DAVE DUDLEY’S DIALECTICAL DIARY


Dave Dudley is a revolutionary socialist with years of experience of struggle within, for and against Trotskyist groups and starting from this week he brings his knowledge and expertise to the pages of Sectarian Worker with his weekly diary column.


Dave’s column will be particularly of interest to younger comrades who may be wondering what lays in store for them once they have entered the ranks of the professional revolutionaries. Each day of dedicated commitment to the class will be detailed here and Dave will also point out the potential pitfalls that face partisans of the proletariat in struggle.


For those few readers who do not know Dave – he is a former UK member of the International Bolshevik League, who produced the weekly paper Workers Fist prior to their split over the Chicago Bus Depot labor and minorities dispute and he is currently a leading member of the Provisional Leninist Vanguard Tendency (Lambeth branch). Now over to Dave:


Revolutionary Greetings comrades,


Let me first make it absolutely clear to comrades that I have accepted to undertake this column in the service of the workers movement only on the condition that there is no attempt at Stalinist-bureacratic censorship and that there is no question of me having to compromise with the kind of Vyshinksky-style so-called anti-sectarians who circle this website like flies around shit.


Of course such a compromise would be exactly what the bosses state and the Stalinists and Cannonites want me to do!


They want me to dilute myself as if I were a bottle of orange cordial! But if I were to give an inch to those who make this effectively centrist call and ignore the very real differences that exist between myself and Sectarian Worker’s editorial board (who I oppose on principle) I would unforgivably be lying to the working class behind their back. I will not be censored or silenced – you can be sure of that comrades.


Let me also deal with those who may in the future accuse me, by writing for this paper, of solidarising with the witchunting anti-communist minority who read the Sectarian Worker (a charge that, if made, would, with delicious irony, clearly be an act of witchunting censorship in itself!).


I ask you. Is it better to ignore these backward elements and hope that they will go away? Or should we be engaged in conversation with those temporarily trapped in reaction in a bid to win them to a pro-working class position? I think that Trotsky’s position on the united front is pretty clear isn’t it comrades? (Not that I consider writing for this publication to be entering into a united front I might add - not even a united front of a special kind).


I began the New Year by sorting out some administrative matters relating to periodicals and other publications. It is vital that communists keep themselves informed of the decaying society in which we live and it is the elementary duty of any professional revolutionary to keep such administration in order. So I went along to my local newsagents to deal with what should have been a straight forward matter.


I asked the newsagent, an apparently simple man of Indian origin, if he was able to provide me with a list of Marxist theoretical publications that he offered to the public for reading purposes. For some reason he appeared rather taken aback with this perfectly legitimate request which is of an elementary democratic character (even within the constraints of capitalism).


“I’m sorry my friend, we don’t stock any of those. If you want a political magazine,” he said, “We’ve got the New Statesman”.


It was clearly an act of blatant provocation. I am well-known as the most radical community campaigner in the area and even a relatively backward, petit-bourgeois such as this so-called ‘newsagent’ must have been aware of my history of years fighting against revisionism. Nonetheless I summoned up the patience and diplomacy that is essential for any serious working class politician.


“My dear friend. I think you will find that the New Statesman is far from being a Marxist publication. Indeed I would take issue with your claim that it is even political. It is nothing but a mouthpiece for anti-working class Blairites who seek to crush the revolutionary potential of the masses,” I said, taking care to hold back my full and genuine hatred of reformism.


“Don’t you even stock copies of Socialist Review. Much as I disagree with Cliff’s view on state capitalism, I understand that there is an interesting piece on reclaiming the anti-imperialist spirit of Baathism in this month’s edition?”.


For some reason there was a big grin on the face of my newsagent. “Ah right, I see where you are coming from now. Actually there is a friend of mine who is into that sort of thing as well. I’ll see if he can sort out some reading for you – come back tomorrow, I’ll see what I can do for you,” he said.


Naturally having entered into what was effectively a social-contract with the newsagent and in order not to betray the trust of a potential ally of the class movement I kept the agreement and returned the next day.


He greeted me in a friendly manner and then reached under the counter. “Here you go, I think this is what you might be looking for,” he said as he handed me a newspaper.


I opened out the tabloid and with horror saw the red masthead of the Morning Star. This time I could not hold back my feelings of disgust. “You bastard. You bastard,” I shouted at him. “Is this your idea of a joke?”


The newsagent looked somewhat surprised. “Well my mate was in the Indian Communist Party and he said this the only communist daily paper in this country. But if you don’t want it no problem my friend……”


I could see it in his eyes. It was clear as day - the yearning to force me into a black limousine, dump me into a snow-covered gulag and leave me shivering in the corner of a freezing and isolated cell for weeks.


His psuedo-friendly grin gave away his burning desire to torture me. To stick a red hot poker in my rear, to hack off my testicles, one by one and demand I betray everything that I ever believed in before lining me up in front of a firing squad.


Without doubt beneath the façade of the friendly newsagent lay the vicious spirit of Stalinism. This was clearly meant to be a warning to me. To keep off his patch, to leave my community to be in the clutches of this vicious thug and enemy of the working class.


I made a tactical retreat and headed to WH Smiths.


Later when I recounted this experience to Euan, a young orthodox Trotskyist contact of some potential, he failed to see the seriousness of the threat of violence that had been made against me. “I think you over-reacted Dave, he was probably only trying to be helpful” he said.


And therein lays the real political lesson of this experience. Scratch an orthodox Trotskyist and underneath you will find a Stalinist.


DD