This is the Socialist Resistance editorial board’s tribute.

Chris Harman, the editor of International Socialism and a central committee member of the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP), died from a massive heart attack on November 6th. He was 66. We, and others in the Fourth International, join in sending condolences to Chris’ family, friends and comrades.

A convinced revolutionary socialist all his adult life, Harman had played a key role in founding Socialist Worker and editing it until 2004. Harman was an internationalist from the start. That was reflected in myriad ways, from his participation in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in the the late 1960 to the symbolic location of his death: Cairo.

Harman was a polymath, gifted as an author, speaker, editor, leader and economist. His book The Lost Revolution: Germany 1918 to 1923 is a powerful tool for revolutionary socialists.. His greatest work, A Peoples’ History of the World, is invaluable. He was also outstanding as an activist and leader of the SWP and its forerunner, the International Socialists. Harman played a major role in helping the organisation develop its political direction and in explaining its choices to a radical audience. His famous 1992 debate with Ernest Mandel on the bureaucratic Stalinist dictatorships in Quatriéme Internationale was translated into English and is still in print as The Fallacies of State Capitalism. His analysis of SWP split from Respect was valued even by those who opposed the SWP’s decision: it was translated by Inprecor and published in Respect: Documents of the Crisis as the clearest exposition of the SWP’s viewpoint.

Harman took his role as an SWP leader seriously, but that did not stop him from having a transparent and comradely working relationship with socialists outside the SWP. Last month he was an active participant in the IIRE’s economists seminar, in which most participants were Fourth Internationalists. While there, he spoke at a public meeting sponsored by Grenzeloos, the magazine of the Fourth International in The Netherlands.

As one of our comrades, Clement, put it on hearing the news: “Harman was for me the person from which I discovered Marxism, and which showed and revealed that revolutionary engagement was compatible with highly demanding scientific investigation for understanding and changing the world.” Harman’s openness, his books and articles, his work in the struggle and the contribution he made to developing the socialist consciousness of tens of thousands of people are a fitting monument to his revolutionary life.

November 7 2009.

Below is the text of a leaflet (which you can download here) announcing an electoral coalition involving, among others, the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism

A coalition to stand trade union and socialist candidates in the general election has been launched by organisations and individuals who participated in ‘NO2EUYes to Democracy’, the left-wing coalition that stood in the European elections. We call on everyone who wants a working-class alternative presented at the general election to get involved.

FOLLOWING THE European election in June participants in ‘NO2EU-Yes to Democracy’ have continued to discuss the possibility of constructing a coalition for the general election. Given the current lack of political representation of ordinary working-class people in British politics, the organisations and individuals involved in those discussions regard it as vitally important to organise a general election challenge. As a minimum, we intend to stand against as many current cabinet ministers as possible, together with other ministers and prominent ex-minsters who have been complicit in New Labour’s anti-working-class policies.

Our intention is to put forward candidates in the coming general election as a federal coalition under a common name, with a steering committee of participating organisations and trade unionists that operates by consensus. The coalition’s name has not yet been decided. The issue of its name and core policies still will be the subject of further discussions. Efforts will continue to secure the further participation of trade union organisations, prominent trade unionists and all those who want to see a pro-working-class alternative presented at the election. If you want to get involved or help in any way, please contact us at electioncoalition@btinternet.com

Notes:

‘No2EU-Yes to Democracy’ was a left-wing coalition of the RMT transport union, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party of Britain (CPB), the Alliance for Green Socialism and others formed specifically to fight the 2009 European elections. This coalition has the backing of the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Party, the Alliance for Green Socialism and is supported, all in a personal capacity, by Bob Crow (general secretary RMT), Brian Caton (general secretary Prison Officers’ Association), leading national officers of the PCS civil servants’ union, and national executive committee members of the CWU, UNISON, FBU and USDAW trade unions.

Royal Bank of Scotland releases its quarterly results to the City after two shocking days for the workers where earlier this week RBS announced that 3,700 jobs are to be cut from UK branches.

Whilst large areas of the business are to be separated and sold off, including insurance, card payments, and over 320 branches, with no guarantees for the jobs of the tens of thousands of employees involved.

This is in addition to the 9,000 global job losses announced in April across RBS’s manufacturing division – the “back-office” operation of call centres, data processing and IT.

4,500 of these losses will be in the UK, and 600 have already gone in the UK IT department (roughly 20% of staff).

Piling on the pain, RBS’ decided in August to freeze the value of its “final salary” pension scheme at current levels of pay. With negligible recognition of any future pay rises.

This has been what the Government’s £45.5 billion bail-out has meant for call-centre agents, processing clerks and operational staff. Despite the bank’s image, the vast majority of the workers impacted by these attacks are low-paid and vulnerable.

Where has the money gone? Most of the money has been used to stop RBS going bankrupt, by improving liquidity and providing reserves of capital to offset against bad debt.

Yet the Government has stubbornly refused to intervene in the running of the bank, to leverage their 84% stake to make the bank serve society’s interests through and beyond the recession.

Even now, Alistair Darling will not guarantee that the Government’s modest targets for lending to families and small businesses will be met.

It is less well known that RBS plans to spend £10 billion over the next 5 years in a huge and highly risky investment programme to reduce operational costs through further job losses. RBS is targeting cost reductions of £2.5 billion per year, and it would seem to be our public money that is funding this aggressive attack on vital jobs, at a time of high and growing unemployment.

Jerry Hicks said “It is RBS’s workforce who are paying the price for the banking crisis, not the banking ‘fat cats’ who are already popping champagne bottles across the City again, while their staff will have to fight to protect their jobs, pensions and conditions.”

Unite is calling for a “Yes” vote in a consultative ballot over industrial action to stop the pension freeze, following on from a 98% vote amongst Barclays staff to protect their own pensions.

Jerry Hicks calls on the Government to “stop this jobs massacre by nationalising the bank, making it a public utility to serve the public interest, and one that continues to provide employment across the community. It has never been more obvious that we need a bank driven by social need rather than private greed.”

Jerry Hicks: Can be contacted on: Tel: 078 178 279 12

Performing last night at the Barbican Steve Earle twice ventured onto the terrain of British politics. After thanking the capacity audience for giving him their money he reminded them that not everyone had money to spend on luxuries like concerts. From there it was a short logical leap to people losing their jobs and he predicted that there’ll be a lot more of that to come soon. It’s worse if you’re in the United States. Steve told the audience that almost everyone who now loses their job there is left without health insurance and he got a big round of applause for say his comment “think about that the next time you’re bitching about the NHS”.

He got unusually cryptic, by his standards, towards the end of the set. Having said that he was going to stay as non-political as it was possible for him to be he noted that there “might be big changes here soon”. His advice was “just because you’re pissed off you shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”. It’s not quite Nostradamus and, if I understood right it was a reference to next year’s election and the probable Tory victory. His comment was fairly well received and it somehow didn’t seem right to shout out “vote for credible left of Labour candidates where you can and Labour where none are standing”. As a heckle it need a bit of refinement.

This show was to promote his current album which is a collection of songs by his friend and teacher Townes Van Zandt, a man of whose life and work I know nothing other than the anecdotes which were peppered throughout last night’s performance. The one about “you knew you were in a bad way when Townes gave you a temperance lecture” gives a flavour. The evening’s disappointment was that despite the Barbican’s superb acoustics and the importance of the lyrics for both musicians it was often hard to make out the words. To this inexpert eye it seemed that you could make out what was being sung when Steve was standing a bit further back from the mike.

On the plus side you have to go some distance to find a more compelling live performer with the ability to hold an audience for almost two hours armed with nothing but his voice and guitar. And it’s some voice, like a bit warm duvet.

Just a word of advice to the support act Rhett. Europeans find it very odd when you tell them en masse how much you love their beautiful country. Best drop that from the between song patter.

One of the features of the Barbican is that after the main event there is often an after show. Last night’s was an eye opening choice and slightly incongruous. The foyer was given over to a fetish evening which kicked off with a fire eating burlesque stripper, not something you see every day. This is one area of human experience which is terra incognita for me but I was impressed by the effort most of its aficionados put into their costumes and make up. Though I’m not sure that the sprinkling of balding middle aged men with their hair pulled back into a Francis Rossi ponytail and dressed in their old biker leathers generate much in the way of sexual frisson. If you are looking for ideas to brighten up your wardrobe can I suggest for the gents a matching zebra pattern Stetson and loin cloth worn with a pair of knee high boots? The man last night carried it off very well. I’m getting mine on Saturday.

“What’s the point of being in a union?” is a pretty common question these days? If you work in the banking sector you couldn’t be blamed if you asked for a refund of your membership sub.

RBS is cutting another 1700 posts bringing its recent total to 3700 jobs axed. Any union worth its salt and / or stuck in old ways of thinking might be threatening ballots, strikes, protest meetings or demonstrations. Unite has risen to the challenge with a fiery statement from its national officer Rob MacGregor. Raging with class hated against the injustice to his members he fulminated :

“Unite views the loss of 1,700 staff as a fundamental mistake. The union does not believe this will do anything to improve the company’s future performance. HSBC should think again before cutting its skilled and dedicated workers.”

Robespierre or Fidel Castro have never reached those heights of demagogic contempt for an opponent. Any board of directors that doesn’t wither under that volley must be made of pretty stern stuff.

Look at what he did! He pointed out that they might be wrong and asked them to reconsider! These are valuable new weapons for the industrial struggle and we can be confident that those redundancy letters were shredded within minutes of the management hearing just how miffed the union’s officials were.

The reality is that Unite’s response to this assault on jobs is the norm. Actions like that taken by the Communication Workers Union are exceptional. Union bureaucracies are directly responsible for the passivity of workers faced with job losses, pay cuts and carnage to their pensions. A statement like Rob Macgregor’s makes you wonder what people like him get paid for.

One of the problems the Anglophone left has never really got to grips with is the right way to deal with dissent and diverging views. Put three French lefties in a room and a few minutes later you have four different political lines and no one is too bothered. John Molyneux expresses the point pretty well when he says in a document that has been in the public domain for a while now:

“The main form of democratic difficulty we have experienced has been reluctance, at all levels of the party, of comrades with sincerely held doubts and/or differences to speak up. One reason for this has been the tendency to put down dissenters so severely and comprehensively as to deter any repetition or imitation.”

and

“Nor should there be a fear as – with reason – there has been in the past, of exclusion, isolation or ostracism for the expression of dissident views.”

John’s describing an environment that he’s well acquainted with and, having been on the receiving end of this procedure from his co-thinkers on a couple of occasions, I understand perfectly what he’s talking about. An advantage that I had, which many don’t, is not being reliant on those doling out the abuse for political orientation or social networks. Of course it’s mainly done pour décourager les autres but it takes an incredibly strong personality to stand up to this sort of bullying especially when the others who are being discouraged feel honour bound to actively or passively go along with it.

The method is not copyrighted by any single political tradition. There is a lot of supporting anecdotal evidence that it was pretty rampant among some who learned their politics in the IMG and many other places too, no doubt.

If exclusion, isolation or ostracism were effective ways of creating independently minded activists you couldn’t really object to them. They’re not. Mostly they serve to reinforce existing power relationships within a group and tend to much used and valued by those in authority or who hold a bureaucratic position. And if there is one thing that a bureaucrat loathes it someone with an independent view expressing it.

Rosa Luxemburg got it right with her aphorism “freedom is always the freedom of dissenters”. It’s incredibly rare in contemporary British politics for any dissenting views on the left to be on life or death matters requiring that wrong ideas be pummelled into tiny pieces. Invariably it’s over second order tactical questions and discussions swivel round organisational or personal prestige (is that the right word?) rather than attempts to grapple with ideas and what’s happening in the world.

Good luck to John in his mission to get his own current to rethink its political culture. If he’s successful it will have a powerful positive effect on the English speaking left.

Derek Fraser of Manchester Respect offers some ideas about how to support striking CWU members defeat the management attacks.

Members of Manchester Respect have been visiting Communication Workers Union (CWU) picket lines during the last week and the comments from postal workers have been strikingly similar. On Thurs 29^th October at Manchester APC (Automatic Processing Centre), Oldham Rd, M/C (known to posties as ‘Ancoats Penal Colony’), CWU pickets said, ‘bullying management only seemed interested in hitting unrealistic targets that left posties exhausted when they finished their shift’. On Sat 31^st Oct Postal workers said it was ‘clear from Peter Mandelson’s lack of ‘intervention’ that this government was responsible for this current dispute and that the money the CWU gives to the Labour Party needs stopping now’!!! A few things became clear from conversations with CWU members:

1. They knew there was no alternative but to fight (and some recognised it might be a long fight), Royal Mail (RM) didn’t want a solution by negotiation

2. The government were to blame just as much as RM management

3. they wanted to get their message across to the public what ‘modernisation’ meant for them and postal workers.

Many postal workers were also starting to talk about the strategy/tactics which would be needed to win this bitter dispute, some thought a deal could be done if they stayed out long enough, whilst others thought the trade union movement needed to be asked for more support; what was common was that workers were beginning to discuss which way forward.

Respect along with others others who want to see the CWU knock back the RM management and so send a signal to Brown (and Cameron if the Tories win) wants to encourage a discussion of the way forward for workers when under attack. It was clear from visiting the various CWU picket lines over the last week that different people have different ideas about how to win, this article would like to suggest (for discussion) some tactics for the way forward for the CWU and other unions currently involved in disputes.

1. Setting up (immediately of ) Solidarity groups for postal workers in localities. Weekly levies at your workplace, twinning with postal depot.

2. Union motions – all trade unionists to visit local CWU picket lines to ask them to speak at their next union meeting about dispute, to get message of support, financial aid to them.

3. Labour MPs – in conjunction with CWU local reps to ‘visit’ local Mps to discuss their position, if not supporting strikes withdrawal of support for them at next election.

4. Rallies/protests/meetings – to set up in solidarity CWU groups local/regional rallies. CWU members need to know they have support, this can comein way through a rally/protest, etc.

These are just some suggestions to take the fight to make workers not pay the consequences of this recession. They are a starting point and I and Respect would welcome criticism/suggestions/ideas to take this struggle (our struggle) forward in a period when the unions are beginning to flex their muscles again.

I have purposely not included the development of rank & file movement within the CWU as I think this needs to come from someone who works in and recieves the crap of RM management on a daily basis!! Also others will comment much better than myself on the strategy of the CWU leadership (which needs comments) within the current and past disputes. Please feel free to comment.

Derek Fraser

(Manchester Respect)

Thanks to Ulsterman in Bavaria for this. Schlager meets bad country and western.

Thanks to Jay Woolrich for this report of a meeting last night in Bristol.

Last night over seventy people packed into a small lecture theatre at Bristol University to see Pablo Navarrete’s new film on Venezuela, ‘Inside the Revolution’, and to take part in a lively question and answer session with the film’s director and Derek Wall of the Green Party. The film combines an overview of events in Venezuela from the street fighting of 1989 through the election of Hugo Chavez in December 1998, and covers the achievements and frustrations of the first ten years of the Chavez administration. While there are interviews with political analysts, it is the voices of the ordinary people that are most striking. As one young activist says of his support for the Bolivarian revolution, “we have chosen not to be a colony – it’s as simple as that”.

Navarrete’s film ranges from the revolutionary rappers of down-town Caracas to the attempted coup in 2002, from discussions about the meaning of Chavez’s “socialism for the 21^st century” to analysis of the lies and distortions peddled by Fox News and Venezuela’s right-wing private TV stations. It outlines the shortcomings as well as the successes of the past ten years, and paints a fascinating portrait of Chavez’s own journey from radical army officer to outspoken critic of capitalism and imperialism. Navarrete reveals Venezuela as a country in transition, rejecting top-down models of socialism in favour of communal councils and cooperatives, working out its own destiny and exploring a new model of socialism in a process that is still fragile, fragmentary and of uncertain outcome. If the film has a core message, it’s that the Venezuelan people cannot and should not rely on Chavez or any other leader to make the revolution for them. In the past ten years the consciousness of the Venezuelan masses has been profoundly transformed. It is for them to take the struggle forward; it is for them to shape their own future.

 Alf Filer is speaking at next week’s Socialist Resistance forum in London, the details for which are in the corner. Here are his views on asking the State to stop fascists.

In calling on the Home Secretary to ban the EDL march in Leeds, the anti-fascist movement is making a serious error. This will only come back to haunt our movement in the future and we will live to regret it.

The lessons of the struggles against fascism in the 30’s , at Lewisham, Harrow etc have shown the need to have confidence in the independent actions of the working class and their allies in confronting the fascists.

The nature of fascism is that it feeds off the crises in Capitalism to divide and disarm the working class in the various struggles for freedom, democracy and justice. It divides communities, reinforces sexism and spreads the evils of racism, homophobia and Islamaphobia today.

The State and its representatives have a direct interest in protecting the interests of Capital and at times drops the veneer of liberalism through repressive actions, which undermine our civil liberties. The recent reports on police monitoring of demonstrators is just the latest example.

To call on the Home Secretary to ban the EDL, means calling on the Home Secretary who is responsible for policing. The same Home Secretary, who is a member of the same Cabinet endorsing, “British jobs for British workers”, the slogan used by the fascists. The same Cabinet that is endorsing further infringements on our civil liberties and undermining the Muslim community, through the Prevent policing strategy . Do we believe that we can trust the forces of law and order to protect our communities from Nazi attacks? I think not. The only defence is self defence.

Others may call for such a ban, and we understand their sincere reasons for doing so. However, the police and Home Secretary have more than enough evidence to arrest the fascists for breaches of the various laws on incitement to riot, breaches of the peace, racist abuse, insulting behaviour etc etc. Has this happened? No.

In Harrow, a fascist gave a Nazi salute and gets a free ride out of the borough for his own safety. Why not arrested?. The destruction caused in Luton when fascists attacked local people and ran riot did not result in one arrest.

The mass movement against fascists and racists must not be demobilised by relying on State bans. The people of Harrow and elsewhere made it clear, “They shall not pass”, and nor did they. The Left must hold firm and remain confident in the willingness and ability of the people united to fight off the fascist threat. Do not compromise on the No Platform for Fascists. Only we can ban them by remaining strong and united.