The late Mark Jones on Hillier.
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/leninist-international/1998-November/002619.html
>...Cde Hillier has
systematically paddled his own sectarian canoe, unfortunately. He has
not tried to develop debate about the Party's positions on world
crisis, the state, and the environmental catastrophe. On the other hand,
he has continued to promote for example IRSP materials about Ireland, on
which the CPR has no agreed position and is unlikely to ever have. This
is unhelpful, and it has all gone with a peculiarly arrogant and
insulting personal style. I for one do not like to be told I'm 'lying'
when I assert that the Turkish comrades who object to our discussing
gender and queerness, are objectively homophobic. Maybe they are
(there's no damn doubt of it, in my view) but the question is one for
debate, not for accusations of 'lying'. This is Jim's style, however.
Jim says:
> it is not a communist list.
Maybe, maybe not: but we shall never know what Jim's definition of a 'communist list' is because apart from churlish abuse and insults, he has never presented a coherent view. When asked he will repeat 'I am a Stalinist'. Actually, he is not, in my view, a Stalinist. He understands little of Stalin's life, political or personal history or theories or methods. He knows little even of the most well-known facts of Soviet history, insistently repeating to me at one of our first discussions for example that the Nazis were responsible for the Katyn massacre. One has to live in the real world. When I was a young man and joined the CPGB in the mid-sixties, it was full of people who were unable to complete a branch meeting without uttering a ritual litany about 'the 20 million war dead'. Now, I have visited Soviet war graves (and I have also been inside Siberian woods where are located NKVD mass graves) so I know something about the sufferings of Soviet people. But even as a raw recruit, something grated with me whenever I heard this dismal litany about the '20 million soviet dead'.
Communism in Britain not just failed, it was fiasco largely unrelieved by hallowed moments of triumph. And what happened was that people compensated: "we are useless, we are not 'real' leninists or not 'real' stalinists', but at least we can pay religious reverence to our Soviet betters," they said, before going off to the pub or allotment.
This is what is called 'compensatory nationalism' and Jim Hillier has a large dose of it, as do other alleged 'Stalinists' on this list, who are not stalinists at all, would blench and run in horror if they ever met a real stalinist, and in reality are nice mostly middle class people living very prosaic lives whose real focus is school, mortgage, pension and similar matters. "Weekend communists" in short.
'Compensatory nationalism' takes the form of belittling your own efforts and glorifying someone elses. Thus Jim Hillier quite openly, before the whole world, rubbishes his own Party as a group of western intellectuals who 'call themselves a party' (I don't have his exact words before me, I think they were even worse in fact) and compares them (us) with, for example, a party of (again from memory) 'martyrs, leading real [sic] struggles, with a real mass membership' etc.
The answer to our inadequacies however is not to tailend other people (btw, the Turks in question have already disappeared from this List, after making no contribution whatever to the debate on gender issues, after their very ill-advised start). It is to create a real revolutionary party in one's own land. This, I hope is what Jim Hillier is in business to do. Not to be a groupie at someone else's scene.
As for myself and for the record I remain committed to the Communist Party Refoundation. I do not share Jim Hillier's liquidationist views -- the CPR is indeed a sponsor of the List and will continue to play an active role in it, not least in the person of yours truly.
>With the
> limited time that I have available for the Internet, I will now be
> concentrating on contributing to Sven's new forum, which will definitely
> be a Communist list I am sure.
I wish Sven every success, but it is still completely unclear to me what constitutes a 'definitely Communist list' in Cde Hillier's understanding. We shall see. The only certain thing is that this is a CPR list but Sve's is not. Interesting stance for a CPR Central Committeeman to take, Jim, is it not?
Mark Jones
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