Harry Barnes gives a personal response to Andrew Murray on imperialism and Iraq

I am not writing to defend Oliver Kamm, whose work takes the bulk of Andrew Murray's criticisms in the three-part series you published on 28, 29, 30 December. But I do find Murrays analysis to be seriously flawed.

He tells us that he is discussing the question of a division of opinion on the left over the need for the continuing presence of foreign troops there. Yet he centres on the works of Kamm, whose "claim to be on the left at all is rather thin." This is to admit that Kamm is being used as no more an Aunt Sally. So maybe those of us who have stronger claims to be on the left should intervene.

I hope that being a former columnist in the 'Morning Star' and being active for 17 years in the Socialist Campaign Group will give me sufficient street cred.

I believe that it is his misuse of the concepts of "anti-imerialism", "totalitarianism," and "terrorism" which lead Murray into a mistaken call for the immediate withdrawal of the troops from Iraq. This is not where the left should now stand.

1. Murray's whole approach is made through the prism of his own form of "anti-imperialism." But the scope of his brand of anti-imperialism is both too narrow and too broad at the same time.

First, he skirts around the problem of Soviet Imperialism in the l930s. Claiming that Kamm comes forward with no evidence of this. Secondly, he claims that British Imperialism was far worse in any
case.

His second argument, of course, hits the point of his first argument on the head . Perhaps he realises that Soviet Bloc Imperialism did exist. It attempted to regain what it could of the earlier Russian Empire, such as the Northern Caucasus (including Chechnya,) Transcausia and Central Asia. The threat of Communism and Atheism were anathema to many Muslims and others. Now whether the comrades were right or wrong, they were certainly Imperialists. Perhaps Murray means that they were good Imperialists.

The fact that British Imperialism was more widespread and capitalist than Soviet Imperialism, doesn't mean that the latter neither existed nor is beyond any criticism.

Murray even gives a chuck on to Kadar's Hungary which came into being in 1956. Whilst it is generally recognised that Kadar introduced a period of economic reform and relative liberalism into Hungary, he did it on the back of Soviet tanks and Soviet Imperialism.

Some of us were on the side of Imre Nagy in 1956 who led a liberalised Communist experiment which the Soviet Union attacked. I remember attending a Communist Party Rally at Newcastle, where I cheered John Gollan the General Secretary of the British Communist Party when he attacked the British invasion of Egypt; then booed him over his defence of the Invasion of Hungary . I was against both forms of Imperialism.

Anti-imperialists, such as Murray and myself need to face up to some post-colonial problems. Imperialism isn't the only problem. Its analysis doesn't lead us to all-embracing solutions.

Whilst the left invariably and correctly support anti-colonial struggles, we have to accept that successes lead on to mixed results. In sub-Saharan Africa, despite massive difficulties, some hopes are high. Tanzania, Ghana, Mozambique and South Africa are achieving more than could have been expected. But we have also seen the aberrations of Banda, Mobuto, Amin, Mengistu and now Mugabe.

The question is how we can aid and encourage developments in poor countries, which are subject to the worst impacts of globalisation, debts and unfair trade. For their social fabric is liable to crack under such weights.

Of course, we must try to see that these burdens are removed and that progressive alternatives such as the Tobin Tax are put in their place. But even whilst we wait (and wait) for serious measures of success, we should also aid locally based developments towards the hinterland of democracy. It will not work out otherwise.

I agree, however, with Murray's final words, that "bourgeois democracy just can't be left to the bourgeois to look after." (Which probably puts both of us in our place.)

After all, following the Iraqi revolution of 1958 it was their Communist Party which was the major advocate of bourgeois democracy, as a base for working people to find space within the political system. Unfortunately, events (mainly around Saddam Hussein) literally killed
off those hopes until recently.

However it came about, we should not miss a fresh chance to support those in Iraq who look for bourgeois democracy - especially from the non-bourgeoisie. In Iraq and elsewhere we should be on the side of secular , civil rights advocates who are a potential labour, feminist, youth and community-based movement. It is in their interests that we should unequivocally oppose terrorism as well as excesses by foreign troops.

2. Murray claims that the term "totalitarianism" is a post-war invention, directed at Communism. Well, not exactly.

The term was coined by Mussolini in the early 1920's to describe and praise the new fascist State of Italy and was encapsulated in his phrase "all within the state, non outside". For like Thatcher, Mussolini believed that there was no such thing as society.

To provide what he thought couldn't develop naturally, Mussolini was for incorporating splintered and disruptive factors into an Italian Nation under his strict control. It is generally recognised that Mussolini failed to achieve his target, but that Hitler and Saddam Hussein came much nearer. As Bin Laden et al would do given half a chance.

Modern mass techniques of military, cultural and social incorporation have been greatly advanced under modern technology and have aided such forms of totalitarianism.

It is quite possible for any form of State to develop totalitarian characteristics. For instance, liberal-style democracies may allow citizens the vote, but manipulate affairs so that its electors have little or no say over decisions which control their lives. In "One Dimensional Man", Marcuse wrote of situations where forms of liberty are subverted into instances of dominance. The institutional arrangements of liberal bourgeois democracy tend, however, to act as a
stumbling block to fully fledged Orwellian totalitarian methods.

The opportunities for effective countervailing forces to emerge can be much less in Nazi, Baathist, Theocratic and Military Regimes. Even though the term might fit such regimes more fully, it is no surprise that it can be applied to Stalinism also. For once the workers' soviets had been subverted, the possibilities of checks and balances, free assembly and publication, and uncontrolled pressure groups went out of the window. I accept that by adding certain plusses to these disturbing minuses, actual Communism wasn't as bad an experience as that of the main Right Wing Regimes I indicated above; but it was worse than in many regimes with serious bourgeois-democratic pretensions.

I am worried that when Murray tries to shield Communist Regimes from the charge of totalitarianism, that he moves a shield that should really be used to protect us from modern forms of fascism.

Despite all the problems around Bush and that side of America which displays militarist, plutocratic and Christian fundamentalist instincts, the biggest threat of fascist totalitarianism in today's world comes from groups such as Al-Qaeda.

3. The difference between Murray and myself on the issue of "terrorism" is that I am reluctant to give it any form of excuse except in the most extreme of cases, such as the ANC fighting apartheid in South Africa with widespread popular support. Murray is at the other extreme. He will only condemn most terrorism when it is seen as being completely ineffective or counter-productive as with the Baader-Meinhof gang and the Red Brigade.

There is a universe between our positions , which is illustrated over our attitudes to the IRA. Murray feels that it was Government intransigence which led to IRA terrorism being necessary to get us to the Belfast Agreement. But I believe that if the Provisional IRA hadn't stepped in to subvert a position headed by People's Democracy and others, we could have reached where we are now, a long time ago.

Trade links between the Republic and the North were blocked for decades by the consequences of terrorism, such as blocked roads by the military and rail attacks by the paramilitary. Yet as Karl Marx pointed out transformations in the superstructures of society tend to consolidate shifts in their (mainly) economic base. I don't know why the island of Ireland would violate this insight. Except in
constitutional terms, we could now almost have had a de facto united Ireland. Sinn Fein and the IRA lost out by going for the shadow and not the substance.

Even without my above argument, I would have opposed terrorism in Northern Ireland. It could never justified in the circumstances; either by those seeking a United Ireland or a United Kingdom.

The constitutional and political set-up of Northern Ireland was open to reform; although reforms are not always simple things to achieve

Then look as to what violence led us to. In working class areas there is a greater physical separation between Catholic and Protestant Communities that a any time in the island's history. How can you build united working class social bonds in such circumstances. Campaigns such as that for Integrated Education have to try to step in to fill the breach.

I just can't understand how someone who is opposed generally to war, cannot adopt the same attitude to terrorism.

4. It is differences over terms such as Imperialism, Totalitarianism and Terrorism that lead Murray and myself to have opposed perceptions about what should be done in Iraq. I will illustrate this by reference to the position of Al-Qaeda. I feel that variations on the same theme could apply to others such as Ansar Al-Islam, Saddam Loyalists and the Mehdi Army .

Al-Qaeda claim (as recognised by Murray) is that terrorism is a consequence of the existence of Israel, the US Military presence in Muslim lands and the earlier sanctions on Iraq.

Such matters may gain Al-Qaeda recruits, but they attract most recruits because they also offer crusades against infidels . Jews are dealt with as destroyers of Muslim life, which is a mirror image of what people such as Wagner and Hitler perceived for their wider Germanys . There is to be no two State solution for Palestine and Israel, just the latter's complete destruction. It is gas chamber thinking.

Al-Qaeda would introduce an extreme form of Shariah law. The crude way in which this would destroy the life of women would further consume everyone's lives when extended to the remaining matters of supposed justice. We have already seen a dry run of this with the Taliban.

Just in case Al-Qaeda's fascist and totalitarian dreams are fulfilled in Muslim lands, their case against America, homosexuals and non-conformism generally help to keep alive its obsession with terrorism and suicide bombing from here to their and our eternity.

From what we see happening day by day in Iraq, it isn't just people on the London Underground or in New York skyscrapers who need defending from this evil non-sense, it applies even more fully and urgently to the Iraqi people, especially their non-bourgeoisie.

I don't need to be told that it is all the fault of Bush and the American Power-Elite. I absorbed the lessons of C. Wright Mill on the later years ago and have quoted from him ever since. It was because such understandings are natural to me that I was on the initial platform of "Labour Against the War". I'm also aware that I could have stayed put and bleated "I told you so" each time new
disasters hit Iraq. But what about the missed opportunities instead to support the people in Iraq who are attempting to build a decent future?

I am not asking Andrew Murray to go back on his stand against the War, but to follow its logic which to try and help in the salvation of the Iraqi people. This does not mean surrendering to some neocon agenda. In fact, it means the we on the left take on the agenda we understand. Co-operation, democratic participation, civic freedoms and social equality.

Democratic Socialists should avoid the twin dangers of New Labour and the New Fascism.