It is always dangerous to go wading into a scientific controversy wearing hob-nailed boots (There's more to life than genes, Clive Bradley, WL59-60). Being "selfish" is unsocialist and therefore the Selfish Gene Theory of Richard Dawkins is right-wing. Dawkins himself must also be right wing because he was appointed to a position dealing with the scientific knowledge of the public under the last government.

On the other hand, Stephen Jay Gould believes that evolution proceeds by punctuated equilibria: long periods of virtual statis followed by short periods of rapid change. That sounds a bit like revolution. We're Bolsheviks so we support that. Dawkins believes evolution proceeds very gradually over enormous periods of time: sounds a bit like a Menshevik!

One criterion for assessing competing scientific theories must be to decide which explains the facts most economically and generates testable predictions which are confirmed. In my opinion, the gradual evolution theory has more going for it than punctuated equilibria and the Selfish Gene Theory comes out on top compared with group selection.

There is no evidence worthy of the name for punctuated equilibria; there is only absence of evidence. The fossil record is very bitty because it is very difficult to be fossilised. Therefore, species which are obviously intermediate are rare (though they do exist, e.g. Archaeopteryx). This is consistent with both theories. However, for Gould and Eldredge's theory to be correct, we must explain how the rate of mutation of genes (which is the raw material of evolution) can increase at certain times in the past whereas it seems to have been approximately constant at all other times. That is Dawkins' objection to the theory and it is a valid one.

When we compare Selfish Gene Theory with the alternative, selection at the level of the individual or (this is the socialist one) group, we find that the mathematics only works for the Selfish Gene Theory. It has even been able to predict altruistic behaviour.

That is what Marxists have to accept, even it if conflicts with our fondly-held preconceptions. What we mustn't do is misrepresent the views of those we disagree with: where does Dawkins argue that "human practical activity… [is]… essentially… simply caused by genetic imperatives"? Where does he argue that "we are remember, 'robots' for our genes?" In fact, Dawkins is one of the originators of meme theory, the ideas that our cultural evolution has proceeded by means of competition between things learnt from other people. He has explicitly said that memes might act against the interests of the genes, describing religions as "mental viruses".

We should also dispense with the crude caricature of Dawkins' "reductionist" views by Steven Rose (quoted by Clive), larded though it is with words such as "ontological" and "epistemological". His own research into one tiny element of the behaviour of the newly-hatched chick might also be termed "reductionist". And far as being on the left goes, Rose's political background is that of a Maoist-Stalinist.

Clive objects to the idea that human behaviour, "from the production of art to the development of scientific knowledge," might be determined by our genes. Yet chimpanzee genes differ by only 2% from our own. These genes include those controlling brain development. Is it this that has provided the field for human culture to evolve or is it due to the different environments that humans and chimpanzees inhabit?

Dawkins and Gould are certainly giants of popular science writing, though I think Dawkins leads in the textbook stakes. I doubt that they would disagree with most of what the other says. Many of the ideas attributed to Gould by Clive, far from being contentious sparks of genius, are quite at home in the neo-Darwinian mainstream. Where they do differ, we must apply scientific criteria, rather than inappropriate metaphors.

Les Hearn

The SWP's magazine Socialist Review of January 2000 carries an article by Paul Foot on democracy and socialism. It is well-written - the SWP putting their best foot forward, or their best pen, on the question.

And its main message is true: voting for people who say they'll do it through parliament is not the way to get socialism. But the detail is curious.

Foot's chosen examples are Britain in 1945 and Germany in 1919. In 1945, he writes, "the Labour leaders had lost any enthusiasm they may have had for replacing the power of capital", and so, despite reforms, their government was finally "the servant of capital". The problem, then, was that the Labour leaders didn't want to install working-class socialism, not that they tried to do it through parliament and failed.

In Germany in 1919, writes Foot, "the SPD [Social Democratic party] was elected to national office after the defeat of the German Revolution". Not quite true. The SPD-led Council of People's Commissars took power in 1918, and as a result of a revolutionary uprising rather than elections. The SPD gained endorsement later both from the Congress of Workers' Councils and from the National Assembly. The way in which the revolution-based SPD administration of 1919 was similar to the ballot-box-based Labour regime of 1945 is that both wanted to push through only such reforms as a frightened ruling class would accept, not to revolutionise society. Even an armed uprising cannot bring socialism unless it has a political leadership fit for the task.

History does give plenty of proofs that a labour government pushing reforms more drastic than the capitalists will accept (let alone socialism) cannot do it solely by parliamentary means. In Chile in 1973, Pinochet's military coup cut short Salvador Allende's Socialist Party administration. In Australia in 1975, a constitutional and bloodless coup by the Governor-General got rid of a reforming Labor government. In Britain, Michael Foot and Jack Jones have said that their reason for supporting the 1974-9 Labour government's cuts and its deal with the IMF was they feared that otherwise "the stormtroopers" would be on the streets. In fact there was some, indecisive, talk of a coup among military officers.

Germany after 1919 also gives an example. In 1920, the military decided that the Social-Democrats had done their job of diverting revolution, and they no longer wanted to tolerate the SPD's reforms. Troops marched on Berlin. The SPD leaders fled. Their parliamentary majority did not save them. What did save them was the trade-union leaders calling a general strike, something they had previously considered so ultra-left as to be "general nonsense".

None of those examples is mentioned by Foot. Instead, his implicit message is that bothering with votes necessarily makes you un-socialist. The answer is a socialist organisation which bases itself on direct-action militancy and can adequately explain the general case for socialism. What, if anything, that socialist organisation does and says about the actual political processes of today, is left unsaid. Whatever "fits the mood", I suppose.

Chris Reynolds

Thanks for sending Workers' Liberty. Your publication is very useful for us to learn and discuss.

Our group is the Study Club of History and Political Economics (Kelompok Studi Sejarah dan Ekonomi Politik), in Bandung, capital of West Java. We discuss Marxism and other left thought, including Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, European social democracy, anarchism etc. We are attracted b the solidarity action in Seattle, which showed the power of left groups.

Beside discussion, we try to organise people: workers, students, peasants, etc. We have set up some trade unions with worker comrades and formed the Indonesian Workers' Solidarity (Solidaritas Buruh Indonesia). We publish a magazine named "Wacana Suluh Demokrasi" (Democratic Torch Discourse) to widen left thought. We also organise seminars with other groups and leftish NGOs.

I need your publication like Radical Chains etc. If you don't mind, please sent us, too. Or do you have left books we can learn from intensively? We will be very happy to get them. Thanks very much.

United People Undefeatable!

Ikhawan Mujahid

Not for the first time 'SM' (in WL 59-60) portrays Stalinism as inherently anti-semitic and anti-Zionist. Nonsense. So far from taking a principled stand against Zionism, Stalin curried favour with it. He was the first in the world to recognise the self-declared state of Israel. He did this for purely opportunistic reasons, hoping to weaken British imperialism through using Israel as a cats-paw against the Arab monarchies in British pay. Nor was Stalin alone. Much of the official left at this period was pro-Zionist.

It was only the heroic resistance of the Palestinians to Zionist oppression that woke up the left eventually to me historic crime committed against this dispossessed people. As late as 1967 I remember the violent wave of anti-Arab racism occasioned by the Israeli-Arab war swept up all the liberals and a lot of the left.

All this does not suit SM's simple-minded equation so he omits to mention it.

Chris Arthur

I want to make an appeal on behalf of Pat Jordan. Pat was the person who introduced myself and a lot of other people to revolutionary politics via the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and then the International Marxist Group. He had a stroke a few years ago and is now holed up in a nursing home, dumped by his family miles from anywhere.

He has completely lost his short term memory but has kept his long term memory. He is still surrounded by revolutionary literature but no-one else in the home has any idea of his past. It is very sad - almost a scenario for an Alan Bennett playlet. This is the guy who was described (rightly or wrongly) in October 1968 by (I think) the News of the World as "the most dangerous man in Britain". It is like he's been discarded. He has no idea who is dead and who is living. He never even knew Bob Pennington, [one of his main comrades in the 1960s and '70s] was dead.

He needs more visits. The fact that he is still articulate says a lot for his resilience. Also perhaps socialists could put Pat on their mailing lists, as he still has a keen interest in politics.

Steve Cohen