[page 39]
Book Reviews About Turn - The Communist Party and the Outbreak of the Second World War Edited by King and Matthews Published by Laurence and Wishart, 1990 Reviewed by David Turner WAR IS ONE of the severest tests of any organisation claiming to be This was clearly revolutionary.
illustrated in 1939 by the impact of the outbreak of war on the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).
During the late 1930s. Stalin answered the threat to the Soviet L'nion from Nazi Germany by proposing a 'Peace Front' with British and French imperialism. They. of course, were not interested. secking through their policy of appeasing Hitler, to encourage Nazi aggression against the U'SSR. In the summer of 1939. Stalin opened negotiations with Germany, aiming to exploit Hitler's reluctance to fight a war on two fronts. In August 1939 a Nazi-Soriet 'Non-Aggression Pact was concluded, with a secret agreement to carve up Poland. Days later the German army marched into western Poland while the Red Army took the eastern half. Britain and France. clear about the threat posed to their own interests by Hitler, declared war on 3 September.
The Communist Party's reaction was to support Britain's declaration of war, seeing it as the realisation of Moscow's previous policy. However, the Soviet I'nion. far from supporting Britain and France's 'anti-fascist' war, denounced them as 'aggressors', fighting an imperialist war.
Dave Springhall, the CPGB representative at the Conimunist International's headquarters. was dispatched back to London to 'explain' the new line. On his return, the new position was em- 380 MIR braced by the majority of the central committee (CC), yet resisted by Harry Pollitt. General secretary of the CPGB. JR Campbell. editor of The Daily Worker. and Willie Gallacher, the CP's only A verbatim report was made of these CC meetings for immediate transmission to Moscow. where it has lain inaccessible in the archives for half a century. The CPGB finally obtained a copy of the document last year and it is this which is now published. The transcript shows that. while the CC members awaited Springhall's return from Moscow, Pollitt told them that "we are all like a lot of rabbits in front of a snake". The comparison is apt.
Springhall simply intorms the CC that Moscow has decreed that all Communist Parties must opp ose the war as imperialist'. After a week's adjournment. the C.C. reconvenes. Pollitt. unable to accept the new line. has been replaced as General Secretary: Demanding adherence to Moscom's new line. the party's chief theoretician. Rajani Palme Dutt. argues that "fun- Nazi Germany has camentally been weakened br the Soviet-German Non Aggression Pact". concluding that "the one thing that ther (the Nazis-DT) are desperately searching for is peace"! The way to end the war is by campaigning for British imperialism to negotiate with the "peace-hungry"
Nazis.
In a spluttering tirade. Willie Gallacher explodes at this "unopportunist scrupulous and speech", accusing Dutt of "mean dislovalty"
and despicable in The Longest War: The Iran-trag Military Conflict By Dilip Hiro Published by Paladin Books. 1991. at £6.99 Reviewed by Dave Carr ON THE EVENING of 22 September 1980 Iraqi jet aircraft pound. When the cost of lost oil revendes pretending that he had no responsibility for the old line. Campbell. for his part. warns that the new line will make the CPGB "indistinguishable in a very short time from the filthy rabble of Trotsky- Moscow's policy: of course. bore no relation to the attitude to the war adopted by the Trotsk!• ists. the genuine Marxists. The! consistently opposed the imperialist war being waged by the ruling class. arguing that workers must continue to fight the class enemy at home. They fought for a Labour government with a socialist programme against Chamberlain's 'National government', explaining that a socialist Britain, with workers' control of industry and the armed forces. would be able to wage a revolutionary war against fascism. making a class appeal to the German workers. Within two years the wheel had turned full circle. In June 19+l Hitler invaded the USSR. Overnight the Comintern proclaimed the war aims of British imperialism as 'anti-fascist. The CPGB then embarked on one of the most reactionary periods in its history. giving full support to Churchill. breaking strikes and opposing freedom for the colonies. The Trotskyists. whilst supporting the gains of the revolution. maintained their implacable opposition to the Stalinist bureaucracy and to British imperialism. They alone can truthfully claim to have stuck steadfastly to the ideas of Marxism throughout world war tWO.
ed ten Iranian air bases. Later that night Iraqi divisions rolled over the Iranian border. The longest conventional war this century had begun.
Eight years later when a ceasefire was signed, over one million people had been killed or injured In conducting the war Iran had spent 591bn and Iraq $112bn.
[page 40]
and war damage is included the total figure is estimated at a staggering $627bn to Iran and $561bn to Iraq. These mind-numbing statistics are revealed in Dilip Hiro's book which catalogues the cynical interventions of the world's superpowers and their junior partners in sustaining the conflict.
The military imports bill for Iraq was $42bn and $11.2bn for Iran. Little wonder every armaments manufacturer, trader and government were involved in breaking arms embargoes in order to reap huge profits.
The most infamous case came to light with the Irangate arms-forhostages affair. Reagan had secretly used National Security Agency officials - notably Vice-Admiral Poindexter and Lt. Col Oliver North - to negotiate the release of US hostages (held in the Lebanon by Islamic Jihad) and also to secure influence with a section of the Tehran leadership by bartering arms.
Using Israel as an intermediary and several bogus end-user countries, the US shipped thousands of TOW anti-tank missiles and Hawk anti-aircraft batteries to Iran. According to the Dutch Seamen's Union, the Dutch ship Else-HT carried at least 3,600 tonnes of military materials in four journeys in 1986 from the Israeli port of
Eilat to Bandar Abbas in Iran.
Washington was less coy about
backing Iraq. To the US, the threat to its imperialist interests from the Iranian revolution remained para-
Am Le Roi
Friend the King)
By Gilles Perrau Published by Gallimard,
Reviewed by
Clive Parry
(Our
THE PUBLICATION IN France of Gilles Perrault's Notre Ami Le Roi last summer was greeted with uproar from the establishment. There were calls for the book to be withdrawn and its author prosecuted. Why the furore?
The book describes how an Arab ruler, seeking to boost his failing domestic popularity and seize huge mineral deposits giving him control of more than twothirds of world reserves, marches south into a neighbouring country: artifically severed from his own by imperialism in the nine-
DANCHO
mount. In late 1987 the US offered a record $961m to Iraq in agricultural commodity credits — vital to propping up Iraq's blistered economy. This came just months after two Iraqi exocet missiles hit the USS Stark killing 37 crew! Washington's Eximbank guaranteed $485m as part of the $570m cost of constructing an Iraqi pipeline through Jordan; and the US also supplied, via Saudi Arabia, intelligence information on Iranian troop movements using AWACS and spy satellites. All this when officially the US remained 'neutral'.
Britain mark in Chieftain Iranians war. By amounted
had been quick off the
servicing for Iraq 50 tanks captured from the in the early part of the
1986 British exports
to $665m.
teenth century, and annexes it against the wishes of its inhabitants. He has built up a formidable army and security apparatus with Western aid, absorbing up to +0 per cent of state expenditure, and presents himself as 'Commander of the Faithful'.
But this was not a book about Saddam Hussein, but Sultan Hassan Il of Morocco, Western Sahara not Kuwait, phosphates not oil. and it all happened in 1975! Although the annexation directl! contravened UN decisions for a referendum on self-determination. no multi-national force was assembled to impose them. no blitzkrieg unleashed. Western Sahara is still under occupation.
But then imperialism has always found in the King of Morocco a faithful friend. During the Gulf crisis he obediantly dispatched
SCHWARZKOPF!!
Yet Britain's military sales were a snip compared to France, which loaned Iraq S7bn! According to press reports in November 1987 officials in the ruling Socialist Party government received commissions of four per cent on $120m of illegal sales of artillery shells to Iraq between 1983 and 1986!
Iraq emerged from the war a financially crippled country. It owed $25bn to the West and S6-59bn to the USSR. Its debts to the Gulf states were colossal. Even if the loans were converted to grants Iraq would still have had to pay $34bn, equal to its 1986 Gross Domestic Product! Kuwait, as one of its largest creditor countries among the Gulf states, was to become an irresistible prize to Saddam just one year later.
1.300 troops to Saudi Arabia. Yet such was the anger of the Moroccan masses after the bombing of Baghdad that Hassan I and his government were forced to support a general strike called in protest against the war. This was barely two months after a one-day general strike on 14 December demanding the doubling of the minimum wage. Then the army killed over 100 people, provoking riots in Fez. Not surprisingly, Hassan Il himself led the assault on Perrault's 'slanders'.
As far as content is concerned, Votre Ami Le Roi promises much but doesn't quite deliver. On the French Protectorate in Morocco and on independence in 1956, Perrault is admirably succinct. However, from there on, the book is mostly taken up with a catalogue of human rights abuses.
The Iraq Iran.
US back against
MIR
039
[page 41]
Why not guarantee your future copies of the MIR? A subscription to the MIR means that you receive your copy mailed direct to your address within days of And a subscription is also a contribution to the further development of the MIR 400 MIR Summer 1991 Book Reviews organisation style republic to Ireland. development, the from political power.
The Irish 1791.
publication.
by securing its financial base. Name..
Address.
There is some mention, in passground ing, of the economic situation of the country - foreign debt equal to 90 per cent of GDP, ten million Moroccans out of 22 million living on less than 35 pence a day, one in five malnourished, 60 per cent of land held by five per cent of landowners and so on. But once Perr- ible Polisario-led deformed workault has warmed to his theme of the personal repugnance of Hassan Il this all fades into the back- debt collector for Western banks. over. Wolfe Tone By Marianne Elliott Published by vale University met Press, at £16.95 Reviewed by Anton McCabe THEOBALD WOLFE TONE (1763- 98) was a great Irish revolutionieve reform.
ary, the father of Irish Republicanism'. Marianne Elliot's biography is well researched, but conveys no sense of what made tens of thousands join a revolutionary to bring i French- In the late eighteenth century, a few great landed families controlled Irish politics. In Belfast, centre of the most energetic capitalist Mayor and twelve burgesses were the electors; even the wealthiest merchants and manufacturers lacked the vote. Eighty per cent of the people were Catholics, legally shut out capitalists wanted their own state, to provide political conditions for capitalist development. To this end, Tone was one of the founders of the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast in Tone was the son of a wealthy this most radical section of the Dublin coachmaker, a member of bourgeoisie. with some exceptsubscribe 1 Just fill in the form below or write to us with a cheque or postal order payable to World Socialist Books. 3/13 Hepscott Road. London E9 SHB. Subscription Rates: $5 for four issues, UK/Ireland, f6 overseas. In consequence the book fails to answer properly the question posed implicitly in its title. Sultan Hassan is a friend of imperialism because he prevented the vast mineral wealth of the Western Sahara from falling under a possers' state. He also ensures access to cheap labour and functions as a the Established Church and a law- ions, were not prepared to mobilyer. Moves to parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation with government clampdowns. The government forced Tone to leave the country or face trial for treason. He was driven to revolution as the only way to ach- In 1795 Tone went to France to seek help. But after Thermidor in 179÷, when the Committee of Public Safety was overthrown, a more conservative section of the French bourgeois had come to power, less keen on exporting revolution. Tone was given the run-around for three years. The United Irish leadership were the most radical section of the bourgeoisie, not supported by most of their own class. The ranks were artisans, labourers and peasants. Elliot wrongly writes that "squabbling sectarian divisions... decimated the United Irish movement" before the 1798 rebellion. In fact as a social movement the I'nited Irishmen stopped much of the sectarian violence whipped up by the government and landlords in rural lister. Only after the defeat would this re-assert itself. Ireland's tragedy was that even now!
Nonetheless, readers should watch out for the translation, for Votre Ami Le Roi is enjoyable and easy to read. At the very least, the furore its publication generated, amidst the shock waves of an Arab defeat unrivalled since 1948, shows that the '100 years of calm' promised by Hassan Il after the annexation of Western Sahara will be shattered a thousand times ise the Irish masses to make the revolution, fearing necessary them more than they did the British government. They were 'foreign-aid - wanting France to take power for them. The Northern ranks, largely artisans and Presbyterians and reflecting the stronger development of capitalism there, pushed for action - without France if necessary. 1797 was a year of smothered revolt. Elliot ignores the extent to which the United Irishmen controlled large areas such as Mid. Ulster. But the hesitation of the leaders dissipated the movement. Tone in France felt a 'great lack of spirit' in the leaders at home. Like Robespierre in the Great French Revolution, he was prepared to go beyond the bounds of bourgeois property to ensure the of the bourgeoisie. He victory wrote: "If the men of property will not support us, they must fall; we can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class in the community - the men of no property:"
Elliot dismisses the heroic rebellion of 1798 as 'bloodr and sectarian'. The lack of Tone's spirit among most leaders meant it was partial. Between May and August there were ten separate unco-ordinated risings across three provinces. In Wexford the rebels held power for almost four weeks. They set up a Committee of Public Safety, with ordinary working men serving on sub-committees dealing with supplies.
The French help which came was too little, too late: 1.000 men on the West Coast in late August. a month after the last rebels in the east had surrendered.
The Irish bourgeois then preferred servility to following the rerolutionary Tone. Consistent in their fear of revolution they ignore or distort him today.
[page 42]
Why not guarantee your future copies of the MIR! A subscription to the WIR means that you receive your copy mailed direct to your address within days of And a subscription is also a contribution to the further development of the VIR 400 MIR Summer 1991 Book Reviews style republic to Ireland from political power.
by securing its financial base. Name...
Address..
There is some mention, in passground.
ing, of the economic situation of the country - foreign debt equal answer properly the question pos. to 90 per cent of GDP, ten million Moroccans out of 22 million living on less than 35 pence a day, one in five malnourished, 60 per cent of mineral wealth of the Western land held by five per cent of land. owners and so on. But once Perr- ible Polisario-led deformed workault has warmed to his theme of ers' state. He also ensures access the personal repugnance of Hassan Il this all fades into the back- debt collector for Western banks. over. Wolfe Tone By Marianne Elliott Published by Yale University Press, at £16.95 Reviewed by Anton McCabe THEOBALD WOLFE TONE (1763- 98) was a great Irish revolutionieve reform.
ary, the father of Irish Republicanism'. Marianne Elliot's biography is well researched, but conveys no sense of what made tens of thousands join a revolutionary organisation to bring a French- In the late eighteenth century, a few great landed families controlled Irish politics. In Belfast, centre of the most energetic capitalist twelve burgesses were the electors; even the wealthiest merchants and manufacturers lacked the vote. Eighty per cent of the people were Catholics, legally shut out The Irish capitalists wanted their own state, to provide polit- ¡cal conditions for capitalist development. To this end, Tone was one of the founders of the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast in Tone was the son of a wealthy this most radical section of the Dublin coachmaker, a member of bourgeoisie, with some exceptsubscribe l Just fill in the form below or write to us with a cheque or postal order payable to World Socialist Books. 3/13 Hepscott Road. London E9 SHB. Subscription Rates: £5 for four issues, UK/Ireland, £6 overseas. In consequence the book fails to ed implicitly in its title. Sultan Hassan is a friend of imperialism because he prevented the vast Sahara from falling under a possto cheap labour and functions as i the Established Church and a law- ions, were not prepared to mobilyer. Moves to parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation met with government clampdowns. The government forced Tone to leave the country or face trial for treason. He was driven to revolution as the only way to ach- In 1795 Tone went to France to seek help. But after Thermidor in 1794, when the Committee of Public Safety was overthrown, a more conservative section of the French bourgeois had come to power, less keen on exporting revolution. Tone was given the run-around for three years. The United Irish leadership were the most radical section of the bourgeoisie, not supported by most of their own class. The ranks were artisans, labourers and peasants. Elliot wrongly writes that "squabbling sectarian divisions... decimated the United Irish movement" before the 1798 rebellion. In fact as a social movement the U'nited Irishmen stopped much of the sectarian violence whipped up by the government and landlords in rural U'lster. Only after the defeat would this re-assert itself. Ireland's tragedy was that even now!
Nonetheless, readers should watch out for the translation. for Notre Ami Le Roi is enjoyable and easy to read. At the very least. the furore its publication generated. amidst the shock waves of an Arab defeat unrivalled since 19+8. shows that the "100 years of calm' promised by Hassan Il after the annexation of Western Sahara will be shattered a thousand times ise the Irish masses to make the fearing necessary revolution, them more than they did the British government. They were foreign-aid men'
- wanting France to take power for them. The Northern ranks, largely artisans and Presbyterians and reflecting the stronger development of capitalism there, pushed for action - without France if necessary. 1797 was a year of smothered revolt. Elliot ignores the extent to which the United Irishmen controlled large areas such as Mid- Ulster. But the hesitation of the leaders dissipated the movement. Tone in France felt a 'great lack of spirit' in the leaders at home. Like Robespierre in the Great French Revolution, he was prepared to go beyond the bounds of bourgeois property to ensure the of the bourgeoisie. He wrote: "If the men of property will not support us, they must fall; we can support ourselves by the aid of that numerous and respectable class in the community - the men of no property:"
Elliot dismisses the heroic rebellion of 1798 as 'bloody and sectarian'. The lack of Tone's spirit among most leaders meant it was partial. Between May and August there were ten separate unco-ordinated risings across three provinces. In Wexford the rebels held power for almost four weeks. They set up a Committee of Public Safety, with ordinary working men serving on sub-committees dealing with supplies.
The French help which came was too little, too late': 1.000 men on the West Coast in late August. a month after the last rebels in the east had surrendered.
The Irish bourgeois then preferred servility to following the rev- • Tone. Consistent in olutionary their fear of revolution they ig nore or distort him today
[page 43]
I serpoo A CITY THAT DARED TO FIGHT Liverpool:
a city that dared to fight by Peter Taaffe and Tony Mulhearn Special offer:
paperback £5.50 hardback £9.95 (this special offer includes postage) From World Socialist Books, 3/13 Hepscott Road, London E9 5HB.