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Since oligarchy means “rule of the few” capitalism, like all class societies, is an “oligarchy”. If an oligarch is a rich person whose riches allow them to influence the government, then capitalism by the nature of its economy, is continually producing oligarchs as capital accumulates.
Some critics of the way capitalism works just want to abolish oligarchs as the super-rich. They don’t want to abolish capitalism or the ordinary rich.
Zarah Sultana was in Acton in West London yesterday evening. There were 70 at the meeting including 20 paper sellers from four different Trotskyist groups, two which had decided to “enter” the new party (SWP and SPEW) and two which were not going to (SEP and RCG).
The RCG were handing out a leaflet calling on Sultana to breakaway from Corbyn because he doesn’t went to abolish Israel, a split in the new party which they said “would be an enormous step forward for the working class in Britain”.
Here is an adapted version in Spanish:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/898984151243744/permalink/1523583258783827/
There is a short article on one of his policies in this month’s Socialist Standard:
London branch leafletted a meeting of YP supporters in central London yesterday evening. It was addressed by second level leaders such as Andrew Feinstein, the former ANC MP, Salma Yaquoob, former leader of Respect, and County Councillor Michael Lavalette. And by Tariq Ali. Must have been between 150 to 200 there, with a majority of older people.
It looks as if they may be able to contain the wilder Trots. Three spoke from the floor to criticise Corbyn (for not been forceful enough when he was the Leader of the Labour Party and for not saying Israel should be abolished). They got only sparse applause. When somebody defended Corbyn there was loud applause.
The others from who spoke wanted the priority to be given to child poverty or to defend feminism or to leave NATO. Tariq Ali wanted the party to commit itself to abolishing the monarchy – a pretty pointless reform and a long way for his call student leader in 1968 to abolish money.
Besides us and some single issue groups the only others leafletting were the SWP breakaway Counterfire and the Socialist Equality Party.
We covered the YP’s member-only assemblies in Manchester and South London today with our new leaflet.
I don’t know about Manchester but in London most of the the minor Trotskyist sects were there — Worker’s Liberty, Counterfire, Workers Power, Spartacists, International Bolshevik Tendency, Socialist Equality Party, and Communist Fight (never heard of them before, but they want the YP to set up a workers’ militia). Also met John Hamilton, who was the Workers’ Party candidate for Mayor of Lewisham last year. He said he had joined the YP. I couldn’t get out of him whether this was as an individual or as their policy.
They all went in as YP members except those from the SEP (which has decided not to “enter” the new party). With the SWP, SPEW and Anti-Capitalist Resistance going in incognito, sounds like the meeting might have been a real bear garden.
Notable by their absence was the RCP. Apparently, according to their Trotskyists rivals, they have turned to the Greens as a better prospect. There seems to be some truth in that as the conclusion of this articles shows:
“We will continue to provide analysis and comradely critique of the Greens’ programme, and we look forward to continuing discussions with Green supporters and sympathisers – on the street, in workplaces and universities, and within the movement.”
https://communist.red/whats-behind-the-green-surge/
It might be shrewd turn on their part as more young people — their target — have joined the Greens than the YP. Certainly, most of those going into the assembly couldn’t be classed as young.
That people (not just us) refer to Trotskyist groups as “sects” will be because there are so many groups claiming to be Trotskyist, even to be the legitimate continuation of the “Fourth International” that Trotsky set up in 1938 (there are at least four of them), with the differences between them unclear to outsiders. The comparison will be with the array of non-conformist Protestant sects from the 17th century onward, each claiming to be the true Christians.
True, we have been called a “sect” by members of the Communist Party and Labour Party as a way of not having to take our criticism of them seriously. The Communist historian Eric Hobsbawn even dismissed us a “conventicle”.
Our leaflet on the new party has not just been handed out in Stroud but also in Preston, Huddersfield and Merthyr. We are also planning to distribute it in Manchester, London, Cardiff, Doncaster, Brighton, Gillingham and other places.
Incidentally, here’s what Sultana was reported as saying in Merthyr on 25 October:
“The closing speech from guest speaker Zarah Sultan MP brought the house down. She said we shouldn’t just be talking about taxing the rich or nationalising a few utilities, but about replacing capitalism with socialism, a democratic economy under workers’ control organised for social need and ecological balance. We don’t just want a bigger slice of the cake, we want the bakery”.
Stirring stuff designed to bring the house down but the chances of the new party adopted that as its aim are nil and those of it actually campaigning for this less than that. In the end, its only us who are committed to campaigning just for socialism as a system based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means society needs to survive, with production directly for use not profit, and distribution on the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”.
The WSWS site is run by one of the Trotskyist sects which have decided not to “enter” the new party — the Socialist Equality Party, one of the relics of the old WRP.
Went to a SPEW meeting yesterday evening in Brixton on “What next for Corbyn’s ‘Your Party’?” to find out first hand what their line was. There were about 3O there, probably all Spewers save 2 or 3.
One said that they were joining the new party not as individuals but as SPEW members (so it’s “entry” en masse as an organised group). They will be participating in the South London YPS members assembly in 2 November as a bloc which their model motion.
This proposes that the YP constitution should be a federation of local groups, trade unions and affiliated parties, including them.
Asked how they would get round the current YP ban on also being a member of another national party, the speaker replied that this point had not yet been clarified as membership of some registered local parties was being regarded membership of a YP pre-branch. So it looks as if they are going to stay in until such time as they are told they can’t be.
It looks like this might be a cynical raid on the YP to see how many of its members they can take with them when they have to go, as surely they will have to. There can’t be any prospect of the new party allowing groups like SPEW, SWP, RCP, etc affiliating to it.
On elections, it seems they want to see locally chosen candidates, hoping that some of their members will be able to stand for the new party. Unlike some of the other trot sects, they are not hostile on principle to working with the Greens and say they would be prepared to support Greens as candidates who stood on a “no cuts” platform.
There is also a Jack Fitzgerald Archive on the Spanish MIA:
https://www.marxists.org/espanol/fitzgerald/index.htm
This translation of his article from 1920 which criticises Lenin’s conception of democracy has just been added:
https://www.marxists.org/espanol/fitzgerald/1920/julio/dictadura.htm
At a rally in Liverpool on Thursday Zara Sultana declared:
“We’re not here for lowering a few bills here and there, and the sprinkling of a wealth tax. We are here for a fundamental transformation of society: the means of production controlled by workers”.
If the new party was really going to be a socialist party something like that would have to be its main aim. The trouble is that a “sprinkling” of reforms will be all that the new party will be campaigning for, reserving talk of the workers controlling the means of production to May Day rallies and other ceremonial occasions.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/corbyn-and-sultana-stand-united-liverpool-your-party-rally
Two London Branch members went to a meeting of a Lambeth pre-branch of the proposed new party. We were surprised to see that most of the 70 or so others there were of pension age. The main speaker was an ex-Trotskyist who had joined Labour when Corbyn became Labour leader only to be expelled in the purge of Corbyn supporters after he resigned.
In his speech two things were of interest. He said he hoped that the new party would be “anti-capitalist” but would still stay in if it was only a Left party. He also referred to a rival Lambeth pre-branch set up by the SWP. He hoped the two would eventually merge.
If this happens, it promises a struggle for offices between the SWP and Anti-Capitalist Resistance, the Trotsky group active in the pre-branch meeting we went to.
This needs to be entered into the black book of the current Labour government’s record — a change that will make life more worrisome and insecure for a section of the working class here, made just to garner some xenophobic votes:
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-guilty-being-reforms-handmaidens-says-polanski
It looks like the Greens have stolen the new party’s clothes even before it has been founded. The same policies and the same rhetoric.
