Ders Old Ism

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(p.12). more....

"Here the words 'the revolution' are an abstraction with no meaning, an abstraction at far too general a level for any political, class orientation. Like the phrase "colonial revolution' it is however at a level of abstraction which is perfectly adapted to acceptance of the existing leadership of the national liberation struggles. Any more exact abstraction, based on the class content of the struggle and the contradictions within the fight for political independence, would be precisely against the interests of the petty-bourgeois leadership, who also prefer non-class formulations-the Algerian revolution, the Arab revolution, Arab socialism, etc. etc..

... It might be argued that it is only a question of emphasis. But this is just the point: unless the whole concentration of Marxists is upon the construction of independent proletarian parties, then the masses will be betrayed. For the revisionists, it is quite a different matter; the existence or non-existence of such parties before a revolutionary situation may or mav not he decisive!

What is not discussed in the Resolution is the actual relation of the practical politics of the revisionists to these petty-bourgeois governments. In Algeria, the revisionists, as we have seen, in fact give support to the petty-bourgeois, nationalist government. They express similar uncritical approval of Castro in Cuba. There was even published an article by one Sadi both in the SWP International Socialist Review and the Pabloite Fourth International advocating 'entry' into Nasser's national movement, and specifically disavowing any organised independent political opposition. A class characterisation of nationalisation is incomplete and turns into its opposite, if it does not sharply define the role of the proletariat in opposing the petty bourgeois nationalists". (p.13).

. This passage [from the Pabloite document, JL] is a fitting end to our long series of quotations. It contains the conclusion which excuses everything: because of 'new factors' working class power can be obtained without there necessarily having been constructed Marxist parties today?

Why is it that the WRP in repeated theoretical articles -most recently 'Stalin is Brought Back into the Fold' in Newsline April 28-now sets out to cover up the fact that Pabloism is not simply a capitulation to Stalinism but, in the SLL's words of 1964:

"Pablo's original capitulation to Stalinism was only one variety of capitulation to the petty bourgeois bureaucracies upon which modern imperialism depends". Ibid, p.7.

We challenge the WRP to produce, from amongst their voluminous coverage of Gaddafi's speeches and actions over the last two years, evidence of one public call for the building of a Trotskyist party in Libya.

And, remember the SLL's point against the Pabloites "a phrase is not enough", "unless the whole concentration of Marxists is upon the construction of independent proletarian parties, then the masses will be betrayed"!

We challenge the WRP to spell out their attitude to the Iraqi dictatorship, which only a few days ago admitted having executed 21 Communists and stepped up repressive measures against the Communist Only two months ago, on April 28 the self-styled "Trotskyist" • Newsline carried in bold type an uncritical report of the conference of the General Federation of Trade Unions in this same state of Iraq, including the following amazing points:

"The three day conference has adopted the slogan •Central objectives: to defend the revolution [!] and deepen its accomplishments and to press on with the Arab working class "The conference is discussing ways of developing the productive skills of the working class and consolidating the role of the trade union movement in the socialist transformation of Iraqi society", (Emphasis added).

We challenge the WRP to come clean. Do they see the Ba'ath Party as a Trotskyist If not. then how does this talk of the socialist geois leadership? Why not apply the same line to any national liberation struggle?

Does the WRP not even demand of the so called revolutionary' Iraqi regime that it concede the right to secession to the Kurds should they wish it?

And perhaps most strange of all is the fact that it is bourgeois journalist Alex Mitchell (who was the only person on the WRP Central Committee obviously overjoyed by the expulsion in 1974 of Alan Thornett and the forces fighting for a return to the principles and the method of the Transitional Programme) who has now come to the forefront of polemical writing in the pages of Newsline.

Nobody seems quite sure as to Mitchell's political history to his rapid WRP Central Committee at the very point where the WRP itself was turning towards liquidation into frenetic "mass recruitment' Certainly at the time of the expulsion of the forces around Alan Thornett Mitchell admitted to knowing nothing of the history of the Fourth International.

His ignorance and political backwardness and suspect judgement is still clearly stamped on Newsline today, in the form of passing sideswipes at the gay movement and ridiculous "conspiracy" theories according to which, for example, the Anti Nazi League is no more than an elaborate Zionist plot!

But this same Mitchell is given free rein to write feature articles attacking the Kurdish national struggle and empty polemics against the WSL in which brazen lies jostle with backward jokes and outright abuse, in a desperate bid to substitute vitriol for politics.

At every point in this analysis of the revisionist positions adopted by the WRP the central issue has been the abandonment. of the fight for the revolutionary party and the opportunist abandonment of the principles of the Communist International on the national question.

This amounts to a wholesale liquidation of Trotskyism by the WRP leaders.

There had, of course, The trampled wished to ism, has return to the Transitional One of the grounds on which these forces had taken up the fight against Healy was precisely the growing trend towards liquidationism within the WRP.

As opposition leader Alan Thornett spelled out in his first document:

"Members are 'Natural Marxist' Castro with recruited after few to a section of the Fourth International. • The vast majority of these recruits will never come into the party and the impact on the branches in trying to bring them in under impossible conditions will be considerable. Thus the 'drive outwards' which is so vital to the party and could have been so powerful in different circumstances, became a drive towards liquidation"

The Battle for Trotskyism, p.24.

A second documentsuppressed by the leadership by expelling its defenders prior to the WRP conference-challenged, among other. things, the WRP's opportunist positions in relation to the PLO leadership and the United Nations.

None of these points have ever been replied to by the WRP leaders, who instead resorted to the most brazen falsifications and hysterical smear campaigns in order to head off discussion.

WRP, having on those who fight for Trotskysince that time the paper, which is virtually unobtainable in large areas of the country.

Yet they have been unable to show any basis in the principles of the Trotskyist movement for their political adaptation to bourgeois and petty bourgeois nationalism.

Since then the WRP leadership, now composed almost entirely of petty'thiopian dictator Mengistu. bourgeois forces with little or no awareness of the historical positions of their own movement, (let alone the Fourth International as a whole) have not cast so much as a glance back at the principles of the Communist movement.

One after another, Newsline reporters, WRP leaders and film crews have made meek homage to the Middle East to join Libyan celebrations on the anniversary of Gaddafi's • bonapartist coup or to crawl unashamedly to the PLO leaders.

Such positions • are equally as crude and liquidationist as many of those formulated in the 1950s and 1960s by Pablo himself.

Those within the WRP who see themselves as orthodox Trotskyists must begin to draw up a real assessment of the line of their leaders, and conclusions as to where the continuity of Trotskyism lies: whether it is with those now in the WSL who fought Healy's liquidationism in 1974 and were expelled; or with Alex Mitchell, the Redgraves and the current leaders of the WRP who know nothing. of Trotskyism and are blown by every breeze that wafts in from oil-rich Middle East nationalist regimes.

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PREE

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minutes discussion, with no idea of the politics involved,