A great weapon for progress

Very few Marxists, including myself, would disagree with his claim that socialism has not been achieved anywhere yet.

We have heard Robert Segal and Gregg Beaman condemning socialism and various ultra-left groups agreeing with them about the anti-democratic nature of China, Vietnam and the former Soviet bloc states in a particularly tortuous, confusing and mealy-mouthed fashion.

There is no doubt about the brutality of individuals like Mugabe, Kim-Il-Sung, Stalin, Mao Zedong, sometimes even Lenin and Trotsky. Yet there is also no doubt about the massive strides forward made by the countries led by these people in terms of education, general health, social security and so on.

The basic state supervision of the economy by socialists was a great weapon for progress in all these countries, far superior to the free market' jungle economics favoured by George Bush, Tony Blair and other privateers worldwide.

D McLellan ignores these facts, thus devaluing his otherwise cogent arguments because he seems hostile to other socialists who happen not to kow-tow to his particular ultra-left dogmas.

Ours is a young movement, barely a century-and-a-quarter old. The fact that it took Christians 330 years before any single state adopted their beliefs (Armenia 310AD) illustrates this point nicely.

We have to learn by our mistakes and by studying our history seriously. Denouncing other socialists, especially working class people who are genuinely involved in the class struggle like myself and my Trades Council colleagues, will only assist out-and-out reactionaries like Segal and Beaman.

Steve Metcalfe, Lancaster.