Img 'unity' Ploy Is an Insultto the Youth

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its recipients to participate with the IMG building of a "unified revolutionary youth ment." Our reply spells out why we oppose Rock Against Racism-does not in itself offer a way forwa Young workers are in the forefront of today's class struggle project.

Dear Comrade, We note your letter of 6 October which was addressed to Rebel, SWP, ICL, Big Flame, ISA, the Workers Socialist League and the Socialist Youth League and subsequently published in Socialist Challenge.

While the Socialist Youth League, as an autonomous youth movement in political sympathy with the WSL, is drafting its own reply to the points made in your letter, the WSL agrees strongly with the decision of their national committee to reject participation in the paper Ready to fight Whilst agreeing with you that recent events have shown the readiness of broad sections of youth to fight and fascism, 1: - 1_d funniness and that many are now turning LU turnino tn revolutinnarv politics, the WSL reaffirms its position that only with a clear revolutionary programme can this potential be developed.

Your proposal is to group together various self-styled. "Trotskyist' and centrist organisations on the basis of agreeing to disagree.

Even should some youth be attracted to the wretched amalgam of swP, kebel MG, ICL and Big Plame that you propose, this could only be on the basis of political confusion and the mutual hiding of sins.

We have studied your letter and Revolution itself.

Contempt for youth It is characteristic of centrists to chatter endlessly, as you do, about the 'independence', ', 'vitality' etc. of the youth, whilst at the same time peddling a political line which displays middle class contempt for La 1060.

LATE TOR movesuch a youth at every turn. You appear to have chosen this road, but the SYL has correctly in our view, decided not to follow.

Hide and seek

The question facing young workers is that of revolutionary leadership. Yet you play hide and seek with them on this question.

Revolution declares:

"We aren't tied to any political party. We think we can teach many of these 'parties' a thing or . two about how they should fight for real freedom."

But we read in your letter in Socialist Challenge to find:

"Revolution is a paper launched by the IMG."

What are youth to make of this? Revolution refuses to say where it comes from!

Are the members of the IMG who wrote it "not tied to any political party"?

The first question to which the youth must demand an answer is that addressed by Trotsky to the centrists in France in the 1930s_"Your political passports, please, gentlemen! And not false ones, if you please-real ones!"

Disguise

Rather than standing openly for its banner and policies the IMG hopes to disguise itself and trick the youth with chatter about 'independence'.

Revolution is therefore written in advance to adapt to the existing consciousness of the youth-or rather to a caricature of that consciousness as it is perceived by the probably not-so-youthful cynics who planned it and unleashed it upon the world.

The adaptation goes so far that Revolution is forced to state it is "not a music 70.

JOHN CUT funny paper", lest anyone should be confused after reading it.

The patronising avoidance of the serious questions facing youth is summed up in the statement "the Labour Party and the Tories are the same"

Does the IMG really think this? Then why does it call for Labour votes in elections? Why not vote Tory? Why does it eagerly seek out the possibility of 'united front' platforms with left' Labour MPs?

The answer is simple. In its 'adult, work the IMG recognises that unlike the Tories, Labour is a reformist workers' party. (In fact the IMG regularly capitulates uncritically to the Labour 'left' fakers, taking their radical speechifying as good coin).

'Sophisticated'

But, you can't expect youth to understand all this 'sophisticated' stuff. Clearly you don't believe that youth are up to the task of fighting for a programme which takes into account the contradictory nature of the Labour Party and which fights to expose the Labour misleaders.

Any old ultra-left rubbish will do for the kids'. So much for the youth in the Labour-affiliated trade unions!

They can no doubt merely echo your headline "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" and if they happen to live in Spitalfields, East London, fall in behind • your candidate-Red Hilda' , in the next election.

It appears that the IMG Trotsky-warned of centrism leaders are not satisfied with dishonesty, they want to appear ridiculous too.

Unity is out of the question on this basis. You must be fully aware that the WSL will never be party to such an enterprise.

And the Socialist Youth League has nothing in common with a paper which supports the Anti Nazi League and hails the 'success' of its Carnival which led youth off on a diversionary musical jamboree while the National Front and police were allowed to march freely through the East End.

Unlike the IMG and SWP we do not consider that, for all its merits, 'Rocking against Racism' in itself provides any political way forward in the fight against fascism. Nor are we prepared to collaborate with you in 'internationalising' your wrong positions with stupid articles on 'Rocking Against the Tanks' in Czechoslovakia. THE IMG LETTER Dear Comrades, The success of Carnival 2 clearly demonstrated that tens of thousands of young people are prepared to take part in the struggle against racism and Furthermore, the marked interest in the various political events at the Carnival-the stalis, newspapers and marquees-indicates that thousands of youth, through their experiences in the ANL, as well as at work, on the dole, at college or at school, want to go further and take part in building a revolutionary alternative to the policies of the Labour government. A small example of this increasing interest in revolutionary politics was the sales of the new youth paper Revolution. Three thousand copies were sold at, or going to and from, the Carnival. In addition the entire print run of 5,500 was sold out within five days (!).

Revolution is a paper launched by the IMG. We believe its success demonstrates that the influence of revolutionary ideas amongst the youth is far broader than the influence of any particular far left' organisation. Our aim in launching Revolution is the building of an independent revolutionary youth organisation.

/Whèn the WSL talks about the independence of the Socialist Youth League as a youth movement it follows Lenin in the belief that it is necessary to allow the politically fresh youth to make mistakes.

But this also contains the néed to explain the nature of mistakes and errors to youth and fight for a correct policy and perspective.

Independent because we are convinced that the best way for the youth to grasp revolutionary Marxism is through their own experiences, in their own organisation.

In other words we believe that the building of such a youth organisation, and respect for its independent character, is the most practical way convince thousands of revolutionary-minded youth of the necessity of joining and building a revolutionary marxist party as a political alternative to reformism.

In our view historical experience has demonstrated, further, that such a marxist party will not be built simply through individual recruitment; but on the contrary, through a process of splits 'and fusions in existing organisations and, above all, the mass reformist parties.

In Britain, today, the fragmentation of the 'far-left' is, in our view, a major obstacle to building such a marxist party.

For this reason th IMG has consistently fought for the unity of revolutionaries into a single organisation, on the basis of a clear programme and a democratic centralist system of organisation, for the past two years.

Within such an organisation Such a method has nothing in common with the IMG's patronising exercise of • deliberately producing a paper full of error, and èven religious obscurantism, on every line in the vain hope that this will attract youth The WSL continues to stand for the construction of a Trotskyist youth movement.

Revolution cannot bring

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CUt ENNALS CUTI

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