Race Attacks

It is now over a decade ago, since a 2,000 strong AFA march to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day first attempted to highlight the issue of race attacks. Under the title 'Remembering victims of fascism yesterday and today' AFA vainly sought to bring both Left and media attention, to the epidemic which back then registered at a mere 70,000 incidents a year. Apart from a negative response from the Daily Mail the initiative was ignored by the rest of the media, and attracted no response from the left. In 1989, in Camden, in 1990 in east London, in 1991 and 1993 in south-east London, militant anti-fascism repeatedly sought to make links at a grass roots level, in order to hammer out an effective counter strategy. On every occasion, those efforts were rebuffed, or in some cases sabotaged by the council appointed 'community representatives'.

With the latest race attacks figures being put at 290,000 many of that same strata, indeed many of the very same individuals, are now crowding in behind the new Civil Rights movement. It would appear that in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence campaign, the race attacks issue, has become sexy. Their overwhelming concern now, of course being that the whole thing is controlled by them. No place for social undesirables like AFA who media darling, Suresh Grover, recently described "as a bunch of skinheads who intimidate people". A point underwritten by fellow steering group member Searchlight who snubbed an AFA approach for a pre meeting to discuss it's concerns.
For the signatories to the Macpherson Report meanwhile racism, is not only society's greatest evil, but it's only one. Consequently everything, civil rights and common sense included, must be sacrificed toward it's eradication. Defending the proposal to outlaw racist behaviour in private, inquiry member Dr Stone asks: "is there really no way we can nail someone for using disgusting racial language." "Is there no way to nail some one for disgusting racial thinking" is the same question put more precisely.
A mindset borne of a belief that the various anti-racist strategies proposed by liberals like him over the last fifteen years are actually working. And therefore, all that is required is one final push. Except, that the evidence strongly suggests the exact opposite is happening. If racial violence, which has been on a steadily rising curve since 1982, is judged an effective barometer, racist thinking is becoming more rather than less entrenched. A reactionary reservoir that will at some stage be tapped politically. But like a blind man dancing on a roof, Dr Stone knows nothing of this. In his 'expert' opinion the far-right were so resoundingly defeated after the war; they "haven't been back since". Having never even heard of the National Front, he will be blissfully unaware that the BNP intend standing in all regions in England in the European elections in June. And of the millions of recruitment leaflets distributed in that campaign, his own furious defence of the Macpherson recommendations, will in probability, feature prominently in every one of them.

It is not of course being suggested that racism must be tolerated for fear of provoking a backlash. But people need also to be made aware that politicising the issue of race; placing race at the top of the national agenda, dovetails nicely with agendas other than their own. Britain is indeed a deeply divided society but not only, or even primarily, on grounds of race.

And so those who point to statistics which show that blacks are five times more likely to be stopped by police than whites, as evidence of blatant police bias, something that can and must as a priority be addressed by quotas or better training, miss the real point by as wide a margin as Dr Stone. 'Stop and search' figures compiled by Human Rights Watch/Helsinki demonstrate, that in places like Hackney and Lambeth, where blacks make up 22 % of the local population, they represent 44 % of those stopped. However, in places like Kensington and Chelsea, and Harrow, areas where black motorists are perceived to be socially 'out of place', the odds of being stopped increase from 2-1 to 7-1. An acknowledgement that the police whatever their personal prejudices accept that their primary duty is not to protect white from black, but rich from poor. Consequently, Richmond upon Thames, where blacks make up only 0.75% of the population has proportionately the highest racially based stop and search figures in the Met, and therefore probably in the country.

Even then the outcome, depends entirely on how the suspect is classified after identification. Of course by the police criteria middle class black professionals are initially just as likely to be stopped as the working class unemployed. But generally for the black professional the inconvenience ends there. Once identified they are treated as respectfully as their status entitles them. They are not, abused, strip searched, denied bail, framed, beaten or killed. On the occasions when the police get it wrong huge sums are paid out in compensation. As a result black lawyers, journalists and doctors are no more likely to figure in police deaths in custody statistics than their white counterparts. For blacks their colour may get them stopped, but it is their class, or from a system perspective, their lack of it, that gets them killed. Class matters. Fatally so. Or put another way, of the 32 deaths at the hands of the police referred to by Ken Livingstone recently, nine were black. Disproportionate certainly, but any guesses on the common denominator with the remaining 23?

In December 1998, an AFA representative took part in a seminar on racism and race attacks on the Isle of Dogs. The majority of the contributions were from academics and youth workers. A consensus that current anti-racist strategies were counter productive, was agreed from the outset. An underlying reason being that in rejecting either the possibility and desirability of a redistribution of wealth from rich to poor, multi-culturalism instead places it's entire emphasis on resources such as they are, being shared on an equitable basis, thereby racialising social issues. In a nut shell, it is a sham. A stratagem to deflect the consequences of increasing social inequality back into the section of society that bears the brunt of it. Fanning the flames of racial and cultural division, while systematically depriving the targeted communities of resources is akin to the mother, invited to explain the anti social nature of her child who commented: "She was born like that. I beat her raw everyday and it didn't do any good".

Similarly, despite platitudes from the organisers prior to the launch meeting of the new National Civil Rights Movement on March 28 about 'not forgetting the white working class', in attempting to block any input from militant anti-fascism the NCRM is effectively ensuring the working class are excluded as well. Without this anchor, the likelihood is that it will be swept into the black nationalist slip stream. And under the motto 'equality before the law and fraternity in exploitation' civil rights will be perceived by the public to be broadly synonymous with the narrow aspirations of a wannabee black elite. An opportunity squandered is on thing. To conspire in a scenario where the BNP, in the eyes of the public, can then quite legitimately 'return the serve' - a boo boo of historic proportions - will require a political response of an altogether different calibre.

Reproduced from RA vol 3, Issue 6, Apr/May '99

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Race and Class - Articles on multi-culturalism, its origins and its effects.

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Anti-Fascist Strategy

Anti-fascism might best be described as a rearguard action 'until better times'. In previous phases of the post war struggle against fascism, from the 43 Group through to the 62 Group, to the original ANL, the accepted custom and practice of anti-fascism was to blunt fascist aggression - collect the plaudits, hastily wind up the organisation and retire. It was never the intention that the advantage should be pushed home. In the sense that having defeated fascism in working class areas, there is no real evidence of any ambition to politically replace them there. Ultimately this political shortsightedness guaranteed that the respite would be brief.

Consequently, having suffered substantial defeat in the late 40's, the far-right, reorganised by the late 50's. From taking a hammering in the early 60's it was on the threshold of mainstream breakthrough by the mid 70's. Electorally emasculated by Thatcher's 'swamping' speech in 1979, and despite splits, schisms and internal squabbles the NF could still mount a 2,000 strong march to the Cenotaph in 1986. By the early 1990's the vote for far-right parties (despite standing less candidates) had climbed by 600%.

Military theorist Von Claueswitz, famous for the term 'war is politics by other means' stated that 'if the defensive is the stronger form of conducting war (preservation being easier than acquisition) but has a negative object, it follows of itself that we must only make use of it so long as our weakness compels us to do so, and that we must give up that form as soon as we feel strong enough to aim at the positive object'. The normal object of anti-fascist defence, is to preserve. Either an organisation or an area, or democracy itself depending on the stakes and the level of aggression. But as conditions change and become more favourable the negative, according to Von Clausewitz, must be jettisoned for a more positive objective. For previous generations of anti-fascists, the inability or lack of will to change from defensive, to the politically offensive meant their efforts were invariably wasted. Or to put it more accurately, 'if the natural course of war is to begin with the defensive and end with the offensive'; then despite their undoubted personal commitment - the job was always left half done.

'Leaving the job half done' is for this generation of anti-fascists is not even an option. Principally as the far-right, having staged a strategic withdrawal from the streets are far from destroyed. On the contrary intelligence indicates that not only are they using the time to develop a cogent infrastructure, but the BNP claim a 35% growth in membership in the last 12 months alone. Artificial though it maybe, but this then is our 'respite', our 'better times' and we must make the best of it. Otherwise there is a danger that this time around the job may be left, not half done, but undone. So for militant anti-fascism, the challenge as it has been since the BNP 'cried uncle' in 1994, is to move collectively from the defensive stance and negative objective, to an offensive and politically positive objective. Which means switching from a position of simply denying the far-right political and territorial acquisitions, to systematically working towards acquiring zones of political influence we can advance from, or retreat to, ourselves.
Despite various policy adoptions since early 1995, due to the stress always being firmly on the need to move collectively it was never going to be easy, and so it has proved. And for that same reason the transition is still patchy. Some when looking to the 'positive' objective, were understandably overawed by the size and nature of the task; others were reluctant to decommission their own ideologies. Meanwhile conservative elements; 'the Real AFA' appeared determined to reduce militant anti-fascism to a tactic of physical force - only. Encouraging signs from unconnected parts of the country suggest there is a growing recognition that with the Left decomposing, it is increasingly a matter of militants taking on the responsibility or it not getting done. Yet for many, the hardest part is knowing where to start. Increasingly the medical profession argue that the key to a cure is 'to treat the patient rather than the disease'. Focus more on how your community might be helped, and less on how the far-right might be hindered, is that logic applied to the body politic. As Machievelli noted 'political disorders can be quickly healed if seen in advance, when for lack of a diagnosis they are allowed to grow in such a way that everyone can recognise them, remedies are too late'. Fortunately, anti-fascism has made it's diagnosis. And made it collectively. However for the impact to be felt, the remedy needs to be applied collectively as well.

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MURDER AND THE FIRST MINISTER

For Sinn Fein's Republican News 'book of the year' is undoubtedly The Committee which is unavailable in all good bookshops, or indeed any bookshops in Britain and Ireland, mired as it is in legal battles.
This a result of exposing the complicity of leading politicians, businessmen, and the RUC with the running and control of the loyalist death squads. Collusion between death squads and the RUC; death squads and the British Army and between death squads and M15 is well documented. Equally, few would deny that leading Unionist politicians have always enjoyed 'a nod and a wink' relationship with loyalist paramilitarism. What The Committee purports to show is both the scale and hands on role few suspected. We use the word 'purport' advisedly, for like RN, we 'do not claim all the assertions of author McPhilemy's main informant are correct'. Not all of them have to be. A mere percentage are enough to prove that mainstream Unionism is, in essence, reactionary, corrupt and irredeemably anti-democratic. The insight into the Unionist mindset, provided by the book gives lie to the notion that the crucial contributions to the peace process as reflected in the Nobel Prize awards, were from moderate unionism and constitutional nationalism. As with the war, the cutting edge and impetus for negotiations lie elsewhere; first and foremost with Irish republicanism, thereafter with the British establishment. And if the British establishment wants to painlessly extract itself from Ireland as the evidence indicates, then mainstream Unionism must be faced down. Sunday Times editorials which routinely proclaim 'that those who want peace must remove it [Republicanism] from the equation' know that every conceivable variation of that formula applied against republicanism has failed. The only real option left as the Sunday Times peace lovers are aware, is to invert it, and do something that British policy have singularly avoided ever since the Curragh mutiny in 1912, which is to apply the formula to Unionism instead.

Reproduced from RA vol 3, Issue 5, Feb/Mar '99

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AFA and Searchlight

In an obviously controversial decision, the previous issue of Red Action carried an article by a leading BNP strategist. The article by Tony Lecomber, which was reproduced in full, appraised the political developments within militant anti-fascism since the BNP's abandonment of the 'march and grow strategy'. In particular it focussed on the recognition by some AFA militants of the need for a 'political wing'. Our purpose in publishing the article was to allow militant anti-fascism a unique insight into the perceptions of it's current strengths and weaknesses from an opposition standpoint; to allow militants to see themselves as the enemy do.

Sometimes the opinions of our enemies come nearer to the truth about us than our own opinions. Hence the saying: 'If you know your enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt.' Consequently in this issue we follow-on with the perspective of an equally hostile element, since exposed as entryists from the 'state friendly' Searchlight. Apparently threatened by AFA's interest in a political strategy they sought from the beginning to disable it. With the authors since unmasked as infiltrators and dupes, a closer study of their emasculating technique, and in particular the political logic behind it, is instructive.
Three years ago, on September 23 I995, a forty-strong Northern Network AFA delegate meeting in Sheffield was addressed by three representatives from London AFA. The purpose of the meeting was to counter the growing cloud of mis- and dis-information in regard to what the relationship between AFA and the Independent Working Class Association was, was likely to be, or should become.
The meeting lasted over three hours, primarily a question and answer session on the nature of the IWCA, its structure, the organisations already involved, its proposed method of operation, the specific reasons behind it, its direct relationship to militant anti-fascism and so on. London AFA representatives asked for specific questions to bring the greatest clarity to the discussion and got them. In all of this 'Simon' from Leeds in casting himself as 'devil advocate in chief,' in allowing the most searching, tricky, provocative questions to be competently fielded unwittingly played a constructive role. Despite or more likely in acknowledgement of his relative failure at Sheffield, 'Simon,' using Huddersfield AFA as a flag of convenience, produced two documents in quick succession with the determined intention of undermining growing AFA support nationally for the IWCA strategy. His method was to make the same allegations and 'demand' answers to precisely the same questions - as if the 'clear the air' meeting in Sheffield had never happened! Significantly, both documents were distributed directly to all AFA branches prior to London being notified or afforded the right of reply (in a further twist when the net began to close on the covert Searchlight operation in Yorkshire and his pivotal role in it, in addition to reinventing himself as an anarchist, he suggested that his on the record opposition to the IWCA was the real reason why London AFA in particular were 'out to get him!'). Despite a prompt and detailed 6,000 word rebuttal from London, no response was forthcoming. The intention was merely to inflame or confirm existing prejudices; to smear - not debate.

And as with those initially impressed by his elaborate crochet of lies and energetic defence in response to initial accusations surrounding his involvement with Searchlight, this overtly political sabotage caused considerable confusion in similar quarters. Leeds/Huddersfield branches and temporarily Nottingham registered as casualties. Even now, despite incontrovertible evidence, certain elements within AFA continue to argue that the change of strategy by the BNP is more 'one of style rather than substance'. Consequently the IWCA is presented as 'the cause of AFA's loss of focus' rather than a strategical response to it. In 'private' it is whispered that the 'leadership's' enthusiasm for the political strategy can be primarily put down to 'loss of bottle'. As Machiavelli observed, 'the deciever will always find someone ready to be decieved'.
Twelve years after writing the Communist Manifesto, Marx was forced in 1860 to address a highly publicised attack on him by a prominent political leader, and yet to be unmasked police spy Carl Vogt. His crushing riposte, 'Herr Vogt: A spy in the workers movement' which took a full year to compose, was as Marx emphasised, designed to be a "model for defending the revolutionary movement against lies, provocations and infiltration". As the foreword explains, "the struggle against the agents and their 'patrons and accomplices' is closely related to the struggle for an independent revolutionary working class leadership against all petty bourgeois tendencies and diversions." According to Karl Marx then, 'the fight for an independent working class movement is intimately connected with the struggle against lies, state infiltration, provocateurs and all middle class inclinations and detours'. No change there then.

Reproduced from RA vol 3, Issue 4, Dec '98/Jan '99

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Tony Lecomber and BNP Strategy

For some time now, convicted bomber Tony Lecomber has been the most prominent advocate of the strategy of 'Euro-Nationalism' within the BNP. It was Lecomber, who in April I994, announced to the press that there, "would be no more marches, meetings, punch ups." Last year in Spearhead he explored the threat posed to BNP ambitions by AFA's sponsorship of the Independent Working Class Association. 'Know your enemy; know yourself' is a maxim of military and political strategy.

Which is why, in order to let militant anti-fascists see themselves as the far-right do, we have taken the unprecedented step of publishing the article In full. Our comment is restricted to this editorial.

In the article Lecomber advanced the notion that AFA have "no answer" to 'new nationalism', In order to further reassure his readers, he rather betrays this self confident projection with a small but significant falsification. He claims that AFA have conceded what is tantamount to 'defeat' with the following quote from Fighting Talk: "We cannot actually prevent them attempting to enter the mainstream." Sufficiently succinct for his purposes perhaps, except that the sentence continues "...we can still deny them their just reward for doing so by entering the mainstream ourselves."

The ill concealed apprehension that despite the new strategy the AFA nemesis might still spoil it resurfaces in the glossy and influential magazine, Patriot, of which Lecomber is editor. In a lengthy critique of the failure of the strategies of far-right since the 1930s, the lead article focuses in on the 'high rate of attrition resulting from red-blooded activism' particularly In recent years. And asks: "How many people around today have been active solidly for five years? Is this because they are unsteady under fire or because we are asking the impossible?" "We must avoid engaging in aggro - not through fear of the reds as some would emotionally have it, but because it is strategically for the best. Nor will we have been chased into doorstep politics by the police or red gangs, Rather we should adopt door step politics because it Is the best way to campaign'.
Directly addressing the fears of the dissident minority it states: 'The British public naturally support our aims, We have nothing to fear from reds knocking on doors, but the suggestion that we should attack those reds in their homes shows how warped thinking can become in our circles'.
Decoded, the Patriot sermon is explicit. It is saying that though we all deny it in public, reality is we have been forced by the unrelenting 'war of attrition' into a new way. In the short term this retreat has given us respite and a chance to regroup, in the long term it might well prove politically advantageous, as it has done on the continent. In any case there is no other option. But having been terrorised off the streets, to seriously suggest that we should take advantage of the 'phony peace' to attack and provoke those very 'terrorists' in their homes is self-evidently bonkers. That such a strategy is proposed by those who live furthest from the scene of the activism is all the more galling.
It is a genuine irony that the recidivist element in the far-right find a mirror image within militant anti-fascism. The minority who pour scorn in private on the need for a political strategy, who denounce it as an adulteration or diminution of the cause, instead of addressing the situation rationally, have instead embarked on a dual strategy of chasing shadows without. and character assassination within.

They flatly reject the notion that AFA have won 'the war'. And just as perversely, appear intent on ensuring that as few as possible pro-actively engage in winning the peace. Instead of focusing on where the mass of the far-right have regrouped they rent their hair and mutter darkly of betrayal at the failure to call national mobilisations to deal with a organisations representing no more than a few dozen.
Militant anti-fascism is effective anti-fascism. It is effective or it is nothing. With the collapse of the traditional Left both within and without the Labour party (the SLP has for instance recently lost 500 of Its 620 membership in London alone, while in the same period the BNP have added two dozen new branches) the responsibility on militant anti-fascism to be aware of the bigger picture, and hold the line increases ten fold. With a few notable exceptions, AFA nationally has not lived up to its responsibility. Far too many are still sitting back in expectation of 'another Waterloo'. It is time for us all to stand up and be counted.

Featured on the front cover is Tony Lecomber, a leading BNP member who for over a decade stood firmly in the physical force tradition of fascism. A former member of the Royal Greenjackets and territorial army, he first came to prominence after a failed attempt to bomb the headquarters of the Workers' Revolutionary Party in 1985 for which he was jailed for three years. Lecomber became a familiar face to Red Action activists in London after leading a failed attack on those leaving the founding conference of Anti-Fascist Action. During the BNP's 'Rights for Whites' campaign in East London, Lecomber became involved in a whole series of incidents with AFA members. On one occasion he received a beating that was later screened on prime-time TV. He developed the uncanny knack of always ending up on the deck; so much so that he was christened 'Tarmac' within AFA ranks. In 1991 he was again imprisoned for three years, this time for an attack on a Jewish school teacher. Despite being one of the architects of the race riots in Bermondsey and Dewsbury, he was one of the first to realise that in the battle for the streets between militant anti-fascism and the BNP only the latter could end as losers.

Reproduced from RA vol 3, Issue 3, Oct/Nov '98

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The Peace Process

From the first IRA cease-fire in August 1994 Red Action has argued that the peace process was an Irish Republican Movement strategy. And precisely because of that ownership, the peace process should be recognised by opponents and supporters alike as 'subversive'. We do not pretend that the subversive peace process line won over many converts from the English Left. Most were derisive: best summarised by the sniggering SWP claim that: ' At least Arafat got the West Bank Adams got nothing!' Another particularly dotty Trot sect, who incidentally never supported the armed struggle, is rumoured to be calling an 'anti-imperialist conference' in Ireland in order to galvanise support amongst dissidents in response to IRA Army Council treachery. As Adams famously commented to a similarly opinioned heckler at a public meeting in Dublin: 'Fair play to you: cease fire-soldier!' Significant perhaps that the heckler was, as it turned out, a pro-Unionist, Democratic Left fellow traveller.

Red Action from its foundation has recognised armed struggle as a legitimate tactic. Legitimate in the sense that it was morally right for a people to take up arms against an occupying army, and legitimate in the sense it was an appropriate, indeed vital component, in pursuit of the wider strategical objective. But armed struggle is a tactic. Never a principle, or an end in itself. From either end of the spectrum the English left appear to draw no such distinction. For them, the abandonment of the tactic is the abandonment of the goal. Simple as that. So for some exaltation; crocodile tears for others: "After nearly 30 years the revolutionary situation that gripped the Six Counties, and which throughout that time implicitly endangered the constitutional existence of both the United Kingdom and the Twenty Six Counties is about to be resolved negatively. 'The peace of the oppressors has overcome the violence of the oppressed". (Weekly Worker May 4 1998)
This is reality - inverted. It is never the oppressed who militarise a situation; and in the present context it is not the oppressor whose initiative it is to demilitarise it. The British militarised the situation. And only republicans have an agenda for demilitarisation. However by so doing, there are cat calls from the English Left that they have thrown in the towel, sold out, bottled it, let the anti-imperialist side down. From '68 to '98 the overriding concern of our fine revolutionaries has always been, not how they might affect the war but how the war effected them. To paraphrase JFK, 'ask not what I can do for republicanism but what republicanism can do for me'. From the outset this has been the premise. In lieu of authentic internationalism, (where in the interests of the self determination of another country you fight your own ruling class) we have instead, with the ceasefire as backdrop, the articulation and hopes of English Liberalism on the one hand set against the equally self absorbed perspectives of English Communism on the other. Have the Irish not endured enough?

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THE LAST SOCIALIST?

Whatever illusions were invested in the Socialist Labour Party, events on May 7 must surely have dispelled them. Entering the local elections with about 20 councillors, to a man, defectors from Labour, the SLP exited with none. In the supposed stronghold of Barnsley, Anne Scargill romped home with a majestic I03 votes. Not withstanding the election of former Labour MP Dave Nellist in Coventry results for the Socialist Party (formerly Militant) were just as ominous. In former Militant power bases like Liverpool, despite the low turn out, it managed to accumulate less than two per cent in some wards. At such an inauspicious juncture news filters out that the SWP, for the first time in over 20 years, intend throwing their hat into the electoral ring. This, a mere twelve months from proclaiming Blair's election 'a class vote and a victory for the working class'. Hardly convincing evidence that they have a finger on the public pulse. The SWP claim that 'discontent with Blair was shown in the local election results'. If anything what the elections demonstrated is that the 'political centre' with Blair at the helm is still expanding. The centre will of course contract. This inevitably leads the aforementioned to conjure a complacent scenario where they will be the automatic beneficiaries of a Labour slide. They are gravely mistaken. After over half a century of false promises, cowardice, opportunism and betrayal the working class have not merely lost all faith in parties like them, but at a fundamental level in socialism itself. On May 8 a socialist, Dave Nellist, became a councillor in Coventry. He was the only one. And the last one?

Reproduced from RA vol 3, Issue 2, Aug/Sept '98

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Cutting Edge Project

Socialism is dead. If working class hegemony is the unchanging goal then our tactics and strategy are in need of serious revision.

If the battles for hearts and minds begins with the battle of ideas, then the issues and problems that need addressing are not of a working class victorious but the day to day conflict of a class betrayed, out flanked, politically destitute and oppressed.

At the beginning of the year thousands of leaflets, containing this somewhat blunt message were distributed across the entire left. It was an open invitation, and indeed challenge to all who interpret the term, class struggle literally, to be involved from the very beginning in discussions around a new publication. On March 7, the first editorial discussions on the proposed Cutting Edge magazine took place in Conway Hall. While the meeting had been widely advertised throughout the left the attendance itself, was not in anyway representative, nor could it hope to be, as roughly, 85% of the misnamed revolutionary left still orientate toward, or identify with the right of centre party in power. A reasonable cross section of the remaining 15% were represented however, including tenants representatives, unaligned anarchists, militant anti-fascists, a prominent veteran of the Poll Tax struggle, and individuals from various groups and traditions.
At the end of the four hour meeting, while there was widespread agreement on the general thrust of the proposal, it was concluded that a further effort should be made to broaden the base. It was felt that the broader the participation in Cutting Edge at an editorial level from the beginning, the greater its appeal, and the less likely the prospect of it being still born as result of sectarianism.
This caution is not unwarranted. With Cutting Edge still in the womb, genuine confusion mixed with malicious speculation is already rife in certain circles. Dismissing the declared objectives, Open Polemic have launched a 'slashing attack' on the entire project and in particular Red Action's support for it. On a similar vein some have added to the confusion by insisting it has something to do with the IWCA. Others have gone so far as to imply that what is really on the table is a new - organisation! One response commented "I showed the document to some people and we all ended up scratching our heads trying to understand what you are driving at." In Party Notes (Weekly Worker Jan 22) Mark Fischer for one, showed no such hesitation. The initiative was dismissed as "a product of profound defeat and the ignominious collapse of previous perspectives." More on that later.

Meanwhile, according to our old friends Open Polemic "addressing the contemporary problems of the working class" or even attempting "to provide progressive working class thinking with a strategical and theoretical cutting edge" is certainly counter productive if not counter-revolutionary. "Until we, the revolutionary section of the class are united in the nucleus of a party we can offer little but pious rhetoric to the class as a whole." So pious rhetoric it is then. Have you ever heard such errant nonsense? OP argues that the working class "offers a home to all sorts of bourgeois prejudices, sectional one-sidedness and outright bigotry." Of course when the far-right dominate the politics of many countries in Europe it would be hard to argue otherwise. But in contrast to the "stultifying backwardness" of the mass of the working class, the most advanced sections internationally still "shine as a beacon for all humanity." Clearly for OP it is not the advanced sections; the 'beacons for all humanity' that have failed the working class, rather the reverse.

Nothing wrong with socialism then. Or indeed Soviet Communism. It's the working class that's got to change. And until they come to their senses they should be ignored. For real communists like OP the immediate aims, the enforcement of the momentary interests are of no concern. Fighting to achieve immediate results in the interests of the working class is merely pandering to existing prejudices: "RA doesn't fully realise the complexity of the class that it chooses to align with." It would be far more productive in the long run if all existing pro-active work ceased immediately and "the revolutionary working class leaders (RA included)" settled down to the political, philosophical and ideological debate with OP instead. Which is, we are informed at various times the real class struggle: "class struggle at it highest point" and "the essence of class struggle today."

In contrast to this lop-sided and hermetical delirium, the real objectives of Cutting Edge can be summarised as follows. (a) To provide a sense of political direction to progressive working class thinking in regard to contemporary issues of universal concern. (Social, economic and political.) (b) To create and define independent working class perspectives in response to society's contradictions. (c) To prepare the ground tactically and strategically for the return of an independent working class to the political mainstream and real politics. So in one sense Mark Fischer is correct. Cutting Edge is the product of profound and ignominious defeat. But the defeat is not restricted to the sponsors as is implied. But is, as Weekly Worker has on occasion acknowledged, a political defeat currently being endured by the working class as a whole.

A substantial part of the discussions at the inaugural editorial meeting was in regard to marketing the magazine, in recognition, that at least initially Cutting Edge would have to be financially subsidised. "Given the current state of affairs politically, can we afford it?" was a question posed. "Given the current state of affairs can we afford not to" came the reply.

Reproduced from RA vol 3, Issue 1, June/July '98

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