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It has been 8 years since I was a member of that organisation. Since then I no longer support theirs and Harman's defense of the Bolsheviks and Leninist organisation. Yet I still admired Harman's oratorical skills and written work and believe his death is a loss to socialism of any stripe. The next time I attend Marxism I know that his taciturn and curmudgeonly presence will not be there and a new generation will not hear him speak. But more than this: he was a living connection to the last revolutionary generation - The '68ers. A memory of resistance is being lost. In a world of identitikit political grey-men who make John Major seem like a maverick, students as 'consumers' rather than critical thinkers and a society that is both increasingly anxious about danger and bland in its conformity, that is the biggest tragedy for Harman's death for me.

Socialist Resistance's Obituary:

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 (now ContreTemps) 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.

Socialist Resistance editorial board,

November 7 2009.

Chris Harman speaking on the German Revolution (mp3)

Chris Harman on Neo Liberalism (mp3)

Chris Harman on Capitalism Today (mp3)

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And the comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSJcgDH06wE

First things first. It's 10.30pm (at the time of writing). I get up at 5am, leave the house at 6am, get the world's shittiest bus service at 7 and have lectures til 5pm, which means I get home at 7pm. I'm fucked all week. I've got my first proper School Placement on Monday and the paperwork is a good ½ an inch thick so there is no way I am going to conduct research on anything else but that. So all this is right now is a work in progress. At some point these sketchy points are going to be filled in with references and what have you.

But not today.

Maybe in the Christmas holidays.

No wait, I have an assignment due just before the Christmas holidays.

So after them then.

No wait, I'm back at Uni on the 4th January and my second 60 day placement after that.

So July 2010 then in between job hunting.

So in the meantime...

And apologies for the stream of consciousness here. I would love to be more systematic about this but I am thinking as I write. This post is an attempt to get a load of contradictory thoughts in order. Okay, let's begin.

I am white. I am working class – in both the Marxist and the mainstream sociologist sense of the word. On paper I probably fit modern tabloid stereotype of the proles that infest 'Broken Britain'. I was born to a teenage mother. My father flew from the scene before I was old enough to remember what he looked like. We lived on a council estate. I still do. I did what – stereotypically – working class teenagers are said to do when I grew up. Smoking hash (it was hash in my day, it's weed now) being a nuisance, having gaol birds for friends, etc.

I am making the point because I am not a hand wringing middle class liberal. There's nothing inherently wrong with being middle class – it's constantly being used as an insult – and there's nothing wrong with being liberal. It is just that if this post was every read by more than half a handful, that would be the knee jerk reaction. I'm a liberal, I'm middle class, I don't live in the community, yadda yadda yadda.

Fuck off mate. I live in a town with with a South-Asian population of almost 20% . I'm not a person who pontificates about how wonderful it is to live in a 'vibrant' (every time you see the word 'vibrant' think dump) town/city while actually living in an all white suburb.

I'm also as has been established, a Marxist. The thing about being a Marxist is that it's a universalist world view. Most Marxists worth their salt care just as much about their comrades in say, Somalia or Minsk as they do in Dagenham or Boston. I'm not entirely sure that I go entirely with 'workers have no country' because while there is something universal about the working class as an experience and a culture, we have specific, historically conditioned cultures as well. But we do have a sense of comradeship that transcends boundaries. That's wobbled somewhat since the death of the 'actually existing socialist' regimes but it still exists. I'd put money on the fact that Maoists in Nepal would jump for joy if Scotland became a people's republic for example (I'm not advocating Maoism or people's republics by the way).

The point of this is that we come to the issue of immigration (aha! At last he comes to the point!) with a slightly different perspective than most, I suspect. We already think of ourselves, to a greater or lesser extent (depending on the zeal of the Marxist) as 'one people' as it were . Except of course for splitters. But splitters can be any colour. We care more that someone is a Kautskyist-revisionist than we would that someone is a Paki/Gook/Nip/White bread cracker/Nigger/Frog/kyke/Dago/Paddy/wop/Insert racial slur here. (Let's face it when it comes to being vicious bastards, we out do the right-wing any day. It's just that, like the Krays, 'we only ever 'urt our own').

(I am referring to the sectarian but ineffectual European left by the way. I am well aware that Uncle Joe and Auntie Pol Pot were known for for getting out of bed on the wrong side and sending a few to the Gulags)

You can add to that the long accepted (among the left) belief that immigration controls divide the working class and should be scrapped. I am an advocate of this.

So now it comes out and the jaws drop and the insults come my way. It will be assumed that I am living in a dream world, that of course I must live in an all white town/city and have never had to face the consequences of being invaded by Johnny foreigner.

Not at all. I share the concerns about loss of identity myself. There. I said it. I'd probably be tarred and feathered by the Leninists in a shot. Nevertheless. My fear is so great that I have very carefully crafted this blog post to avoid Americanisms. Things like 'a bunch of' instead of a 'load of'. Things like not beginning a sentence with 'so' I failed at that). But it's not just that. I fear the loss of fish and chip shops to Chicken shops and pizza parlours. I lament the loss of pie and mash shops. I hate the fact that teenage kids today look indistinguishable from Americans. I hate the loss of our collective memory. Where are our new Tony Benns? Where are our new Arthur Scargills? Where are our new Hurricane Higginses or George Bests? Where are we and who are we as a class and a community? We're lost. Is that true or my perception? Am I, even at a relatively young age a relic from a lost past? Maybe. But I feel it. I want our (English working class) to be enlivened and enriched by new blood and new perspectives, and it is, but I don't want the past to be drowned.

Neither do I want us to be fighting like dogs in the street over the last bone for resources. There is pressure over housing (thanks to the erosion of public housing stock) over jobs, over decent community centres and the like. And the perception is (rightly or wrongly) that instead of those in need coming first, resources are being allocated according to racial communities.

So it seems I want my cake and to eat it too. That's one way of looking at it. Another way is that I am not a mindless automaton, just shouting right-on slogans. When people talk about fear of losing their identity, I share that. I believe in a politics of class in which assimilation is taken seriously. Not foisted upon people, not forced to forget their mother tongue or culture but neither should people be treated as aliens in our midst the way they are now. The absolute stupidity of this is that the mainstream politicians want their cake and to eat too as well. Who falls over themselves to show how tough on immigration they are? Who tries to out BNP the BNP while at the same time saying 'oh no, we're not like them at all.'

NO. YOU ARE. The difference between them and you is the level of hypocrisy. That is all. You try and play both cards. You have created the problem of multiculturalism, which tries to reduce everyone to monolthic racial communities, squabbling amongst each other while at the same time denouncing people as 'illegals' and 'bogus'.

As for me, in a way I look to America and the republican tradition. Ehh, yes that country is racist in a way in which we can even look down upon. And yet communities there do find a way to assimilate. Not in a revolutionary proletarian way of course but it's something. Of course everyone in the US is a damned Johnny Foreigner anyway so the whole blood and soil bullshit of European nationalism out from the start. They had to forge a common identity from scratch after the 13 colonies had abandoned the mother country.

Ultimately I find myself agreeing with Phil:

One way to start to achieve this would be to break the popular support for the BNP by illustrating to the alienated white minority who have turned to them in times of need that the problem of contemporary society is not one relating to race and ethnicity, but rather one rooted in the new form of neo-liberal capitalism that plunges everybody, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, or age, into a precarious world, where everything is uncertain. The effect of this approach would be to dismantle the mythological connection between precariousness and race that enables the BNP and other parties of the far right to scapegoat minorities, and turn popular attention towards the real problem, the form of capitalism that turns people against each other like never before.

http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2009/11/capitalism-and-clowns.html

Anyway, to be continued and followed up with research. One day.

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I had to do a short maths lesson on Tuesday and I was wracking my brains for a maths game when I remembered at college we once played a game called Fizz-Buzz. It's dead easy. Get a group together, form a circle and start counting. One person counts one, the next two...well you all know how to count. Anyway when a person gets to a multiple of 3 (3, 9, 12, 15, etc) they shout fizz instead of the number. If it's a multiple of five they shout Buzz! If it's a three and and a five they shout Fizz-Buzz! Hesitations, pauses and wrong answers result in being out of the game.

So what are the learning objectives?

Well it checks if children really know their 3s and 5s which they should know by year 3, all else being equal (SEN children will have different criteria). How? By changing the context of the multiples. Eh? Well look we all know the "one times three is three" rote learning method. Children can memorize that no problem. But change the way in which they have to recite the table and that's a proper challenge.

Not that they know that its a challenge. With any luck it just seems like a bit of a laugh with a sticker for the winnner and maybe a sticker for whoever made the most progress since we last played it. Its anti-maths maths. The success criteria is if we can get through the times table for 3 and 5 up to 30 with every child knowing at least one multiple.

Simple as, bish bash bosh. Its mostly in the presentation, which at least one person thought I did well.

Honest guv this was not written by me and no one was bribed!

By the way, my name is actually Ross. Anyone who thinks my name genuinely is Albert Soviets is a bit of a wally.

Ross Had used 'Fizz Buzz' as his oral mental starter (I'll leave the explanation of what it is to ross if he wants to

The things i liked about Ross's OMA was

1) I really liked to way he introduced the OMA to the children (Being us!). Instead of going straight into Maths, he asked us questions as to why we do exercise. After a few answers, we gave him the answer "to keep our mind working" and he explained how important that is. From a pupil perspective, Ross had managed to get his participants involved in what they were going to do and he didn't necessarily label it as Maths. In doing so, he had shown us an effective strategy to encourage children who might fear the words "now we are going to do some maths" into participating in Mathematical Activity.

2) Plain and simple-constant praise. Even when somebody had made a mistake, Ross just ignored the fault and congratulated us on our efforts.

3) He had managed to find a activity that could include all of the children. At some point during the OMA, Ross (the teacher) had one to one interaction with every pupil. From his perspective, it also appeared to be a great assessment opportunity.

If i had to choose one area for him to work on, i would say it would be to maybe interact with the children in this activity. He can show the children how it can be done through the means of modelling and he could make 'silly' mistakes which would make him seem humorous and approachable so that the children could then correct his mistake and help raise confidence.

Overall, it was a great OMA.
Well done Ross !!

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Anyway, yes so I have indeed been busy and I still am. I had actually intended to close the blog as really I am not sure if there's anything I want to say any more. The original intention of the blog was to record my thoughts on my Grandad's illnness. The blog went pas that remit though and I found myself ranting about the little things try me as a spoilt consumer brat in an over indulgent, pampered, western decadent world. I did occasionally throw in some politics in there as well, which is nice but, I've never been one for yer mature and sophisticated analysis when calling someone a cunt does the job just as well.

These days though I've been living in a tiny little bubble around my PGCE (that's Post Graduate Certificate of Education, or Teacher Training to those of you who hate initialisms and stupid jargon wot like I do) and I don'tr spend much time thinking about owt else. Don't want to fill a blog full of, "I hate waking up at 5, have to write a lesson plan for MFL...etc.) 'cos taht'd bore the arse off me. It'd be like a really long version of fucking twitter.

Twitter, twitter? Shitter more like! It was bad enough a couple of years ago when the hipsters and the tech geeks were on it. At least I could pretend I'd never heard of it. Now every wanker with an iphone up his arse is banging on about the social web facemayspacetwitterfriendfeedwhataloadabollocks. It were IRC in my day. You knew where you were on IRC. trolls and star trek bastards. Proper internet!

See that's the sort of thing you'd get on the blog. The billionth rant that about twitter. What's the betting that I'll write about how twitter is just what people ate for lunch?

So there you go. The bar was never high on my blog but I'd doubt I'd even hit my own lowly standards. So after a very long absence my latest post may well just be to tell... um... well me really, seeing as I don't have what you'd call a readership as such...

Okay let's start that again. So after a very long absence my latest post may well just be to tell whoever is reading this that I may be packing up and going home. And I'm taking my ball with me.

But then you never know with me.

If I get my blog mojo working I'll be back but right now, running on empty. If I get me rant juice back, you'll be the first to know.

Until then, C U Next Tuesday!

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So what in the name of Satan's buttock sweat were people thinking when they complained? What bloody relevance did their complaint have? I do not mean how dare people find two blokes having a little peck on tv, I know people get their knickers in a twist about that. To be honest I think that has less to do with an ideological defence of the family or a deep seated revulsion for homosexuality. It certainly has sweet fuck all to do with "the children". I think it has everything to do with the "ew gross" attitude of people who see two blokes kissing, find it personally distasteful in that very childish way and want to make damned sure they never see it again.

I cannot play the holier than thou card here. The first time I ever saw gay pornography I knew that while same men are fanciable indeed, I knew the whole man on hairy man action was not my thing at all. I was alright while watching them missing the pink and potting the brown but the kissing... no, can't say I'm a fan. I suppose that makes me a hypocrite because I've snogged men meself. I thought I'd give it a go, but it's all stubble and aftershave and seems (in my mind and libido at least) an interesting fantasy but not my preferred way of spending an afternoon. I cannot believe however that the act would so scarring that it would leave children up down the country traumatised and dumbstruck. For one thing, is that unusual to see men kiss each other? I know the preferred method of male bonding is the awkward hand shake and a hesitant pat on the back but at some point, on very special occasions this does sometimes break down, surely? Well it does in my family anyway. And footballers kiss and hug each other when they score goals. I wonder how many football matches faced being banned from tv because Michael Owen planted on Beckham's cheek after he scored a screaming free kick in an England match. Actually given the paucity of scoring opportunities from England this is probably a moot point.

Okay so you could argue that kissing is one thing; this was a representation of "alternative family" life. Right but again there are precedents. Years and years back on eastenders there was that poncy bloke and his wide boy boyfriend Barry. They kissed on screen. The world did not crumble around their ears, butch Brut wearing casuals did not suddenly ditch their girlfriends and weekends of 10 beers and a stripper down the local boozer with the lads... for well, the lads, so to speak. Eastenders carried on as normal. Oh I daresay someone got their knickers in a twist over it mind you. Having read an article about the ad (which is how I got to see it) I understand that there are gay characters in both Emmerdale and Corrie.... so the ad may have been squeezed between these two shows then. Two shows in which presumably the characters have not be fired or the shows pulled. Again though, it is likely that people go arse over tit about those characters as well.

Okay so people get het up about all sorts of silly nonsense. On one level I think well so what. Everyone needs a hobby. If their hobby is being a prick, then okay. I am not perfect, I probably harbour less than wholesome thoughts about all sorts of people. That is to say, I do. When you consider things like an impending war in Iraq, the Labour government, etc. It is all small potatoes I suppose. It's annoying to think people don't have a sense of humour but then some people think Karen Taylor and Ali G are funny. To them it is me that doesn't have a sense of humour. Its also mildly irritating to note that people don't get the bloody ad in the first place. The point of it is not look at the gay family, the point of it is that having this mayo is like having a New Yawk Deli in your house. Or something. Alright so it may have been a bit clumsily done but jeez it's an ad, it's not Chekov. The finest minds of our generation are not working on making Heinz products more attractive. At least I hope not. If they are, the 21st century is worse than I thought.

What really irritates me is that apparently it took 200 people to get the ad pulled. 200. Thousands of people marched in Birmingham to save the Rover plant at Longbridge. The government could have stepped in, listened to what is franly their natural instinctive voters. They did not. Thousands marched in my home town to save Vaxhall. Same. Millions of people marched against the Iraq war and it didn't matter a toss. But TWO HUNDRED FUCKING PEOPLE GET AN AD PULLED BECAUSE IT OFFENED THEIR TINY IMMATURE MINDS. THE CUNTS. That's how fucked society is, that's what a shit nation we live in and that's our shittty democracy. Because it's all about fucking marketing and profit and shitty fucking mayonnaise. My mind absolutely boils. It fills me with nameless apoplexy to think that on such a trivial matter 200 sad sorry bastards just had to cock their little finger to change something for us all. On one level it is pretty tiny. It is just an ad. But commentators have long banged on about the power of the media and it's control. Some control. The spineless bastards pissed their pants because there would be 200 less people less inclined to buy their cunting mayo.

Maybe I am focusing on the wrong thing. It is equally sad to think that while we're doing much better, anti gay bigotry is still virulent in some quarters. The poor lad who was attacked for being gay earlier this week is testament to that. Yet the overriding thought for me is that I cannot help but think that something is broken somewhere when on the big questions no one in power listens, but some bastard ad executive bends over backwards to soothe the ruffled feathers of a few twats.

And to those 200 people I can only say look, on this matter alone I would never be a friend, acquaintance, lover or work colleague of yours. You may all be otherwise charming, delightful sweet and generous people. But that tiny, petty stupid little thing you did taints your soul. It's like realising that while Elvis was gyrating his hips and giving you that smouldering look while singing "you ain't nothin' but a hound dog" he had skids in his underpants.

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Metropolitan Police officers were rapped after an investigation into photos and comments posted on the Facebook site 'Look I've Had a Pocol' - slang for police collision.

The social networking site had more than 200 members around the world before it was taken down in January.

One photograph showed a police vehicle in an accident with a small white car.

The officer who posted it wrote: "I did him a favour. At 82 years old you just shouldn't be on the road and if you are, then most certainly don't go through a green light into the path of an innocent police car."

Another member wrote: "Ran over a drunk. I believe he has a permanent limp and a hefty payout. I was given a three-month holiday from job driving. Ooh, bummer."

One picture showed a uniformed officer giving a thumbs-up next to a vehicle, which seemed to have hit a fallen tree.

Another picture featured the wreckage of a patrol car after it had mounted the kerb and hit a lamppost.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said the offending officers were given written warnings for misconduct.

"Fourteen officers received written warnings and four were given a speaking to. The warnings will remain on their records. Another five had unofficial words in their ear," he said.

The disciplinary action follows a driving ban in January for a policeman who made 'thumbs-up' gestures to speed cameras while racing to emergencies.

David Mayes, 34, from Barnsley, was also fined £400.

Also in February, the Independent Police Complaints Commission concluded an probe into officers from South Wales who competed to see how far they could travel from the station while on duty.

The Gwent officers, nicknamed the "Seaside Five", took their patrol cars as far as the beach on Barry Island.

Two were told to resign from the force, another two were fined 13 days pay and a fifth resigned before the conduct hearing.

http://londonclasswar.org/newswire/index.php?itemid=257

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Leaving meant saying goodbye to someone, which was extremely sad for me. I have gone from feeling distraught to numb to feeling like it was getting better back to bitterly missing them again. But with any luck the time will heal that wound. The memories hurt right now but one day I will be able to treasure them with no regret or sorrow. I am glad for that. I'm also glad that I managed to make my peace with almost everyone that I fell out with towards the end of the year. Everyone except for one person. My heart simply isn't big enough for that. Lastly, am I glad I will never have to see a certain person on the course ever again! Naw, she's not a bad person by any stretch, just very challenging.

It's been a year of joy and pain and all points in between but I am glad I did it. Still, no time to rest. I still have to go back on Monday and Tuesday and I'll be at school until they break up. After that we'll see. If I officially pass then I have to prepare for University and find a proper job that pays money. If I haven't officially passed then I have some thinking to do. Whatever happens, it was an experience alright. One I won't forget in a hurry. If I had my time again I would have done one or two things differently but most of it I wouldn't change. So that can't be bad, eh?

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Anyway, I thought this was great, it is a total clever bonce smart arse feller David Harvey giving a series of online lectures on reading Karl Marx's Capital Vol. I.

http://davidharvey.org/

If no one else is interested, knickers to you. Saves me bookmarking it by sticking it here.

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Then I finally remembered that giving a toss about these facts made me a sad bastard,

Still, they're nice trainers.

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This is a sad turn of affairs. Almost every other subculture I can think of (with the exception of the mods) - Pyschobilly, B-Boys, Punk, Skinhead, Goth, Rivetheads, Cybergoth, etc. has tried to set itself apart from the "norm" by looking and sounding outloundish. Is the current subculture wave a rebellion against being different? Is it making a statement by going to a common or garden shop on the high street, buying a pair of vans slip ons and messing up your hair a bit? I'm just glad I don't have children. I can see the disappointment on their faces when they come down stairs having died their hair black and have new tattoos. It's hard to rebel against a dad who had turquoise liberty spikes, brothel creepers and multiple piercings when he was younger. Maybe the best way would be to start wearing sensible cardigans... oh wait, they're already doing that.

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THE working class will neither unite politically, nor man the barri-
cades, for a 10 per cent rise in wages or 50,000 more council flats. In
the foreseeable future there will be no crisis of European capitalism so
dramatic as to drive the mass of workers to revolutionary general
strikes or armed insurrection in defence of their vital interests.

Andre Gorz Reform Or Revolution

Socialist Register, Vol. 5, 1968.

It is strange that Gorz should have written these words. That same year had seen a wave of international protest and struggle that was not sparked by economic crisis. In France, events were brief and explosive. In Italy, the long hot autumn continued to smoulder for ten years. The process was uneven. It was white hot in Europe and the US but a damp squib in the UK (so what else is new)

He was not the first. Anthony Crossland had argued that the class struggle was over and that socialism would simply happen as a result of enlightened good sense. Herbert Marcuse argued that the working class had been bought off by consumerism. Yet the 60s and 70s seemed to prove them wrong. The legions of people who would argue that there is no such thing as the working class any more, that everyone is just a consumer and so on is an old argument. Youl could probably trace it back to the leader of the German SPD in the late 19th century, Bernstein. At every lull in activity people line up to say that it couldn't happen. It is over.

Is it over? Possibly. Possibly not. Human beings are contrary creatures. I would be just as daft and arrogant to suggest that I know it will happen because the above commentators were proved wrong. I do know that I would never have predicted the anti-capitalist/anti-globalisation movements of the late 90s and early 2000s. I would never have predicted what would happen in Argentina a few years ago or what is happening in Latin America today. I would never have thought that an anti-war movement would have brought so many people out on the streets. Predictions work fine for the stock market and the weather (and even then...) for history? We do not fare so well. The right is on the rise and in France Sakorzy is feted as the new Thatcher. But he's not having it easy. Class struggle is still alive in France. None of this denotes a possibility of a future left revival. But then, it doesn't herald its opposite either. History is the activity of real people. Real people do not respond to blueprints or schemas. The future is still unwritten.

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"I find Marxism is mostly theory, as in practice there's nothing there that anybody would willingly advocate".

http://needfully.blog.co.uk/2008/05/27/the-usa-is-not-a-fascist-regime-4229243#c6915535

I can see what he is getting at. There's a big stodgy pile of rancid rubbish that goes by the name Marxism. It's usually badly written ponderous tripe or hysterical, strident tripe. Like this little gem from the hilariously mad Sparticist league.

“All of our party’s activity is directed to organizing, training and steeling the proletarian vanguard party necessary for the seizure of state power. In contrast, the politics of the reformists and centrists consist of oppositional activity completely defined by the framework of bourgeois society. The latter was sharply characterized by Trotsky as ‘the actual training of the masses to become imbued with the inviolability of the bourgeois state.’ Such accommodation to capitalist class rule by organizations nominally claiming adherence to Marxism is, if anything, more decisively pronounced today in a world defined by the final undoing of the Russian Revolution and the triumphal assertion by the imperialist rulers that ‘communism is dead’.”

—Spartacist pamphlet, For Socialist Revolution in the Bastion of World Imperialism! (November 2000)

http://www.spartacist.org/english/esp/index.html

To quote from the learned Butthead, "this sucks!" Okay, so I am picking a particularly lurid example. To be fair, most of it isn't like that.

But most of it is predicated on a blueprint that they believe is based on the Bolshevik model. Why? Because the Bolsheviks seized power and that is what counts. So the theory is, you build a "party" - and there can only be one by the way - wait for the point of revolutionary crisis, seize power and implement the "programme".

What else? Er, well that's it, actually. Okay, no, I am being disingenuous. There are socialists out there who commit themselves to practical work. The SWP in my opinion do a lot of hard graft. However, as I pointed out before, the hard graft is tied to Leninism. The problem with that is that “Leninism” arose from specific historical circumstances. The Bolsheviks were shaped by the experience of conspiratorial, underground work in Russia. They did not have the experience of decades of work in democratic workers' organizations or a democracy. The absence of that type of work shaped their experience and eventual practise. That practise was not as many would argue, a failure. I do not see how seven plus decades of existence would be described as such. It was not a failure. But it wasn't socialism either. Yes Stalin said it was. So what? A cat won't become a dog because you call it rover. You can't pour sugar on shite and call it dessert.

So what was it? That is a question for another day. What I would like to briefly blog about is what I believe Marxism to be.

Firstly, it is not a theory. If you read Marx you find common themes, that's true. You find a definite method in his work, that is also true. What it is not is a rigid dogma. Or at least it shouldn't be. As Cyril Smith writes

Even in their lifetimes, Marx (1818-1883) and Engels (1820-1895) were dismayed to see their fundamental notions buried under the myth of infallibility. Marx would have been utterly hostile to the statement of Plekhanov (1856-1918) that ‘Marxism is an integral world outlook’. In fact, only a fraction of Marx’s original plan for his work was ever completed. By the time of his death, bourgeois society was already entering a new stage. A large and important part of his writings remained as unedited and undeciphered manuscripts, unknown even to Engels

It is a dangerous, but almost ubiquitous notion of both friends and foes of Marxism that there's a body of work out there that tries to answer all problems. Of course no human mind can do that. Marx's detractors are right to argue that there is no recipe for a future Utopia in Marx's work. There was never intended to be one.

It suited the benighted bureaucrats of the Soviet Union to make “Marxism” into a state religion.

The name of Marx was now obscenely linked with the ‘theory’ of this Party. In that terrible time, the very terms ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ came to be identified with this monstrosity. But even for those who could see what a falsification this was, the ideas of Marx became inextricably fouled up in the network of bureaucratic assumptions, including terms like ‘workers’ state’, ‘revolutionary party’, and ‘orthodox theory’. The name of Marx, who stood for the liberation of mankind from exploitation and the disappearance of state oppression, became entangled with the defence of the privileges of a bureaucratic caste and the power of a brutal state apparatus

But they were not the first. An orthodoxy was already starting to emerge long before the Stalinists took a stranglehold of the communist movement. Trotsky wrote

In the hands of the Party is concentrated the general control.... It has the final word in all fundamental questions.... The last word rests with the Central Committee.... We have more than once been accused of having substituted for the dictatorship of the soviets the dictatorship of our party. Yet it can be said with complete justice that the dictatorship of the soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship of the party

The notion of orthodoxy persisted even amongst its dissidents afterwards.

Even those who fought against the murder-machine which was ideologically lubricated by this stuff could not escape being affected by it. Trotsky (1879-1940) and his supporters struggled to maintain the outlook which inspired and guided the Russian Revolution and the formation of the Communist International. With whatever voice they had, they denounced the lies and corruption of Stalinism – especially the lie that Stalin’s Russia was ‘socialism’. But they never had the theoretical resources to penetrate to its philosophical core. The best they could do was to show that Stalinist policies and distortions were contrary to the decisions of Lenin’s party and the teachings of ‘Marxism’

The weight of orthodoxy has managed to bury Marxism in so much sludge that people believe that Marxism is synonymous with that orthodoxy. I would argue that this has nothing to do with Marx himself who was long since dead and gone.

To be continued...

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I suppose I might be expected to retort with YES IT WILL, DAMN YOU!

But the fact of the matter is, I have no idea whether it is possible or not. I have seen a lot of farces, a lot of false messiahs and a lot of failures. Not many successes yet. The detractors may be right. In many respects, being a socialist is like belonging to a secular religion. There is hope and there is also the thought that it might all be a lot of bollocks. I have always had both.

But to be honest, whether or not it is possible has never bothered me much. I regard the “ideal” if you will, as a reference framework, by which social and political developments are judged. Ehh, that's a wanky way of putting it but I just mean that if something happens that works and gives people more control over their lives (by my lights) then it is closer to socialism, which means it is good and obviously it works in reverse. Of course phrases like “control over people's lives” means something subtlety different to a capitalist. But I digress. Anything I have done as an activist – and I admit that ain't been much over the last few years – has been with that it mind, rather than “build the party!” or “tomorrow we build barricades!” Stuff the bloody barricades. The school needs to stay open, this group of workers want better pay. I.D. cards are a load of bollocks, etc.

I suppose by preempting a comment I am only hastening the tumbleweeds, but there you are. Thought I'd better get it out of the way now and save time later.

I still have a lot to cover, so with any luck I will actually be arsed to cover it in future posts.

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It's a good question. In many ways the fascists have it easy. There is no contradiction, as far as I can see, between their aims and their practice. Fascists seek a fusion of state and civil society, a subordination of everything that stands between that goal. The particular features and language of one fascist group may differ from another but ultimately that is the aim and practice. So although fascist regimes have crumbled to dust, that does not discredit them. They only have to come back with larger forces, more paramilitaries, more persuasive demagogues.

Marxism isn't like that. Marxism is a self-professed project of human emancipation. Now the fact that the USSR only survived a few decades, or the fact that China and Vietnam have restored capitalist property relations by itself would not invalidate that project either. Regimes that have described themselves as socialist were under immense pressure from external and internal enemies and it is a miracle that they have survived as long as they have in the face of such international opposition. What denigrates the project is the huge gap between the aim of the project and the practice, not just in the so-called “Communist” regimes but in the Communist Parties internationally. The Western Communist Parties became in one way or another appendages of Moscow, parroting whatever line came from the Politburo. No debate, no dissent allowed. Thus there was the suicidal ultra-left line of the late 20s-early 30s, the right-wing swing of the popular front of the war period and the capitulation to social democratic parties thereafter. Where communist parties exist in the west they are by and large indistinguishable from social democratic (Labour) style parties. The minuscule Communist Party of Britain (nee, Great Britain) hopes that a left wing Labour Party will establish socialism, just has it has done since the 1950s. The Communist Party of France is barely a hair's breadth from the French Socialist Party. Other Communist Parties in the west have simply changed their names and re-branded themselves as I can't believe they're not social democrat-style parties.

So much for the Communist Party. The other mainstream Marxist current Trotskyism, which has tried to fill the vacuum left behind by Stalinism has tried to establish its anti-Stalinist credentials but by and large they have fallen on their arse. The internal regime of any Trot “party” I have encountered features the same internal regime as their Stalinist counterparts. Repeat the party line, the Central Committee knows best. Defend the Soviet Union/China/Cuba/Chavez. Quote Lenin. A lot. Quote Trotsky. A lot. Since 1917 the vast majority of Marxists have felt that defending the Russian revolution amounts to excusing the Bolsheviks. You can choose a Coca-Cola version – Lenin-Stalin-Good! Trotsky Bad! Version or the Pepsi varient – Lenin-Trotsky good! Stalin bad! Bringing up the rear are the Maoists, the Virgin cola of Communism, if you will. Then there's the supermarket own brand versions, Titoism and so on. Pick a dictator, pick a 3rd world revolutionary movement and pimp yourself for them, all the while pretending to yourself that one day we'll have a stateless society.

That's it. That's our legacy. That's what we're baggaged with. Most of us.

I'm not a Leninist, Trotskyist, Stalinist, Maoist or a follower of any other pretender. I was, for a long time. I spent a decade in the Socialist Workers' Party, one of the few groups that refused to defend the USSR/China/Cuba. Their explanation, that these regimes were state capitalist allowed its followers to avoid the gap between the libertarian theory of Marxism and the authoritarian practise. Their insistence on exploring the history of the Russian revolution allowed them to try and work out where and how things went wrong.

At least in theory. In practise, their fidelity to Leninism led them and still leads them to make the same mistake. It's still Lenin-Trotsky good! Stalin bad! Albeit without lying prostrate in front of Castro or Chavez in the way that other Trotskyists do. The internal regime in the SWP is just as flawed as any other Leninist group. Not that I'm just sticking the boot in. There are sincere and decent people in the SWP. Most of them in fact. There were decent and good people in the Communist Party. I just think that they are wrong.

So why still call myself a Marxist if I have so little in common with these people? To arrogantly claim that there's some authentic Marxism, some holy and unsullied version, uncorrupted by others? They are Marxists. They are just from a different tradition from mine, I still call myself a Marxist because right from the beginning, during 1917 there were others who did criticise the Bolsheviks, who did not believe them to be liberators. They have always been swamped and outnumbered by the Leninists and goodness knows they had nutty ideas, but they've always been around. Theirs is the legacy that I belong to. People like William Morris, Anton Pannekoek, Rosa Luxemburg, Paul Mattick and others.

At this point I am not going to write about what I believe the so called “communist” regimes to be, how they came into existance, whether or not it is possible and so on. These are all things that I intend to do. At this point I just wanted to make my position clear.

There's an okay article on "Libertarian Marxism" here bit
heavy on weblinks in the text so it's little hard to read. Informative though.

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It's jaw dropping. I was screaming bloody murder by the end of it.

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A number of people have brought this shocking story to my attention. An MA student at the University of Nottingham named Rizwaan Sabir and a 30 year old academic, Hisham Yezza, were arrested by armed police under the Terrorism Act 2000, and held for six days without charge. The student downloaded a supposed 'Al Qaeda' training manual from a US government website as part of his dissertation on 'Islamic extremism'. I will just mention that there is some doubt as to the document's provenance, which is proliferating in different variations all over the internet. Rizwaan forwarded it to a friend in the Department of Engineering for printing because he couldn't afford the printing costs (1,500 pages at what I guess is 5 pence a page is seventy give quid). Someone, somehow, saw this material on Yezza's computer and, thanks to the culture of prying and snitching encouraged by the government and right-wing media, assumed the worst and told the University authorities. The authorities, instead of checking with the student or staff in question, or even making a roundabout preliminary investigation, called the police. The pair's homes were raided and their families harrassed during the six days of detention. The pair were released on 20 May, but Hisham Yezza was subsequently re-arrested on an unrelated immigration issue and is now at Colnbrook detention centre awaiting deportation to Algeria. The Guardian writes:

Of his detention, Sabir said: "I was absolutely broken. I didn't sleep. I'd close my eyes then hear the keys clanking and I would be up again. As I realised the severity I thought I'd end up in Belmarsh with the nutcases. It was psychological torture.

"On Tuesday they read me a statement confirming it was an illegal document which shouldn't be used for research purposes. To this day no one has ever clarified that point. They released me. I was shaking violently, I fell against the wall, then on the floor and I just cried."

All of this because the student downloaded a publicly available document in the context of properly directed research. The University authorities had every reason to be aware of the nature of that research and could easily have checked all the relevant facts before ratting on one of their students. So, should this material be banned for the purposes of study? Why don't you have a look at it and tell me? If the US Department of Justice website removes the document for any reason, you can always see it here and here. In fact, the Pavilion Press have published a version which you can purchase via Amazon. If this is an illegal document, as the police appear to have told this student, the cops haven't done much to block access to it. It's probably one of the most easily obtainable documents in the world. I frankly suspect that they were [making shit up] relying on an excessively liberal interpretation of some law that would usually not be applied to retrospectively justify the arrest. And how dangerous is it? Not enough to stop the US government making it available for public consumption.

Here is a press release by Nottingham University Students and Staff:

21 May 2008

PRESS RELEASE
Nottingham University Students and Staff Express Serious Concerns about
Recent Use of the Terrorism Act on Campus and Demand Academic Freedom

Following six days in police custody under terrorism legislation, two
well-known and popular members of the University of Nottingham – a student
and a member of staff – were released without charge on Tuesday, 20 May. A
growing number of students and staff wish to express grave concerns about
the operation on a number of grounds.

1. Academic freedom
The arrests were in relation to alleged 'radical material', which the
student was apparently in possession of for research purposes. Lecturers
in the student's department, as well as academics throughout the
university, are deeply concerned about the ramifications of this arrest
for academia, especially political research. An academic familiar with the
arrested student explained that his research topic was about contemporary
political issues that are highly relevant to current foreign policy. The
criminalisation of this kind of research is an extremely worrying sign for
academic freedom, suggesting sharp limits to what may be researched at
university.

2. Racism and Islamophobia
One of the officers involved in interviewing academic staff openly stated
that: "This would never have happened if the student had been white." It
seems that the over-zealous nature of the operation, causing great injury
and distress to the students, their family, and friends, was spurred on by
the ethnicity and religious background of the students involved. Police
behaviour during the operation, including the apparent targeting of ethnic
minorities for questioning, also suggested institutional racism.

3. Use of Terrorism Act to target political activists
During questioning, the police regularly attempted to collate information
about student activism and peaceful campaigning. They asked numerous
questions about the student peace magazine 'Ceasefire', and other peaceful
student activities. The overt police presence on campus, combined with
increased and intimidating police presence at recent peaceful
demonstrations, has created a climate of fear amongst some students. Many
saw the operation as a message from the police that they are likely to
arrest those who have been engaged in peaceful political activities. There
is widespread concern in the community that the police are criminalising
peaceful activists using terrorism legislation, such as the Prevention of
Terrorism Act 2005.

4. Behaviour of the university
Many of the university's statements during this time have concerned and
angered students and academics. The university put out a great deal of
rhetoric during this period emphasising its support for the police,
refusing to acknowledge either the potential innocence of the people in
question, or the distress caused to them, their families, and friends.
University authorities also spoke of stopping groups or individuals who
"unsettle the harmony of the campus." This appeared to be a direct
reference to recent peaceful student activism and protest, suggesting that
the university is willing to clamp down on political protest using the
Terrorism Act 2000 and the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005. One lecturer
from the School of Politics suggests that the university called the police
onto campus with the ultimate aim of creating a "depoliticised" body of
students and academics. Throughout this period, the university has
continually ignored the fear caused by police presence and investigation
into legitimate political research and activities. It has also ignored the
concern of staff and students about the criminalisation of research, the
racist and Islamophobic nature of the police action, and the worrying
indication that the university provided intelligence on its own members,
possibly racially profiling its staff and students.

Academics and students from across the University of Nottingham, and
members of the public from the wider community, are calling for:

a) The guaranteed right to academic freedom
b) An end to the criminalisation of political research
c) An end to police and university racism and Islamophobia and the full
assertion of civil rights and liberties on campus

They demand that the University of Nottingham publicly:

a) Acknowledges the disproportionate nature of the police response
b) Acknowledges the unreserved innocence of the student and staff member
in question
c) Apologises for the great distress caused to them, their families, and
their friends
d) Guarantees academic and political freedom on campus
e) Declares its commitment to freedom of speech and freedom of expression
on campus

To their credit, the staff and students of the University are preparing a public reading of the research material in question.. We're going to find out just how 'illegal' this document really is. If you can't be at the protest, you may as well download the document. I'm sure, readers, that you can do so without succumbing to the temptation to cause a conflagration.

Copyleft Lenin's Tomb

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I don't know. I'm a hair's breadth from giving it all in. I have nowhere else to turn.

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and see if another one does indeed get produced before Christmas.

...it's worth it just for the theme tune.

Among the tracks I plan to play are, Mess Around by Ray Charles, something by cheesey 80s thrashers Annihilator and something either very indie snobby and obscure, something really kitschy and stupid or something dark and disturbing. Haven't decided.

So anyhoo, if anyone would like to have a go themselves, it's dead easy. All you need is a mic - we use one of those ones that comes with the Playstation 2 game Singstar but a bottom of the range piece of crap for 3 quid ill do although it'll sound a wee bit ropey, a pc (obviously) and a copy of audacity, which you can grab here:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

Or just sudo aptitude install audacity for people running proper operating systems. The screenshots may look slightly scary but it's dead easy. You can get a free account at

http://www.podomatic.com/

Where you can upload what you have done and share it with the world!

Oh go on! Have a try!

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...ah.

Still, in 3 years I will be a qualified teacher. Maybe I will be teaching one of your children. Scary thought! Being taught by a foul mouthed, hard drinking chain smoking communist!!

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Sir Cliff Richard was robbed of victory in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest due to vote rigging by General Franco's fascist regime, a documentary has claimed.
(Advertisement)

The British singer's tune Congratulations was beaten to the top spot by Spanish entrant Massiel in order to boost the country's international image, a film-maker said.

Sir Cliff's song had been a favourite with the judges during the competition held at the Royal Albert Hall, but lost out on the title by just one point following a last minute rally in votes for Spain.

In a documentary aired on Spanish TV on Sunday night, director Montse Fernandez Vila claimed Spain's win was "bought" by corrupt executives working for state-run television.

Ms Fernandez Vila told Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos that executives travelled round Europe pledging to buy series from other nations to help steer the voting.

She said there was evidence that Franco thought a win would help improve the Spanish regime's international standing.

Despite coming second to Massiel's La La La, Congratulations went on to become a UK number-one hit for Sir Cliff in 1968 and topped the charts in many other countries.

The song stayed at number one in Germany for seven weeks and sold more than one million copies.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20080505/tuk-fascists-stole-cliff-euro-victory-6323e80.html

So we could have had a successful anarchist revolution in Spain in 1936 but at least Cliff got shafted. I think it was worth it. ^_^

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