies, a member of its International Advisory Board. I have tried to support HM’s development both in Britain and internationally. Your decision damages HM’s commitment to promote Marxist theoretical development independently of organized political alignments.
So I regret your decision – not just for this reason, but also because I value my long-standing connections with the Marxist intellectual left in India. In taking this decision, based directly or indirectly on interested misrepresentations of debates inside the SWP, you run the risk of compromising your own intellectual and political integrity.
This is to say nothing of the personal inconvenience and expense you are exposing me to by withdrawing your invitation a week after you had circulated a programme that included me as chairing one session and speaking at another, and barely a week before I was due to fly to India. This is quite unacceptable in what is meant to be an academic conference, and it is also not how socialists should behave towards one another.
Disentangling the Delhi HM Conference from the SWP Crisis
26 March
Statement from the organising group of the Delhi HM conference
Over the past few days there have been suggestions that the journal Historical Materialism (HM) is run by Britain’s Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), that the SWP is associated with the Delhi HM Conference on 3–5 April 2013, and that in light of the rape crisis in the SWP, the Delhi HM conference should be boycotted or disrupted.
Both propositions underlying the boycott and disruption call are absolutely false. HM has always been an independent journal, and is not controlled by the SWP or any other group. Three out of the 12-member Editorial Board were members of the SWP. During the recent controversy, all three have resigned their membership of the party in support of democracy and gender rights. Furthermore, there is no connection whatsoever between the SWP and the Delhi HM conference.
Participation at HM conferences across the world has always covered a wide spectrum of left-wing political thought. The Delhi HM conference includes participants from India and abroad and will continue this tradition of plurality. Members of the organising group of the Delhi HM conference, which is broadly Left in its composition, believe that equality between the sexes is central to building ‘new cultures of the Left’. This struggle must address violence against women wherever it occurs. Since the recent crisis in the SWP involves rape charges, it caused deep disquiet amongst us.
The bulk of the preparations for the conference, including the selection of submissions, took place well before the recent SWP controversy, yet the fact that one out of around 140 papers selected was by an SWP Central Committee member was used in the disinformation campaign against the Conference. As the success of the Conference is the organising group’s prime concern and we have no wish to be associated with the crisis of any other group, we asked the sole member of the SWP CC who was to attend the conference not to attend. The HM Conference remains an open event and its organisers cannot prevent the entry or exit of participants or stop anyone who chooses to speak from the floor of the Conference discussions from doing so.
Dilip Simeon
Gautam Mody
Harsh Kapoor
Kamal Chenoy
Rohini Hensman
Rosa Basanti
(On behalf of the Delhi Conference organising group) 26/3/2013
Thanks for posting that John. Looks to me like the organising committee have acted very sensibly in the circumstances.
Karl Stewart on said:
Now the decent socialists have left, the remaining SWP members are like a bunch of sheep being herded around by a pack of wolves.
SWP = The Sheep & Wolves Party.
Pardeep on said:
This is pretty much an obsession for this site isn’t it. Meanwhile the world is collapsing around us.
John Grimshaw on said:
#10 Are you claiming something has happened in the Catholic Church analogous to the alleged sexual abuse scandals in the SWP? For sure? You want to go on record with that or is it just speculation thats never been proven in court?
brainwash on said:
“We took the rape allegations against a leading member extremely seriously; the controversy over how the party handled these allegations is indicative of that seriousness.”
Callinicos is being about as dishonest as its possible to be here. The controversy was entirely about how the SWP do NOT take rape and its victims seriously.
John Grimshaw on said:
#10 Dan, I am not aware of anyone here (I could be wrong) actually convicting “comrade Delta”, or anyone else, of a serious crime. Rather there has been general disgust at the way an allegation has been handled. So yes there is an irony in Tim’s cartoon. The SWP appears to be accusing the Catholic Church (although I suspect you could easily choose the Orthodox etc.) of dealing with its issues in-house (for reasons I couldn’t possibly speculate on) whilst somewhat hypocritically doing the same itself.
John Grimshaw on said:
Pardeep:
This is pretty much an obsession for this site isn’t it. Meanwhile the world is collapsing around us.
I’m “obsessed” with the fact that the SWP is an undemocratic bureaucratic organisation which is doing serious damage to the British left when “the world around us is collapsing.” Well it isn’t quite actually but the working class is getting a good hammering.
brokenwindow on said:
18#
Don’t mention the Catholic church or you’ll have the Cardinal running from confession to protect it.
I understand the story – microscopically small party on Far Left exposed as being undemocratic – but most cults are,aren’t they? Why the continued hoo haa about it all. Mark Steel didn’t answer the main question about this party in his piece;why stick around for SO long? I think this party obviously gives people something they need psychologically. Nothing else explains its existence. Time to move on – if you pull back your curtains you’ll see a full-blown recession and if you listen,you’ll hear people being robbed by the government while the opposition twiddle their thumbs.Priorities…
John R: Disentangling the Delhi HM Conference from the SWP Crisis
This idiotic decision does exactly the opposite. And it gives Callinicos, whose role as party manager in this affair demeans him and the SWP, an opportunity to pose as a victim of a witch hunt.
Couldn’t disagree more Nick. I’ve never heard of this conference or the organisation and I doubt many others have either. But well done to them – an exampole for us all.
Let the likes of Alex “Lynch Mob” Calinicos whine all he wants – I think it’s great to see this pathetic bully getting a taste of his own medicine.
Thanks for the link Nick – looks like a fun-packed weekend and I can see why someone would be upset at not being able to go.
But come on Nick, some arrogant, bullying sect-leader having to rearrange his travel plans is hardly a “witch-hunt” is it?
Let’s not start buying into his self-important conceits. This is the slef-appointed leader of a disfunctional sect and one that, thankfully, is now in terminal decline.
Nick is right. Of course, it’s up to Historical Materialism who they choose to invite or disinvite. But in general, it is a very bad idea for non-party, broad initiatives of that type to get involved, or appear to get involved, in the factional squabbles of individual parties. Sometimes, “if it’s not your fight, keep out of it” can be a very good principle.
Karl Stewart on said:
Francis King: Sometimes, “if it’s not your fight, keep out of it” can be a very good principle.
It’s not a principle, but it’s certainly a great help for bullies and abusers.
Karl Stewart: Let’s not start buying into his self-important conceits.
Spot-on Karl. I’m sure there will be more of this to come. Actions have consequences…
Manzil on said:
If Callinicos and the SWP are being used to attack Historical Materialism, it makes perfect sense for the organisers to ask him not to attend. Certainly it’s not like anything of value will be lost by missing out on the (I’m sure, stimulating, radical) contributions of the Lord Professor.
HM didn’t just choose to “get involved” in a “factional squabble”. They didn’t want their conference to be undermined by association with a political thug, and good on them. You can’t just separate out ‘academic’ politics from your actual political record – as Jay says, for every action…
I have no time for Callinicos’s distinctive ideological positions and find his handling of the SWP’s rape allegation issue deplorable but the man has a substantial standing as an academic and a theoretician and says some interesting and insightful things in these capacities.
In as far as these ideas can be challenged they should be in the appropriate fora and the HM conference circuit is such. Francis is absolutely right that is up to the Indian organisers of this particular event who they invite and uninvite.
My point is that in withdrawing the invitation they are giving traction to the tactic of the SWP leadership to bury the generally well placed criticism of their conduct as being a witch hunt against them on the basis of their politics.
But Nick, they’re going to deploy the “witchhunt” meme anyway, regardless of what people do. Do you think the left should allow them to play at “business as usual”? Because I don’t. Over the Delta affair, that party crossed a line.
Karl Stewart on said:
Nick Wright,
But Nick, the “witch-hunt” fantasy is something that only exists inside the conceited imaginations of Calinicos and his cronies, and the sheep who continue to submit to them.
I’ve never heard anyone outside the ranks of the SWP praise Calinicos’s ideological contributions before, but now you’ve raised it, let’s see.
Among other recent contributions to Marxist theory…
He told us to “celebrate” the public televised lynching of an African leader in 2011.
He told us that the CIA-sponsored mob who carried out this murder were comparable to the WWII Italisn partisans.
He threatened SWP members who disagreed with their party’s dictatorial leadership with “lynch mobs.”
This is a quite grotesque individual, who appears to be playing the leading role at the helm of a disfunctional, bullying and abusive sect.
As for your claim that he should be invited, despite all this, because of his academic qualification, then if this were the sole criterion, regardless of someone’s grotesque politics, then there would be no reason not to invite a David Irving.
Manzil on said:
But Nick…
(Only joking. Wanted the hat-trick.)
Karl Stewart: I’ve never heard anyone outside the ranks of the SWP praise Calinicos’s ideological contributions before
Well, he can certainly copy & paste from the Financial Times like a pro.
Sam64 on said:
Although Callinicos has had plenty to say – including reference to Historical Materialism board machinations and lynch mobs – within the SWP, it’s significant that he has said nothing publicly to say about his party’s crisis until this: he doesn’t get to go to an international academic conference. Yes, he penned that characteristically self important piece ‘In defence of Leninism’ back in early January, notoriously describing a farcical internal enquiry into rape allegations against a fellow CC member as ‘a difficult disciplinary case’. But since then nothing. I gather that every day he tweets at least one FT link – indicative of his lofty remove from the tiresome antics of those ‘who won’t accept democracy’. Now at last he becomes all declarative on women’s rights and sexual violence.
I too have doubts about blacklisting people – that’s in effect what has happened with this organisation, Historical Materialism. But I’m not sorry that Callinicos has had it brought home to him in a way that perhaps he’ll finally understand – he doesn’t get to pose on an international stage – just how low his and his party’s reputation has fallen and just what a pariah he’s become.
And, oh, couldn’t have happened to a nicer fella…
Jellytot on said:
@29My point is that in withdrawing the invitation they are giving traction to the tactic of the SWP leadership to bury the generally well placed criticism of their conduct as being a witch hunt against them on the basis of their politics.
Given the issues around Rape in India at present I’m not surprised that Indian socialists wouldn’t want to share a platform with the defenders and enablers of Comrade Delta.
And I doubt that any so-called “witch hunt” is to do with politics or political theory per se (for all their posturing the SWP’s politics are fairly safe, benign and ‘reformist-in-practice’) – It’s more to show disapproval and zero tolerance of their twisted and dysfunctional internal set-up.
Karl Stewart: I’ve never heard anyone outside the ranks of the SWP praise Calinicos’s ideological contributions before
You really should read a bit more Karl
Here is a short list of books which will enable you to broaden your critique of Callinicos’s contribution to theory
Books
1976: Althusser’s Marxism (London: Pluto Press) ISBN 0-904383-02-4
1977: Southern Africa after Soweto (with John Rogers) (London: Pluto Press), ISBN 0-904383-42-3
1981: Southern Africa after Zimbabwe (London: Pluto) ISBN 0-86104-336-7
1982: Is there a future for Marxism? (London: Macmillan). ISBN 0-333-28477-1
1983: Marxism and Philosophy (Oxford Paperbacks) (Oxford: Clarendon). ISBN 0-19-876126-0
1983: The revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx (London: Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-09-8
1985: South Africa: the Road to Revolution (Toronto: International Socialists). ISBN 0-905998-55-3
1985: The Great Strike : the miners’ strike of 1984-5 and its lessons (London: Socialist Worker) ISBN 0-905998-50-2
1986: The Revolutionary Road to Socialism (London: Socialist Workers Party). ISBN 0-905998-53-7
1987: The Changing Working Class: Essays on Class Structure Today (with Chris Harman) (London: Bookmarks) ISBN 0-906224-40-3
1988: South Africa Between Reform and Revolution (London: Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-46-2
1988: Making History: Agency, Structure, and Change in Social Theory (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press). ISBN 0-8014-2121-7
1989: Marxist Theory (editor) (Oxford: Oxford University Press). ISBN 0-19-827294-4
1990: Trotskyism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). ISBN 0-8166-1904-2
1991: The Revenge of History: Marxism and the East European Revolutions ISBN 0-271-00767-2
1991: Against Postmodernism: a Marxist critique (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-312-04224-8
1992: Between Apartheid and Capitalism: conversations with South African socialists (editor) (London: Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-68-3
1994: Marxism and the New Imperialism (London ; Chicago, Ill. : Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-81-0
1995: Theories and Narratives (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-1201-6
1995: Race and Class (London: Bookmark Publications). ISBN 0-906224-83-7
1995: Socialists in the trade unions (London: Bookmarks) ISBN 1-898876-01-0
1999: Social Theory: Historical Introduction (New York: New York University Press). ISBN 0-8147-1593-1
2000: Equality (Themes for the 21st Century) (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-2324-7
2002: Against the Third Way (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-2674-2
2003: An anti-Capitalist manifesto (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-2903-2
2003: New Mandarins of American Power: the Bush administration’s plans for the world (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-3274-2
2006: The Resources of Critique (Cambridge: Polity). ISBN 0-7456-3160-6
2009: Imperialism and Global Political Economy (Cambridge, Polity). ISBN 0-7456-4045-1
2010: Bonfire of Illusions: The Twin Crises of the Liberal World (Polity). ISBN 0-7456-4876-2
2012: The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx (Haymarket) ISBN 978-1-6084-6138-7
[edit]Articles
Sam64 on said:
You forgot the revised and updated, 2007 edition of Social Theory, a historical introduction Nick…bloody hell..
Karl Stewart on said:
Nick Wright: You really should read a bit more KarlHere is a short list of books which will enable you to broaden your critique of Callinicos’s contribution to theoryBooks1976: Althusser’s Marxism (London: Pluto Press) ISBN 0-904383-02-41977: Southern Africa after Soweto (with John Rogers) (London: Pluto Press), ISBN 0-904383-42-31981: Southern Africa after Zimbabwe (London: Pluto) ISBN 0-86104-336-71982: Is there a future for Marxism? (London: Macmillan). ISBN 0-333-28477-11983: Marxism and Philosophy (Oxford Paperbacks) (Oxford: Clarendon). ISBN 0-19-876126-01983: The revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx (London: Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-09-81985: South Africa: the Road to Revolution (Toronto: International Socialists). ISBN 0-905998-55-31985: The Great Strike : the miners’ strike of 1984-5 and its lessons (London: Socialist Worker) ISBN 0-905998-50-21986: The Revolutionary Road to Socialism (London: Socialist Workers Party). ISBN 0-905998-53-71987: The Changing Working Class: Essays on Class Structure Today (with Chris Harman) (London: Bookmarks) ISBN 0-906224-40-31988: South Africa Between Reform and Revolution (London: Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-46-21988: Making History: Agency, Structure, and Change in Social Theory (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press). ISBN 0-8014-2121-71989: Marxist Theory (editor) (Oxford: Oxford University Press). ISBN 0-19-827294-41990: Trotskyism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). ISBN 0-8166-1904-21991: The Revenge of History: Marxism and the East European Revolutions ISBN 0-271-00767-21991: Against Postmodernism: a Marxist critique (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-312-04224-81992: Between Apartheid and Capitalism: conversations with South African socialists (editor) (London: Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-68-31994: Marxism and the New Imperialism (London ; Chicago, Ill. : Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-81-01995: Theories and Narratives (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-1201-61995: Race and Class (London: Bookmark Publications). ISBN 0-906224-83-71995: Socialists in the trade unions (London: Bookmarks) ISBN 1-898876-01-01999: Social Theory: Historical Introduction (New York: New York University Press). ISBN 0-8147-1593-12000: Equality (Themes for the 21st Century) (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-2324-72002: Against the Third Way (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-2674-22003: An anti-Capitalist manifesto (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-2903-22003: New Mandarins of American Power: the Bush administration’s plans for the world (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-3274-22006: The Resources of Critique (Cambridge: Polity). ISBN 0-7456-3160-62009: Imperialism and Global Political Economy (Cambridge, Polity). ISBN 0-7456-4045-12010: Bonfire of Illusions: The Twin Crises of the Liberal World (Polity). ISBN 0-7456-4876-22012: The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx (Haymarket) ISBN 978-1-6084-6138-7[edit]Articles
All that and he still get get an invite anywhere!
Jellytot on said:
@35
Although I’m sure that he’d like to, Callinicos cannot divorce his role as a intellectual and author from his position as a leader of a faction within the SWP.
Although he would like to keep these aspects of his life separate and distinct it seems to have caught up with him.
Totally Horrified Ex on said:
Callinicos says: We took the rape allegations against a leading member extremely seriously; the controversy over how the party handled these allegations is indicative of that seriousness
Extraodinary! The controversy was indicative of how seriously the SWP took the allegations!
Yes that’s right. Stallinicos is arguing it was wasn’t caused because they (he) didn’t take the allegations seriously but infact the controversy was evidence of the SWP taking the allegations seriously!
But he told them to shut up. His thugs like Simon Assaf told them they didn’t belong in the party
That’s like burning your neighbours house down and then claiming credit for the fire-brigade heroically saving their granny.
His ego is off the scale.
But may I just add hahahahahahaha!
The chickens are coming home to roost.
Well done HM India. Jai Hind!
Totally Horrified Ex on said:
Nick Wright: This idiotic decision does exactly the opposite… it gives Callinicos… an opportunity to pose as a victim of a witch hunt.
Wrong Nick. There is no witch hunt. This is what we warned you would happen. Geddit?.
But then you supported the CC didn’t you? I’ve seen you bullying people on Facebook. I’ve read your comments telling women who have spent decades in the SWP ‘they should shut up’ because the left in disgust ‘and have no right to comment on internal matters’.
But I would have thought that you know the Malcolm X quote about chickens always coming home to roost.
The SWP always likes to play the witch hunt card. Rees tried it (and failed), you’ll try it no doubt when teachers and parents at your school blank you. It’s all part of your fantasy role play world that you are a ‘revolutionary’ threat to the system and this is all a right wing plot by the lizards. Sorry ‘bosses’.
Writing books which are published by a couple of academic publishers plus Bookmarks doesn’t make you an important person/thinker/human Nick. Apart from only being read by a few hundred people at the most all it proves is Lord Acton got a good education and knows how to play the game he was trained to play.
You may bend your knee and bow your head-we refuse, thanks very much.
Stallinicos has failed massively in his project. You are defending the indefensible again. But like a rat on a sinking ship do I also note your eyes darting around looking for a way off?
Some of the language in this discussion sounds like spurned lovers getting their own back.
If criticism of the SWP’s handling of this issue is couched in the terms used by Totally Horrified Ex above then the central committee is home and dry.
We really should try and be objective about all of this. The SWP have made a series of very bad mistakes and are paying for it.
Some of the points made in the discussion about the relationship between the ideological foundations of the SWP, its internal culture and its, often sectarian, political line seem to me to be very compelling. But beyond all this the kind of politics that the SWP represents goes wider than this particular grouping and has real material roots in the kind of society we live in, in the particular development of capitalism and the history of the left.
To suggest that everything it says and does and the actions of its members is irremediably contaminated by recent events is primitive moralism and bad politics.
There are people I like and respect, and usually disagree with, on both sides of this inner party conflict and I hope they emerge from it wiser and able to make some kind of contribution to political struggle.
I don’t actually have much hope that this will occur for some time because the twin imperatives of maintaining its distinctive political stand and organisational coherence combined with the usual manoeuvrings of party functionaries under siege will inhibit self criticism.
The most damaging political effect will be to further deepen the sectarian character of the organisation. As if we haven’t got enough of this stuff already.
tom on said:
totally horrified ex – I believe you are talking about Nick Grant (SWP and NUT national exec) rather than Nick Wright.
Karl Stewart on said:
I’d say an apology’s in order – over to you Totally Horrified
Morning Star reader on said:
Totally Horrified Ex (40), I think you may be mistaking Nick Wright for someone else on Facebook. Cuddly Stalinist Nick Wright does not work in a school, never has, and isn’t a rat on the sinking ship SS SWP. He’s been a Communist since the age of three. Are you sure it’s his Facebook you’re talking about?
Actually I think people are right here, THEX – Nick Grant behaved pretty badly online and offline, so I think you’ve got the two of them mixed up. Nick Wright has always been cool on here, and if you let him know it was a genuine mistake, I’m pretty sure he’ll be cool about that as well.
Pity poor Nick Grant, forever branded as a cuddly stalinist. He will never live it down
Karl Stewart on said:
Right, now that’s sorted, let’s get back to attacking the real enemy – the SWP!!
John R on said:
FYI, here is a link to the Historical Materialism Editorial Board who include among their number-
“China Miéville is a novelist and writer of non-fiction. His non-fiction works include Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law. His research interests include international law, science fiction and fantasy, cephalopods, and rejectamenta. ”
Karl Stewart: As for your claim that he should be invited, despite all this, because of his academic qualification, then if this were the sole criterion, regardless of someone’s grotesque politics, then there would be no reason not to invite a David Irving.
I know what you are saying – but Irving is a bad example. He isn’t a historian – he is a liar. ( see Richard Evans ‘Telling Lies about Hitler’ its fantastic.)
Callinicos is a readable academic – I have and have read a few of his books. He is not published merely by Bookmarks, or even Pluto, but by much more mainstream publishers, unlike most of the SWP leadership. A couple of years back I read an article by him, a critique of the trajectory of Analytical Marxism, and, though I was no longer politically sympathetic to him, I thought it was a good article. His problem is that of being the last of the old guard within the SWP – I don’t think he’s any sort of natural leader, more suited to being the most intellectual, academic chap within a team; when he had that role within Cliff’s team, all was probably hunky dory (at least for him).
But some have being an arsehole thrust upon them; lacking much of a creative approach, or real leadership qualities, Callinicos has degenerated into providing the intellectual gloss for the SWP. Until now, he has been able to ride two horses at once – hardline CC party man, and considered, thoughtful academic slowly earning a thank-you-very-much professor’s retirement. But it’s falling apart; the two personas are in collision. And he doesn’t like that.
Marxist Lenonist on said:
Respect to the HM India comrades for this correct stance – the first of many such snubs, most likely…
Memory of the party on said:
Spook.
Karl Stewart on said:
Stephen,
Of course Irving is a liar, you’re right. He’s a revolting nazi apologist.
My point there was to take that extreme example to argue against the case that NickW seemed to be making in separating Calinicos’s political theory and political practice.
My point was that it isn’t possible to judge Calinicos the political writer separately from Calinicos the petty dictator who leads an abusive political sect.
I’m not saying it’s impossible for a reactionary to have other talents – if Calinicos were a talented musician or actor with reactionary politics it could be legitimate to say: “OK, his politics stink, but that’s a fantastic tune.” Or: “…but he was brilliant in that action movie.”
But political writing and political leadership can’t be disconnected the one from the other.
anon on said:
Presumably there will be a vacant slot at the conference.
Anyone on here been invited to speak in his place?
Jimmy Wilson on said:
Alex Callinicos doesn’t get to go to India for a conference just because he made a complete balls of a rape allegation. Boo fucking hoo, I can’t afford the bus fare into town because I don’t have a millon qualifications and find myself unable to get a job that pays the National Minimum Wage.
I would have loved to have gone to the Unite The Resistance conference to oppose the bedroom tax last week which was just down the road but I have to keep my bus fares for wait, bedroom tax. When the baliffs come knocking and turn us into criminals Alex Callinicos with his high & mighty false morality and Professor salary might as well be in India because I can’t see him offering any solidarity to the working class. The Prick.
Have you noticed how Callinicos and Eric Honecker were never seen in the same room in the 1980s? Coincidence? I think not.
vanya on said:
Leaving aside the handling of the rape allegation and the lynch mob issue, how does a key leader of an organisation that fails utterly to APPLY historical materialism to its practice or analysis qualify to speak at such an event anyway? Was he going to be putting the case against it?
Jimmy Wilson: Have you noticed how Callinicos and Eric Honecker were never seen in the same room in the 1980s?
Rather unfair, Honecker was a man of real acheivement in difficult crcumstances
Jimmy Wilson on said:
Andy Newman: Rather unfair, Honecker was a man of real acheivement in difficult crcumstances
Yes, he managed to shoot dead a remarkable number of people fleeing his utopia despite them running very very fast. A real man of the people worthy of a double page spread in “Hello” and a seat on the GMTV sofa.
Jellytot on said:
@62
A rather “Daily Telegraph” POV ‘Jimmy Wilson’.
He also gave material assistance to genuine national liberation struggles in places like Angola and supported the fight of the oppressed around the world.
…. the failure of an organization like the SWP to appreciate the importance of feminism programmatically creates a fertile soil for the sort of sexist culture in a left party
that perpetuates and defends itself just as does any patriarchal and bureaucratic institution of capitalism.
What has happened to the SWP over the last several months shows
conclusively that a revolutionary party will rise or fall to the degree that it addresses the key political issues of its time. In this case, the issue is the right of all women to be free of sexual violence and harassment. The inability of SWP leaders to deal with this issue compassionately, democratically, and with an understanding of the
corrupting qualities of male privilege is a leadership failure of profound proportions.
Jellytot: He also gave material assistance to genuine national liberation struggles in places like Angola and supported the fight of the oppressed around the world.
Nick Wright: Jimmy, which of your heroes spent their mature years in a Nazi prison before leading a socialist state?
I’m not a Daily Telegraph reader or a right-winger. I was making a light-hearted comparison between Alex Callinicos and Eric Honeker, both of whom in my opinion were or are dictators in charge of an increasingly obsolete state/organisation pretending to be socialist.
The time he spent in a Nazi prison must have been a good education as the Stasi were similar to the Gestapo. He may well have supported the oppressed around the world but he conveniently overlooked the citizens of his own country preferring to do the oppressing himself. Eric Honeker in my opinion was not a socialist, he was a Stalinist dictator and if slagging him off makes you think that I’m a Tory then I couldn’t give a flying gulag.
I came on this site to discuss opinions with fellow socialists and left wingers but I didn’t realise that it would be home to so many of the Politburo. If Honeker was in charge this internet malarky would be a sure fire way to see that our families were rounded up, labelled subversives and “re-educated”. I do not want to be on your side anymore. I’m taking my ball away from the collective. You don’t know how to play nice with the rest of the class.
Jellytot on said:
@66The time he spent in a Nazi prison must have been a good education as the Stasi were similar to the Gestapo.
That’s a slur against the memory of a genuine anti-fascist and a shameful right-wing statement.
Jimmy Wilson on said:
Jellytot: That’s a slur against the memory of a genuine anti-fascist and a shameful right-wing statement.
Is it balls. It’s perfectly valid given the nature of the State that Mr. Honeker presided over. There you go again, if someone shows the slightest bit of dissent or independent thought, just label them right-wing. Sounds like the SWP CC.
vanya on said:
#68 No. People, including hundreds of thousands of former citizens of the DDR, take the view that the society they lived in was vastly preferable towhat they have now.
And that nostalgia is not based on harking back to a society that exterminated people because of their race, or because they were disabled, or tried to impose a slave empire on millions of people they believed to be racially inferior, but one that gave sanctuary to political exiles from the coup in Chile, that backed liberation struggles all over the 3rd world etc etc.
So while the view that the DDR was oppressive in many ways and not a model for a society that many of us would want to live in or advocate is legitimate within a broad socialist dicourse, the idea that the DDR/ Stasi can be compared in anything but a superficial fasion with the Gestapo/ 3rd Reich is indeed deeply reactionary, so don’t be surprised to be met with deep hostility on this blog if that appears to be what you are saying.
Jimmy Wilson on said:
vanya: So while the view that the DDR was oppressive in many ways and not a model for a society that many of us would want to live in or advocate is legitimate within a broad socialist dicourse, the idea that the DDR/ Stasi can be compared in anything but a superficial fasion with the Gestapo/ 3rd Reich is indeed deeply reactionary, so don’t be surprised to be met with deep hostility on this blog if that appears to be what you are saying
So I’m reactionary now? Are you sure I’m not a right-winger? Or maybe both?
My friend (from West Germany) chooses to live in the former East now because he believes that the citizens are more community minded. That is the only positive aspect he says and only the most rose-tinted specs wearer (or one doing nicely out of being top dog) would go back to harsh state oppression.
If you truly believe in “socialism from below” then socialists should actually try to learn how to communicate with that very “below” instead of spouting patronising drivel. Now get yourself to North Korea to continue your broad socialist discourse and work for a bowl of rice a week. Let’s see how much you like your workers’ paradise then. Is that reactionary enough for you?
Beaugeste on said:
The analogy is that the SWP and the Catholic Church both believe they can ‘investigate themselves’ and ‘deal with’ sexual abuse allegations within their organisations, basically because the organisation comes before everything and even now with breathtaking arrogance they can’t admit that they have made a serious mistake
Dan:
Are you claiming something has happened in the SWP analagous to the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic church? For sure? You want to go on record with that or is it just speculation that’s never been proven in court?
Manzil on said:
Jimmy Wilson: Now get yourself to North Korea to continue your broad socialist discourse and work for a bowl of rice a week.
I’ve always suspected Vanya of being a bit Kim Il-sungish.
anon on said:
Jimmy Wilson: When the baliffs come knocking and turn us into criminals Alex Callinicos with his high & mighty false morality and Professor salary might as well be in India because I can’t see him offering any solidarity to the working class. The Prick.
never once saw callinicos at a ucu meeting. never, not once. that’s ucu or uculeft. never. i always wondered.
Dr Falk on said:
Some of the Left in the West have always cheered on police state regimes that they themselves didn’t have to live under. Even Pol Pot had his cheerleaders ( I hope someone is not going to come on and say he was really a great man, etc ).
John on said:
Dr Falk: Some of the Left in the West have always cheered on police state regimes that they themselves didn’t have to live under.
Change the words ‘cheered on’ to the word ‘understand’ in the above and you get closer to the truth.
The notion that regimes exist in an historical vacuum and develop in isolation from history is a symptom of the paucity of analysis that has long been prevalent among a large section of the left in the West.
Harry Cowley on said:
anon: never once saw callinicos at a ucu meeting. never, not once. that’s ucu or uculeft. never. i always wondered.
Of course not. He left all that sort of grubby work to his second division lickspittle Tom Hickey who by all accounts continues to plough the furrow for the Lynchers even though his entire student cadre (at both Brighton and Sussex) have deserted him.
Jimmy Wilson on said:
Dr Falk:
Some of the Left in the West have always cheered on police state regimes that they themselves didn’t have to live under. Even Pol Pot had his cheerleaders ( I hope someone is not going to come on and say he was really a great man, etc ).
John: The notion that regimes exist in an historical vacuum and develop in isolation from history is a symptom of the paucity of analysis that has long been prevalent among a large section of the left in the West.
I like Dr Falk’s analysis. Forgive my proletarian ignorance John but I haven’t a clue what you’re going on about. This is exactly the kind of language that means that the SWP CC (or any left CC filled with academics) will forever remain distant from and will fail to connect with the bulk of the working class.
I can’t remember who said it but the saying was something like “in every revolutionary there’s a policeman bursting to get out”. I consider DDR & Joseph Stalin apologists to be just as much an enemy of the working class as any Tory. At least Tories don’t pretend to be on your side.
John on said:
Jimmy Wilson: Forgive my proletarian ignorance John but I haven’t a clue what you’re going on about.
I think you’re being modest. I think you know what I mean. You don’t think the Second World War, Nazism, the sheer scale of the barbarism it unleashed in Europe, the role of the Red Army in liberating Europe from that barbarism, the West’s determination to isolate the Soviet Union in the aftermath, the number of former Nazis rehabilitated in West Germany and at the heart of its government – none of that you think had the slightest bearing on the nature of the East German regime?
If the answer is no then I suggest you need to improve your knowledge and understanding with more reading and reflection.
We’re not discussing a B Western movie, with clearly demarcated good guys in the white hats and the bad guys in the black. Reality is a bit more complex than that.
Am I suggesting that the DDR was a workers’ paradise? Absolutely not. But neither do I think it was the Gulag it is popularly depicted as in the West.
Jimmy Wilson: I consider DDR & Joseph Stalin apologists to be just as much an enemy of the working class as any Tory.
Jimmy, you’re getting yourself bent out of shape. It’s not worth it, honestly it’s not.
Tokyo Nambu on said:
“The notion that regimes exist in an historical vacuum and develop in isolation from history is a symptom of the paucity of analysis”
Honecker ordered the shooting of people who wanted to leave the country. When the conscripts couldn’t manage to kill them (which, given limitless amounts of 7.62×39, was rather amazing) they were instead left to die in plain sight, pour encourager les autres. Only the hard left could regard that as a topic of “analysis” rather than “disgust”. Honecker found that some recruits were reluctant to shoot their fellow citizens, but you and Andy Newman would have volunteered for extra target practice, such would have been your zeal.
John on said:
Tokyo Nambu: Honecker ordered the shooting of people who wanted to leave the country. When the conscripts couldn’t manage to kill them (which, given limitless amounts of 7.62×39, was rather amazing) they were instead left to die in plain sight
Truly barbaric. But any more barbaric than British troops killing Iraqi and Afghan civilians in the name of democracy?
What about Bloody Sunday? Does this event qualify for your ‘disgust’ as well?
I suspect it doesn’t, or at least not to the same fulminating extent.
Dr Falk on said:
Yes John history does exert great influence on events and people. So does the ideology of the people on the ground. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc also had a belief in their role in the historical process and a view that ‘the people’ (probably the likes of you and me) were part of the process to be purged, moved about like chessboard pieces, managed, controlled and killed if thought not of value. This ‘people as cogs in the machine’ and the machine run by the great leader’ is toxic.
PS – Thanks Jimmy for the compliment.
I’m just interested…does your ‘etc’ include every US president and British prime minister since the First World War? Is there any room in your list for Harry Truman who gave the go ahead for nuclear bombs to be dropped on civilians? What about the Korean War, 3 million dead; the Vietnam War, 2 million dead? What about the tens of millions of children throughout the developing world who’ve perished as a direct result of an economic system predicated on profit regardless of the human cost?
Would you agree?
Dr Falk on said:
Dear John.
With things like the Vietnam War and the nuclear bombing of Japan I have total opposition to them. It does seem that every time someone critiques a Stalinist regime you come back instantly with a question about the West’s record. What do you think of a regime like Pol Pot’s or Mao’s China? Was it socialism or a progressive form of society? I notice you say to my original post that the Left understood these regimes rather than cheered them on. What does that mean?
tigger on said:
I see the CPGB(ML) have now taken to posting their Stalin fan mail here
There’s a lovely bit on Alex Callinicos’s Facebook –
Red Slate Thompson quotes Callinicos whining against the decision of Historical Materialism to revoke their invite –
[Callinicos] – “it is also not how socialists should behave towards one another.”
then Red Slate Thompson – YOU EXPELLED ME VIA EMAIL.
If the kids are united.... on said:
“..and it is also not how socialists should behave towards one another.”
Did Callincos really say that?
They, the SWP, really do.not.get.it.
As a starter for ten, Mr Callinicos, Bradley, Bennett, Smith, et al…how DO you think socialists should behave towards each other????
Dr Falk: What do you think of a regime like Pol Pot’s
Pol Pot’s regime was death itself. Its demise could only have been a massive victory for humanity over barbarism, which is why not only socialists and communists everywhere, but all right thinking people would have cheered the liberation of Cambodia by the People’s Republic of Vietnam.
Of course, this history would be incomplete without mentioning the fact that Pol Pot and the remnants of his regime sought and gained sanctuary across the border in Thailand with the connivance of the US.
I would challenge you scour this blog for as much as one sentence written by any of its contributors which even comes close to suggesting justification or support for Pol Pot and his regime. And when you can’t I wonder if you would be good enough to come on here and apologise for what is nothing more than an unfounded smear.
Karl Stewart on said:
It’s impossible for me to disagree ewith Jimmy Wilson’s statement that it’s barbaric for a state to have a policy of shooting people who try to leave.
There is no “however..” or “…put this in context” or “…but what Jimmy’s got to bear in mind is…” – JimmyW’s absolutely right on this point full stop.
Treating people like this will not and must not be a part of the socialism and communism of the future.
In addition to JimmyW’s point, and not as a counter-argument, we also need to highlight the barbaric actions of capitalist states that John highlights in his contribution.
Our own government organised, on an industrial scale, the bloody slaughter of millions of our own young men in WWI, as did the rulers of France, Germany and others.
Our rulers stood by and did nothing while millions were murdered by Nazi Germany, and also our “allies” the US slaughtered millions in Japan, Vietnam, Korea and Iraq – which our own rulers also took part in.
We on the left, socialists, communists, need to fight for a future that’s far better than this, not something that’s not quite as bad.
brokenwindow on said:
Impossible to separate the man’s actions/inactions from his theory. I don’t think Callinicos adds anything to the trajectory of Left-wing thought which is struggling to counter the most reactionary form of Neoliberal fundamentalism now – New Labour have swallowed this vile seed in full – so this is recent demonstration of ‘the party can do what it wants because its the party’ appears as part of a more fundamental problem in Left-wing politics. Animal Farm is a great place to start.
John on said:
Karl Stewart: We on the left, socialists, communists, need to fight for a future that’s far better than this, not something that’s not quite as bad.
Karl, I am genuinely surprised to read something this woolly and vacuous from you.
Do you really think that socialists and communists would fight for a society in which political freedoms are so circumscribed as they were in the DDR?
What about the understanding of the role of the historical and material conditions, external pressures, etc from and in which these societies emerge and develop?
The Iron Curtain was erected by the West not the East, yet you seem to be buying into the anti-communist tradition of abstracting the concrete factors largely responsible for the development of really existing socialism.
We both think a policy of shooting people who leave is barbaric.
And we both agree that the crimes, murders, genocides, carried out by capitalist and imperialist states dwarfs anything ever done by socialist states.
On the issue of people wanting to leave a socialist state, look at how Cuba dealt with this by contrast – tens of thousands left unhindered for the US and it was the US who urged Cuba to place restrictions.
Our general attitude should be: “Sorrey to see you go, but good luck.” (and in many cases, it’ll be “good riddance”.)
The key point is they don’t take property or assets (other than necessities) out with them.
Regarding Berlin specifically, the mistake was in allowing the US and UK into the city in 1945. That was the big mistake.
Dr Falk: What do you think of a regime like Pol Pot’s or Mao’s China?
Can you explain the linkage in your mind between Pol Pot and Mao’s China?
I am no expert on Cambodia, but I have read Ben Kiernan’s “How Pol Pot Came to Power”. While it is true that at various stages China did give aid and support to Khmer Rouge, so famously did the United States and the UK under margaret thatcher, and the Khmer Rouge were also supported by ASEAN when Vietnam invaded.
The nationalist frame of reference, where critics of the Khmer Rouge were described as “Vietnamese with Khmer bodies” has no counterpart anywhere in the socialist and communist movement, and certainly no counterpart in China.
Karl Stewart: Our general attitude should be: “Sorrey to see you go, but good luck.” (and in many cases, it’ll be “good riddance”.)
I think you underestimate the complexity of the situation where deliberate poaching of skilled staff by the West, and the subvention to support the West Berlin economy distorted the Eastern economy hugely. The border remember was open for 12 years after the foundation of the DDR.
After 1961, politically motivated republic flight was rare, the majority of those fleeing were urban young men with a histroy of anti-social behaviour and poor educational attainment, who beleived propaganda that they would have a better life in the West. Did you know that a quarter of those who fled to the BRD later returned?
You are right that shooting people fleeing was stupid and amoral, but the politics of the border were actively distorted by BOTH sides.
Karl Stewart: Our general attitude should be: “Sorrey to see you go, but good luck.” (and in many cases, it’ll be “good riddance”.)
Interestingly, in Inga Markovits’s book “Justice in Lueritz, Experiencing Socialist law in Wast Germany”, Inga says that in her research she only found one case in the court system of the town she was investigating during the whole period of the DDR of an explicitly political dissident wanting to go to the West, and the DDR quietly arranged for him to be swiftly exchanged for an East German held in a BRD gaol.
(Interestingly, she also only found one case in that 40 years of any evidence of the the local SED trying to deliberately infleunce a court case)
Dr Falk on said:
Dear John,
I’m sorry if you feel I have accused you or any body else of supporting Pol Pot. My fullest apologies if my comments read that way. I was confused by your comment that the Left didn’t cheer on regimes like Pol Pot but rather ‘understand'(the word you used) these regimes. My original posting was about some of the Left who did cheer on and have cheered on regimes covered in blood. I’m pleased John we agree on Cambodia. Sorry again if I upset you. Best wishes.
Dr Falk on said:
Thanks Andy for your reply. I am no expert on these things either. I think the connection in my mind was two-fold. First the support China along with others gave to Pol Pot. I’m not sure but I think China may have supported the Khymer Rouge against the Vietnam invasion too. Secondly,that I understand both regimes killed millions of people.
Dr Falk: I think China may have supported the Khymer Rouge against the Vietnam invasion too
China’s relationship with the Khmer Rouge was far from uncritical, and Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping were both inclinded to see King Sihanuk as their favoured allly before Pol Pot came to power.
Reaction to the Vietnamese invasion divided on pure cold war lines, Rissia and its allies supported Vietnam, the USA, UK, China and ASEAN supported cambodia. I don’t think you can draw conclusions.
Dr Falk: Secondly,that I understand both regimes killed millions of people.
Well there is no dispute about the murderous natuire of the Khmer Rouge, China under mao more accurately saw a dramatic increase in health, literacy, longevity and wealth. Even in terms of political opposition, Mao did not kill his political oppoennts, although far too many served prison sentances.
The accusation of millions dying is a reference to a rather more complex situation of famine, where argumably government mishandling failed to prevent huge numbers of deaths. This was sadly not the first famine in China, and the conventional blame placed upon mao’s government has been stoked by political oportunism.
For a more balanced discuission see Amartya Sen’s DEverlopment as Freedom, from someone far from being a Maoist sympathiser
Vanya on said:
China and the DK regime were allies against Vietnam, particularly after the Vvietnamese communists sided with the USSR as the sino soviet split became more entrenched. Around the time that Vietnam went into Kampuchea China attacked Vietnam and given the adoptiom by the CCPP by then of the 3 worlds theory this ratcheting of tension also exacerbated cold war tensions.
In fairness the Vietnamese were not blameless, with serious attacks on the Chinese minority leading to thousands leaving as boat people.
Those maoist groups who remained loyal to China condemned the Vietnamese invasion, including the RCLB-ML, which contained some people who have done excellent work around such issues as Palestine, and their much larger Norwegian sister organisation, the most famous member being the Swedish crime writer Henning Mankel author of the Wallander series and The Man from Beijing and participant in the Gaza aid flotilla which was attacked by the IDF.
Naivety about the nature of the Pol Pot regime was perhaps understandsable but I suspect its rare now. Interestingly the journalist most responsibke for drawing attention to their crimes was John Pilger.
John on said:
Dr Falk: I’m sorry if you feel I have accused you or any body else of supporting Pol Pot. My fullest apologies if my comments read that way. I was confused by your comment that the Left didn’t cheer on regimes like Pol Pot but rather ‘understand’(the word you used) these regimes. My original posting was about some of the Left who did cheer on and have cheered on regimes covered in blood. I’m pleased John we agree on Cambodia. Sorry again if I upset you. Best wishes.
No problem. Thank you for being gracious enough to apologise.
The problem with this type of forum is that it lends itself to mischaracterizing the positions of those we disagree with. I have done it myself.
I accept that you genuinely misunderstood my position, which in hindsight I should have made clearer.
Dr Falk on said:
Thanks as well John. All the best.
Dr Falk on said:
Thanks Vanya for this information. Thanks also to Andy for info in the post above.
Karl Stewart on said:
Just to add to the nice warm and cuddly ambience, can I just apologise too and wish every one a happy Easter and just say wouldn’t it be a better world if we could all just get along?
Manzil on said:
Personally, I think you’re all a bunch of bastards.
Karl Stewart on said:
It used to be much nicer on SU before so-called “Manzil” came along with his namby-pamby oh-so-reasonable arguments and smart-arse, pseudo-neo-sub-post-trotskyism!
Jellytot on said:
@100Even in terms of political opposition, Mao did not kill his political oppoennts, although far too many served prison sentances.
I agree with the overall tone of #100 but it should be noted that there was, tragically, a deliberate denial of medical treatment while in custody of frequently very old men.
The appalling treatment of the great Communist Liu Shaoqi was a case in point.
There is a general consensus amoung many in and around the Party in China that Mao (and his venal wife) should have been quitely retired off after the failure of The Great Leap Forward in the early 60’s and power transitioned to Liu and Deng and that the years between 1965 and 1975 are acknowledged as an unmitigated disaster and China’s Lost Decade.
real labour on said:
it is ridiculous to say Mao did not kill his opponents- the first thing that happened after 1949 was the mass slaughter of landlords and businessmen.Even his treatment of inter party opponents involved torture and often death.
As to the famine he was the head of the government that mismanaged the economy,faked statistics and wasted resources in both rural and urban areas.(the great leap forward etc)
Jellytot on said:
@109the first thing that happened after 1949 was the mass slaughter of landlords and businessmen.
Both should be seen in the context of the appalling inequalities that existing in China before the Revolution and the much needed campaign for Land Reform.
In a whole host of spheres the 1949 Revolution (which was undoubtedly a good thing and more epoch defining than 1917) unleashed a whole series of constraints that had been building up like a pressure cooker for decades, and even centuries, beforehand in that country.
Contrary to the writings of the Chang’s and Halliday’s of this world, to view Mao as some sort of evil puppetmaster is ahistorical and typical of the lazy, dumbed-down thinking currently in vogue.
Landlords were overthrown frequently on the initative of the peasants themselves (with the Party tailing them) but the land reform campaign certainly increased the Communist Party’s popularity among Chinese peasants. The suppression of the business elite (I mean those that hadn’t bolted to Taiwan, HK or the US) should be viewed as a need to supress pro-KMT elements, clean up rampant corruption and purge the criminal secret societies….the latter were not marginal forces in places like Guangdong and Dongbei (Manchuria).
The proof of the pudding is in the eating and after early, radical (but well-meaning attempts) to reform and modernise China the CPC has, since 1992, hit upon a formula that clearly is working and has seen one of the greatest wealth transfers to the mass of Chinese society in modern history and the creation of a great global power. That should be recognised, and I think applauded, by all progressives the world over.
@108: Mao (and his venal wife) should have been quitely retired off after the failure of The Great Leap Forward in the early 60′s and power transitioned to Liu and Deng
Now there’s an alternate history to conjure with!
If China’s 60s had been all about ‘Four Modernizations’ and ‘Reform and Opening Up’ instead of ‘Cultural Revolution’, and possibly mending relations with the Soviet Union, and giving Soviet reformers a successful and stable example of a socialist market economy … we might have been spared a great deal, including much of the Vietnam War, the Soviet ossification and the rise of ultra-left currents in the West.
I know, there were probably deeper reasons for what actually happened than Mao’s decisions, and much else could have gone wrong, but still.
Jellytot on said:
@111
Yes, and a pertinent comment of a middle ranking Party member, made to me at a wedding receiption in Beijing a few years back, sticks in my mind,
(paraphrasing and translated from the Mandarin)
“If we would have gone with Liu and Deng in the 60’s we would be as developed as Japan now and would have surpassed the Americans 10 years ago”
Manzil on said:
Karl Stewart:
It used to be much nicer on SU before so-called “Manzil” came along with his namby-pamby oh-so-reasonable arguments and smart-arse, pseudo-neo-sub-post-trotskyism!
😀 *hugs*
Pseudo-neo-sub-post-trotskyism or death!
As the topic has arisen anyway, perhaps a commentator more knowledgeable on the subject of China (ohhh Jellytot…) can shed some light on something.
It seems incredibly difficult to get any serious idea how many people were actually executed under Mao. Most assessments seem to include all deaths allegedly attributable to Communist policy. Which then degenerates into claims that famine was an intentional policy (shades of the Holodomor thesis?) or at any rate that Mao should be held culpable for causing the subsequent deaths. Which leads to a body-count with far more zeroes than primary sources.
Gurr and Harff approximate between 800,000 and 3 million deaths in the anti-landlord campaign of 1950-51. However they fail to clearly differentiate between…
1. The execution of landlords, and the execution of KMT cadres (meaning it’s unclear to what extent it should be contextualised by the civil war and retreat of the nationalists from the mainland).
2. The mass campaign of popular violence (albeit legitimated by the Communists), and state terror actually initiated and orchestrated by the Communists.
3. Deliberate killings (either by the masses or the authorities), and suicides likely resulting from the revolutionary atmosphere’s hostility to the landlord class.
Theirs is the most even-handed work I’ve seen on the post-1949 violence, but even it falls back into ambiguity over whether it’s assessing people killed by the new government, or merely those whose deaths are allegedly attributable to it. Nor does it adequately identify its sources.
No moralising is intended, just curious. If I was a Chinese peasant in 1949 I’d probably have murdered the local landlord too. Shit, I’ve feel like killing my landlords.
Nick Fredman on said:
vanya: #68 No. People, including hundreds of thousands of former citizens of the DDR, take the view that the society they lived in was vastly preferable towhat they have now.
Well it was the considered view of my partner’s Polish grandmother that, at least in terms of giving young people from peasant backgrounds opportunities, Poland was a preferable place to Australia, where she emigrated to in the mid-50s, for apparently personal rather than political or economic reasons (she left with my partner’s mother who was a small child but without the father). It was a point of some bitterness to her that she remained a cleaner all her adult life while her siblings and cousins became doctors and architects. Not to mention post-war Poland being considerably preferable to the Nazi occupation and labour camp she endured as a teenager.
I consider it perfectly valid to describe the DDR and post-capitalist Poland as Stalinist deformations of workers states, but also aware of the contradictory effects this social-economic arrangement had on the lived experience of millions (I’ve also recently had interesting chats with a work colleague who grew up in 80s East Berlin and constantly negatively compares contemporary Germany and Australia to this experience).
I’m also quite sure that when Kath’s babka said things to us like, “It’s great you’re in this Resistance group, what we need in Australia is a new Stalin, eh?”, she was well aware of our politics and was winding us up.
real labour on said:
Both should be seen in the context of the appalling inequalities that existing in China before the Revolution and the much needed campaign for Land Reform.
In a whole host of spheres the 1949 Revolution (which was undoubtedly a good thing and more epoch defining than 1917) unleashed a whole series of constraints that had been building up like a pressure cooker for decades, and even centuries, beforehand in that country.
really why then did Mao force the peasants into unworkable peoples communes.
also the comment about landlords is typical of the left romantascising mass murder.
just like a nazi wanting to kill jews or blacks
i note no mention of tianamen square or the endemic corruption in china
real labour: really why then did Mao force the peasants into unworkable peoples communes.
I suggest that you read the very interesting discussin of exactly this question in Justin Yifu Lin’s “Demystifying the Chinese Economy”
Justin is no wide eyed idealist, he is chief economist at the World bank, received his PhD in economics at Chicago University (not a hotbed of maoism), and is now director of the China Centre for Economic Research at Peking University in Beijing. (yes the University is still transliterated as Peking, I haven’t made a mistake)
Raising the scale of production units was a necessary condition for expanding irrigation.
It is easy to criticiase with hindsight, but the Copperative system was based upon initial succes.
Land was distributed to all farmers in 1952, but the policy of industralisation required extracting surplus from the countryside, hence very low agrictultural prices; therefore production needed to be scaled up to maintain living standards in rural areas.
Betwen 1953 and 1954 “Mutual Aid teams” were a popular reform, where there was private owwndership of land and draft animals, but households shared resources. This was very successful and led to an increase in output, and farmers were enthusiastic supporters.
This led to the “primary cooperatives” pooling land to the size of a tradiatonal village in Southern China. This saved land, the cooperative decided amngst themselves the division of output based upon effort, and the cooperatives were “free to enter free to exit”. i.e any farmer could leave if they wanted. Tools, draft animals and formal land ownership remained private.
The primary co-ops were also very popular and saw increased output. This is what led to the move to advanced cooperatives in 1956 – 1957, where the incerased scale of 200 households matched the tradiational vilage size in Northern China. Now ownership of land, tools and draft animalls were pooled. There were also popular, and output expanded. They were also “free to enter free to exit”
It went wrong with the next step, the “Peoples Communes” introduced in 1958, including 5000 households. Theroetciallly, the Peoples’ communes should have been an advance, as they allowed a scale of production that could support irrigation projects.
the problem was the unintended one, that once you started an irrigation project, then land ownership had to be pooled, and households could not withdraw their private plot from the irrigation system; so the “free to enter free to exit” criteria was lost; and also the scale meant that it was no longer possible to readily decide on distribution of output; so they moved to paying people based upon the size of their household, not on the amount of work they did. This immediately affacted work discipline, and disincentivised farmers from working; and reduced quality (with rice production in particular the quality of planting work dramaiticallly affects yields)
So moving to the peoples communes was not a silly or wicked idea, theroetically it was a good idea to expand irrigation, and should have led to greater production; but the inevitable decrease in work quality and effort led to 15% drop in output each year from 1959 to 1961.
This was resolved in 1962 by keeeping the peoples communes, but introducing a “production team” of 20 to 30 households; this essentiallly restored the size of the primary cooperative.
It is not suprising that based upon sevral years where increasing commune size had led to increased production the government was slow to understand whay the move to peoples communes was going wrong. Also, as Amartya Sen argues, famines are a lot less visible than people think, and the key indicators may be missed by non-specialists; it has to be said that Mao’s government’s failure to effectively combat the famine was traditional for Chinese governments in previous eras as well.
This led the goverment to shift from scale to science as a way of increasing yields, such as the hybrid rice strains that have increased yield per plant by 30% since 1963.
The great famine of 1959 was a tragedy, but it ill behoves a British person to cast aspersions, after we presdied over not only the Irish famine in the 19th century, but also the Bengal famine only 15 years earlier than the Chinese famine.
Andy Newman: So moving to the peoples communes was not a silly or wicked idea, theroetically it was a good idea to expand irrigation, and should have led to greater production; but the inevitable decrease in work quality and effort led to 15% drop in output each year from 1959 to 1961.
This was resolved in 1962 by keeeping the peoples communes, but introducing a “production team” of 20 to 30 households; this essentiallly restored the size of the primary cooperative.
It is not suprising that based upon sevral years where increasing commune size had led to increased production the government was slow to understand whay the move to peoples communes was going wrong.
Further to this, it is worth obsrving that Deng appealed to mao in 1960 to addres the problems, and that Mao himself ammended the letter from the Central Committee to make it more right wing than Deng asked for arguing for a return to smaller production units, for households to be rewarded according to work, and a smaller proportion of output to be taken for the commune. The letter then went out from both Mao and Deng by telegram to all parts of the country on 21/10/60, but contrary to the mythology, directions from the centre were not immediately implemented.
In 1962 Mao made the observation to 7000 party cadre:
Without democracy, you have no understanding what is happening down below; the situatin will be unclear; you will be unable to collect sufficient opinions from all sides
As Amartya Sen argues:
It is extremely interesting that Mao himself acknowledged the extent to which disastrous official policies were caused by lack of informational links a more democratic system can provide”
This is the key, China was and is a huge country, and in 1960 was only recovering again a system of centralised government, after years of warlordism, division, foreign occupation; and information flows were imperfact, and local party units much more autonomous than critics imagine in how they implemented centralsied decisions.
John Grimshaw on said:
Andy Newman: The great famine of 1959 was a tragedy, but it ill behoves a British person to cast aspersions, after we presdied over not only the Irish famine in the 19th century, but also the Bengal famine only 15 years earlier than the Chinese famine.
Manzil: It seems incredibly difficult to get any serious idea how many people were actually executed under Mao.
Well what we do know without any fear of contradiction is that mao’s most serious rivals in the Communist party were not executed. See the detailed discusion of this in “The Battle for China’s past” by Mobo Gao.
Manzil on said:
Andy Newman: Well what we do know without any fear of contradiction is that mao’s most serious rivals in the Communist party were not executed. See the detailed discusion of this in “The Battle for China’s past” by Mobo Gao.
Eh? I never said otherwise…?
I’ve never seen anyone claim that. (Although I’ve never read Chang and Halliday’s “work”, so perhaps I’ve just got a blind-spot to some of the allegations floating around.)
However, the statement that, “The accusation of millions dying is a reference to a rather more complex situation of famine”, appears, on the face of it, incorrect. There are various numbers bandied about, some obvious exaggerations, but most scholars appear to accept that at a minimum, a million or near-as-dammit, were executed in the anti-landlord/KMT purges.
But as I said, the literature is confused and seems to get conflated with the famine issue (the more extravagant tolls generally don’t even differentiate between cause of death). I am genuinely curious at whether there is a rigorous estimate available, even a ballpark figure.
Also, IIRC, Mobo Gao’s book is available online as a PDF, if anyone’s interested.
Nick Fredman: I consider it perfectly valid to describe the DDR and post-capitalist Poland as Stalinist deformations of workers states, but also aware of the contradictory effects this social-economic arrangement had on the lived experience of millions (I’ve also recently had interesting chats with a work colleague who grew up in 80s East Berlin and constantly negatively compares contemporary Germany and Australia to this experience).
Decoded for the real world of sharp confrontation between antagonistic ‘social-economic arrangements’ this means life under the revolutionary dictorship of the proletariat in the DDR and Poland compared favourably with life under the dictatorship of the bourheoisie in Australia.
Of course, the Australian state – with very firm and racially discriminatory border controls – was drawing in skilled workers from across the world while the DDR and Poland also employed border controls no less rigourous to stop their skilled workers from leaving.
Andy Newman: The great famine of 1959 was a tragedy, but it ill behoves a British person to cast aspersions, after we presdied over not only the Irish famine in the 19th century, but also the Bengal famine only 15 years earlier than the Chinese famine.
Andy, I think you can be absolved from responsibility for acts committed about 20, or 120, years before you were born, in much the same way that today’s young Germans really shouldn’t be blamed for World War 2 or the Holocaust.
Ken MacLeod:
@108: Mao (and his venal wife) should have been quitely retired off after the failure of The Great Leap Forward in the early 60′s and power transitioned to Liu and Deng
Francis King: Andy, I think you can be absolved from responsibility for acts committed about 20, or 120, years before you were born, in much the same way that today’s young Germans really shouldn’t be blamed for World War 2 or the Holocaust.
That depends. If a political argument is being advanced that, for example, the Chinese famine was a function of the political system in China, from someone who is counterposing as a better political tradition parliamentary democracy and capitalism, it is fair to point out that the capitalist parliamantary democracy of Britain oversaw famines.
Ken MacLeod: If China’s 60s had been all about ‘Four Modernizations’ and ‘Reform and Opening Up’ instead of ‘Cultural Revolution’, and possibly mending relations with the Soviet Union, and giving Soviet reformers a successful and stable example of a socialist market economy … we might have been spared a great deal, including much of the Vietnam War, the Soviet ossification and the rise of ultra-left currents in the West.
Hmmmm. I think you need to take account of the crucial importance of the USA’s relaxation and then removal of the CoCom trade & technology sanctions against the People’s Republic in allowing China to have a successful ‘socialist market economy’.
If the Chinese had mended their relations with the USSR, that would definitely _not_ have been on offer from the United States. In fact, a key part of the context for the USA’s lifting of the anti-China sanctions from the late 1970s onwards was the effective co-operation between China & the USA against socialist governments which were allied with the Soviet Union, eg Vietnam & Afghanistan.
Manzil: However, the statement that, “The accusation of millions dying is a reference to a rather more complex situation of famine”, appears, on the face of it, incorrect. There are various numbers bandied about, some obvious exaggerations, but most scholars appear to accept that at a minimum, a million or near-as-dammit, were executed in the anti-landlord/KMT purges.
But as I said, the literature is confused and seems to get conflated with the famine issue (the more extravagant tolls generally don’t even differentiate between cause of death). I am genuinely curious at whether there is a rigorous estimate available, even a ballpark figure.
I am sceptical precisely because of the imprecision and the conflating of the very different issues.
Although the PRC was declared in 1949 and agrarian reform followed swiftly, the country was still emerging from civil war, and continued Goumindang activity. Agrarian reform under such circumstances would inevitably result in some aspects of Jacquerie; but equally, Goumindang victory would have resulted in white terror to reassert the power of the landlords.
Whoever won the civil war would have needed to assert their authority by a decisive demonstration of power in the countryside. But in the context of collapse of the authority of central government, and no concept of rule of law, then either the Goumindang or the Communists would have consolidated their power through violent suppression.
It therefore seems a nonsense to me to describe the assertion of authority by the state reforming the rural economy as a purge; when closing the war would inevitably be violent.
Look at the level of violence exerted against the rural poor in Britain between 1700 and 1850 to bring about reform of the rural economy, and that was without the immediate legacy of civil war, and collapse of the rule of law.
The judgement must therefore be based on the fact that either side would have ended the civil war by violent assertion of power in the countryside. Only if you can demonstrate that the Communist victory led to significane excess deaths over that which a Goumindang victory would have entailed is there any substance to this argument.
At which point, we are left with discussion of mao’s rule after state power was consolidated, in which case the more lurid claims do relate to famines.
The known facts about Mao are that over a period of just a few years his government increased life expectancy of rural Chinese from 35 in 1949 to 63 by 1975. he brought unity to the country, emancipated women, and transformed health and literacy. And notwithstanding the Cultural Revolution the country was more stable and less violent. In particular under mao there was no Great Terror equivalent to Stalin’s.
Too much like wishful thinking, and too much like my novella The Human Front (just reissued with a few extras by PM Press in the US) albeit that has almost the converse alternate history of communism, with Lin Piao as the Chairman and the elderly Stalin as a guerilla leader after Operation Dropshot takes down the SU in the late 40s.
Noah: I think you need to take account of the crucial importance of the USA’s relaxation and then removal of the CoCom trade & technology sanctions against the People’s Republic in allowing China to have a successful ‘socialist market economy’.
Well, yes – in counterfactual history there are many ways to end up with a worse situation than the one that actually happened, so I don’t take my speculation too seriously.
Karl Stewart on said:
Andy Newman: I am sceptical precisely because of the imprecision and the conflating of the very different issues.
Although the PRC was declared in 1949 and agrarian reform followed swiftly, the country was still emerging from civil war, and continued Goumindang activity. Agrarian reform under such circumstances would inevitably result in some aspects of Jacquerie; but equally, Goumindang victory would have resulted in white terror to reassert the power of the landlords.
Whoever won the civil war would have needed to assert their authority by a decisive demonstration of power in the countryside. But in the context of collapse of the authority of central government, and no concept of rule of law, then either the Goumindang or the Communists would have consolidated their power through violent suppression.
It therefore seems a nonsense to me to describe the assertion of authority by the state reforming the rural economy as a purge; when closing the war would inevitably be violent.
Look at the level of violence exerted against the rural poor in Britain between 1700 and 1850 to bring about reform of the rural economy, and that was without the immediate legacy of civil war, and collapse of the rule of law.
The judgement must therefore be based on the fact that either side would have ended the civil war by violent assertion of power in the countryside. Only if you can demonstrate that the Communist victory led to significane excess deaths over that which a Goumindang victory would have entailed is there any substance to this argument.
At which point, we are left with discussion of mao’s rule after state power was consolidated, in which case the more lurid claims do relate to famines.
The known facts about Mao are that over a period of just a few years his government increased life expectancy of rural Chinese from 35 in 1949 to 63 by 1975. he broughtunity to the country, emancipated women, and transformed health and literacy. And notwithstanding the Cultural Revolution the country was more stable and less violent. In particular under mao there was no Great Terror equivalent to Stalin’s.
But wasn’t the Cultural Revolution precisely China’s “Great Terror”?
The similarities between the Stalinist and Maoist periods are quite striking.
Andy Newman: The known facts about Mao are that over a period of just a few years his government increased life expectancy of rural Chinese from 35 in 1949 to 63 by 1975. he brought unity to the country, emancipated women, and transformed health and literacy.
Spot on.
It should be added that this was achieved despite China being under strangulating international sanctions, enforced by the USA, for almost the whole of that period; and that after the split with the USSR in 1960-61, China also lost its socialist trading partners. To have taken those immense strides in that context is even more impressive.
I already said I wasn’t moralising. Nor at any point have I been critical of the Chinese revolution or minimised/denied its benefits. You are arguing with shadows. As per usual.
In fact, I think you’re misinterpreting what actually happened in the aftermath of 1949 – everything I’ve read shows that the security forces played a subordinate and legitimating role, but that the killing of landowners was largely the result of spontaneous mass violence.
It had nothing to do with a “violent assertion of power in the countryside” by the Communists. It was an assertion of popular power by the rural masses, and an example of retributive violence against the detritus of a corrupt and in many cases quasi-criminal landowning elite.
I also think you’re wrong to shy away from defending openly the use of revolutionary violence. In a semi-colonial country, the social benefits of the revolution were impossible without the construction of a powerful apparatus able to maintain the independence and security of the new state.
If your issue is with the word “purge”, we’re back to you and bloody railway towns again.
In any case, I take it that no one can identify a serious source as to the number and nature of executions under the immediate post-1949 period?
No. I actually used the word “jacquerie” which was a clear indication that I emphasise the degree of popular violence.
But you are confusing things
The discussion started about the degree to which Mao was responsible for violence and you were the one who claimed a million deaths in the purge of landlords.
Now you have changed your tune and say this was a jacquerie.
I am consistent here. The civil war turned on the question of rural reform. Victory in the civil war required victory in the countryside.
Mao successfully concluded the civil war, successfully prosecuted rural reform and in so doing eradicated the social basis of the counter revolution.
Had the Goumindang won. The unleashing of violence in the countryside would have been on at least the same scale.
That is why your bringing into play the deaths during the rural reform as being relevant to the thesis that Mao killed millions just gives support to the right wing arguments
Manzil on said:
Andy Newman: The discussion started about the degree to which Mao was responsible for violence and you were the one who claimed a million deaths in the purge of landlords.
Now you have changed your tune and say this was a jacquerie.
Please don’t make things up.
I didn’t claim any such thing – I quoted two academics who put it at a million. I explained this was the base-line estimate amongst any study of the 1949-53 period (it is also the smallest estimate I have encountered). However I did this so as to explain that even this work was very ambiguous in its methodology, and asked whether anyone had any more substantive sources.
Specifically, in my original comment at #113 I explained that a major problem was the lack of a clear delineation between popular violence and state violence, and between anti-landlord and anti-KMT violence. I also commented on how this made it difficult to properly assess the role of the civil war factor. Some of which you later brought up, and seem to want to use to criticise me?
Andy Newman: That is why your bringing into play the deaths during the rural reform as being relevant to the thesis that Mao killed millions just gives support to the right wing arguments
Basic historical facts exist independently of whether you find them convenient.
An analysis of people’s China that excises any mention of the central role of violence in establishing and consolidating the new social order is completely useless. I am not “bringing into play” the deaths – they are in play, and your absurd belief that discussion of them is somehow “giving support to the right wing” makes your position look very shaky indeed.
But which historical facts are germane is a question of political judgement.
The discussion was centered around claims by someone posting as “real labour” claiming that Mao had murdered millions.
Now there may be a very interesting. Debate to be had about violence during the land reform, but if you read back through this debate. You will see that you clouded the discussionby giving credibility to the argument from the”real labour” character.
In the context of the debate actually happening it was necessary yo contextualise that violence more than you did.
Too often your arguments dont locate themselves in the political debate, and instead seem to float in academia, as if it could be possible for socialist s. To discuss historical methodology of assessing the numbers outside of a broad defence of the revolution.
real labour on said:
Im confused i thought the great terror was a good thing in your view.
also im sure the millions labeled rightist after the 100 flowers campaign and sent to labour camps will be grateful too.
your argument on the famine is nonsense what had the mismanagment by previous governments go to do with it.
Mao had centralised power and the party controlled information how could they not of known.Also why then did they seal of the famine areas and no photographic evidence remains.
sounds like someone knew/
Manzil on said:
Andy Newman: Too often your arguments dont locate themselves in the political debate
*blows raspberry*
If by that you mean, I don’t particularly care how people choose to interpret references to perfectly legitimate points of discussions, then you are absolutely correct.
This is a website frequented by people with strong political views. It is not a formal debating society: there are no points to be won; no show of hands by an audience. There is no need to engage in phrase-mongering better to appeal to an amorphous middle ground.
Second-guessing yourself based on what strangers online will say in response makes for boring, facile conversation. “Clouded the discussion”, I mean what a load of bollocks.
I’m not going to preface my every comment with a pre-emptive rebuttal of every possible fallacious retort or misinterpretation that might ensue.
Well in support of my argument I quote a nobel prize winning economist who is a specialist in famine, and a chief economist ay the world bank who is a renowned authority on China.
You on the other hand … …
Famines are not as simple as you obviously think they re to solve, nor so easy to identify early. The relevance of famine failures by earlier chinese governments is evidence of the skill and knowledge level available to them in reversing the famine.
real labour on said:
why then did Mao perform a self criticism at Lushan in 1962 after Li Shaquai had described the famine as seventy percent man made.
You still havent explained if the Chinese system was so perfect and functioning why Mao launched the cultural revolution.
also if as you say famine is hard to predict then you most admit the irish and bengal famines werent deliberate either.
also what about the soviet famine caused by collectivisation- is that another myth
real labour on said:
also Andy why should i defer to a nobel prize winner – Mao would have
poured scorn on such a creature.
Mao was also frequently compared to China’s First Emperor Qin Shi Huang, notorious for burying alive hundreds of scholars, and liked the comparison. During a speech to party cadre in 1958, Mao said he had far outdone Qin Shi Huang in his policy against intellectuals: ‘He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive… You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold.'”
George Hallam on said:
Manzil: This is a website frequented by people with strong political views.
yes.
Manzil: It is not a formal debating society: there are no points to be won; no show of hands by an audience.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Manzil: There is no need to engage in phrase-mongering better to appeal to an amorphous middle ground.
Yes, but “phrase-mongering” is not the only method for addressing people who are open to reason.
Manzil: Second-guessing yourself based on what strangers online will say in response makes for boring, facile conversation.
Not really. Anticipating what your interlocutors may say in response is often regarded as ‘engagement’.
Fenian exile on said:
“Famines are not as simple as you obviously think they re to solve, nor so easy to identify early.”
Well the Irsih famine was-it occurred while grain, cattle and dairy product exports actually increased from Ireland! Totally avoidable man.
Also thanks to Real Labour for injecting some fucking realism into this exchange.
And he’s right and so was Mao! Intellectuals pah!
Manzil on said:
George Hallam: Anticipating what your interlocutors may say in response is often regarded as ‘engagement’.
Not when it’s blatantly mischievous.
Fuck do I care whether someone wants to start spouting off about it being “typical of the left romantascising [sic] mass murder” and “just like a nazi wanting to kill jews or blacks”?
It’s like pretending I should preface criticisms of the monarchy with statements affirming they aren’t lizard people, in case David Icke comes along afterwards. Life is too short.
George Hallam on said:
Manzil: [] do I care whether someone wants to start spouting off about it being “typical of the left romantascising [sic] mass murder” and “just like a nazi wanting to kill jews or blacks”?
It sound like you do care.
real labour on said:
Not when it’s blatantly mischievous.
oh dear thats not an answer to the debate “comrade”
And to repeat my question. What exactly is it that you stand by, mr or ms ‘real labour’?
real labour on said:
funnily enough Noah democratic socialism as opposed to stalinism
am i on trial? do you wish me to admit my errors for not following Mao Zedong thought?
Manzil on said:
real labour:
funnily enough Noah democratic socialism as opposed to stalinism
am i on trial?do you wish me to admit my errors for not following Mao Zedong thought?
Trials? Well you’re the one going on about “stand by Mao if you dare”.
It’s all very well to contrast ‘democratic socialism’ to ‘Stalinism’. What use is that in assessing the situation in China of 1949? Do you think the likely alternative to the People’s Republic was some sort of wet Scandinavian fudge? Blatantly not. It was the rule of gangsters and landlords, and the continuing exploitation of China as a semi-colonial country in thrall to Truman.
What do you mean by democratic socialism? Social democrats propped up by US imperialism, or some non-existent, objectively anti-communist ‘socialism-from-below’?
Even if we leave aside emotive comments of the sort that dictator A killed X many million people, there is the fact that the history of state socialism in the twentieth century has several cases of famine, not counting periods of food shortage which did not amount to famine. In addition to the Chinese cases mentioned above, we have the Soviet famines of the early 1920s, the famines associated with collectivisation in South Russia and Ukraine and the settlement of Central Asian nomads in the early 1930s, famine in Ukraine and Moldavia in 1946-47, the Pol Pot experience in Cambodia, famine in Ethiopia in 1984-85, as well as the ongoing inability of North Korea to feed itself without food aid.
Now, in each of these cases there are several contributory factors, such as war, the instability of the system, bad weather and poor harvests, etc. But in each case there is also the question of whether, and how far, state policies themselves served to create or worsen that situation. This is not something which can be explained away with apologetics, or deflected with reference to the hostile political intent of the questioner, or parried with whataboutery. Anybody who still advocates state socialism as an alternative to capitalism needs to try to understand this recurrent problem, and how it might be avoided in future.
although i dont think its emotive to actually mention that Stalin,Mao etc murdered millions.
however i do stand for democratic socialism ie the tradition of the Labour party.
as to the previous comments the outcome of 1949 was not inevitable and to pretend that the ccp were saints is equally naive- see the anti intellectual campaign,the disaster of the great leap foward and the cultural revoluation all stemming from Maos own whims and misjudgement.
if you think socialism equals the gulag and terror be honest about it.
to me it doesnt.
real labour: if you think socialism equals the gulag and terror be honest about it.
This question, an indictment wrapped up in the form of a query, would have more power if the ‘democratic socialism’ which is usefully defined as ‘the tradition of the Labour Party’ actually existed anywhere.
If by socialism’ we mean something essentially different to capitalism then ‘real labour’ – a poor man’s Vishinsky it seems, needs to direct us to some living or past example of this socialism where it has not been necessary to defend it with some measure of coercion.
Perhaps an example of socialism ushered in with the good wishes of the defeated bourgeoisie, feudal landlords and imperialist powers, Hopefully somewhere where there existed a sufficiency of food, good infrastructure, a well educated population, etc etc.
Jellytot on said:
@132Had the Goumindang won.
The Communists would have retreated, licked their wounds and continued incipient guerilla warfare through the 50’s and 60’s culminating in a Vietnam-war type scenario on the Chinese mainland with about ten times the loss of life.
The 1949 Revolution probably saved Chinese lives in the long run.
@146note you wouldnt be able to blog like this in china
You’d be surprised at the amount of latitude that Chinese have in discussing politics; past, present and future; both online and off.
As long as the 3 T’s are avoided (Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen) and you’re not rallying for the immediate overthrow of the CPC, you can actually say quite a lot.
However, CPC members (at least the ones I talk to) do not get too hung up on the past and will not debate endessly historical points (and they either get irritated with me or express bemusement when I try to draw them into discussion). I’ve had the point made to me more than once that the CPC is more concerned with its present and future role in managing an incipient Superpower – Something the Western Left obviously cannot really relate to.
real labour: do you wish me to admit my errors for not following Mao Zedong thought?
Well it would be rather odd if I did, considering that I have never been an aficionado of ‘Mao Zedong thought’!
BTW your epithet of ‘stalinism’ reveals not much more than your own ignorance, given that neither the ‘Great Leap Forward’ nor the Cultural Revolution can be ascribed to policies advocated or implemented by J.V. Stalin.
Manzil on said:
real labour:
although i dont think its emotive to actually mention that Stalin,Mao etc murdered millions.
however i do stand for democratic socialism ie the tradition of the Labour party.
as to the previous comments the outcome of 1949 was not inevitable and to pretend that the ccp were saints is equally naive- see the anti intellectual campaign,the disaster of the great leap foward and the cultural revoluation all stemming from Maos own whims and misjudgement.
if you think socialism equals the gulag and terror be honest about it.
to me it doesnt.
But democratic socialism in “the tradition of the Labour party” happily used extraordinary violence in Greece, India, Indonesia, Indochina, Malaysia, Korea, Kenya, the north of Ireland etc.
The difference being the Labour governments responsible for this weren’t trying to transform these countries on socialist lines, they were suppressing liberation movements and helping to impose or prop up the post-war imperialist order and Britain’s place within it.
If you think terror doesn’t matter when it’s used against people who aren’t white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, be honest about it.
Why is ‘democratic socialism’ taken in the abstract, divorced from its bloody role in the second half of the 20th century, whereas communism is completely decontextualised? I don’t think anyone is arguing the Chinese revolution was led by “saints”. The point is that they weren’t devils, either.
Fenian exile on said:
Hey Manzil, would you rather live under Chinese communism at any time in the last 60 years or in N. Ireland under Roy Mason in the 1970s? Difficult choice comrade?
It looks interesting; have you had the chance to read it Francis?
real labour on said:
you can blog unless you dont discuss the overthrow of the CCP
hilarious the bloggers here spend all day doing nothing but fantasising over the over throw of capitialism- do you not see the irony
also Mao was a follower of stalin- he hated khruschev for dethroning stalin and feared he would be next.
your posters are also unaware that Molotov late in his life viewed Maoism as the future
Jellytot on said:
@159you can blog unless you dont discuss the overthrow of the CCP
The leading role of the CPC is enshired in that country’s constitution. The overwheming majority of the Chinese people do not desire their country to experience the chaos and break-up that Russia went through in the 90’s. The pragmatic and realistic Chinese seem to want reform and an end to corruption and freely talk about it and discuss it.
@159hilarious the bloggers here spend all day doing nothing but fantasising over the over throw of capitialism- do you not see the irony
I don’t think the overthrow of Capitalism is either realistic, desirable or acheivable in a 21st Century British context although I want to see ‘The Beast’ tamed and the Welfare State preserved.
The only reasons I support and defend the Chinese system is that I have spent a lot of time there and view their system as one which is, by and large, working and delivering progress for its citizens. However, it is very much in development and there remains many problems in that country. I honestly feel those problems are best sovlable under the tutelage of the CPC and I do support Left currents within China and within the CPC. In the end, it will be up to the Chinese.
Jellytot: @159he hated khruschev for dethroning stalin
Stalin wasn’t dethroned. He died.
Charitably, I assume that he means “dethroning” Stalin as a Soviet icon in the de-Stalinisation period.
Manzil on said:
Fenian exile:
Hey Manzil, would you rather live under Chinese communism at any time in the last 60 years or in N. Ireland under Roy Mason in the 1970s?Difficult choice comrade?
I’d ask if, in this hypothetical, I’d be a Catholic being interned or shot at, but let’s be constructive and leave that aside for one moment.
Would you rather be an American in 2013 or a Russian in 1917? See, capitalism wins!!!
What a stupid blood question.
Evidently the developed world is more developed. Congratulations on your truism. The question is WHY that is so. Hint – it has sod all to do with a greater love of freedom ‘n’ democracy.
The dilemma is: would you rather be in the PRC as it existed or the only likely alternative – a haven for nationalist generals, mafioso, compradors and landlords?
Fenian exile: would you rather live under Chinese communism at any time in the last 60 years or in N. Ireland under Roy Mason in the 1970s? Difficult choice comrade?
If you were a peasant? Life expectancy doubled, housing and employment secured? Free education? Hmm, not really.
How far improvements in life expectancy are specifically achievements of communist party rule, and how far they are indicators of more general modernisation trends is an interesting question. For comparison, life expectancy in Taiwan in 1950 was 57 for females, 53 for males. It is now estimated at 81.53 years for females, 75.66 years for males.
Francis King: How far improvements in life expectancy are specifically achievements of communist party rule, and how far they are indicators of more general modernisation trends is an interesting question.
But note that advances in life expeactancy in the Communist ruled indian state of Kerala exceed thos in any other part of India; and certainly comparing China with India generally not only better advances in life expectancy, but especially in literacy, health and basic skills; which gave the context that allowed Deng’s refroms to work.
West Bengal also experienced higher improvements in life expectancy and literacy under its Communist governments compared to the Indian average.
And it lacked many of the natural advantages which Keralan Communism enjoyed, began from a much lower overall level of development, and was in fact systematically undermined by partition and the nationalists’ shifting of the state’s economic focus away from Kolkata.
Modernisation need have little to do with human development, may in fact be deleterious to it, if it lacks a political agency committed to and capable of realising it.
I think you do make a valid point, and Amartya Sem exlicitly makes the argument that famines don’t happen in democracies. However, it is not really “whataboutery” to contextualise by saying that famine is not only associated with socialist governments, for example the 19 million who starved in India between 1896 and 1902, or the 24 million who died in just a few months in China in 1907.
Indeed if we look at the six worst famines in history, three have been in India, three have been in China. And all three of those worst Indian famines took place under British rule.
Nor is it “whataboutery” to point out that there were two other mass famines in China, in 1928 to 1930 and in 1936 in China before Mao came to power.
This suggests that famine is linked to particular economic and development issues; just as mass violence has been associated with the legacy of colonialism and decolonialism.
I suppose famines are more likely to occur where the actual producers of food have little or no control over what happens to the food they produce. That would probably be a factor in some of the “colonial” type famines and some of the “socialist” ones.
Francis King: I suppose famines are more likely to occur where the actual producers of food have little or no control over what happens to the food they produce. That would probably be a factor in some of the “colonial” type famines and some of the “socialist” ones.
Well yes, but for most of modern history the majority of the world’s population has lived in colonial or post colonial states, and the post colonial states may or may not have been socialist; so it is hard to draw many conclusions.
What is more, the history of “big famines” obscures the more mundane tragedy of weaker individuals, or out of favour ethnic or social groups, having higher mortality across many societies.
The 1944 Hongerwinter in Holland is famous because it is a rare instance of a famine in a Western developed country, but what is interesting is that though it affected 4.5 million people, “only” 20000 died; now a 0.5% mortality rate in famine in Africa or South Asia would scarcely get a mention in British newspapers I suspect. Indeed I suspect that a 0.5% mortality rate through under-nourishment would be unremarkable in may developing countries; suggesting tha we all live with slow burn famine as a daily fact of life, due to unequal development, etc.
By the way and off topic; I got hold of the Sinn and Sinn book; it is excellent. Thank you for the recommendation.
real labour on said:
I don’t think the overthrow of Capitalism is either realistic, desirable or acheivable in a 21st Century British context although I want to see ‘The Beast’ tamed and the Welfare State preserved
well andy most of your posters seem to want it
you had better ban all these trots from your site
glad to see you respect the free market and its benefits
West Bengal also experienced higher improvements in life expectancy and literacy under its Communist governments compared to the Indian average.
And it lacked many of the natural advantages which Keralan Communism enjoyed, began from a much lower overall level of development, and was in fact systematically undermined by partition and the nationalists’ shifting of the state’s economic focus away from Kolkata.
Modernisation need have little to do with human development, may in fact be deleterious to it, if it lacks a political agency committed to and capable of realising it.
Is that why the naxalites were less succesful than might have been expected?
Manzil on said:
vanya: Is that why the naxalites were less succesful than might have been expected?
It definitely contributed to it.
The CPML’s emulation of an ‘Indian Maoism’ never succeeded in fracturing the CPM’s support in the countryside. This was based on two great pillars: 1. Agrarian reform and uplift (owing to the relative weakness of the Bengal Congress, the ‘reformed’ zamindari system of big landholdings survived into Independence). 2. Self-government for poor peasants via panchayati democratisation. The relatively large numbers of Bengali Dalits (outside of the south) created a large natural base of support to complement the historic radicalism of the Kolkata working class.
Against this, the CPML and its offshoots couldn’t really offer an alternative. (Although Mao’s insistence on their adopting a pro-Pakistan position in ’71 also put Communists, as in ’42, on the wrong side of the national question, to their immediate detriment.)
The latest upsurge of Naxalite violence essentially followed the CPM’s adoption of more traditional development policies which displaced the peasantry. Although the subsequent violence between the security forces and the rural masses wasn’t anything new, this time the CPM lacked a positive vision to justify its position (‘saving socialism from the adventurists’ was the usual response to insurgencies). Instead it was seen as a depoliticised agent of foreign capital and or a vast machine of corruption and careerism – which is probably the main reason the Trinamool Congress could position itself as the party of agrarian populism and win the last elections.
Despite its Bengali origins, the Naxalites were more successful in Andhra and Madhya Pradesh owing to the greater preponderance of adivasi peoples, and thus the existence of an outstanding (and marginalised) popular interest in resisting state development of the commons. But they have never been able to form a coherent political challenge to the mainstream Communists, and have often overlapped with quasi-dacoity that alienates the aboriginal peoples from other subaltern communities. So it’s never really moved beyond a militant organisation of self-defence – necessary, but insufficient alone, to secure tribal autonomy and land rights.
real labour: well andy most of your posters seem to want it
That comment was from Jellytot, not from me, but I agree with him.
Fenian exile on said:
“Catholic being interned or shot” we’ll Manzil this shows how much you know about Northern Ireland. I would posit the entirely reasonable claim that the repression visited on Catholics was as nothing compared to the massive sustained repression of the PRC. NI was still a liberal if imperfect democracy trying to deal with a sectarian squabble sustained by the great anti imperialist Provos now sadly running the place.
There’s no way of knowing if the peasants would have been worse off under the KMT maybe… What we do know for certain is they got a shit load of repression…
And Anna, please, you mention the “gains” of the revolution but curiously not the mass murder- was it worth it? All those gains to misquote Bob Dylan: ” that’s like saying you need a shot of malaria to cure the cold”.
Like other Maoist guerrillas in other countries, they go around murdering and terrorising the very poor peasants they claim to be fighting for, including Communist party activists, supporters and trade unionists. Which can’t win them many friends.
Fenian exile: I would posit the entirely reasonable claim that the repression visited on Catholics was as nothing compared to the massive sustained repression of the PRC.
this is a nonsensical comparison, becasue China has not had the cultural and social endowments which are necessary preconditions for participatory democracy, the CP took power in the crucible of civil war in a desperately poor post-colonial country, with poor educational attainment, and a culture of bureacracy and government inertia that was millennia old; the state was disunified, there was warlordism and gangsterism and the immediate legacy of foreign military occupation; and the state structure was riddled with corruption and lack of respect for the rule of law.
They managed to win an election in Nepal, and they control huge swathes of territory in remoter areas of India, although there is considerable truth in what you say.
Like other Maoist guerrillas in other countries, they go around murdering and terrorising the very poor peasants they claim to be fighting for, including Communist party activists, supporters and trade unionists. Which can’t win them many friends.
Manzil on said:
#178. Seriously, “sectarian squabbles”? The heroic KMT (maybe a cursory look at its record of white terror on the mainland or in Taiwan might be in order)? You’re just a troll.
Yeah, I’m not defending their well-documented descents into organised brigandage. Just trying to explain why they’ve managed to carve out a semi-permanent support base in adivasi areas. Given the repression which the Indian security forces are able to bring to bear (just look at Indian Kashmir), if they were just criminals they’d have been swept away long ago.
As I say, it’s indicative that the Naxalites’ success has been in: Andhra, where (owing to the legacy of Hyderabad) the nationalists weren’t able to build mass organisations pre-’47, and the Communists-proper were devastated by the suppression of the Telangana revolt; and the old Central Provinces, which were always the Indian ‘Wild West’, under colonial and Congress rule alike.
In that context, given the exploitation of adivasi communities and their resources, it’s predictable that some form of armed resistance, and a politically skewed one, should be the end result. But like Shining Path, the FARC etc, it easily degenerates into terrorism and criminality.
The relative containment of insurgency in Bengal owes much to the record of the Communist government, which in difficult conditions managed to build up its popular support and improve the life of the masses by reorienting development towards social needs.
Fenian exile on said:
“sectarian squabbles” Yes -as good a term as any to describe the “troubles” and I think fairly accurate- what would you describe it as?
“China has not had the cultural and social endowments which are necessary preconditions for participatory democracy, the CP took power in the crucible of civil war in a desperately poor post-colonial country, with poor educational attainment, and a culture of bureacracy and government inertia that was millennia old; the state was disunified, there was warlordism and gangsterism and the immediate legacy of foreign military occupation; and the state structure was riddled with corruption and lack of respect for the rule of law.” Can’t disagree with any of that Andy but did the repression just disappear after the civil war? -you are just excusing mass murder comrade and you don”t even want the overthrow of capitalism. And it was Manzil who was indulging in whataboutery and trying to draw some equivalence between the violence perpertrated by social democratic govts and the CCP….which is nonsense but maybe not if you are a Trot.
Fenian exile: Can’t disagree with any of that Andy but did the repression just disappear after the civil war? –
No, there has been a process of what for want of a better term we could call “legitimisation”ce then; broadly speaking the PRC is not really a “repressive” society.,
However, it is cursed by a lack of respect for the rule of law and corruption; this is why public intellectuals like Hu Angang in China today refer to it being too weak a state, not too strong a state.
As the rule of law become more established (and to a certain extent the market) China’s civic endowment will improve.
Jellytot on said:
real labour
glad to see you respect the free market and its benefits
Do I hell?! I detest the free market and desire it to be constrained and constricted. Most of all I want labour to be able to negotiate with it from a position of strength and power.
The PRC’s government’s ability to bargain with Capital (both International and Domestic) from a position of strength and power is its most redeeming and attractive feature.
Manzil on said:
Fenian exile: And it was Manzil who was indulging in whataboutery
No I wasn’t, you specifically posed the question of whether it was preferable to be Chinese or northern Irish. Which I repeat, was a stupid bloody question.
Of course, my contrary example of an equally absurd, pointless comparison, 1917 Russia and the modern-day US, didn’t even get to the heart of the matter, which is China’s experience (unlike Russia) of being a semi-colonial country from which its post-’49 history cannot be divorced, and the existence of Ireland, and especially its Orange statelet, within the imperialist ‘British world’.
I’m just going to keep quoting your claim, “There’s no way of knowing if the peasants would have been worse off under the KMT maybe”, as I think it shows how utterly insincere you’re being. (Incidentally, what particular comment provoked the tiresome, moronic ‘Trot’ claims this time?)
As for “sectarian squabbles”, if you can’t see how that minimises it, there really is no hope.
Harsanyi_Janos on said:
Jellytot: Most of all I want labour to be able to negotiate with it from a position of strength and power.
Do you see that as the case in China with its residency registration and the ACFTU which does not allow members to elect their representatives freely?
Andy Newman on said:
In thr same edition, Simon “Ted Crilly” Basketter writes of the Catholic Church:
Well the numbers of those hoping for a benign resolution for the SWP crisis are much smaller, but similarly the stench of scandal will not go away.
Karl Stewart on said:
There must be a rogue oppositionist infiltrated into SWP Towers.
Jellytot on said:
No sense of irony or self awareness whatsoever
‘Irony’ and ‘Self-awareness’ are bourgeois.
Brianthedog on said:
#3 I was going to say given the make up of the SWP CC that bourgeois should come easy and then realised that that its far too lowly a class from them.
Jon Fanning on said:
when the old pope visited Simon wrote about the atheist demonstrators “while someone who actually a victim of abuse might have grounds for demonatrating that is not the case here” (not an exact quote) but it is a very bizzare view of who should demonstrate over anything.
Karl Stewart on said:
Someone I know who has left SWP following the gerrymandered conference told me that the SWP’s Unite “fraction” wanted to back Len McCluskey in the Unite GS election, but that they were over-ruled by the SWP CC, who imposed support for Jerry Hicks.
If this is true, then isn’t there an irony here?
Karl Stewart on said:
…or would that be a paradox?
Lurker on said:
#6 Correct.
Karl Stewart on said:
If it’s true, then someone should tell Hicks.
Hicks is all for rank and file democracy, and he’s opposed to unaccountable leaders imposing policies on the membership.
Dan on said:
Are you claiming something has happened in the SWP analagous to the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic church? For sure? You want to go on record with that or is it just speculation that’s never been proven in court?
jay blackwood on said:
Currently being circulated on Facebook, a status update from Alex Callinicos:
LETTER TO ORGANIZING COMMITTEE OF HISTORICAL MATERIALISM CONFERENCE, DELHI
25 March 2013
Dear Organizing Committee,
I was very surprised to receive your communication. You ask me ‘to withdraw [my] decision to attend’. But I only made that decision in response to an invitation to participate in your conference. So what you are in fact doing is withdrawing your invitation, as is indicated by the fact that you have already deleted me from the conference programme. I think you should take full responsibility for the decision you are actually taking.
I understand of course how important the issue of rape and sexual violence is in India, especially after last December’s gang rape and murder in Delhi. It is also a very important question in Britain, and for me personally, as it is for the Socialist Workers Party. We are strongly committed to women’s liberation. We took the rape allegations against a leading member extremely seriously; the controversy over how the party handled these allegations is indicative of that seriousness. The special conference that we recently held to resolve this controversy has set up a committee to review our procedures, and we intend to use this to reinforce our efforts to combat the oppression of women.
It is not for me to judge how grave the danger of disruption to your conference is. But an appeal circulated by an academic at JNU does not reflect well intellectually or morally on those agitating against my presence at the conference. This document is a farrago of nonsense that treats allegations as proven fact, cites tendentious opinion pieces as ‘reports’, and includes the laughable assertion that ‘the journal Historical Materialism is allied, and … is known to be principally operated by Socialist Workers Party members and supporters’.
Since this is a conference sponsored by Historical Materialism, let me remind you that I am a longstanding supporter of the journal and, along with Marxist intellectuals of many political tendencies, a member of its International Advisory Board. I have tried to support HM’s development both in Britain and internationally. Your decision damages HM’s commitment to promote Marxist theoretical development independently of organized political alignments.
So I regret your decision – not just for this reason, but also because I value my long-standing connections with the Marxist intellectual left in India. In taking this decision, based directly or indirectly on interested misrepresentations of debates inside the SWP, you run the risk of compromising your own intellectual and political integrity.
This is to say nothing of the personal inconvenience and expense you are exposing me to by withdrawing your invitation a week after you had circulated a programme that included me as chairing one session and speaking at another, and barely a week before I was due to fly to India. This is quite unacceptable in what is meant to be an academic conference, and it is also not how socialists should behave towards one another.
In comradeship,
Alex Callinicos
John R on said:
jay blackwood,
Disentangling the Delhi HM Conference from the SWP Crisis
26 March
Statement from the organising group of the Delhi HM conference
Over the past few days there have been suggestions that the journal Historical Materialism (HM) is run by Britain’s Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), that the SWP is associated with the Delhi HM Conference on 3–5 April 2013, and that in light of the rape crisis in the SWP, the Delhi HM conference should be boycotted or disrupted.
Both propositions underlying the boycott and disruption call are absolutely false. HM has always been an independent journal, and is not controlled by the SWP or any other group. Three out of the 12-member Editorial Board were members of the SWP. During the recent controversy, all three have resigned their membership of the party in support of democracy and gender rights. Furthermore, there is no connection whatsoever between the SWP and the Delhi HM conference.
Participation at HM conferences across the world has always covered a wide spectrum of left-wing political thought. The Delhi HM conference includes participants from India and abroad and will continue this tradition of plurality. Members of the organising group of the Delhi HM conference, which is broadly Left in its composition, believe that equality between the sexes is central to building ‘new cultures of the Left’. This struggle must address violence against women wherever it occurs. Since the recent crisis in the SWP involves rape charges, it caused deep disquiet amongst us.
The bulk of the preparations for the conference, including the selection of submissions, took place well before the recent SWP controversy, yet the fact that one out of around 140 papers selected was by an SWP Central Committee member was used in the disinformation campaign against the Conference. As the success of the Conference is the organising group’s prime concern and we have no wish to be associated with the crisis of any other group, we asked the sole member of the SWP CC who was to attend the conference not to attend. The HM Conference remains an open event and its organisers cannot prevent the entry or exit of participants or stop anyone who chooses to speak from the floor of the Conference discussions from doing so.
Dilip Simeon
Gautam Mody
Harsh Kapoor
Kamal Chenoy
Rohini Hensman
Rosa Basanti
(On behalf of the Delhi Conference organising group) 26/3/2013
http://www.sacw.net/article4048.html
jay blackwood on said:
Thanks for posting that John. Looks to me like the organising committee have acted very sensibly in the circumstances.
Karl Stewart on said:
Now the decent socialists have left, the remaining SWP members are like a bunch of sheep being herded around by a pack of wolves.
SWP = The Sheep & Wolves Party.
Pardeep on said:
This is pretty much an obsession for this site isn’t it. Meanwhile the world is collapsing around us.
John Grimshaw on said:
#10 Are you claiming something has happened in the Catholic Church analogous to the alleged sexual abuse scandals in the SWP? For sure? You want to go on record with that or is it just speculation thats never been proven in court?
brainwash on said:
“We took the rape allegations against a leading member extremely seriously; the controversy over how the party handled these allegations is indicative of that seriousness.”
Callinicos is being about as dishonest as its possible to be here. The controversy was entirely about how the SWP do NOT take rape and its victims seriously.
John Grimshaw on said:
#10 Dan, I am not aware of anyone here (I could be wrong) actually convicting “comrade Delta”, or anyone else, of a serious crime. Rather there has been general disgust at the way an allegation has been handled. So yes there is an irony in Tim’s cartoon. The SWP appears to be accusing the Catholic Church (although I suspect you could easily choose the Orthodox etc.) of dealing with its issues in-house (for reasons I couldn’t possibly speculate on) whilst somewhat hypocritically doing the same itself.
John Grimshaw on said:
I’m “obsessed” with the fact that the SWP is an undemocratic bureaucratic organisation which is doing serious damage to the British left when “the world around us is collapsing.” Well it isn’t quite actually but the working class is getting a good hammering.
brokenwindow on said:
18#
Don’t mention the Catholic church or you’ll have the Cardinal running from confession to protect it.
I understand the story – microscopically small party on Far Left exposed as being undemocratic – but most cults are,aren’t they? Why the continued hoo haa about it all. Mark Steel didn’t answer the main question about this party in his piece;why stick around for SO long? I think this party obviously gives people something they need psychologically. Nothing else explains its existence. Time to move on – if you pull back your curtains you’ll see a full-blown recession and if you listen,you’ll hear people being robbed by the government while the opposition twiddle their thumbs.Priorities…
Nick Wright on said:
This idiotic decision does exactly the opposite. And it gives Callinicos, whose role as party manager in this affair demeans him and the SWP, an opportunity to pose as a victim of a witch hunt.
Karl Stewart on said:
Nick Wright,
Couldn’t disagree more Nick. I’ve never heard of this conference or the organisation and I doubt many others have either. But well done to them – an exampole for us all.
Let the likes of Alex “Lynch Mob” Calinicos whine all he wants – I think it’s great to see this pathetic bully getting a taste of his own medicine.
Nick Wright on said:
Karl
Citing your own ignorance is a not a sensible way of convincing others
http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/
Karl Stewart on said:
Thanks for the link Nick – looks like a fun-packed weekend and I can see why someone would be upset at not being able to go.
But come on Nick, some arrogant, bullying sect-leader having to rearrange his travel plans is hardly a “witch-hunt” is it?
Let’s not start buying into his self-important conceits. This is the slef-appointed leader of a disfunctional sect and one that, thankfully, is now in terminal decline.
Francis King on said:
Nick is right. Of course, it’s up to Historical Materialism who they choose to invite or disinvite. But in general, it is a very bad idea for non-party, broad initiatives of that type to get involved, or appear to get involved, in the factional squabbles of individual parties. Sometimes, “if it’s not your fight, keep out of it” can be a very good principle.
Karl Stewart on said:
It’s not a principle, but it’s certainly a great help for bullies and abusers.
jay blackwood on said:
Spot-on Karl. I’m sure there will be more of this to come. Actions have consequences…
Manzil on said:
If Callinicos and the SWP are being used to attack Historical Materialism, it makes perfect sense for the organisers to ask him not to attend. Certainly it’s not like anything of value will be lost by missing out on the (I’m sure, stimulating, radical) contributions of the Lord Professor.
HM didn’t just choose to “get involved” in a “factional squabble”. They didn’t want their conference to be undermined by association with a political thug, and good on them. You can’t just separate out ‘academic’ politics from your actual political record – as Jay says, for every action…
Nick Wright on said:
I have no time for Callinicos’s distinctive ideological positions and find his handling of the SWP’s rape allegation issue deplorable but the man has a substantial standing as an academic and a theoretician and says some interesting and insightful things in these capacities.
In as far as these ideas can be challenged they should be in the appropriate fora and the HM conference circuit is such. Francis is absolutely right that is up to the Indian organisers of this particular event who they invite and uninvite.
My point is that in withdrawing the invitation they are giving traction to the tactic of the SWP leadership to bury the generally well placed criticism of their conduct as being a witch hunt against them on the basis of their politics.
jay blackwood on said:
But Nick, they’re going to deploy the “witchhunt” meme anyway, regardless of what people do. Do you think the left should allow them to play at “business as usual”? Because I don’t. Over the Delta affair, that party crossed a line.
Karl Stewart on said:
Nick Wright,
But Nick, the “witch-hunt” fantasy is something that only exists inside the conceited imaginations of Calinicos and his cronies, and the sheep who continue to submit to them.
I’ve never heard anyone outside the ranks of the SWP praise Calinicos’s ideological contributions before, but now you’ve raised it, let’s see.
Among other recent contributions to Marxist theory…
He told us to “celebrate” the public televised lynching of an African leader in 2011.
He told us that the CIA-sponsored mob who carried out this murder were comparable to the WWII Italisn partisans.
He threatened SWP members who disagreed with their party’s dictatorial leadership with “lynch mobs.”
This is a quite grotesque individual, who appears to be playing the leading role at the helm of a disfunctional, bullying and abusive sect.
As for your claim that he should be invited, despite all this, because of his academic qualification, then if this were the sole criterion, regardless of someone’s grotesque politics, then there would be no reason not to invite a David Irving.
Manzil on said:
But Nick…
(Only joking. Wanted the hat-trick.)
Well, he can certainly copy & paste from the Financial Times like a pro.
Sam64 on said:
Although Callinicos has had plenty to say – including reference to Historical Materialism board machinations and lynch mobs – within the SWP, it’s significant that he has said nothing publicly to say about his party’s crisis until this: he doesn’t get to go to an international academic conference. Yes, he penned that characteristically self important piece ‘In defence of Leninism’ back in early January, notoriously describing a farcical internal enquiry into rape allegations against a fellow CC member as ‘a difficult disciplinary case’. But since then nothing. I gather that every day he tweets at least one FT link – indicative of his lofty remove from the tiresome antics of those ‘who won’t accept democracy’. Now at last he becomes all declarative on women’s rights and sexual violence.
I too have doubts about blacklisting people – that’s in effect what has happened with this organisation, Historical Materialism. But I’m not sorry that Callinicos has had it brought home to him in a way that perhaps he’ll finally understand – he doesn’t get to pose on an international stage – just how low his and his party’s reputation has fallen and just what a pariah he’s become.
And, oh, couldn’t have happened to a nicer fella…
Jellytot on said:
@29My point is that in withdrawing the invitation they are giving traction to the tactic of the SWP leadership to bury the generally well placed criticism of their conduct as being a witch hunt against them on the basis of their politics.
Given the issues around Rape in India at present I’m not surprised that Indian socialists wouldn’t want to share a platform with the defenders and enablers of Comrade Delta.
And I doubt that any so-called “witch hunt” is to do with politics or political theory per se (for all their posturing the SWP’s politics are fairly safe, benign and ‘reformist-in-practice’) – It’s more to show disapproval and zero tolerance of their twisted and dysfunctional internal set-up.
Nick Wright on said:
You really should read a bit more Karl
Here is a short list of books which will enable you to broaden your critique of Callinicos’s contribution to theory
Books
1976: Althusser’s Marxism (London: Pluto Press) ISBN 0-904383-02-4
1977: Southern Africa after Soweto (with John Rogers) (London: Pluto Press), ISBN 0-904383-42-3
1981: Southern Africa after Zimbabwe (London: Pluto) ISBN 0-86104-336-7
1982: Is there a future for Marxism? (London: Macmillan). ISBN 0-333-28477-1
1983: Marxism and Philosophy (Oxford Paperbacks) (Oxford: Clarendon). ISBN 0-19-876126-0
1983: The revolutionary ideas of Karl Marx (London: Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-09-8
1985: South Africa: the Road to Revolution (Toronto: International Socialists). ISBN 0-905998-55-3
1985: The Great Strike : the miners’ strike of 1984-5 and its lessons (London: Socialist Worker) ISBN 0-905998-50-2
1986: The Revolutionary Road to Socialism (London: Socialist Workers Party). ISBN 0-905998-53-7
1987: The Changing Working Class: Essays on Class Structure Today (with Chris Harman) (London: Bookmarks) ISBN 0-906224-40-3
1988: South Africa Between Reform and Revolution (London: Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-46-2
1988: Making History: Agency, Structure, and Change in Social Theory (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press). ISBN 0-8014-2121-7
1989: Marxist Theory (editor) (Oxford: Oxford University Press). ISBN 0-19-827294-4
1990: Trotskyism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press). ISBN 0-8166-1904-2
1991: The Revenge of History: Marxism and the East European Revolutions ISBN 0-271-00767-2
1991: Against Postmodernism: a Marxist critique (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-312-04224-8
1992: Between Apartheid and Capitalism: conversations with South African socialists (editor) (London: Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-68-3
1994: Marxism and the New Imperialism (London ; Chicago, Ill. : Bookmarks). ISBN 0-906224-81-0
1995: Theories and Narratives (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-1201-6
1995: Race and Class (London: Bookmark Publications). ISBN 0-906224-83-7
1995: Socialists in the trade unions (London: Bookmarks) ISBN 1-898876-01-0
1999: Social Theory: Historical Introduction (New York: New York University Press). ISBN 0-8147-1593-1
2000: Equality (Themes for the 21st Century) (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-2324-7
2002: Against the Third Way (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-2674-2
2003: An anti-Capitalist manifesto (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-2903-2
2003: New Mandarins of American Power: the Bush administration’s plans for the world (Cambridge: Polity Press). ISBN 0-7456-3274-2
2006: The Resources of Critique (Cambridge: Polity). ISBN 0-7456-3160-6
2009: Imperialism and Global Political Economy (Cambridge, Polity). ISBN 0-7456-4045-1
2010: Bonfire of Illusions: The Twin Crises of the Liberal World (Polity). ISBN 0-7456-4876-2
2012: The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx (Haymarket) ISBN 978-1-6084-6138-7
[edit]Articles
Sam64 on said:
You forgot the revised and updated, 2007 edition of Social Theory, a historical introduction Nick…bloody hell..
Karl Stewart on said:
All that and he still get get an invite anywhere!
Jellytot on said:
@35
Although I’m sure that he’d like to, Callinicos cannot divorce his role as a intellectual and author from his position as a leader of a faction within the SWP.
Although he would like to keep these aspects of his life separate and distinct it seems to have caught up with him.
Totally Horrified Ex on said:
Extraodinary! The controversy was indicative of how seriously the SWP took the allegations!
Yes that’s right. Stallinicos is arguing it was wasn’t caused because they (he) didn’t take the allegations seriously but infact the controversy was evidence of the SWP taking the allegations seriously!
But he told them to shut up. His thugs like Simon Assaf told them they didn’t belong in the party
That’s like burning your neighbours house down and then claiming credit for the fire-brigade heroically saving their granny.
His ego is off the scale.
But may I just add hahahahahahaha!
The chickens are coming home to roost.
Well done HM India. Jai Hind!
Totally Horrified Ex on said:
Wrong Nick. There is no witch hunt. This is what we warned you would happen. Geddit?.
But then you supported the CC didn’t you? I’ve seen you bullying people on Facebook. I’ve read your comments telling women who have spent decades in the SWP ‘they should shut up’ because the left in disgust ‘and have no right to comment on internal matters’.
But I would have thought that you know the Malcolm X quote about chickens always coming home to roost.
The SWP always likes to play the witch hunt card. Rees tried it (and failed), you’ll try it no doubt when teachers and parents at your school blank you. It’s all part of your fantasy role play world that you are a ‘revolutionary’ threat to the system and this is all a right wing plot by the lizards. Sorry ‘bosses’.
Writing books which are published by a couple of academic publishers plus Bookmarks doesn’t make you an important person/thinker/human Nick. Apart from only being read by a few hundred people at the most all it proves is Lord Acton got a good education and knows how to play the game he was trained to play.
You may bend your knee and bow your head-we refuse, thanks very much.
Stallinicos has failed massively in his project. You are defending the indefensible again. But like a rat on a sinking ship do I also note your eyes darting around looking for a way off?
Ken MacLeod on said:
#40: I think you’re confusing Nick Wright with someone else.
Karl Stewart on said:
Totally Horrified Ex,
You must be confused, Nick’s a good guy and nothing to do with the Sheep and Wolves Party.
He’s just got a different view of Calinicos.
Nick Wright on said:
Some of the language in this discussion sounds like spurned lovers getting their own back.
If criticism of the SWP’s handling of this issue is couched in the terms used by Totally Horrified Ex above then the central committee is home and dry.
We really should try and be objective about all of this. The SWP have made a series of very bad mistakes and are paying for it.
Some of the points made in the discussion about the relationship between the ideological foundations of the SWP, its internal culture and its, often sectarian, political line seem to me to be very compelling. But beyond all this the kind of politics that the SWP represents goes wider than this particular grouping and has real material roots in the kind of society we live in, in the particular development of capitalism and the history of the left.
To suggest that everything it says and does and the actions of its members is irremediably contaminated by recent events is primitive moralism and bad politics.
There are people I like and respect, and usually disagree with, on both sides of this inner party conflict and I hope they emerge from it wiser and able to make some kind of contribution to political struggle.
I don’t actually have much hope that this will occur for some time because the twin imperatives of maintaining its distinctive political stand and organisational coherence combined with the usual manoeuvrings of party functionaries under siege will inhibit self criticism.
The most damaging political effect will be to further deepen the sectarian character of the organisation. As if we haven’t got enough of this stuff already.
tom on said:
totally horrified ex – I believe you are talking about Nick Grant (SWP and NUT national exec) rather than Nick Wright.
Karl Stewart on said:
I’d say an apology’s in order – over to you Totally Horrified
Morning Star reader on said:
Totally Horrified Ex (40), I think you may be mistaking Nick Wright for someone else on Facebook. Cuddly Stalinist Nick Wright does not work in a school, never has, and isn’t a rat on the sinking ship SS SWP. He’s been a Communist since the age of three. Are you sure it’s his Facebook you’re talking about?
Tony Collins on said:
Actually I think people are right here, THEX – Nick Grant behaved pretty badly online and offline, so I think you’ve got the two of them mixed up. Nick Wright has always been cool on here, and if you let him know it was a genuine mistake, I’m pretty sure he’ll be cool about that as well.
Karl Stewart on said:
MSR’s right, our Nick is a big cuddly teddy bear of a stalinist
Totally Horrified Ex on said:
True. Apologies. My mistake.
Got carried away with the hilarity of Callinicos being banned.
Nick Wright on said:
Pity poor Nick Grant, forever branded as a cuddly stalinist. He will never live it down
Karl Stewart on said:
Right, now that’s sorted, let’s get back to attacking the real enemy – the SWP!!
John R on said:
FYI, here is a link to the Historical Materialism Editorial Board who include among their number-
“China Miéville is a novelist and writer of non-fiction. His non-fiction works include Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law. His research interests include international law, science fiction and fantasy, cephalopods, and rejectamenta. ”
http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/about-us/editorial-board
Stephen on said:
I know what you are saying – but Irving is a bad example. He isn’t a historian – he is a liar. ( see Richard Evans ‘Telling Lies about Hitler’ its fantastic.)
David Ruaune on said:
Callinicos is a readable academic – I have and have read a few of his books. He is not published merely by Bookmarks, or even Pluto, but by much more mainstream publishers, unlike most of the SWP leadership. A couple of years back I read an article by him, a critique of the trajectory of Analytical Marxism, and, though I was no longer politically sympathetic to him, I thought it was a good article. His problem is that of being the last of the old guard within the SWP – I don’t think he’s any sort of natural leader, more suited to being the most intellectual, academic chap within a team; when he had that role within Cliff’s team, all was probably hunky dory (at least for him).
But some have being an arsehole thrust upon them; lacking much of a creative approach, or real leadership qualities, Callinicos has degenerated into providing the intellectual gloss for the SWP. Until now, he has been able to ride two horses at once – hardline CC party man, and considered, thoughtful academic slowly earning a thank-you-very-much professor’s retirement. But it’s falling apart; the two personas are in collision. And he doesn’t like that.
Marxist Lenonist on said:
Respect to the HM India comrades for this correct stance – the first of many such snubs, most likely…
Memory of the party on said:
Spook.
Karl Stewart on said:
Stephen,
Of course Irving is a liar, you’re right. He’s a revolting nazi apologist.
My point there was to take that extreme example to argue against the case that NickW seemed to be making in separating Calinicos’s political theory and political practice.
My point was that it isn’t possible to judge Calinicos the political writer separately from Calinicos the petty dictator who leads an abusive political sect.
I’m not saying it’s impossible for a reactionary to have other talents – if Calinicos were a talented musician or actor with reactionary politics it could be legitimate to say: “OK, his politics stink, but that’s a fantastic tune.” Or: “…but he was brilliant in that action movie.”
But political writing and political leadership can’t be disconnected the one from the other.
anon on said:
Presumably there will be a vacant slot at the conference.
Anyone on here been invited to speak in his place?
Jimmy Wilson on said:
Alex Callinicos doesn’t get to go to India for a conference just because he made a complete balls of a rape allegation. Boo fucking hoo, I can’t afford the bus fare into town because I don’t have a millon qualifications and find myself unable to get a job that pays the National Minimum Wage.
I would have loved to have gone to the Unite The Resistance conference to oppose the bedroom tax last week which was just down the road but I have to keep my bus fares for wait, bedroom tax. When the baliffs come knocking and turn us into criminals Alex Callinicos with his high & mighty false morality and Professor salary might as well be in India because I can’t see him offering any solidarity to the working class. The Prick.
Have you noticed how Callinicos and Eric Honecker were never seen in the same room in the 1980s? Coincidence? I think not.
vanya on said:
Leaving aside the handling of the rape allegation and the lynch mob issue, how does a key leader of an organisation that fails utterly to APPLY historical materialism to its practice or analysis qualify to speak at such an event anyway? Was he going to be putting the case against it?
Andy Newman on said:
Rather unfair, Honecker was a man of real acheivement in difficult crcumstances
Jimmy Wilson on said:
Yes, he managed to shoot dead a remarkable number of people fleeing his utopia despite them running very very fast. A real man of the people worthy of a double page spread in “Hello” and a seat on the GMTV sofa.
Jellytot on said:
@62
A rather “Daily Telegraph” POV ‘Jimmy Wilson’.
He also gave material assistance to genuine national liberation struggles in places like Angola and supported the fight of the oppressed around the world.
http://calebmaupin.blogspot.ca/2010/08/1972-german-democratic-republic.html
Nick Wright on said:
Jimmy, which of your heroes spent their mature years in a Nazi prison before leading a socialist state?
Doug Barnes on said:
…. the failure of an organization like the SWP to appreciate the importance of feminism programmatically creates a fertile soil for the sort of sexist culture in a left party
that perpetuates and defends itself just as does any patriarchal and bureaucratic institution of capitalism.
What has happened to the SWP over the last several months shows
conclusively that a revolutionary party will rise or fall to the degree that it addresses the key political issues of its time. In this case, the issue is the right of all women to be free of sexual violence and harassment. The inability of SWP leaders to deal with this issue compassionately, democratically, and with an understanding of the
corrupting qualities of male privilege is a leadership failure of profound proportions.
to read the whole statement: http://www.socialism.com/drupa…
Doug Barnes, Freedom Socialist Party, US
Jimmy Wilson on said:
I’m not a Daily Telegraph reader or a right-winger. I was making a light-hearted comparison between Alex Callinicos and Eric Honeker, both of whom in my opinion were or are dictators in charge of an increasingly obsolete state/organisation pretending to be socialist.
The time he spent in a Nazi prison must have been a good education as the Stasi were similar to the Gestapo. He may well have supported the oppressed around the world but he conveniently overlooked the citizens of his own country preferring to do the oppressing himself. Eric Honeker in my opinion was not a socialist, he was a Stalinist dictator and if slagging him off makes you think that I’m a Tory then I couldn’t give a flying gulag.
I came on this site to discuss opinions with fellow socialists and left wingers but I didn’t realise that it would be home to so many of the Politburo. If Honeker was in charge this internet malarky would be a sure fire way to see that our families were rounded up, labelled subversives and “re-educated”. I do not want to be on your side anymore. I’m taking my ball away from the collective. You don’t know how to play nice with the rest of the class.
Jellytot on said:
@66The time he spent in a Nazi prison must have been a good education as the Stasi were similar to the Gestapo.
That’s a slur against the memory of a genuine anti-fascist and a shameful right-wing statement.
Jimmy Wilson on said:
Is it balls. It’s perfectly valid given the nature of the State that Mr. Honeker presided over. There you go again, if someone shows the slightest bit of dissent or independent thought, just label them right-wing. Sounds like the SWP CC.
vanya on said:
#68 No. People, including hundreds of thousands of former citizens of the DDR, take the view that the society they lived in was vastly preferable towhat they have now.
And that nostalgia is not based on harking back to a society that exterminated people because of their race, or because they were disabled, or tried to impose a slave empire on millions of people they believed to be racially inferior, but one that gave sanctuary to political exiles from the coup in Chile, that backed liberation struggles all over the 3rd world etc etc.
So while the view that the DDR was oppressive in many ways and not a model for a society that many of us would want to live in or advocate is legitimate within a broad socialist dicourse, the idea that the DDR/ Stasi can be compared in anything but a superficial fasion with the Gestapo/ 3rd Reich is indeed deeply reactionary, so don’t be surprised to be met with deep hostility on this blog if that appears to be what you are saying.
Jimmy Wilson on said:
So I’m reactionary now? Are you sure I’m not a right-winger? Or maybe both?
My friend (from West Germany) chooses to live in the former East now because he believes that the citizens are more community minded. That is the only positive aspect he says and only the most rose-tinted specs wearer (or one doing nicely out of being top dog) would go back to harsh state oppression.
If you truly believe in “socialism from below” then socialists should actually try to learn how to communicate with that very “below” instead of spouting patronising drivel. Now get yourself to North Korea to continue your broad socialist discourse and work for a bowl of rice a week. Let’s see how much you like your workers’ paradise then. Is that reactionary enough for you?
Beaugeste on said:
The analogy is that the SWP and the Catholic Church both believe they can ‘investigate themselves’ and ‘deal with’ sexual abuse allegations within their organisations, basically because the organisation comes before everything and even now with breathtaking arrogance they can’t admit that they have made a serious mistake
Manzil on said:
I’ve always suspected Vanya of being a bit Kim Il-sungish.
anon on said:
never once saw callinicos at a ucu meeting. never, not once. that’s ucu or uculeft. never. i always wondered.
Dr Falk on said:
Some of the Left in the West have always cheered on police state regimes that they themselves didn’t have to live under. Even Pol Pot had his cheerleaders ( I hope someone is not going to come on and say he was really a great man, etc ).
John on said:
Change the words ‘cheered on’ to the word ‘understand’ in the above and you get closer to the truth.
The notion that regimes exist in an historical vacuum and develop in isolation from history is a symptom of the paucity of analysis that has long been prevalent among a large section of the left in the West.
Harry Cowley on said:
Of course not. He left all that sort of grubby work to his second division lickspittle Tom Hickey who by all accounts continues to plough the furrow for the Lynchers even though his entire student cadre (at both Brighton and Sussex) have deserted him.
Jimmy Wilson on said:
I like Dr Falk’s analysis. Forgive my proletarian ignorance John but I haven’t a clue what you’re going on about. This is exactly the kind of language that means that the SWP CC (or any left CC filled with academics) will forever remain distant from and will fail to connect with the bulk of the working class.
I can’t remember who said it but the saying was something like “in every revolutionary there’s a policeman bursting to get out”. I consider DDR & Joseph Stalin apologists to be just as much an enemy of the working class as any Tory. At least Tories don’t pretend to be on your side.
John on said:
I think you’re being modest. I think you know what I mean. You don’t think the Second World War, Nazism, the sheer scale of the barbarism it unleashed in Europe, the role of the Red Army in liberating Europe from that barbarism, the West’s determination to isolate the Soviet Union in the aftermath, the number of former Nazis rehabilitated in West Germany and at the heart of its government – none of that you think had the slightest bearing on the nature of the East German regime?
If the answer is no then I suggest you need to improve your knowledge and understanding with more reading and reflection.
We’re not discussing a B Western movie, with clearly demarcated good guys in the white hats and the bad guys in the black. Reality is a bit more complex than that.
Am I suggesting that the DDR was a workers’ paradise? Absolutely not. But neither do I think it was the Gulag it is popularly depicted as in the West.
Good for you.
Jimmy Wilson on said:
John,
Patronising twat.
John on said:
Jimmy, you’re getting yourself bent out of shape. It’s not worth it, honestly it’s not.
Tokyo Nambu on said:
“The notion that regimes exist in an historical vacuum and develop in isolation from history is a symptom of the paucity of analysis”
Honecker ordered the shooting of people who wanted to leave the country. When the conscripts couldn’t manage to kill them (which, given limitless amounts of 7.62×39, was rather amazing) they were instead left to die in plain sight, pour encourager les autres. Only the hard left could regard that as a topic of “analysis” rather than “disgust”. Honecker found that some recruits were reluctant to shoot their fellow citizens, but you and Andy Newman would have volunteered for extra target practice, such would have been your zeal.
John on said:
Truly barbaric. But any more barbaric than British troops killing Iraqi and Afghan civilians in the name of democracy?
What about Bloody Sunday? Does this event qualify for your ‘disgust’ as well?
I suspect it doesn’t, or at least not to the same fulminating extent.
Dr Falk on said:
Yes John history does exert great influence on events and people. So does the ideology of the people on the ground. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc also had a belief in their role in the historical process and a view that ‘the people’ (probably the likes of you and me) were part of the process to be purged, moved about like chessboard pieces, managed, controlled and killed if thought not of value. This ‘people as cogs in the machine’ and the machine run by the great leader’ is toxic.
PS – Thanks Jimmy for the compliment.
John on said:
I’m just interested…does your ‘etc’ include every US president and British prime minister since the First World War? Is there any room in your list for Harry Truman who gave the go ahead for nuclear bombs to be dropped on civilians? What about the Korean War, 3 million dead; the Vietnam War, 2 million dead? What about the tens of millions of children throughout the developing world who’ve perished as a direct result of an economic system predicated on profit regardless of the human cost?
Would you agree?
Dr Falk on said:
Dear John.
With things like the Vietnam War and the nuclear bombing of Japan I have total opposition to them. It does seem that every time someone critiques a Stalinist regime you come back instantly with a question about the West’s record. What do you think of a regime like Pol Pot’s or Mao’s China? Was it socialism or a progressive form of society? I notice you say to my original post that the Left understood these regimes rather than cheered them on. What does that mean?
tigger on said:
I see the CPGB(ML) have now taken to posting their Stalin fan mail here
David Ruaune on said:
There’s a lovely bit on Alex Callinicos’s Facebook –
Red Slate Thompson quotes Callinicos whining against the decision of Historical Materialism to revoke their invite –
[Callinicos] – “it is also not how socialists should behave towards one another.”
then Red Slate Thompson – YOU EXPELLED ME VIA EMAIL.
If the kids are united.... on said:
“..and it is also not how socialists should behave towards one another.”
Did Callincos really say that?
They, the SWP, really do.not.get.it.
As a starter for ten, Mr Callinicos, Bradley, Bennett, Smith, et al…how DO you think socialists should behave towards each other????
I for one, would really like to know.
RSF on said:
http://athousandflowers.net/2013/03/29/is-the-swp-finished/
John on said:
Pol Pot’s regime was death itself. Its demise could only have been a massive victory for humanity over barbarism, which is why not only socialists and communists everywhere, but all right thinking people would have cheered the liberation of Cambodia by the People’s Republic of Vietnam.
Of course, this history would be incomplete without mentioning the fact that Pol Pot and the remnants of his regime sought and gained sanctuary across the border in Thailand with the connivance of the US.
I would challenge you scour this blog for as much as one sentence written by any of its contributors which even comes close to suggesting justification or support for Pol Pot and his regime. And when you can’t I wonder if you would be good enough to come on here and apologise for what is nothing more than an unfounded smear.
Karl Stewart on said:
It’s impossible for me to disagree ewith Jimmy Wilson’s statement that it’s barbaric for a state to have a policy of shooting people who try to leave.
There is no “however..” or “…put this in context” or “…but what Jimmy’s got to bear in mind is…” – JimmyW’s absolutely right on this point full stop.
Treating people like this will not and must not be a part of the socialism and communism of the future.
In addition to JimmyW’s point, and not as a counter-argument, we also need to highlight the barbaric actions of capitalist states that John highlights in his contribution.
Our own government organised, on an industrial scale, the bloody slaughter of millions of our own young men in WWI, as did the rulers of France, Germany and others.
Our rulers stood by and did nothing while millions were murdered by Nazi Germany, and also our “allies” the US slaughtered millions in Japan, Vietnam, Korea and Iraq – which our own rulers also took part in.
We on the left, socialists, communists, need to fight for a future that’s far better than this, not something that’s not quite as bad.
brokenwindow on said:
Impossible to separate the man’s actions/inactions from his theory. I don’t think Callinicos adds anything to the trajectory of Left-wing thought which is struggling to counter the most reactionary form of Neoliberal fundamentalism now – New Labour have swallowed this vile seed in full – so this is recent demonstration of ‘the party can do what it wants because its the party’ appears as part of a more fundamental problem in Left-wing politics. Animal Farm is a great place to start.
John on said:
Karl, I am genuinely surprised to read something this woolly and vacuous from you.
Do you really think that socialists and communists would fight for a society in which political freedoms are so circumscribed as they were in the DDR?
What about the understanding of the role of the historical and material conditions, external pressures, etc from and in which these societies emerge and develop?
The Iron Curtain was erected by the West not the East, yet you seem to be buying into the anti-communist tradition of abstracting the concrete factors largely responsible for the development of really existing socialism.
Karl Stewart on said:
John,
We both think a policy of shooting people who leave is barbaric.
And we both agree that the crimes, murders, genocides, carried out by capitalist and imperialist states dwarfs anything ever done by socialist states.
On the issue of people wanting to leave a socialist state, look at how Cuba dealt with this by contrast – tens of thousands left unhindered for the US and it was the US who urged Cuba to place restrictions.
Our general attitude should be: “Sorrey to see you go, but good luck.” (and in many cases, it’ll be “good riddance”.)
The key point is they don’t take property or assets (other than necessities) out with them.
Regarding Berlin specifically, the mistake was in allowing the US and UK into the city in 1945. That was the big mistake.
Andy Newman on said:
Can you explain the linkage in your mind between Pol Pot and Mao’s China?
I am no expert on Cambodia, but I have read Ben Kiernan’s “How Pol Pot Came to Power”. While it is true that at various stages China did give aid and support to Khmer Rouge, so famously did the United States and the UK under margaret thatcher, and the Khmer Rouge were also supported by ASEAN when Vietnam invaded.
The nationalist frame of reference, where critics of the Khmer Rouge were described as “Vietnamese with Khmer bodies” has no counterpart anywhere in the socialist and communist movement, and certainly no counterpart in China.
Andy Newman on said:
I think you underestimate the complexity of the situation where deliberate poaching of skilled staff by the West, and the subvention to support the West Berlin economy distorted the Eastern economy hugely. The border remember was open for 12 years after the foundation of the DDR.
After 1961, politically motivated republic flight was rare, the majority of those fleeing were urban young men with a histroy of anti-social behaviour and poor educational attainment, who beleived propaganda that they would have a better life in the West. Did you know that a quarter of those who fled to the BRD later returned?
You are right that shooting people fleeing was stupid and amoral, but the politics of the border were actively distorted by BOTH sides.
Andy Newman on said:
Interestingly, in Inga Markovits’s book “Justice in Lueritz, Experiencing Socialist law in Wast Germany”, Inga says that in her research she only found one case in the court system of the town she was investigating during the whole period of the DDR of an explicitly political dissident wanting to go to the West, and the DDR quietly arranged for him to be swiftly exchanged for an East German held in a BRD gaol.
(Interestingly, she also only found one case in that 40 years of any evidence of the the local SED trying to deliberately infleunce a court case)
Dr Falk on said:
Dear John,
I’m sorry if you feel I have accused you or any body else of supporting Pol Pot. My fullest apologies if my comments read that way. I was confused by your comment that the Left didn’t cheer on regimes like Pol Pot but rather ‘understand'(the word you used) these regimes. My original posting was about some of the Left who did cheer on and have cheered on regimes covered in blood. I’m pleased John we agree on Cambodia. Sorry again if I upset you. Best wishes.
Dr Falk on said:
Thanks Andy for your reply. I am no expert on these things either. I think the connection in my mind was two-fold. First the support China along with others gave to Pol Pot. I’m not sure but I think China may have supported the Khymer Rouge against the Vietnam invasion too. Secondly,that I understand both regimes killed millions of people.
Andy Newman on said:
China’s relationship with the Khmer Rouge was far from uncritical, and Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping were both inclinded to see King Sihanuk as their favoured allly before Pol Pot came to power.
Reaction to the Vietnamese invasion divided on pure cold war lines, Rissia and its allies supported Vietnam, the USA, UK, China and ASEAN supported cambodia. I don’t think you can draw conclusions.
Well there is no dispute about the murderous natuire of the Khmer Rouge, China under mao more accurately saw a dramatic increase in health, literacy, longevity and wealth. Even in terms of political opposition, Mao did not kill his political oppoennts, although far too many served prison sentances.
The accusation of millions dying is a reference to a rather more complex situation of famine, where argumably government mishandling failed to prevent huge numbers of deaths. This was sadly not the first famine in China, and the conventional blame placed upon mao’s government has been stoked by political oportunism.
For a more balanced discuission see Amartya Sen’s DEverlopment as Freedom, from someone far from being a Maoist sympathiser
Vanya on said:
China and the DK regime were allies against Vietnam, particularly after the Vvietnamese communists sided with the USSR as the sino soviet split became more entrenched. Around the time that Vietnam went into Kampuchea China attacked Vietnam and given the adoptiom by the CCPP by then of the 3 worlds theory this ratcheting of tension also exacerbated cold war tensions.
In fairness the Vietnamese were not blameless, with serious attacks on the Chinese minority leading to thousands leaving as boat people.
Those maoist groups who remained loyal to China condemned the Vietnamese invasion, including the RCLB-ML, which contained some people who have done excellent work around such issues as Palestine, and their much larger Norwegian sister organisation, the most famous member being the Swedish crime writer Henning Mankel author of the Wallander series and The Man from Beijing and participant in the Gaza aid flotilla which was attacked by the IDF.
Naivety about the nature of the Pol Pot regime was perhaps understandsable but I suspect its rare now. Interestingly the journalist most responsibke for drawing attention to their crimes was John Pilger.
John on said:
No problem. Thank you for being gracious enough to apologise.
The problem with this type of forum is that it lends itself to mischaracterizing the positions of those we disagree with. I have done it myself.
I accept that you genuinely misunderstood my position, which in hindsight I should have made clearer.
Dr Falk on said:
Thanks as well John. All the best.
Dr Falk on said:
Thanks Vanya for this information. Thanks also to Andy for info in the post above.
Karl Stewart on said:
Just to add to the nice warm and cuddly ambience, can I just apologise too and wish every one a happy Easter and just say wouldn’t it be a better world if we could all just get along?
Manzil on said:
Personally, I think you’re all a bunch of bastards.
Karl Stewart on said:
It used to be much nicer on SU before so-called “Manzil” came along with his namby-pamby oh-so-reasonable arguments and smart-arse, pseudo-neo-sub-post-trotskyism!
Jellytot on said:
@100Even in terms of political opposition, Mao did not kill his political oppoennts, although far too many served prison sentances.
I agree with the overall tone of #100 but it should be noted that there was, tragically, a deliberate denial of medical treatment while in custody of frequently very old men.
The appalling treatment of the great Communist Liu Shaoqi was a case in point.
There is a general consensus amoung many in and around the Party in China that Mao (and his venal wife) should have been quitely retired off after the failure of The Great Leap Forward in the early 60’s and power transitioned to Liu and Deng and that the years between 1965 and 1975 are acknowledged as an unmitigated disaster and China’s Lost Decade.
real labour on said:
it is ridiculous to say Mao did not kill his opponents- the first thing that happened after 1949 was the mass slaughter of landlords and businessmen.Even his treatment of inter party opponents involved torture and often death.
As to the famine he was the head of the government that mismanaged the economy,faked statistics and wasted resources in both rural and urban areas.(the great leap forward etc)
Jellytot on said:
@109the first thing that happened after 1949 was the mass slaughter of landlords and businessmen.
Both should be seen in the context of the appalling inequalities that existing in China before the Revolution and the much needed campaign for Land Reform.
In a whole host of spheres the 1949 Revolution (which was undoubtedly a good thing and more epoch defining than 1917) unleashed a whole series of constraints that had been building up like a pressure cooker for decades, and even centuries, beforehand in that country.
Contrary to the writings of the Chang’s and Halliday’s of this world, to view Mao as some sort of evil puppetmaster is ahistorical and typical of the lazy, dumbed-down thinking currently in vogue.
Landlords were overthrown frequently on the initative of the peasants themselves (with the Party tailing them) but the land reform campaign certainly increased the Communist Party’s popularity among Chinese peasants. The suppression of the business elite (I mean those that hadn’t bolted to Taiwan, HK or the US) should be viewed as a need to supress pro-KMT elements, clean up rampant corruption and purge the criminal secret societies….the latter were not marginal forces in places like Guangdong and Dongbei (Manchuria).
The proof of the pudding is in the eating and after early, radical (but well-meaning attempts) to reform and modernise China the CPC has, since 1992, hit upon a formula that clearly is working and has seen one of the greatest wealth transfers to the mass of Chinese society in modern history and the creation of a great global power. That should be recognised, and I think applauded, by all progressives the world over.
Ken MacLeod on said:
@108: Mao (and his venal wife) should have been quitely retired off after the failure of The Great Leap Forward in the early 60′s and power transitioned to Liu and Deng
Now there’s an alternate history to conjure with!
If China’s 60s had been all about ‘Four Modernizations’ and ‘Reform and Opening Up’ instead of ‘Cultural Revolution’, and possibly mending relations with the Soviet Union, and giving Soviet reformers a successful and stable example of a socialist market economy … we might have been spared a great deal, including much of the Vietnam War, the Soviet ossification and the rise of ultra-left currents in the West.
I know, there were probably deeper reasons for what actually happened than Mao’s decisions, and much else could have gone wrong, but still.
Jellytot on said:
@111
Yes, and a pertinent comment of a middle ranking Party member, made to me at a wedding receiption in Beijing a few years back, sticks in my mind,
(paraphrasing and translated from the Mandarin)
“If we would have gone with Liu and Deng in the 60’s we would be as developed as Japan now and would have surpassed the Americans 10 years ago”
Manzil on said:
😀 *hugs*
Pseudo-neo-sub-post-trotskyism or death!
As the topic has arisen anyway, perhaps a commentator more knowledgeable on the subject of China (ohhh Jellytot…) can shed some light on something.
It seems incredibly difficult to get any serious idea how many people were actually executed under Mao. Most assessments seem to include all deaths allegedly attributable to Communist policy. Which then degenerates into claims that famine was an intentional policy (shades of the Holodomor thesis?) or at any rate that Mao should be held culpable for causing the subsequent deaths. Which leads to a body-count with far more zeroes than primary sources.
Gurr and Harff approximate between 800,000 and 3 million deaths in the anti-landlord campaign of 1950-51. However they fail to clearly differentiate between…
1. The execution of landlords, and the execution of KMT cadres (meaning it’s unclear to what extent it should be contextualised by the civil war and retreat of the nationalists from the mainland).
2. The mass campaign of popular violence (albeit legitimated by the Communists), and state terror actually initiated and orchestrated by the Communists.
3. Deliberate killings (either by the masses or the authorities), and suicides likely resulting from the revolutionary atmosphere’s hostility to the landlord class.
Theirs is the most even-handed work I’ve seen on the post-1949 violence, but even it falls back into ambiguity over whether it’s assessing people killed by the new government, or merely those whose deaths are allegedly attributable to it. Nor does it adequately identify its sources.
No moralising is intended, just curious. If I was a Chinese peasant in 1949 I’d probably have murdered the local landlord too. Shit, I’ve feel like killing my landlords.
Nick Fredman on said:
Well it was the considered view of my partner’s Polish grandmother that, at least in terms of giving young people from peasant backgrounds opportunities, Poland was a preferable place to Australia, where she emigrated to in the mid-50s, for apparently personal rather than political or economic reasons (she left with my partner’s mother who was a small child but without the father). It was a point of some bitterness to her that she remained a cleaner all her adult life while her siblings and cousins became doctors and architects. Not to mention post-war Poland being considerably preferable to the Nazi occupation and labour camp she endured as a teenager.
I consider it perfectly valid to describe the DDR and post-capitalist Poland as Stalinist deformations of workers states, but also aware of the contradictory effects this social-economic arrangement had on the lived experience of millions (I’ve also recently had interesting chats with a work colleague who grew up in 80s East Berlin and constantly negatively compares contemporary Germany and Australia to this experience).
I’m also quite sure that when Kath’s babka said things to us like, “It’s great you’re in this Resistance group, what we need in Australia is a new Stalin, eh?”, she was well aware of our politics and was winding us up.
real labour on said:
Both should be seen in the context of the appalling inequalities that existing in China before the Revolution and the much needed campaign for Land Reform.
In a whole host of spheres the 1949 Revolution (which was undoubtedly a good thing and more epoch defining than 1917) unleashed a whole series of constraints that had been building up like a pressure cooker for decades, and even centuries, beforehand in that country.
really why then did Mao force the peasants into unworkable peoples communes.
also the comment about landlords is typical of the left romantascising mass murder.
just like a nazi wanting to kill jews or blacks
i note no mention of tianamen square or the endemic corruption in china
Andy Newman on said:
W
I suggest that you read the very interesting discussin of exactly this question in Justin Yifu Lin’s “Demystifying the Chinese Economy”
Justin is no wide eyed idealist, he is chief economist at the World bank, received his PhD in economics at Chicago University (not a hotbed of maoism), and is now director of the China Centre for Economic Research at Peking University in Beijing. (yes the University is still transliterated as Peking, I haven’t made a mistake)
Raising the scale of production units was a necessary condition for expanding irrigation.
It is easy to criticiase with hindsight, but the Copperative system was based upon initial succes.
Land was distributed to all farmers in 1952, but the policy of industralisation required extracting surplus from the countryside, hence very low agrictultural prices; therefore production needed to be scaled up to maintain living standards in rural areas.
Betwen 1953 and 1954 “Mutual Aid teams” were a popular reform, where there was private owwndership of land and draft animals, but households shared resources. This was very successful and led to an increase in output, and farmers were enthusiastic supporters.
This led to the “primary cooperatives” pooling land to the size of a tradiatonal village in Southern China. This saved land, the cooperative decided amngst themselves the division of output based upon effort, and the cooperatives were “free to enter free to exit”. i.e any farmer could leave if they wanted. Tools, draft animals and formal land ownership remained private.
The primary co-ops were also very popular and saw increased output. This is what led to the move to advanced cooperatives in 1956 – 1957, where the incerased scale of 200 households matched the tradiational vilage size in Northern China. Now ownership of land, tools and draft animalls were pooled. There were also popular, and output expanded. They were also “free to enter free to exit”
It went wrong with the next step, the “Peoples Communes” introduced in 1958, including 5000 households. Theroetciallly, the Peoples’ communes should have been an advance, as they allowed a scale of production that could support irrigation projects.
the problem was the unintended one, that once you started an irrigation project, then land ownership had to be pooled, and households could not withdraw their private plot from the irrigation system; so the “free to enter free to exit” criteria was lost; and also the scale meant that it was no longer possible to readily decide on distribution of output; so they moved to paying people based upon the size of their household, not on the amount of work they did. This immediately affacted work discipline, and disincentivised farmers from working; and reduced quality (with rice production in particular the quality of planting work dramaiticallly affects yields)
So moving to the peoples communes was not a silly or wicked idea, theroetically it was a good idea to expand irrigation, and should have led to greater production; but the inevitable decrease in work quality and effort led to 15% drop in output each year from 1959 to 1961.
This was resolved in 1962 by keeeping the peoples communes, but introducing a “production team” of 20 to 30 households; this essentiallly restored the size of the primary cooperative.
It is not suprising that based upon sevral years where increasing commune size had led to increased production the government was slow to understand whay the move to peoples communes was going wrong. Also, as Amartya Sen argues, famines are a lot less visible than people think, and the key indicators may be missed by non-specialists; it has to be said that Mao’s government’s failure to effectively combat the famine was traditional for Chinese governments in previous eras as well.
This led the goverment to shift from scale to science as a way of increasing yields, such as the hybrid rice strains that have increased yield per plant by 30% since 1963.
The great famine of 1959 was a tragedy, but it ill behoves a British person to cast aspersions, after we presdied over not only the Irish famine in the 19th century, but also the Bengal famine only 15 years earlier than the Chinese famine.
Andy Newman on said:
Further to this, it is worth obsrving that Deng appealed to mao in 1960 to addres the problems, and that Mao himself ammended the letter from the Central Committee to make it more right wing than Deng asked for arguing for a return to smaller production units, for households to be rewarded according to work, and a smaller proportion of output to be taken for the commune. The letter then went out from both Mao and Deng by telegram to all parts of the country on 21/10/60, but contrary to the mythology, directions from the centre were not immediately implemented.
In 1962 Mao made the observation to 7000 party cadre:
As Amartya Sen argues:
This is the key, China was and is a huge country, and in 1960 was only recovering again a system of centralised government, after years of warlordism, division, foreign occupation; and information flows were imperfact, and local party units much more autonomous than critics imagine in how they implemented centralsied decisions.
John Grimshaw on said:
This is an excellent and salutary point. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
And also Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis.
Andy Newman on said:
Well what we do know without any fear of contradiction is that mao’s most serious rivals in the Communist party were not executed. See the detailed discusion of this in “The Battle for China’s past” by Mobo Gao.
Manzil on said:
Eh? I never said otherwise…?
I’ve never seen anyone claim that. (Although I’ve never read Chang and Halliday’s “work”, so perhaps I’ve just got a blind-spot to some of the allegations floating around.)
However, the statement that, “The accusation of millions dying is a reference to a rather more complex situation of famine”, appears, on the face of it, incorrect. There are various numbers bandied about, some obvious exaggerations, but most scholars appear to accept that at a minimum, a million or near-as-dammit, were executed in the anti-landlord/KMT purges.
But as I said, the literature is confused and seems to get conflated with the famine issue (the more extravagant tolls generally don’t even differentiate between cause of death). I am genuinely curious at whether there is a rigorous estimate available, even a ballpark figure.
Also, IIRC, Mobo Gao’s book is available online as a PDF, if anyone’s interested.
Nick Wright on said:
Decoded for the real world of sharp confrontation between antagonistic ‘social-economic arrangements’ this means life under the revolutionary dictorship of the proletariat in the DDR and Poland compared favourably with life under the dictatorship of the bourheoisie in Australia.
Of course, the Australian state – with very firm and racially discriminatory border controls – was drawing in skilled workers from across the world while the DDR and Poland also employed border controls no less rigourous to stop their skilled workers from leaving.
Francis King on said:
Andy, I think you can be absolved from responsibility for acts committed about 20, or 120, years before you were born, in much the same way that today’s young Germans really shouldn’t be blamed for World War 2 or the Holocaust.
Phil BC on said:
A future project, Ken? 😉
Andy Newman on said:
That depends. If a political argument is being advanced that, for example, the Chinese famine was a function of the political system in China, from someone who is counterposing as a better political tradition parliamentary democracy and capitalism, it is fair to point out that the capitalist parliamantary democracy of Britain oversaw famines.
Noah on said:
Hmmmm. I think you need to take account of the crucial importance of the USA’s relaxation and then removal of the CoCom trade & technology sanctions against the People’s Republic in allowing China to have a successful ‘socialist market economy’.
If the Chinese had mended their relations with the USSR, that would definitely _not_ have been on offer from the United States. In fact, a key part of the context for the USA’s lifting of the anti-China sanctions from the late 1970s onwards was the effective co-operation between China & the USA against socialist governments which were allied with the Soviet Union, eg Vietnam & Afghanistan.
Andy Newman on said:
I am sceptical precisely because of the imprecision and the conflating of the very different issues.
Although the PRC was declared in 1949 and agrarian reform followed swiftly, the country was still emerging from civil war, and continued Goumindang activity. Agrarian reform under such circumstances would inevitably result in some aspects of Jacquerie; but equally, Goumindang victory would have resulted in white terror to reassert the power of the landlords.
Whoever won the civil war would have needed to assert their authority by a decisive demonstration of power in the countryside. But in the context of collapse of the authority of central government, and no concept of rule of law, then either the Goumindang or the Communists would have consolidated their power through violent suppression.
It therefore seems a nonsense to me to describe the assertion of authority by the state reforming the rural economy as a purge; when closing the war would inevitably be violent.
Look at the level of violence exerted against the rural poor in Britain between 1700 and 1850 to bring about reform of the rural economy, and that was without the immediate legacy of civil war, and collapse of the rule of law.
The judgement must therefore be based on the fact that either side would have ended the civil war by violent assertion of power in the countryside. Only if you can demonstrate that the Communist victory led to significane excess deaths over that which a Goumindang victory would have entailed is there any substance to this argument.
At which point, we are left with discussion of mao’s rule after state power was consolidated, in which case the more lurid claims do relate to famines.
The known facts about Mao are that over a period of just a few years his government increased life expectancy of rural Chinese from 35 in 1949 to 63 by 1975. he brought unity to the country, emancipated women, and transformed health and literacy. And notwithstanding the Cultural Revolution the country was more stable and less violent. In particular under mao there was no Great Terror equivalent to Stalin’s.
Ken MacLeod on said:
Phil BC,
Too much like wishful thinking, and too much like my novella The Human Front (just reissued with a few extras by PM Press in the US) albeit that has almost the converse alternate history of communism, with Lin Piao as the Chairman and the elderly Stalin as a guerilla leader after Operation Dropshot takes down the SU in the late 40s.
Ken MacLeod on said:
Well, yes – in counterfactual history there are many ways to end up with a worse situation than the one that actually happened, so I don’t take my speculation too seriously.
Karl Stewart on said:
But wasn’t the Cultural Revolution precisely China’s “Great Terror”?
The similarities between the Stalinist and Maoist periods are quite striking.
Noah on said:
Spot on.
It should be added that this was achieved despite China being under strangulating international sanctions, enforced by the USA, for almost the whole of that period; and that after the split with the USSR in 1960-61, China also lost its socialist trading partners. To have taken those immense strides in that context is even more impressive.
Manzil on said:
Andy Newman,
I already said I wasn’t moralising. Nor at any point have I been critical of the Chinese revolution or minimised/denied its benefits. You are arguing with shadows. As per usual.
In fact, I think you’re misinterpreting what actually happened in the aftermath of 1949 – everything I’ve read shows that the security forces played a subordinate and legitimating role, but that the killing of landowners was largely the result of spontaneous mass violence.
It had nothing to do with a “violent assertion of power in the countryside” by the Communists. It was an assertion of popular power by the rural masses, and an example of retributive violence against the detritus of a corrupt and in many cases quasi-criminal landowning elite.
I also think you’re wrong to shy away from defending openly the use of revolutionary violence. In a semi-colonial country, the social benefits of the revolution were impossible without the construction of a powerful apparatus able to maintain the independence and security of the new state.
If your issue is with the word “purge”, we’re back to you and bloody railway towns again.
In any case, I take it that no one can identify a serious source as to the number and nature of executions under the immediate post-1949 period?
Andy Newman on said:
Manzil,
No. I actually used the word “jacquerie” which was a clear indication that I emphasise the degree of popular violence.
But you are confusing things
The discussion started about the degree to which Mao was responsible for violence and you were the one who claimed a million deaths in the purge of landlords.
Now you have changed your tune and say this was a jacquerie.
I am consistent here. The civil war turned on the question of rural reform. Victory in the civil war required victory in the countryside.
Mao successfully concluded the civil war, successfully prosecuted rural reform and in so doing eradicated the social basis of the counter revolution.
Had the Goumindang won. The unleashing of violence in the countryside would have been on at least the same scale.
That is why your bringing into play the deaths during the rural reform as being relevant to the thesis that Mao killed millions just gives support to the right wing arguments
Manzil on said:
Please don’t make things up.
I didn’t claim any such thing – I quoted two academics who put it at a million. I explained this was the base-line estimate amongst any study of the 1949-53 period (it is also the smallest estimate I have encountered). However I did this so as to explain that even this work was very ambiguous in its methodology, and asked whether anyone had any more substantive sources.
Specifically, in my original comment at #113 I explained that a major problem was the lack of a clear delineation between popular violence and state violence, and between anti-landlord and anti-KMT violence. I also commented on how this made it difficult to properly assess the role of the civil war factor. Some of which you later brought up, and seem to want to use to criticise me?
Basic historical facts exist independently of whether you find them convenient.
An analysis of people’s China that excises any mention of the central role of violence in establishing and consolidating the new social order is completely useless. I am not “bringing into play” the deaths – they are in play, and your absurd belief that discussion of them is somehow “giving support to the right wing” makes your position look very shaky indeed.
Andy Newman on said:
Manzil,
*sigh*
But which historical facts are germane is a question of political judgement.
The discussion was centered around claims by someone posting as “real labour” claiming that Mao had murdered millions.
Now there may be a very interesting. Debate to be had about violence during the land reform, but if you read back through this debate. You will see that you clouded the discussionby giving credibility to the argument from the”real labour” character.
In the context of the debate actually happening it was necessary yo contextualise that violence more than you did.
Too often your arguments dont locate themselves in the political debate, and instead seem to float in academia, as if it could be possible for socialist s. To discuss historical methodology of assessing the numbers outside of a broad defence of the revolution.
real labour on said:
Im confused i thought the great terror was a good thing in your view.
also im sure the millions labeled rightist after the 100 flowers campaign and sent to labour camps will be grateful too.
your argument on the famine is nonsense what had the mismanagment by previous governments go to do with it.
Mao had centralised power and the party controlled information how could they not of known.Also why then did they seal of the famine areas and no photographic evidence remains.
sounds like someone knew/
Manzil on said:
*blows raspberry*
If by that you mean, I don’t particularly care how people choose to interpret references to perfectly legitimate points of discussions, then you are absolutely correct.
This is a website frequented by people with strong political views. It is not a formal debating society: there are no points to be won; no show of hands by an audience. There is no need to engage in phrase-mongering better to appeal to an amorphous middle ground.
Second-guessing yourself based on what strangers online will say in response makes for boring, facile conversation. “Clouded the discussion”, I mean what a load of bollocks.
I’m not going to preface my every comment with a pre-emptive rebuttal of every possible fallacious retort or misinterpretation that might ensue.
Andy Newman on said:
real labour,
Well in support of my argument I quote a nobel prize winning economist who is a specialist in famine, and a chief economist ay the world bank who is a renowned authority on China.
You on the other hand … …
Famines are not as simple as you obviously think they re to solve, nor so easy to identify early. The relevance of famine failures by earlier chinese governments is evidence of the skill and knowledge level available to them in reversing the famine.
real labour on said:
why then did Mao perform a self criticism at Lushan in 1962 after Li Shaquai had described the famine as seventy percent man made.
You still havent explained if the Chinese system was so perfect and functioning why Mao launched the cultural revolution.
also if as you say famine is hard to predict then you most admit the irish and bengal famines werent deliberate either.
also what about the soviet famine caused by collectivisation- is that another myth
real labour on said:
also Andy why should i defer to a nobel prize winner – Mao would have
poured scorn on such a creature.
Mao was also frequently compared to China’s First Emperor Qin Shi Huang, notorious for burying alive hundreds of scholars, and liked the comparison. During a speech to party cadre in 1958, Mao said he had far outdone Qin Shi Huang in his policy against intellectuals: ‘He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive… You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold.'”
George Hallam on said:
yes.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Yes, but “phrase-mongering” is not the only method for addressing people who are open to reason.
Not really. Anticipating what your interlocutors may say in response is often regarded as ‘engagement’.
Fenian exile on said:
“Famines are not as simple as you obviously think they re to solve, nor so easy to identify early.”
Well the Irsih famine was-it occurred while grain, cattle and dairy product exports actually increased from Ireland! Totally avoidable man.
Also thanks to Real Labour for injecting some fucking realism into this exchange.
And he’s right and so was Mao! Intellectuals pah!
Manzil on said:
Not when it’s blatantly mischievous.
Fuck do I care whether someone wants to start spouting off about it being “typical of the left romantascising [sic] mass murder” and “just like a nazi wanting to kill jews or blacks”?
It’s like pretending I should preface criticisms of the monarchy with statements affirming they aren’t lizard people, in case David Icke comes along afterwards. Life is too short.
George Hallam on said:
It sound like you do care.
real labour on said:
Not when it’s blatantly mischievous.
oh dear thats not an answer to the debate “comrade”
stand by mao if you dare
Noah on said:
As Andy has pointed out, the Chinese revolution led by Mao resulted in a huge improvement in life expectancy, literacy, and women’s rights.
And what exactly is it that you stand by, mr or ms ‘real labour’?
real labour on said:
ignoring the political terror,mass starvation and lack of freedom.
note you wouldnt be able to blog like this in china
Noah on said:
So are you saying that China was better on these criteria before the communist revolution?
Noah on said:
And to repeat my question. What exactly is it that you stand by, mr or ms ‘real labour’?
real labour on said:
funnily enough Noah democratic socialism as opposed to stalinism
am i on trial? do you wish me to admit my errors for not following Mao Zedong thought?
Manzil on said:
Trials? Well you’re the one going on about “stand by Mao if you dare”.
It’s all very well to contrast ‘democratic socialism’ to ‘Stalinism’. What use is that in assessing the situation in China of 1949? Do you think the likely alternative to the People’s Republic was some sort of wet Scandinavian fudge? Blatantly not. It was the rule of gangsters and landlords, and the continuing exploitation of China as a semi-colonial country in thrall to Truman.
What do you mean by democratic socialism? Social democrats propped up by US imperialism, or some non-existent, objectively anti-communist ‘socialism-from-below’?
(Shuddup George, this proves nothing.)
Francis King on said:
Even if we leave aside emotive comments of the sort that dictator A killed X many million people, there is the fact that the history of state socialism in the twentieth century has several cases of famine, not counting periods of food shortage which did not amount to famine. In addition to the Chinese cases mentioned above, we have the Soviet famines of the early 1920s, the famines associated with collectivisation in South Russia and Ukraine and the settlement of Central Asian nomads in the early 1930s, famine in Ukraine and Moldavia in 1946-47, the Pol Pot experience in Cambodia, famine in Ethiopia in 1984-85, as well as the ongoing inability of North Korea to feed itself without food aid.
Now, in each of these cases there are several contributory factors, such as war, the instability of the system, bad weather and poor harvests, etc. But in each case there is also the question of whether, and how far, state policies themselves served to create or worsen that situation. This is not something which can be explained away with apologetics, or deflected with reference to the hostile political intent of the questioner, or parried with whataboutery. Anybody who still advocates state socialism as an alternative to capitalism needs to try to understand this recurrent problem, and how it might be avoided in future.
An interesting book has recently been published on this: http://univerlag-leipzig.de/article.html;article_id,1331
real labour on said:
thanks Francis
although i dont think its emotive to actually mention that Stalin,Mao etc murdered millions.
however i do stand for democratic socialism ie the tradition of the Labour party.
as to the previous comments the outcome of 1949 was not inevitable and to pretend that the ccp were saints is equally naive- see the anti intellectual campaign,the disaster of the great leap foward and the cultural revoluation all stemming from Maos own whims and misjudgement.
if you think socialism equals the gulag and terror be honest about it.
to me it doesnt.
Nick Wright on said:
This question, an indictment wrapped up in the form of a query, would have more power if the ‘democratic socialism’ which is usefully defined as ‘the tradition of the Labour Party’ actually existed anywhere.
If by socialism’ we mean something essentially different to capitalism then ‘real labour’ – a poor man’s Vishinsky it seems, needs to direct us to some living or past example of this socialism where it has not been necessary to defend it with some measure of coercion.
Perhaps an example of socialism ushered in with the good wishes of the defeated bourgeoisie, feudal landlords and imperialist powers, Hopefully somewhere where there existed a sufficiency of food, good infrastructure, a well educated population, etc etc.
Jellytot on said:
@132Had the Goumindang won.
The Communists would have retreated, licked their wounds and continued incipient guerilla warfare through the 50’s and 60’s culminating in a Vietnam-war type scenario on the Chinese mainland with about ten times the loss of life.
The 1949 Revolution probably saved Chinese lives in the long run.
@146note you wouldnt be able to blog like this in china
You’d be surprised at the amount of latitude that Chinese have in discussing politics; past, present and future; both online and off.
As long as the 3 T’s are avoided (Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen) and you’re not rallying for the immediate overthrow of the CPC, you can actually say quite a lot.
However, CPC members (at least the ones I talk to) do not get too hung up on the past and will not debate endessly historical points (and they either get irritated with me or express bemusement when I try to draw them into discussion). I’ve had the point made to me more than once that the CPC is more concerned with its present and future role in managing an incipient Superpower – Something the Western Left obviously cannot really relate to.
Noah on said:
Well it would be rather odd if I did, considering that I have never been an aficionado of ‘Mao Zedong thought’!
BTW your epithet of ‘stalinism’ reveals not much more than your own ignorance, given that neither the ‘Great Leap Forward’ nor the Cultural Revolution can be ascribed to policies advocated or implemented by J.V. Stalin.
Manzil on said:
But democratic socialism in “the tradition of the Labour party” happily used extraordinary violence in Greece, India, Indonesia, Indochina, Malaysia, Korea, Kenya, the north of Ireland etc.
The difference being the Labour governments responsible for this weren’t trying to transform these countries on socialist lines, they were suppressing liberation movements and helping to impose or prop up the post-war imperialist order and Britain’s place within it.
If you think terror doesn’t matter when it’s used against people who aren’t white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, be honest about it.
Why is ‘democratic socialism’ taken in the abstract, divorced from its bloody role in the second half of the 20th century, whereas communism is completely decontextualised? I don’t think anyone is arguing the Chinese revolution was led by “saints”. The point is that they weren’t devils, either.
Fenian exile on said:
Hey Manzil, would you rather live under Chinese communism at any time in the last 60 years or in N. Ireland under Roy Mason in the 1970s? Difficult choice comrade?
Harsanyi_Janos on said:
Francis King,
It looks interesting; have you had the chance to read it Francis?
real labour on said:
you can blog unless you dont discuss the overthrow of the CCP
hilarious the bloggers here spend all day doing nothing but fantasising over the over throw of capitialism- do you not see the irony
also Mao was a follower of stalin- he hated khruschev for dethroning stalin and feared he would be next.
your posters are also unaware that Molotov late in his life viewed Maoism as the future
Jellytot on said:
@159you can blog unless you dont discuss the overthrow of the CCP
The leading role of the CPC is enshired in that country’s constitution. The overwheming majority of the Chinese people do not desire their country to experience the chaos and break-up that Russia went through in the 90’s. The pragmatic and realistic Chinese seem to want reform and an end to corruption and freely talk about it and discuss it.
@159hilarious the bloggers here spend all day doing nothing but fantasising over the over throw of capitialism- do you not see the irony
I don’t think the overthrow of Capitalism is either realistic, desirable or acheivable in a 21st Century British context although I want to see ‘The Beast’ tamed and the Welfare State preserved.
The only reasons I support and defend the Chinese system is that I have spent a lot of time there and view their system as one which is, by and large, working and delivering progress for its citizens. However, it is very much in development and there remains many problems in that country. I honestly feel those problems are best sovlable under the tutelage of the CPC and I do support Left currents within China and within the CPC. In the end, it will be up to the Chinese.
@159he hated khruschev for dethroning stalin
Stalin wasn’t dethroned. He died.
Chuckle sister on said:
On a lighter note, have you ever seen Ronnie Corbett and Callinicos in the same room?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/903104.stm
Harsanyi_Janos on said:
Charitably, I assume that he means “dethroning” Stalin as a Soviet icon in the de-Stalinisation period.
Manzil on said:
I’d ask if, in this hypothetical, I’d be a Catholic being interned or shot at, but let’s be constructive and leave that aside for one moment.
Would you rather be an American in 2013 or a Russian in 1917? See, capitalism wins!!!
What a stupid blood question.
Evidently the developed world is more developed. Congratulations on your truism. The question is WHY that is so. Hint – it has sod all to do with a greater love of freedom ‘n’ democracy.
The dilemma is: would you rather be in the PRC as it existed or the only likely alternative – a haven for nationalist generals, mafioso, compradors and landlords?
Francis King on said:
~ 158 Janos – only just got hold of it, so not yet…
Anna Chen on said:
If you were a peasant? Life expectancy doubled, housing and employment secured? Free education? Hmm, not really.
Francis King on said:
How far improvements in life expectancy are specifically achievements of communist party rule, and how far they are indicators of more general modernisation trends is an interesting question. For comparison, life expectancy in Taiwan in 1950 was 57 for females, 53 for males. It is now estimated at 81.53 years for females, 75.66 years for males.
Andy Newman on said:
But note that advances in life expeactancy in the Communist ruled indian state of Kerala exceed thos in any other part of India; and certainly comparing China with India generally not only better advances in life expectancy, but especially in literacy, health and basic skills; which gave the context that allowed Deng’s refroms to work.
Manzil on said:
Andy Newman,
West Bengal also experienced higher improvements in life expectancy and literacy under its Communist governments compared to the Indian average.
And it lacked many of the natural advantages which Keralan Communism enjoyed, began from a much lower overall level of development, and was in fact systematically undermined by partition and the nationalists’ shifting of the state’s economic focus away from Kolkata.
Modernisation need have little to do with human development, may in fact be deleterious to it, if it lacks a political agency committed to and capable of realising it.
Andy Newman on said:
Thanks, I will certainly get that book.
I think you do make a valid point, and Amartya Sem exlicitly makes the argument that famines don’t happen in democracies. However, it is not really “whataboutery” to contextualise by saying that famine is not only associated with socialist governments, for example the 19 million who starved in India between 1896 and 1902, or the 24 million who died in just a few months in China in 1907.
Indeed if we look at the six worst famines in history, three have been in India, three have been in China. And all three of those worst Indian famines took place under British rule.
Nor is it “whataboutery” to point out that there were two other mass famines in China, in 1928 to 1930 and in 1936 in China before Mao came to power.
This suggests that famine is linked to particular economic and development issues; just as mass violence has been associated with the legacy of colonialism and decolonialism.
Andy Newman on said:
And if “modernisation” is linked to colonialism, then it is typically a human catatstrophe.
Francis King on said:
Andy Newman,
I suppose famines are more likely to occur where the actual producers of food have little or no control over what happens to the food they produce. That would probably be a factor in some of the “colonial” type famines and some of the “socialist” ones.
Andy Newman on said:
Well yes, but for most of modern history the majority of the world’s population has lived in colonial or post colonial states, and the post colonial states may or may not have been socialist; so it is hard to draw many conclusions.
What is more, the history of “big famines” obscures the more mundane tragedy of weaker individuals, or out of favour ethnic or social groups, having higher mortality across many societies.
The 1944 Hongerwinter in Holland is famous because it is a rare instance of a famine in a Western developed country, but what is interesting is that though it affected 4.5 million people, “only” 20000 died; now a 0.5% mortality rate in famine in Africa or South Asia would scarcely get a mention in British newspapers I suspect. Indeed I suspect that a 0.5% mortality rate through under-nourishment would be unremarkable in may developing countries; suggesting tha we all live with slow burn famine as a daily fact of life, due to unequal development, etc.
Harsanyi_Janos on said:
Andy Newman,
By the way and off topic; I got hold of the Sinn and Sinn book; it is excellent. Thank you for the recommendation.
real labour on said:
I don’t think the overthrow of Capitalism is either realistic, desirable or acheivable in a 21st Century British context although I want to see ‘The Beast’ tamed and the Welfare State preserved
well andy most of your posters seem to want it
you had better ban all these trots from your site
glad to see you respect the free market and its benefits
vanya on said:
Is that why the naxalites were less succesful than might have been expected?
Manzil on said:
It definitely contributed to it.
The CPML’s emulation of an ‘Indian Maoism’ never succeeded in fracturing the CPM’s support in the countryside. This was based on two great pillars: 1. Agrarian reform and uplift (owing to the relative weakness of the Bengal Congress, the ‘reformed’ zamindari system of big landholdings survived into Independence). 2. Self-government for poor peasants via panchayati democratisation. The relatively large numbers of Bengali Dalits (outside of the south) created a large natural base of support to complement the historic radicalism of the Kolkata working class.
Against this, the CPML and its offshoots couldn’t really offer an alternative. (Although Mao’s insistence on their adopting a pro-Pakistan position in ’71 also put Communists, as in ’42, on the wrong side of the national question, to their immediate detriment.)
The latest upsurge of Naxalite violence essentially followed the CPM’s adoption of more traditional development policies which displaced the peasantry. Although the subsequent violence between the security forces and the rural masses wasn’t anything new, this time the CPM lacked a positive vision to justify its position (‘saving socialism from the adventurists’ was the usual response to insurgencies). Instead it was seen as a depoliticised agent of foreign capital and or a vast machine of corruption and careerism – which is probably the main reason the Trinamool Congress could position itself as the party of agrarian populism and win the last elections.
Despite its Bengali origins, the Naxalites were more successful in Andhra and Madhya Pradesh owing to the greater preponderance of adivasi peoples, and thus the existence of an outstanding (and marginalised) popular interest in resisting state development of the commons. But they have never been able to form a coherent political challenge to the mainstream Communists, and have often overlapped with quasi-dacoity that alienates the aboriginal peoples from other subaltern communities. So it’s never really moved beyond a militant organisation of self-defence – necessary, but insufficient alone, to secure tribal autonomy and land rights.
Andy Newman on said:
That comment was from Jellytot, not from me, but I agree with him.
Fenian exile on said:
“Catholic being interned or shot” we’ll Manzil this shows how much you know about Northern Ireland. I would posit the entirely reasonable claim that the repression visited on Catholics was as nothing compared to the massive sustained repression of the PRC. NI was still a liberal if imperfect democracy trying to deal with a sectarian squabble sustained by the great anti imperialist Provos now sadly running the place.
There’s no way of knowing if the peasants would have been worse off under the KMT maybe… What we do know for certain is they got a shit load of repression…
And Anna, please, you mention the “gains” of the revolution but curiously not the mass murder- was it worth it? All those gains to misquote Bob Dylan: ” that’s like saying you need a shot of malaria to cure the cold”.
George W on said:
Manzil,
Like other Maoist guerrillas in other countries, they go around murdering and terrorising the very poor peasants they claim to be fighting for, including Communist party activists, supporters and trade unionists. Which can’t win them many friends.
Andy Newman on said:
this is a nonsensical comparison, becasue China has not had the cultural and social endowments which are necessary preconditions for participatory democracy, the CP took power in the crucible of civil war in a desperately poor post-colonial country, with poor educational attainment, and a culture of bureacracy and government inertia that was millennia old; the state was disunified, there was warlordism and gangsterism and the immediate legacy of foreign military occupation; and the state structure was riddled with corruption and lack of respect for the rule of law.
vanya on said:
Manzil on said:
#178. Seriously, “sectarian squabbles”? The heroic KMT (maybe a cursory look at its record of white terror on the mainland or in Taiwan might be in order)? You’re just a troll.
George W,
Yeah, I’m not defending their well-documented descents into organised brigandage. Just trying to explain why they’ve managed to carve out a semi-permanent support base in adivasi areas. Given the repression which the Indian security forces are able to bring to bear (just look at Indian Kashmir), if they were just criminals they’d have been swept away long ago.
As I say, it’s indicative that the Naxalites’ success has been in: Andhra, where (owing to the legacy of Hyderabad) the nationalists weren’t able to build mass organisations pre-’47, and the Communists-proper were devastated by the suppression of the Telangana revolt; and the old Central Provinces, which were always the Indian ‘Wild West’, under colonial and Congress rule alike.
In that context, given the exploitation of adivasi communities and their resources, it’s predictable that some form of armed resistance, and a politically skewed one, should be the end result. But like Shining Path, the FARC etc, it easily degenerates into terrorism and criminality.
The relative containment of insurgency in Bengal owes much to the record of the Communist government, which in difficult conditions managed to build up its popular support and improve the life of the masses by reorienting development towards social needs.
Fenian exile on said:
“sectarian squabbles” Yes -as good a term as any to describe the “troubles” and I think fairly accurate- what would you describe it as?
“China has not had the cultural and social endowments which are necessary preconditions for participatory democracy, the CP took power in the crucible of civil war in a desperately poor post-colonial country, with poor educational attainment, and a culture of bureacracy and government inertia that was millennia old; the state was disunified, there was warlordism and gangsterism and the immediate legacy of foreign military occupation; and the state structure was riddled with corruption and lack of respect for the rule of law.” Can’t disagree with any of that Andy but did the repression just disappear after the civil war? -you are just excusing mass murder comrade and you don”t even want the overthrow of capitalism. And it was Manzil who was indulging in whataboutery and trying to draw some equivalence between the violence perpertrated by social democratic govts and the CCP….which is nonsense but maybe not if you are a Trot.
Andy Newman on said:
No, there has been a process of what for want of a better term we could call “legitimisation”ce then; broadly speaking the PRC is not really a “repressive” society.,
However, it is cursed by a lack of respect for the rule of law and corruption; this is why public intellectuals like Hu Angang in China today refer to it being too weak a state, not too strong a state.
As the rule of law become more established (and to a certain extent the market) China’s civic endowment will improve.
Jellytot on said:
real labour
glad to see you respect the free market and its benefits
Do I hell?! I detest the free market and desire it to be constrained and constricted. Most of all I want labour to be able to negotiate with it from a position of strength and power.
The PRC’s government’s ability to bargain with Capital (both International and Domestic) from a position of strength and power is its most redeeming and attractive feature.
Manzil on said:
No I wasn’t, you specifically posed the question of whether it was preferable to be Chinese or northern Irish. Which I repeat, was a stupid bloody question.
Of course, my contrary example of an equally absurd, pointless comparison, 1917 Russia and the modern-day US, didn’t even get to the heart of the matter, which is China’s experience (unlike Russia) of being a semi-colonial country from which its post-’49 history cannot be divorced, and the existence of Ireland, and especially its Orange statelet, within the imperialist ‘British world’.
I’m just going to keep quoting your claim, “There’s no way of knowing if the peasants would have been worse off under the KMT maybe”, as I think it shows how utterly insincere you’re being. (Incidentally, what particular comment provoked the tiresome, moronic ‘Trot’ claims this time?)
As for “sectarian squabbles”, if you can’t see how that minimises it, there really is no hope.
Harsanyi_Janos on said:
Do you see that as the case in China with its residency registration and the ACFTU which does not allow members to elect their representatives freely?
Francis King on said:
Harsanyi_Janos,
This looks like another interesting book, for those who can read German:
http://www.mandelbaum.at/books/806/7459