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the Workers Revolutionary Party-was formerly a determined defender of programmatic principles central to the continuity of post-war Trotskyism.

Indeed, until 1975 (when WRP General Secretary Gerry " Healy and his followers swung to uncritical support for the Vietnamese Stalinist party at the time of the defeat of the US puppet regime in Saigon) the leaders of the WRP and its forerunner, the Socialist Labour League, had, with few deviations, established a 22-year record of consistently emphasising the necessity of constructing Trotskyist parties in every country to lead workers' struggles against both imperialism and the Stalinist bureaucracies.

It had been on this correct basis that in 1953 Healy and the British Trotskyists had followed American Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon in signing the famous Open Letter.

Open struggle

The gist of this letter was that, sooner than capitulate any longer to the political line of the Fourth International leader Michel Pablo, the US Socialist Workers Party called on other "orthodox Trotskyist" forces throughout the world to join them in an open factional struggle.

This initiative was not wholly adequate, and certainly belated. But it was a correct challenge to Pablo's line.

Pablo had first invited such a response as early as 1949 when he began to advocate a liquidationist policy of "deep entry" into the mass Stalinist parties of Europe, which he anticipated would be forced by "objective processes" to break from their counterrevolutionary role and "project a revolutionary orientation"

This view, which flies in the face of Trotsky's analysis of Stalinism, was shared by Pablo's henchman Ernest Mandel, who argued in 1951 that in particular the mass CPs of France and Italy could be forced by pressure into breaking from their counter-revolutionary nature and leading revolutions (a false position that Mandel as the present-day leader of the 'United' Secretariat of the Fourth International, has recently revived in his assessment of so-called "Eurocommunism"). Trotskyism:

"And if our break with Pabloism-as we see it now clearly-if it boils down to one point and is concentrated in one point, that is it: the question of the party ... Pabloism aims not only to overthrow Trotskyism; it aims to overthrow that part of Trotskyism which Trotsky learned from Lenin.

"Lenin's greatest contribution to his whole epoch was his idea and his determined struggle to build a vanguard party capable of leading the workers in revolution...

"That is written into the Transitional Programme, that ‚Leninist concept of the decisive role of the revolutionary party. And that is what the Pabloites are throwing overboard in favour of the conception that the ideas will somehow filter into the treacherous bureaucracy, the Stalinists or reformists, and in some way or another, "In the Day of the Comet", the socialist revolution will be realised and carried through to conclusion without a revolutionary Marxist, that is, a Leninist-Trotskyist, party. That is the essence of Pabloism. Pabloism is the substitution of a cult and a revelation for a party and a Speeches to the pp.181-2.

Marxist party. the upsurge of colonial liberation struggles in the late 1950s soon demonstrated that the same "Trotskyist" leaders were equally prepared to capitulate politically to spontaneously emerging petty bourgeois nationalist forces-in particular the petty bourgeois leadership of the 1959 Cuban Marxists' In describing the Castroites as 'natural Marxists'. , and 'unconscious [sic!| Trotskyists', , and in looking to them as the means of extending revolution throughout Latin America, the Pabloites showed clearly that their method in approaching workers struggles excluded the element most vital to Trotskyists: the sharp fight for the building of Trotskyist proletarian parties as the only conscious force able to combat reformism, Stalinism, and bourgeois nationalism and assert the political independence of the working class.

But in this capitulation to Castroism, the Pabloites found themselves rejoined politically by Cannon and the SWP leadership, who threw aside their correct attacks on Pabloite liquidationism, and thought they saw in the emergence of the Cuban Revolution a short cut around the difficulties of building proletarian parties in the USA and elsewhere.

While the SWP and the Pabloites crawled to Castro, searched the world for further Cubas (with dreams of similar developments in Algeria) and prepared to formally reunite their forces, the British Socialist Labour League (forerunner of the WRP) was equaliy unable to analyse the Cuban events.

In place of the Pabloite view that Cuba had been transformed by the Castroites into a workers' state and that therefore Castro was a Marxist, Healy and the SLL argued that since Castro was not a Marxist, Cuba could not be workers' state!

Certain Both positions were false their approach and false their conclusions.

The SLL position however, did have a certain virtue in that by ignoring a real change it succeeded in apparently preserving political independence from the Castroites and retained the old insistance on the need for a Trotskyist party.

But the SLL clung onto these 'notions under conditions of clear theoretical confusion. The problems that Healy's analysis of Cuba created for an understanding of the postwar overturns of capitalism in Eastern Europe under Stalinist leadership had to be brushed aside.

And the partial attempt Wolforth within the International Committee to come to grips with some of these contradictions in his Theory of Structural Assimilation was ignored and suppressed by Healy-and abandoned by Wohlforth himself.

This work has only now been republished by the Workers Socialist League (see page 9).

In the wake of the Cuban events the Pabloite International Secretariat was politically "reunited" with the US Socialist Workers Party in 1963 (though the SWP remains barred by reactionary US legislation from international affiliation).

The joint document that they produced at that time, The Dynamics of World Revolution Today, was extensively criticised by the Socialist Labour League in Spring 1964 in terms which bear a heavy irony in the light of Healy's. current political subservience to Gaddafi and the anti-communist Iraqi regime.

Adaptation The SLL correctly showed that Pabloite capitulation to Castroism had led to a wholesale adaptation by Pablo to the nationalists of the Algerian FLN in the independence struggle. Despite the fact that the International Committee's record had been far from exemplary, the SLL correctly pointed out that:

"Pablo then turned certain of his sections into little more than errand-boys for the national-bourgeois leadership of the Algerian FLN, turning away from the industrial working • class itself in Western Europe ..

Fourth International, Spring 1964, p.9.

• a phrase is not enough! Those who have drafted the Resolution in fact conduct their 'defence of the Algerian Revolution' by subordinating themselves to Ben Bella, by saying and doing nothing about the construction of independent revolutionary parties in Algeria and the colonial countries..." (p.10).

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stage. brothers. imper. 00 til the will of the Libyan A rab mism in happy because it people and that of the Arab revolution nice and union. nau found a response from our they will some Ibat the Arab reactionary forcee. resctionarieu The cause has been sold ver the artificial harders. reactlon and coloniatiam About to defeat the e. confronted that 2 fan a accomplt. actression. knowing it was a сопорігасу веліная Exypt who Jamahitiyah - and this 1s ratber than against Libya. demand matter wnich will be sub- a knew thet dragging the renoive lo sebieve mitted to the popular cos. cation rese the Jamahiriyab conspiracy «RainsT munt adopt the resistance of Syrin Iber tan againsl Liberation ne Palestine people with Lebanon and lhe ales•JI ita tinians. ppiause). • must now on Arme and the rifle For hast Palestine is Arab and that it must get freedom by deed. that what colobiskiara is doing ia ploughing the eed. 9)

to the recent Ma Sadat metine, Gaddak and.

we wer and men and women. states to be wire to that conарігасу against the Arab lion, the conspiracy that Nevertbeless. we have Arms.

untu to destroy the Syrien ordered our forces to return lo their barracke. But this Into that does not that the arena. Libyan people laid The Arab nation will have down arms or unloaded the no mercy for hit who com. still continuing. nope con. run, as the mitted such trime. The and Libyan peo es are asked to look for be murderer who killed the pao• ptian soldier and tried ple and army. It in aimed at Ell the Libyane. They Arab nation, as well as should seek the marderer the Palestinian resistance o •4 5 PAGE S ON JULY 21. 1977 the Sadat regime invaded the Libyan Jamahiriyah following a series of proyocations, which included the kidnappink of Libyan police and civilians.

It preceded the Cyrus Vanee mission to the Middle East, which was almed at getting the ro-operation of Arab slimiRe leaders to belray the Palestinian rerolation President Anwar Sadal • it is a lie to say that Gadwist to get Lea went or raolti tele. dali puts the demand for an Islamic Palestine'. He sup. army and people lo purts the PIO for hrow the regime of Colonet democratic, secular state of Muammer Gaddaf Palestine.

His slated policy was to • The onlitical comments teach him a lessun and silence Gaddafi laken from The Newsietter (1949) and Workers Press Even boutrevis Press (1972) edecessors of commentators say through News Lines show Sadat's murky plot with US mudic approach ta politicimperialism and said so that political analysıs is The armed allack on the fred like Holy Writ forever Libyan revolution pre- and a day. serted a concrete question The whole artirle has. befare course. an overridink potitworkers' moyement ical purpose and (hat is to Workers Revolutionary and their counterparts in Perty Central Commiller.

hands selves either supporting renegades as they Sadat nr. by their 'neutr. reach for their pen lo pur. as tis imptrial masars sue their against Comrade Heaty The Socialist Press ofthr Thornett clique anlI.

The Thornelt chique s repefades pub fished almost a full halrud for Trolskyism has withuut mentioning the plunged to new depths ll is Sadat invasjon all i mark of this degeneration (August 31. 1077) they launch inlo attack the Workers Whal political principles here. none Revolutionary Party's prinoff Iplec anti-imperialist entirely and US imper. with the Libyan Jamahirıyah. but maintain ialism's intrigues the Arab revolulioh wall silence over Joseph Hansen's secret and unnoticed ersatia! alliance with the It was for the compicle Federal Bureau of inves rejection of revolutionary tigal on (F BI) principles thal Thornett and small land On July 30. 1977. New's dwindling) band of fol. Lize published proof that lowers quil Workers hansen, present-day leader Revelter and December Workers Party (USAl had I the revisionist Socialis arranged 40 meet the PB1 chief in New cratic centralism inside the der on Augusi 20. 1940 nonth ailer Truisky's murrevolutiunary morensenl, Bo Since this devastatink It naturally Follows that they have consistently betrayed proof was presented by the inlernatianal Committee of hese principles in relatjor the Fourth International.

› the international workin the Thornett clique - nor. class.

The full-page Socialist mally the most brazen and stavish defenders of Han: Press' article is devoted us a grolesgue. slanderous sen have kepl their mouths shut. tirade against the Workers The zurus of Oxford and port for the Libyan revold. Dartmouth Park Hili have ion against the allacks of Sadat and Washington about the hitherto unde. nothing lo say clared collusion between Hansen, who was allegediy in charRe of Truisky's serit is factually. politically and hislorically a lot of gib- of Us imperialism and the secret polite berish. JI is riyalled only by an earlier 'Socialist Press The Workers Revulutio. sortie into the Arab revolu deciared its polilitat пяту Party has opensy tion when il claimtd thal Palestine aliianees with 1h e Organisation chairman revolutionary movements Yassir Arafat disguised in the Arab world. Africa himsell in a wig and Nower Ireland and Latin America. shirt to fee Beirut in the These represent the con. midst of the flehting! (ure tinuation Trotsky's 16, 1976). struggle to resolve the crísis afleadership in the workine To deal with just a few of lass and build the world the rossly ignorant arty of socialist revolution.

marks in the Socialist He will leave lhe Press* revisionist cliques and • If Gaddar is a diclator' grouplels to fill their closets with dirty collusion with the Sorces of counter-rerolution. and lo remain silent about weapons. 'See excerpts accomplices of the GPU and frOm First of September the FBI. speech on this page) We temain supremely • It Gaddad is running a conßdent that the working 'dictatorship'. then il is a class and the liberalion cursous one since he has forces will be able to judge just announced thal the *ho is lighting for the Jamshitiyah is benceforth a speialist revolutior and revolutionaries from FAll political Asylumn who is the rag. lag and bob.

Stall the counter.

L over the world. revalution.

(...)When these revolutions occur, Marxists have no alternative but to participate in them 'whole heartedly, ie., they must not appear as opponents of the petty bourgeois leaderships. In Cuba, for example, they must enter Castro's party and work loyally within it.

In Algeria they must work for Ben Bella, and join with him in denouncing and imprisoning any opposition movements, Right or Left (...)It is precisely in the revolutionary situations of Algeria and Cuba that the building of the independent party has been most blatantly abandoned, on the assumption that the petty-bourgeois leaders will become revolutionary Marxists... " ((pp.20-21).

We still agree with all these criticisms of the Pabloites made by the SLL in 1964-though the SLL itself was not without blemish.

But how do these correct points tally with the crawling capitulation by Healy and the Newsline staff to Gaddafi, to the murderously anti-Communist Iraqi regime, to the PLO leaders, to the Vietnamese Stalinists transformation' of Iraq bear any relation to their notion of Marxist theory?

If Cuba is, in the WRP view, still not a workers' state, how could Iraq or Libya become workers' states without the building of a Trotskyist Party?

But this unprincipled grovelling to the nationalist regime of Iraq has also led to an outright WRP attack (Newsline May 23) on the legitimate struggle by the workers and peasants of Kurdistan.

All of a sudden Newsline editor Alex Mitchell announces that because of the corruption and collaboration of some of the Kurds' leaders with the CIA, the Zionists and the Shah of Iran, the Kurdish struggle is a 'plot' against the Iraqi regime.

Since Mitchell's article characteristically makes no effort to explain what basis of principle the WRP considers should apply to the acceptance of material assistance by the Kurds, the question arises: does the WRP condemn the historic Kurdish national struggle simply because of its bourbeen hints of such deviations as far back as 1968when present General Secretary Mike Banda wrote an uncritical eulogy of the Vietnàmese and. Chinese Stalinist leaderships as an Editorial to the February issue of Fourth But within the International Committee and the SLL at that time there were forces that fought such a position, and an apology and disclaimer was published in the next issuestating that the article expressed only Banda's personal views!

In 1974 however, the WRP was convulsed by a faction struggle in which the Healy leadership witch-hunted and expelled all those that spoke up in defence of the Trotskyist Transitional Programme.

Some 200 members, including three Central Committee members and all but one of the factory cadre at British Leyland's Cowley plants were driven out of the movement.

The core of them came together to form the WSL and continue the fight for a plunged ever downwards.

In 1975 they launched a vicious attack on the WSL for our defence of the record of the Vietnamese Trotskyists murdered by the Stalinists under Ho Chi Minh in the post-war period. The WRP in reply came out in uncritical support of the Stalinist regime.

By early: 1976 the collapse of the WRP's seven year old daily paper Workers Press, signalled the extent of the crisis within the organisation.

The unexpected launching later that year of the new enlarged daily Newsline was accompanied by no apparent enlargement of the WRP's forces, but by a sharper than ever lurch towards opportunism.

The launching of Newsline also marked the start of the WRP's cosy relationship with the Gaddafi dictatorship, and with the PLO, which was quickly branded "the spearhead of the Arab (June 14, 1975) a whole" revolution as Petty bourgeois WRP leaders • have repeatedly denied that this opportunist line is related to cash subsidies to support

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CONTENT Renegades line up with Sadat

siander Gerry Healy of the that the fritich revisionists

Palacal principles have ou United are and he

nary Taey rejected revolutio York City. Mr B.E Sackett. a