READERS’ LETTER: Communist East Germany & British Socialism Today pt.2

WORKING FOR SOCIALISM: outside the Labour Party – or in?

Dear the Clarion

Tyler Chinnick sets out an inspiring programme in his “What Next for Labour” article. Sadly, at the present time it is no more ace than the Socialist Party programme. Indeed, much of what he says would sit happily within it.

It would seem that most people on the left share the same aims. We want a fairer, safer world, one in which resources are used wisely, shared more equitably, and where the culture is co-operation not conflict. And that is just about where consensus ends. The gap between being IN the Labour Party and OUT is wide.

If, like me, you choose to work within a minority party you are “sectarian”. Carl Spiby rightly ridicules my show of indignation at being packaged together with the Socialist Workers Party. If one as politically educated as he is does not know the fundamental difference between their way of working and the methods of the Socialist Party, it is unlikely that 99 per cent of the population would either know or care. But of course it matters to me.

Politics are global, national and also highly personal. Being an activist can be tedious and time consuming. It can take you away from your families and friends and hinder careers and other more simple pleasures. It is, then, important to align yourself to a group that makes all this worthwhile. You do have to believe in the vision and the programme and you do have to trust the ethics of the executive and the paid party workers. And how is it any longer possible to do this where the Labour Party is concerned? I believe that the culture of careerism and deception is too deeply embedded to be routed and that this applies to both local councils and national government. Presumably, the local councillors who have impressed Carl do not come from the Forest of Dean. Our own have either given support or kept resolutely silent whilst our health provision has been under attack. Once again, the campaign to retain services within the NHS came from outside of the mainstream political parties.

Carl is of course right (or almost right) when he says that the SP etc., will never win a seat in Parliaments, but he’s off the mark when he equates Parliamentary seats with “reflecting the aspirations of the mass of working people”. Voting figures are woeful and many of us who go to the polling stations mark a cross with a heavy heart. We have been taking part in the only democratic process available to us.

As I said in my response to Carl’s original article, the Labour Party offers nothing to people who are desperate for change. The fact that the trade unions preferred Ed to David has not filled the poor with joy. How many of the young Jarrow marchers or the anti-capitalist campaigners will be rushing to vote Labour? The once great party has had its day. Yes, we do need a mass party but a new one. And to quote the Socialist Party’s “what we stand for”:

“For a new mass workers’ party drawing together workers, young people and activists from workplace, community, environmental and anti-war campaigns, to provide a fighting political alternative to the pro big business parties. Trades Unions to disaffiliate from the Labour Party now and aid the building of a new workers’ party.”

Hopefully, not too sectarian!

DIANA GASH

And an insider’s view:

I have some sympathy with Diana’s view of the Labour Party – though that doesn’t mean that I share it. To some extent it mirrors the disillusion by many on the left, particularly during the bleak Blair years, when party membership plummeted, and those members who remained found themselves increasingly out in the cold when it came to policy.

But significantly, this fallout didn’t result in any increase in support for those Left parties operating outside Labour. These parties remained marginalised, operating outside the mainstream. What did increase, though, was the level of support for “single issue” campaigns, and, under the Cameron-Clegg coalition, these have continued to increase. And long may they continue to do so. The activities of groups like UKuncut, the “Occupy” anti-capitalist camps, and resistance by the public sector unions are all healthy signs of democratic protest.

Now, I hesitate to use the word “sectarian”. After all, its use is a value judgement. Neither would I like to lump together such parties as the SP, the SWP, the SLP, etc. But what they tend to have in common is a prescriptive approach to politics and action which inhibits any major political breakthrough.

Tony Benn once described the Labour Party as a “broad church”. Despite the stifling impact of the Blair regime, it still is today. It is a (comparatively) mass party, representing a range of views and groups (including the trade unions and the co-operative movement). And this has long been its strength. Hopefully in the future we will be able to look back on “New Labour” as an aberration.

As for Diana’s strictures on our local councillors, I think this needs to be taken in the context of the steady emasculation of local government since the days of Thatcher. Local authorities have in effect become commissioners of local services rather than providers, and few nowadays have much control over their destinies or those of the people who vote for them.  And, I suspect, this has narrowed the vision of many hard working councillors who, at heart, still want to serve the communities they represent.

I can also sympathise with Diana’s point that being a political activist can be tedious and take one away from family, friends, etc. But this, of course, is the consequence of the marginalisation of politics. Once it could be inclusive, but not these days – for which the politicians are to blame!

ALISTAIR GRAHAM

LABOUR IN LIVERPOOL:

Reflections on the party conference, by former South West region MEP GLYN FORD

The last time that Labour met in Liverpool was eighty six years ago, in 1925. This was in the wake of the defeat of the first ever Labour government, hounded from office in November 1924 by “red scares” and the Daily Mail’s brandishing of the infamous forged “Ziniovev Letter”purporting to show that the Communist Party in Britain was being told by its Soviet masters to prepare for an imminent uprising. Within five years, in 1929, Labour was back in power.

This time around it will not automatically be that swift a return.

In Liverpool, the most eloquent statements of this were made in the Exhibition Hall, rather than from the podium or platform. While many delegates spoke as if Labour’s bounce back to power at the next election was assured, the same was not true of Labour’s corporate collaborators from our years in power. They were largely absent without leave, taking the view that Labour was here to stay in opposition. Certainly Tory gerrymandering with fixed term parliaments and the shaving down of a bloated House of Commons by a scanty fifty MPs to maximise their electoral advantage, makes the task that much harder in May 2015. But making it all worse is the “blame game”, media bias and the malaise infecting traditional social democratic parties across the European Union.

DOGGED BY CLAIMS:

Labour is constantly dogged by the ConDem alliance’s claims that the current crisis is the fault of Labour – stating simultaneously that it’s the global crisis that’s getting in the way of a British recovery. Now, we have to take some responsibility. Labour failed to tackle the greedy bankers, bent coppers and feral press. We didn’t tighten up banking regulation after the Tories’ big bang, ignored evidence of police corruption and kowtowed to Murdoch. Yet none of these would have helped avoid the toxic crisis in the US or the problems with the Irish, Greek or Italian economies.

Second, the very idea of a coalition seems to have stood the BBC’s idea of “balance” on its head. It’s no longer Government and Opposition, but rather Con versus Lib as the two coalition partners have their say centre stage with Labour having a mere walk-on part after those two have finished. Worse, when Labour does get a word in edgeways, it’s not our current spokesman who appears but one of yesterday’s men, and women, often now washed up in the Lords from the flood that swept Labour away.

DECLINE OF THE LEFT:

Third, our problem is one at the heart of western-style democracies. Socialists and Social Democrats less than a generation ago were in government in the majority of EU member states. Not so today. But what about Denmark, made much of in Liverpool? I’m delighted that the Danish Socialists are in power, but we need to be honest with ourselves. They had their worst result in ninety years and actually lost seats. They are in power because of the success of two small left partners and a radical liberal party who are sustaining them in coalition.

So what’s the message, and where do we go from here? More of the same and mere triangulation won’t work. New Labour with all its faults served us well. But in the end it brought us down. Nor will the electorate buy Labour as “Tory-lite”, a party whose cuts will be just that much smaller and made with genuine sadness rather than hidden joy. People know that times will continue to be tough, but they want a different vision of society from that of Cameron and Clegg.

GLIMMER OF HOPE:

The best glimmer of hope in Liverpool came from Ed Miliband’s speech. It was the first social democratic leader’s speech since 1992. It was not perfectly structured or delivered, but it began the process of putting into place a new framework of thinking for Labour. Ed derided rigged markets, asset strippers and vested interests, promising to become the voice of the hard-working majority, the squeezed middle and the crushed bottom. As he said in his devastating attack on the Tory leader, “only David Cameron could believe that you make ordinary families work harder by making them poorer and you make the rich work harder by making them richer.”

There is a long way to go, but Liverpool set Labour off in the right direction. If we can build on this over the next eighteen months to two years, we can attract back those who left us in 2010, keep those who remained with us and attract back those who had given up on politics in favour of abstention, or been seduced by the siren voices of the mad, bad and sad – UKIP and the BNP – and the regional and political sectarians.

East Germany & the Fall of Communism – reply to the responders

by C. Spiby

My article on East Germany and the failure of communism drew some interesting responses. Here I intend to reply to some of the points raised, including Diana Gash’s communication which can be found on our letters page.

Of course, in an essay of such wide-reaching scope as the nature of modern socialism, it is difficult, if not impossible to give much depth. Some points had to be made fleetingly as not to offend the dreaded word-count.

The thrust of the article was to ask the question of whether this was the time to rehabilitate the legacy of the great socialist tradition from the legacy or tyranny perpetrated by the likes of Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin. This being a vehicle to reflect on the past as a means to inform the present.

I argued that yes it was and moreover that – for British communists and socialists alike – the place to realise the socialist agenda was in the Labour Party.

And to do so now, possibly more than ever in at least my lifetime.  I was criticised, rightly, for not making this absolutely clear. So let me re-state it.

The Labour Party is now at a crossroads; if we do not make it our own now, then I for one feel the cause of modern British socialism is lost for at least a generation. A new leader, following a huge electoral defeat which has favoured vile right-wing agenda in the ConDem Government. These are all the ingredients necessary to urge a new generation of left-wing resurgence.

I am not for one moment suggesting that the Labour Party is to be hi-jacked as a communist party. But I have personally resigned from the Communist Party of Britain precisely to help re-boot Labour from within, rather than build the movement outside it (as the CPB’s own programme advises). Both positions are valid. But less so, I feel, is that of the separatists.

We can argue over the right path to socialism until we are red in the face. But only a mass movement will truly take the first steps in government. Although I was accused of ‘timid conclusions’ – I think this denies the struggle of the journey ahead of us.

I showed that the narrative offered by the works I cited (books and movies) is that Marxism will always bring about a totalitarian state. But this is not true – the whole of socialism is built on Marx, and I argued that while Marx can only foresee a socialist revolution through violent change, other paths show that this need not be the case.

I was criticised on drawing on the example of faith leaders. True, as an atheist, this is a trite thing to do, but here I hoped to show the innate nature of socialism. Perhaps I would have better used Robert Axelrod’s 1984 scientific work ‘The Evolution of Co-operation’.

My survey of the GDR was limited to about 3 books and 3 films. Most came out negatively, but the interesting point in the responses is that no-one rushed to defend even the defensible elements of East German life. Rather, the criticisms were aimed at my intended target – the nature of the debate for today’s society in Western Europe. Diana seemed at once enthused and concerned, also recognising the new zeitgeist for socialism – this is the dialectic in action.

But she remains concerned about Labour’s recent past. Rightly so. I have not voted Labour since the war on Iraq. I would have struggled anyway on issues like foundation hospitals, PFI, PPP and forcing mothers back to work rather than supporting their decision to stay at home, were that their choice. These policies, however, were New Labour. With Ed rather than David, we have the opportunity to bring the Party back to the left
both by contrast to this hugely unjust Tory government and the fact of the Unions’ backing of Ed as the new leader. With no programme yet, this is OUR chance. And also, I have been impressed with Bruce Hogan. On the Wye side Hamish Sanderson considers himself a socialist. And councillors like Armand Watts for Bulwark talk my language. Then there are good local citizens like Di Martin who have stood and won as councillors for Labour driven by the causes socialists would recognise as theirs. This is the chance to re-seed the foundations, while the right attacks our most precious wins such as the NHS; this is the home for our best defence.

My brief reference to the likes of the SP and SWP was a crude ruse to dismiss their input into the laying of those foundations in this new breed of Labour. That is not to devalue the role these groups have in local campaigns and in the debate on socialism, but their influence is – clearly – on
the outside of where the real challenge lies for the mass movement.

If, like me, you really believe in socialism, then join us.

This could be our last chance to claim the Party back for ourselves. You could stay in the SP, SWP or – as I was – in the CPB. But these parties will not ever win a seat in Parliament and therefore cannot truly hope to reflect the wishes of the mass of working people. Yes, we might feel uncomfortable in taking a place alongside people who supported New Labour, but look beyond them and we see others who feel the way we do like, say, John McDonald, and we only have to remind ourselves that the LP was the home of Tony Benn to see that the Labour Party is still the rightful place for socialists.

The answer may not appeal to the radicals. But for those of us who have trod the line of radical politics for so long, coming to real party of the mass movement IS in itself radical.

The debate about communism’s rehabilitation is due. But it is for nought if the people are not with us. The GDR offers examples of warnings and evidence of where things went right like social cohesion. But that debate is only a debate. The point is to change the world.

The Lib Dems will be nowhere in the next General Election. Their members need to join the Labour Party (re-join in some cases) to realise their dream of a social democracy. Their rightful place is in a democracy that puts social values first. And anyone who cannot see that modern British socialism doesn’t seek to achieve a similar goal is out on their own. Only a united front of socialist-driven Parliamentary power will be able to  hold the Tories and big business to account. Forget New Labour – it is up to us to ensure that social welfare drives the party not the end of boom and bust, the slaves of a shallow affluence which has left our Party dwindling and our country morally bereft. I mean, could you ever previously imagine a discussion, policies even on competition in the NHS?

That’s why you can either join the fight. Or talk about it while being defeated – at best –in the odd skirmish on the periphery.

{please feel free to Comment here or write or e-mail us}

READERS’ LETTER: Communist East Germany & British Socialism Today

Dear the Clarion

I wish to make a response to Carl‘s article from the Clarion, July issue, entitiled ‘East Germany, and the fall of Communism’.

I read the article with interest; the quote from Rowan William’s Easter address was particularly relevant given that the most heartfelt and cogent condemnation of the  current Coalition policies has once again come from the Church. Today, we are not used to people with much to lose speaking unpopular truths.  A reminder of the South American Liberation Theology movement when brave priests defied the Vatican, engaged in politics, and worked to feed people  and keep them safe before looking after their spirituality.

So true, that Socialists must always see the struggle in terms of the current times and conditions however constant the goals may be.  Marxist principles remain but as Carl pointed out the thinking must be revised to suit our age.

I have found the final statements in the article extremely thought provoking.

For the minority of people in the Country who are actively engaged or seriously interested in politics these are exciting times.  Opportunities for change seem more possible than for some long time.  The excitement one feels can seem vicarious – the very conditions that are giving rise to such possibilities are causing acute anxiety and misery for many people and those who are already poor are right to feel afraid. The need to join with other like minded people and ‘do something about it’ has never felt more urgent.

Apparently, the feeling is that the most effective path to change is to join the Labour Party and influence policy and thinking from inside the ranks. I can see how attractive this may seem to people who have been members of minority groups or Partys. The thought of belonging to a mass Party and enjoying the benefits of campaigning from such a secure base is perhaps inviting. The idea of debating with right wing Labour stalwarts, winning the arguments and making a difference to people’s lives is a great challenge.

BUT I am curious to know what has happened to the Labour Party to make this possible?

I totally agree that the conditions outside are conducive to progress but see little or no change inside.  Some people have always held the view that it is better to work from inside. I was one of them for very many years, until as members we were expected to register our links with Socialist groups and it was made very clear that we were not wanted in the Party.  Dave Nellist, a tireless MP and a committed Socialist was thrown out of the Party and his job for his beliefs and his actions.  Some people chose to remain inside and have held fast to principled and humanistic values.  Sadly they have been unable to rise through the ranks and their influence inside the Party has been small despite being inspirational in many campaigns. Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Benn to name two. Tyler Chinnick in his ‘Cuts’ article makes fair comment about Labour’s  appallingly weak opposition to the havoc being caused by the Government.  So far Ed Milliband, despite some promising words, is not looking like a man who is about to prepare his Party to take on the worst aspects of Capitalism.  Socialists know that this is what is needed if poverty is to be eradicated and justice and equality is to be achieved.

From my, possibly jaded, perspective the energy and the action is coming from elsewhere. from small local groups, from single issue campaigns and from a growing sense of outrage amongst people who have little faith left in mainstream political structures.  If these people are to be politicised it seems unlikely that they will be drawn towards old style Party meetings and the beaurocracy that goes with them. Hopefully, the Trades Unions will support growing grass roots opposition to what is happening and this in turn may influence Party politics.

As a member of the Socialist Party, formerly The Militant, I was somewhat dismayed to see that Carl had bracketed us together with the SWP in terms of our level of maturity and at some stage would be interested to know why.  The SP has a good record of standing  in local  and national elections and when elected, of building good reputations for their hard work in protecting services. Members are encouraged to be active and take up positions in their workplace Unions and give unflagging support to worker’s struggles. They have a good education programme and young people are encouraged to speak out and organise campaigns on issues which affect them. The SP has a policy of working together with other groups, of course with the agenda of influencing direction, and has strong and active links with overseas workers.  I believe that any Socialist would find it difficult to fault the aims of the Party.

My response to Carl’s article was not meant to turn into an  advert for the SP  but more a difference of opinion on the Labour Party being the ‘only one true place for British Socialists’.

DG, Coleford (Forest of Dean)

East Germany & the Fall of Communism

Reflecting on the failure of the socialist dream people like his own communist parents had subscribed to, Beat poet Allen Ginsberg wrote in a 1994 poem [1] that ‘Research has shown Socialism to be a universal failure wherever practiced by secret police’.

This, to me, is at the nub of the problem with 20^th Century socialism.

Now, however, at the juncture of the greatest crises of capitalism since the Great Depression, is it time for communism to rehabilitate itself?

The best example for us in the West of the dream gone sour is that of the former GDR (DDR or East Germany) – the Soviet satellite that found itself the frontier of the Cold War, both on its border (with West Germany) and in its capital, Berlin – divided geographically and ideologically.

In the last decade there have been a number of examples that have shown us an East Germany shaped only by the Stasi. Works like ‘The Death of Lenin’ or ‘The Lives of Others’, both brilliant movies, but both pedalling only a single thread of the wider story that was day-to-day life in the GDR. Then there have been journalistic forays into a state held captive in both Anna Funder’s ‘Stasiland’ and even the BBC’s own ‘Lost World of Communism’. All these rightfully question the role of the state and the individual, and offer many cases of terrible injustice and oppression. But I feel the idea of an ideology in crisis is not explored. The examples merely qualify the statement I cited earlier from Ginsberg. Those works don’t widen the debate.

Other publications, like ‘Stasi Hell or Workers’ Paradise? Socialism in the German Democratic Republic – What Can We Learn from It?’ and the Stasi Museum’s own ‘GDR Guide’, give fuller examples of everyday life for quiet conformists. They offer a narrative that living in a police state was not actually the main experience of life for the overwhelming majority, even if the culture it bred created its framework. This is not to revise, forgive or ignore those state crimes but we must be mindful that we witness the GDR from a purely Western perspective.

I am also mindful, however, of Rowan Williams’ Easter address this April where he picked up on the point that life can be richer than material wealth. A clear admission, perhaps, that the basis of socialism is still a natural human desire for many people, though they’d never call it that.

And Rowan Williams isn’t the first man of faith to recognise our principles…

Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. Marxism is concerned with the distribution of wealth on an equal basis and the equitable utilization of the means of production. It is also concerned with the fate of the working classes–that is, the majority–as well as with the fate of those who are underprivileged and in need, and Marxism cares about the victims of minority-imposed exploitation.

…says the Dalai Lama [2]. It might be a bit strange for a Marxist to cite religious leaders, but what I am doing here is trying to highlight the universality of the basis of socialism.

I am not for a second suggesting that everyday life in a police state is better than today’s relative affluence. But following the most recent banking crisis and with public services sliding away from us only to build more profit for the powerful few, the desire for something more humane is widespread. So, I contest we might to do better than to gloat at the dubious humanity of capitalism’s triumph over the Soviet Union, asking of ourselves instead whether can socialism mean more than totalitarianism?

Of course it can.

Show me where the great British socialists William Morris, Engels or Marx even suggest the formation of a police state or the summary arrest of ordinary citizens. You can’t because it doesn’t exist.

The basic premise of socialism is our most precious principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. But even that can only be built on solid ground. The opening remarks of many a revolutionary tract is the need for freedom from our oppressors. Not the freedom to oppress others.

I share the analysis of philosopher (and incumbent International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London), Slavoj Žižek, that the time for the rehabilitation of communism is now. In my opinion, the most important means to achieve this is to publicly denounce the legacy of totalitarianism and divorce it from our own modern British programmes. We have nothing in common with the dictatorships of China or North Korea, though we have everything in common with its people. That seems a good place to start.

Two fundamental aspects of Marx I find lacking in the conduct of socialism are the most important checks that have never been served well by its executors. Firstly, that Marx clearly makes a case for analysing reality in its current context – that things move in struggle and it is only in our understanding of that struggle in its current place in time that we can hope to address it; that means we cannot use early 20^th Century revolutionary means to overthrow the capitalist state of today. But that does not mean the goal has moved but rather that we actively revise Marxist thinking for our own age.

Secondly, and to complement the first point is the issue of self-criticism within the current context. If only Mao had read Orwell’s 1984, then I’d rather think the Cultural Revolution would be one less shame laid erroneously at our door.

Žižek picks up on Lenin’s point [3] that sometimes it is ok to start-over. The road to revolution is not always best achieved from starting from where we left off the last time we had to abandon that road – this leads us only to misinterpret the failure and, ignoring history, repeat the mistakes for generation after generation. If we re-boot from the ground up then we build a new solution from outset in today’s context based on today’s analysis. That might sound like the road to Pol Pot’s year zero but hear me out – I cannot think of any philosopher or scientist worth listening to today who doesn’t see the education of our children as the best way to change the world for the better.

In post-war East Germany, the Soviet’s built up a youth movement to create great patriots of the Soviet. The terrible reality, however, was that, apart from the colour of their neck-ties, its members looked exactly like the Hitler Youth. It seems to me that the issue here is fear: fear of losing popular support. The need to force an ideology on citizens shows a fear that, perhaps, the ideology is not really up to the job of human civility.

I don’t think this is true. I think that if we truly believe in the power of socialism – and in particular our fundamental basis of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” – then its greatest asset is in its freedom to stand proud against the immoral basis of capitalism, and to stand up to scrutiny from our own, let alone our enemies.

A socialist state built by popular support is the true expression of this project we call ‘civilisation’.

The task now is to find a home from which we can build a movement. The ‘British Road to Socialism’ – the programme of the Communist Party of Britain – unlike its less mature SP and SWP programmes, seeks this home in the Labour Party and Trade Union movement. It is under no illusion of power, but it is a compelling reminder that – if we’re honest with ourselves – for the left and true Marxists who can see the job at hand, in its current context, there is only one true place for British socialists.

[1] from ‘Cosmopolitan Greetings’ by Allen Ginsberg (Penguin, 1994)

[2] http://hhdl.dharmakara.net/hhdlquotes1.html#marxism

[3] In his ‘First as Tragedy, Then as Farce’ (Verso, 2009)

The Limits of Violence

Through the example of Baader Meinhof, Richard Huffman from Seattle, USA questions violence as a serious means of social protest.

When I marched in the November 30, 1999 anti-WTO rally here in my hometown of Seattle, the brutal tactics and sporadic yet stunning violence by the Seattle Police felt eerily similar to a catastrophic Berlin protest a generation ago. On June 2, 1967 tens of thousands of young Germans, many of them students at Berlin’s Free University, lined up on Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse early in the evening to protest a visit by the Shah of Iran. By the end of that night, however, a young pacifist lay dead, shot by the police.

After the rally, thousands of angry, frustrated students converged at the Berlin offices of the leading student organisation – the Socialist German Student Union. Among those present was a young woman called Gudrun Ensslin who declared “This fascist state means to kill us all! We must organize resistance. Violence is the only way to answer violence. This is the Auschwitz Generation, and there’s no arguing with them!”

This article looks at Gudrun’s exclamation asking whether her experience offers us a warning as to the limits to violence just as there are limits to our consent.

While leader of the Socialist Student Union – “Red” Rudi Dutschke – was sympathetic to Ensslin’s goals he proposed “a long march through the institutions”. For her part, Ensslin went on to form the Red Army Faction – the “Baader-Meinhof Gang”.

During the next decade Ensslin, intent on bringing a form of Socialist Revolution to Germany, and the 50 or so young Germans who joined her and her boyfriend Andreas Baader, embarked on a campaign of bloody terror throughout West Germany. The R.A.F. blew up symbols of capitalism like department stores; killed American soldiers and high-ranking figures on the West German Supreme Court. They kidnapped wealthy and influential German industrialists, blew up the German embassy in Stockholm and high-jacked a Lufthansa jet.

Others meanwhile chose the path of Rudi Dutschke instead.

In time it was these activists who built a new progressive German environmental movement that went on to found the Green Party in 1979 and, twenty years later, sharing Government in coalition with the SPD.

The Baader-Meinhof gang’s adherence to violence made a considerable impact on German society. At first their actions held the support of a new post-war generation. Polls showed an extraordinary number of Germans supported their cause in one way or another: 20 percent of Germans under the age of 30 expressed “a certain sympathy” for the Baader-Meinhof Gang; one in ten young northern Germans indicated they would willingly shelter a member for the night.

But as the violence increased empathy decreased. Before their pursuits West Germany had no national police force as such and it was in response to their terror campaign, the BKA (which later became the German equivalent of the FBI) was created. Instead of progressing social justice their actions lead the German government to pass sweeping laws that restricted the rights of average citizens; instituted loyalty oaths for all civil servants, and random general searches of peoples’ homes was not uncommon. And yet this was exactly what the R.A.F. hoped would happen.

They anticipated German state repression and expected it to be applied with disproportionate violence. Their hope was the proletariat would be shocked from their complacency and would spontaneously rise up in revolution.

Instead the German population, angered and frightened by the violence, applauded their government’s repressive response. Seven million ‘Wanted’ posters were printed.

Within five days of their May 1972 week of terror, all the ring-leaders were in jail. Within five years they were all dead. After an airplane hijacking by Palestinian comrades failed to secure the release of the three imprisoned leaders of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe all committed suicide deep in the night of October 17, 1977.

Activists marched on Berlin in 1967 in anger. Out of that anger came Baader-Meinhof. Their rage sought to change German society but failed. Now their generations’ “long march through the institutions” has borne fruit: in 2003 when much of the West marched to Stop the War on Iraq, Germans marched in support of their Government and their decision not to participate in it.

©2010 Copyright the author. Sourced & edited by C. Spiby; this article first appeared as two articles and in a different form in Satya magazine, March 2004.

REVIEW (Take Two #2): ‘The Survivalists’

A variant on our ‘Double Take’ theme (where two different reviewers consider the same text), the ‘Take Two’ series of reviews consider two different texts covering remarkably similar themes. This time Carl Spiby complements his earlier look at Tobias Jones’ ‘Utopian Dreams: a search for a better life’ with ‘The Survivalists’ by Patrick Rivers and the passage of 32 intervening years.

In this second of my ‘Take Two’ series, I am looking at the topic of ‘communes’ or, to use the modern moniker ‘intentional communities’ – though I’ll refer to the former. With 32 years between these two texts, one might expect the cultural and political changes to leap out at you. But in this case they don’t.

The very thing that drives the study undertaken by Tobias Jones in his modern book is the same reason why all communities in Rivers’ 1975 book came into being. Quoting from ‘The Survivalists’ this being the observation that…

“Within our imposed society we concentrate on stimulating wants – which can never be satisfied – to the neglect of satisfying needs. Denied this basic satisfaction, we try to forget the loss – by chasing after more and more wants.”

To counter this, as one of the commune-starters states, they instead envisage a community which would…

“…seek to provide new technology for people who wish to live in harmony with their environment, in peace with their neighbours, and in control of their lives and their technology.”

The focus on alternative technology is far more pressing in the Rivers’ book but I imagine that these people would have been the vanguard of the new green technology. Of course, by the time we reach the communities that Jones’ visits in his 21^st Century book, these technologies have created a growth sector of their own and are even courted by government to bolster their green credentials (while, I sardonically note, also pursuing nuclear power as a green alternative!) and, thus, they are accepted as the norm. Indeed, there’s no need to even mention it once we’ve established that part of the philosophy for the very being of a community is to reduce one’s impact on the environment and opt-out of ‘the system’.

Oddly, however, the title reveals an urgency in the need for breaking away from straight society in ‘The Survivors’ whereas with ‘Utopian Dreams’ that urgency is dealt with as a matter of fact, but with enough room to build dreams.

You may recall that my admiration of the Jones’ book was limited. Unfortunately, Rivers’ text is no more compelling but, like the Jones book, the topic enough keeps one going. In fact, I slightly favour the passing glimpses of reality in the ‘The Survivalists’ missing from ‘Utopian Dreams’. Take this example where Rivers is impressed by…

“…the intense and strenuous 7-days-a-week activity, but I suspect that there may be too much of it; for although the pressures of straight society are noticeably absent, people admit to feeling guilty about taking time off. If a member wants to relax, in his room, or in one of the communal rooms, or on a hillside, even though he is perfectly entitled to do so, nevertheless it is difficult for him not to feel that he is shirking, and he sense that the rest of the group feel that he ought to be doing something.”

The problem is that passages such as these are in the minority and the narrator tends to wander through communities, his interviews and even his own points so casually as to render the majority of his observations instantly forgettable.

This is a pity as there are little gems in here. Some which present the case for community living elegantly, like the interview with Berkeley University architect Sim van Der Ryn who says:

“…a home you’ve made yourself is like home-baked bread is to bought bread. It’s all part of a need people have to create more of the substance of their lives.”

Well put.

Then, at a different juncture a defender of communes tries to contextualise the move from straight society to communal living. Hence, (paraphrasing here) remove from your own home all furniture but a few blankets, a mat, table and chair. Then remove virtually all the food from the pantry leaving only a small bag of flour, some sugar, salt, a few potatoes and a handful of dried beans; dismantle the bathroom; disconnect all electricity; cancel all papers and move the family to a tool shed. They may as well add get the neighbours to move in too – and yet, this communard reports from their Californian retreat that despite these reduction in possessions, comforts and services happiness abounds as does a lack of all the diseases of modernity: depression, anxiety, loneliness, restlessness and misanthropic tendencies.

Really? I think this naïve exchange demonstrates the penchant for early commune-dwellers to strive for a reduction to medievalism; a reputation which I feel has blighted the movement ever since. Secondly, I’d like to see evidence to back up the assertions purported here that communal living clears one of all those anxieties. Although I’d like to think it true, my scepticism is raising alarm bells. It’s not proper journalism but mere opinion.

Another problem with the communes discussed in both books is that the main-players all seem middle class. Take this passage from ‘The Survivalists’:-

“The group which set up the commune comprised two architects, a management consultant, an advertising agency executive, an interior designer, a computer systems analyst, a civil engineer, two teachers and a medical laboratory technician….”

Not a single prole among them.

And this isn’t inverse class prejudice but an observation of those discussed in both texts. This suggests that communes of this nature are mostly started and run by a certain section of the middle class. Probably of, I imagine, a certain intellect and persuasion. For they have the means, the education and the profession to make it do-able, but it calls me to question the sincerity and longevity of such projects. Indeed, all the communes I Googled from the 1975 book no longer existed, whereas all those in ‘Utopian Dreams’ communes did. But will they in 2040?

‘The Survivalists’ is definitely a book about building new communities with those seeking to escape the modern technocratic society. ‘Utopian Dreams’ isn’t utopian at all – I suspect it was the name assigned the project by its publishers – but it too seeks to escape though it parades as trying to build anew. Such is the positivism of modern era, which I often find hides some of the actual truth of a situation.

I favour ‘The Survivalists’ more pragmatic approach, but ‘Utopian Dreams’ was a better source of intellectual ideas and justifications for communal living. So on this journey of these two books have I learned much?

Yes – but probably nothing conclusively. Answers to the big questions just aren’t that easy, I guess.

“GOODNIGHT IRENE”…

Still sung on the football pitches today, this 1950s hit song was caught up in the McCarthyite phobia of the time. But was it the singers or the song?

The song, Goodnight Irene, performed by the Weavers, topped the British hit parade back in 1950. Yet, today, unless you’re a Bristol Rovers’ fan, it’s now just a distant memory.

Rovers fans at their Eastville ground adopted it as their anthem when it was high in the hit parade – and when the team was going through a successful run in the FA Cup (until they were knocked out by Newcastle United. In those days Newcastle was riding high in the first division, whilst Rovers languished in the old third division south). But over half a century later, loyal supporters are still singing it.

Few of those supporters, though, will be aware of the politics of the time when Goodnight Irene was first sung and recorded in the USA. As the 1950s dawned, anti-Communism was rife in America, and Anti-Red “witch hunts” were the order of day. The “Un-American Activities Committee” chaired by the notorious Senator Joseph McCarthy was conducting a root and branch purge of suspected Communists – and the Weavers were on his list.

The Weavers were a popular left wing music group, formed in 1949. Amongst their members was the legendary Pete Seeger and Lee “Tubby” Hays.

Goodnight Irene had originally been performed by Leadbelly (a black former convict turned folk singer).

His version of the song was much more edgy than the one performed by the Weavers, who removed all references to drugs from the lyrics that they sang.

About that time, the Weavers were signed up by Decca records. It was their big breakthrough – and amongst the songs they recorded was Good Night Irene. It was soon climbing high in the US hit parade, before crossing the Atlantic to Britain.

KOREA – AND ANTI-RED PARANOIA: In June 1950, the Korean war erupted. Suddenly the USA saw itself as being at war with the Communists. The paranoia reached fever pitch, even affecting the entertainment industry. The Weavers had their TV series abruptly cancelled – but, for a while, their songs still topped the hit parade – including Goodnight Irene.

In August 1951, FBI files on the Weavers were leaked – and the group was investigated for sedition. One of their songs, Rock Island Line (recorded in Britain by Lonnie Donegan), was regarded by the FBI as reflecting the Communist Party line!

The music played by the Weavers wasn’t particularly threatening – and certainly those who bought their records weren’t that bothered about any “subversive” content. But the FBI was determined to find “reds” under every stone they turned over.

As the Government-inspired blacklist on the Weavers become public, members of the group found that they were forced to justify their music. In such a hostile climate, it wasn’t easy. Then, in February 1952, a witness appearing before the Un-American Activities Committee testified that three of the Weavers were members of the Communist Party. It was, of course, a lie. But the Weavers were forced to disband.

Two victims of the anti-Communist paranoia at the time were Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

They were sentenced to death on a charge of treason – and after a long, worldwide, campaign to save their lives, they were finally sent to the electric chair in 1952. Reportedly they asked to hear Good Night Irene one last time, before they faced their execution.

As a footnote, the song was sung by Billy Bragg at Tolpuddle last year – much to the displeasure of a small group of Bristol City supporters! But no doubt it resonated with Billy Bragg in a way that it doesn’t necessarily with loyal Rovers’ supporters. For them, it’s simply their song!

AG

GRACE TURNER: An appreciation by Joy Simpson

Joy Simpson pays tribute to her aunt, Grace Turner, who died in January aged 97.

We, the family, could not be sad for Grace when she died peacefully at home on January 9, at last released from the loneliness she had borne since her husband John died in October 2007. They had been such a close couple for over seventy years.

Grace was the youngest of six in the Brain family, and the only one not born in Lydney. My mother was the eldest, and Grace was 18 when she came to help her in the dairy at Ascot when I was born in 1929. In later years we almost seemed to be the same generation, and I stopped calling her “Aunty”.

POLITICALLY ACTIVE:

Throughout her life Grace was politically active on the left, including being involved in the “Cable Street Riots” against Oswald Mosley’s fascist blackshirts.

She met John Turner through the Clarion Cycling Club and they married in 1938. Their daughter Helen was born in 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1940, to escape the bombing in London, they came to stay with relatives in Lydney. Later they moved back to Sunbury on Thames where Roger was born in 1944.

They never owned a car, and continued to cycle everywhere, adding a carrier for the children, until Grace had a terrible accident when her cycle was hit by a car, breaking her arm, leg and collar bones. John was distraught and used to take Royal Jelly (from bees) into the hospital to help with the healing. After that he would only let her ride the tandem with him.

They travelled all over the country and abroad, particularly to Holland where they met lifelong friends Ans and Wietze Postma. They also went by minibus to Moscow, Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, and on the way back through Norway. Their activities also included taking part in CND and anti-war demonstrations.

Gerry was born in 1947, when I was 18. Whilst she was expecting, I used to cycle down to see if Grace had produced the baby yet!

A HEALTHY LIFE:

Their healthy life included Grace making her own bread until a few years ago. They were mostly vegetarian which, I think, influenced me in making that choice. They very seldom visited a doctor or took allopathic medicine, relying on her own remedies including garlic for minor ailments. She was devoted to her grandchildren and often went to see Gerry and Alice with their three when they were wardens at the Friends Meeting House at Hemel Hempstead.

In 1987, along with my mother, Grace and John, I moved to Lydney, in bungalows near to each other. We were able to support each other and take holidays in Wales. My mother, Lois, died aged 98 in 1997. It had been good for the sisters to be near again. She liked to see my family, too, when they came to the Forest to see me.

Grace had a love of music and we joined the Dean Music Club and shared CDs. She and John were also interested in foreign films, which we enjoyed at the Studio Cinema in Coleford. Until her eyesight deteriorated Grace had been a great reader and we shared books and ideas.

Later, John would get “Talking Books” from the library, which they enjoyed together.

They had been a great team, not above complaining about each other but devoted nonetheless. When John died, Grace lost the will to live. Although she was loved and well cared for by her grand daughter, no-one could replace him.

So it’s the end of an era. Grace was the last of that generation in the family. Although I am the only Quaker in the family, it was her wish to have a Quaker funeral, as she had experienced it when my mother, her sister, died. It gave anyone who wished the opportunity to share their thoughts about her, and drew together family and many friends from many strands of her life.

JS

We, the family, could not be sad for Grace when she died peacefully at home on January 9, at last released from the loneliness she had borne since her husband John died in October 2007. They had been such a close couple for over seventy years.

Grace was the youngest of six in the Brain family, and the only one not born in Lydney. My mother was the eldest, and Grace was 18 when she came to help her in the dairy at Ascot when I was born in 1929. In later years we almost seemed to be the same generation, and I stopped calling her “Aunty”.

POLITICALLY ACTIVE:
Throughout her life Grace was politically active on the left, including being involved in the “Cable Street Riots” against Oswald Mosley’s fascist blackshirts.

She met John Turner through the Clarion Cycling Club and they married in 1938. Their daughter Helen was born in 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1940, to escape the bombing in London, they came to stay with relatives in Lydney. Later they moved back to Sunbury on Thames where Roger was born in 1944.

They never owned a car, and continued to cycle everywhere, adding a carrier for the children, until Grace had a terrible accident when her cycle was hit by a car, breaking her arm, leg and collar bones. John was distraught and used to take Royal Jelly (from bees) into the hospital to help with the healing. After that he would only let her ride the tandem with him.

They travelled all over the country and abroad, particularly to Holland where they met lifelong friends Ans and Wietze Postma. They also went by minibus to Moscow, Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, and on the way back through Norway. Their activities also included taking part in CND and anti-war demonstrations.

Gerry was born in 1947, when I was 18. Whilst she was expecting, I used to cycle down to see if Grace had produced the baby yet!

A HEALTHY LIFE:
Their healthy life included Grace making her own bread until a few years ago. They were mostly vegetarian which, I think, influenced me in making that choice. They very seldom visited a doctor or took allopathic medicine, relying on her own remedies including garlic for minor ailments. She was devoted to her grandchildren and often went to see Gerry and Alice with their three when they were wardens at the Friends Meeting House at Hemel Hempstead.

In 1987, along with my mother, Grace and John, I moved to Lydney, in bungalows near to each other. We were able to support each other and take holidays in Wales. My mother, Lois, died aged 98 in 1997. It had been good for the sisters to be near again. She liked to see my family, too, when they came to the Forest to see me.

Grace had a love of music and we joined the Dean Music Club and shared CDs. She and John were also interested in foreign films, which we enjoyed at the Studio Cinema in Coleford. Until her eyesight deteriorated Grace had been a great reader and we shared books and ideas.

Later, John would get “Talking Books” from the library, which they enjoyed together.

They had been a great team, not above complaining about each other but devoted nonetheless. When John died, Grace lost the will to live. Although she was loved and well cared for by her grand daughter, no-one could replace him.

So it’s the end of an era. Grace was the last of that generation in the family. Although I am the only Quaker in the family, it was her wish to have a Quaker funeral, as she had experienced it when my mother, her sister, died. It gave anyone who wished the opportunity to share their thoughts about her, and drew together family and many friends from many strands of her life.

DOUBLE TAKE: More than one Road #2

I Believed: The Autobiography of a former British Communist

by Douglas Hyde (Heinemann, 1951)

REVIEW #2

DOUGLAS HYDE grew up in a Methodist family in Bristol. In 1928 he joined the Communist Party, and spent the next twenty years or so working his way up through the ranks until finally he made it to the upper echelons of the Party, becoming a speaker, organiser and joining the editorial staff of the Daily Worker.

His book, I Believed, recalling his life in the Communist Party, was published in 1951. It ran to two reprints within a couple of months. It was a time of political polarisation, with the McCarthyite “witch hunts” in the USA at their height. Over there, being a “Commie” or a “Red” was seen as being guilty of “UnAmerican activities”, and thousands suffered as a result. Some were gaoled, others were merely blacklisted.

Though there was no blatant witch hunting over here, some of the climate had rubbed off in Britain. Coincidentally, it was about this time that I was beginning to get involved in politics. I was a teenager, just embarking on a new life in London. I ended up in a bedsitter which I shared for a while with another young lad who was a member of the Young Communist League. He made sure that I read the Daily Worker, and would engage me in “political discussions”. I never did join the Communist Party – though I admit that I did waver. The nearest I came to it was when the Rosenbergs were executed in America. They were sent to the electric chair on a charge of revealing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. They had been arrested in the summer of 1950, and despite a world-wide campaign for clemency, they were finally executed in 1953. The morning after, the Daily Worker came out with a one-word headline using the largest typeface it had – “MURDER”. The case stirred me emotionally. I believed in their innocence then, and still do today.

But eventually I veered away from the Communist Party. I think two factors helped to clarify my thoughts. One was the Soviet repression of the uprising in Hungary in 1956, and the other was the emergence of the nuclear disarmament movement a couple of years later. I took a different route, becoming increasingly involved in the peace movement – although with a developing Socialist perspective. For the record, I went on to join the ILP, which had been the CP’s major rival for the left-wing conscience in the 1930s.

It was against this backgound that I first read I Believed. It did have an influence on me – though not in the way that was intended by the author or indeed the person who gave it to me. It must have been difficult for Hyde to deny totally twenty years of selfless activity for the cause. At that time I was more interested in reading his accounts of the workers’ struggle – the hunger marches, the anti-fascist campaigns and the Spanish civil war – than the anti-Communist message superimposed as the overall theme. And I was in no way attracted by the alternative that Hyde chose – a sort of mediaevalist catholicism, beloved by such writers as Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc at the time.

Now, with maturity, I can take a more detached view of it all. Hyde knew better than most that the Communist Party at the time did as it was told, according to the shifts in Soviet foreign policy. The “party line” could (and did) change according to the dictates of Moscow, whilst the Communist policy document, The British Road to Socialism, was about as British as was allowed by the Communist International (later re-branded as the “Cominform”).

But what of the Party membership, which was still quite considerable in those days? When Hyde left the Party, it still had two MPs (though both seats were lost in the 1950 election), scores of councillors, a trade union base, and as late as 1960 boasted of a membership of some 30,000. As for the Daily Worker, it was selling 100,000 a day – and could have sold far more except for the strict rationing on newsprint that existed just after the war. The CP was not without its influence. I got to know many Party members in West London, and it was difficult to view them as “tools of Moscow”. They were sincere and committed and really believed that the “people’s democracies” offered the way forward.

Hyde was, in effect, a “proto-defector”. He was able to write his book whilst starting a new life in which he rejected “atheistic Marxism”. After he left the Party and the Daily Worker he became a columnist for the Catholic Herald. Others, of course, were to leave the Communist Party in later years, though not all of them lost their commitment to Socialism. The Party survived – but a “New Left” was also born in the late 1950s and the 1960s.

ALISTAIR GRAHAM