We welcome letters on any subject but please keep them brief. Letters over 350 words will be cut. Send your letters to: Socialist Outlook PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU Harry Sloan spoils an otherwise very good accoun! of the state under Stalinism with a false claim regarding the criterion for success of socialist construction in the USSR.
"The real compariso that Counts said Trotsky, is between living standards in the advanced capitalist This is not true. Trotsky said that ,.above all, the produc thity of human labour was what counted (Revolution Betrayed, chapter 1 section 2)
Trotsky hold Lenin's theory that in the advanced capitalst countries there exists a labour aristocracy that is offoc lively bount-on by means of im perialist super-profits and upon which rests a labour bureaucracy. Trotsky gives a suporb lustration of this thecry in an article of 10 October 1938.
The various layers of the labour artstocracy and a bureaucracy enjoy other above averao wanes: better working conditions and shorter hours ole; or a combination of both.
it is, for instance, no mere con cklence that, associated with the labour movement, there are a number of academic marxists who other reject Eric Hobsbawm), cast doubts about is validity, or simply ignore i. Rather than enter the debate about unconditional critical support for Irish socialist republicanism I'd like to encourage SO to get on with our main job here - building and maintaining anti-imperialism.
This could include discussions of the Labour Party's position on Ireland and what is being done to change this, coverage of anti-imperialist initiatives which SO may or may Socialist Campaign Group 11am-5pm 20 June 1992 Leeds paign Group.
129 Seven Sisters Road, London, N4. Tel: 071 263 9450.
These marists are unwetingly part of today's labour aristocracy and unconscrusty they ared bang the hand mat 'teds tem The labour anstocracy is the chie social prac of imperism and. togethe with bureaucracy is pa ticularty privileged compared to the exploited workers in the so-called 'developing' capitalist countries. Workers in former East Germany enviously observed the living standards of fellow workers across the border where the productrity of labour was undoubtedly higher. But many of them failod to also see the numerous invisible channels which part of the wealth created in the third work is syphoned off to support and burosucracy in a handful of rich capitalist countries including formor Woot Germany. By simply comparing living stand. aros cast ano wress, imperaism na always triod to hide the fact that the within its showcase countries, the democracies, is largely paid for by the misery and impoverish ment of the exploited masses of Arica, Latin America, the Indian sub-continent eбc. Roy Rudditt NW London programmes, articles and books (some from left publishers) that put the blame squarely on the unruly. sectarian Irish. Above all, more emphasis on how we in the heart of the beast can stop this last Great British colonial 'intervention' (823 years young). Mike Belbin SW London DAY CONFERENCE OF THE LABOUR LEFT With: MPs, TU speakers from NUM, TGWU, MSF, UCATT, NUPE...
Publicise! Sponsor! Be there! Sponsorship costs: f5 individual; E10 local Labour Party or trade union bodies; £20 national organisations with less than 1000 members; €50 national organisations with over 1000 members. Cheques payable to Socialist CamSponsorship/further detais/ Inafiets to Jeremy Corbyn MP, Red Rose Cho, IN RESPONSE to Liam Mac Uaid's letter in SO 18, in which he responds to criticisms of a previous ar ticle written by him about Ireland, may I make a few comments.
Firstly on reading the articie by Liam, I too had criticisms which I'd considered forwarding to your paper but didn't, mainly because I'm a relatively new addition to you readership and am not (as I.tam assumes of readers) sufficiently 7U18 familiar with your history of "Involvement in virtually every serious anti-imperialist initia tive of recent years' or of your theoretical positions.
I remember thinking when I'd read the article 'they've taken a series of current hap penings/events in the six coun ties, put them together and included them in their paper as if and now, an article on Ireland'. I felt confused by from outside Ireland might make of it.
I can't recall everything that was in it now, but do remember being a bit disturbed by the use of the term 'tit-for-tat because what it implies is so far removed from what is actually happening here. Also, it is a term more often found in proBritish/anti-republican publications or tabloid type report' is true that the IPLO have carried out a number of blatantly sectarian attacks on Protes and while I personally feel that these attacks were/are wrong morally, politically, militarily, tactically and every other wrong you can think of, a dozen or more Catholics were probably killed or wounded during this period.
The point being every time a Catholic is shot it's said to be in retaliation for a previous killing, when more often than not, orevious killings have 11 fact be similar random attacks on Catholics by loyalists.
The use of the term apart from being factually incorrect, ,Name.... is, in my opinion, dangerous, in that it can lead to people being confused about the conflict here.
While possibly agreeing with Liam that 'in a revolutionary situation it may by necessary to deal harshly with collaborators, but political considerations come before moral and military ones!
I fail to see how anything in his article 'continued to be out by subsequent events. His assertion that 'the IRA would not have killed the Protestant building workers at had beer Catholics' is misleading, in that it insinuates that the IRA would not kill collaborators if they were Catholic and ignores the fact that you simply would not get a van load of Catholic workers returning from work The killing of UDR and RUC portrayed loyalist politicians and British Government ministers (or as Only $15, comrades Hang about, I'll just get my wallet. I would like to take out a subscription to Socialist Outlook. I enclose E.......... I EC Europe (including Britain): 1 year's subscription (24 l issues): E15 C Six months' subscription (12 issues): 68C 1 Non-EC Europe: 1 year £20 Six months £11 O 1 Rest of the World: 1 year f241 Six months £130 I'd like to know more about Socialist OutlookO I include a donation of E.............. 1 Address.. L--DUNT LET genocideagainst the Protestant community by Ken Maginness) and whether or not you agree with the killings and Teebane, or any other killings carried out by the IRA, It is not these deaths that make a Protestant worker a lovalist.
It may be the case in theory, that all members of the working class are potential socialists and by extension that all members of the Irish working class are potential supporters of an inde pendent Ireland.
The reality however, and historically proven to be the case, is that the British presence militarily economically, and otherwise, is an obstacle which until removed, will never see the uniting of the working class in Ireland.
P. Devenny Long Kesh Prison Subscription rates ' Return to Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU --No. 19 April 4, 1992
Published fortnightly Solidarity price 21/ Strikers and claimants 25p No 19 April 4, 1992 Violence in London socialist
Get back to the real issue not be many TV programmes,
After the election: relaunching the left
and wondered what reader i SubsCribe TO Socialist Outlook