Labour 'letts cheer Callaghan's nationalism

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It is ser en years since the disint gration of the monetary system of the capitalist world (which had been established at Bretton Woods and based on the overwhelming strength of the United States).

During that time a number of vain attempts have been made by the main capitalist nations to restabilise their monetary system and the exchange rates between the different countries.

But the only results have been a series of stabilisation plans which have come to nothing while the gap between the values of the different currencies has widened and many very sharp fluctuațions have taken place.

Danger

The instability is a danger to the whole capitalist system since it indicates the absence of any stable standard of value and threatens to undermine the basis of international trade and production.

And in addition the widening gap between the exchange rates of the strong and weak capitalist economies has become increasingly alarming to the countries running a stronger surplus in their balance of payments.

The relative risè in the value of their currencies reduces the. competitiveness of their products and redistributes profits from their capitalists to those of the devaluing deficit countries.

So the changing value of currencies is partly the expression of a sharpening competitive struggle between the individual nations of the crisis-ridden capitalist system.

The proposed European Monetary System (EMS) is partly an effort to reduce the damaging instability of exchange rates.

"Float" together

But it is also partly a counter-stroke by the surplus countries (notably by West Germany) to try to stop the competitive devaluations and to gain a respite for West German capitalists.

Technically the EMS plan involved getting all the nine EEC members to fix their exchange rates in relation to each other and allow them to "float" together against the US dollar and other currencies.

This means it would simply involve an extension of the existing system of this kind (known as "the snake") which now includes West Germany, Holland, Belgium and Denmark and used to include France and Britain as well.

The planned EMS would fall short of the earlier móre grandiose plans for European Monetary Union (the development of a single European currency) which was submerged by the waves of nationalism of the EEC members.

The aim of the EMS is much more modest than that; but nonetheless it has been made by West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and its backers into a symbol of European capitalist unity and the future of the EEC.

But last week the EMS too fell as a new victim of the fratricidal strife between the countries of "united Europe".

The capitalist classes of the weakest deficit countries-Britain, Italy and Ireland-fear the EMS because they want to keep the possibility of further competitive devaluations of their currencies if their efforts to push up profitability by wage control fails.

Devaluation is precious to them as an economic weapon because it helps profits by simultaneously making national goods more competitively priced and cutting real wages through putting up import prices.

The Italian and Irish governments, nevertheless, went to Brussels last week intending to sign up in the EMS club-as long as they got in exchange an agreement that more EEC. aid would be given to them through the budget.

But it was the national interests of the French capitalists that stopped this French capitalists were not prepared to dig deeper into their pockets-not even to persuade their Italian and Irish rivals into partial economic disarmament.

So rival capitalist nationalism sabotaged this symbol of imperialist European unity.

These antagonisms reflect the disunity between' the capitalist states which arises from the fact that they are unable to impose all the costs they want on the working class.

That is why they are forced to grab from each other and so threaten the monetary stability on which collectively they depend.

Rearguard

It is only socialism which can bring about a nonantagonistic unity of the states of Europe as a step towards the United Socialist States of the World.

The self-styled Tribune "socialists" on the left of the Parliamentary Labour Party, however, have once again shown themselves to be not in the vanguard of the fight for the United Socialist States of Europe but in the rearguard of capitalist nationalism.

Last week on his return PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Callaghan from Brussels they jingoistically cheered Callaghan's justification for not joining the FMS- that it was to defend Britain's «national interests"

Callaghan uses the same argument to justify Phase To this chauvinism they add a spurious argument, popular in Tribunite circles NEI Capitalist leaders at the Bonn summit since the 196nc that LILY currency stability is bad for the working class but that devaluation is somehow a "socialist" measure.

This is simply a smokescreen for the anti-socialist nationalism of this group which argues that the economic crisis can be solved by defence of the national capitalist economy through import controls and devaluation.

But devaluation, like the For well over a year the press has kept a discrete silence over the fate of the Sanderson strikers, broken , only by occasional referlences to it as the Grunwick of the north" or Britain's longest running strike.

Last week as the details of a settlement-which has not been implemented at the time of going to press-were made known the Guardian gave it the accolade of an editorial.

The purpose was to bury the strikers not to praise them. There was no reference to the long months on the picket line, the continual battle for union action, the never ending series of promises from the TGWU which were never delivered; the ups, the downs, the dogged determination which alone keeps strikers going through their darkest hours.

The article began simply: "You win some: you lose some;"-a summary entirely in harmony with the public utter. ances of trade union leaders who have betrayed one long running recognition battle after another.

The Guardian, keeping : editoria line absolutely accord with the right wing austeritv nolicies which sn FUNNINU TANNEL BU involves an attack on working class living standards.

And import involve an attempt to shift the burden of the crisis in one country onto workers in another.

But the working class, unlike the narrow nationalists of the Tribune group and the ruling capitalists the TUC, urges that ACAS should be given the force of law and the right of access to workers. • ACAS is a government set up agency which exists solely to damp down the independent action of the working class.

It is out of the same drawer as the industrial tribunals, used to head off strikes when union militants are sacked.

Every year the tribunals publish statistics showing that a high proportion of workers who turn to this arbiter 'win' The fact that practically nobody wins reinstatement from a tribunal has not prevented the attacks of the Tory press which demands no interference in the rights to hire and fire.

ACAS, like the tribunals, is an organisational expression of social democracy-a ball and chain on the working class painted in the colours of neutrality.

The impact of a victory or a defeat-at Sandersons on other recognition battles will be immense. Nowhere will it be bigger than at Garners in London where the strike in support of union recognition is coming up for its first anniversary, where every piece of double talk and betrayal by the 1 Currency dealers in Tokyo whom they no country.

Socialists should. be opposed to the EMS which is part of a plan for the recovery of West German capitalism at the expense of its rivals.

But they must oppose it with policies which represent the independent and international interests of the working class.

PRESS

TGWU bureaucracy has been dou led through the close involvement of the Communist It is no accident therefore that this week Margolis, the boss of Garners, chose to break his silence over the strike.

He provided the material for witch hunts in the Daily Express and Telegraph.

The theme of both articles was that the workers in the restaurants did not want the union in and that the strikers were being manipulated by left wing extremists.

The Express published a picture of Cyril Margolis in his office, captioned "a general on the eve of battle"

"The ghost of Grunwick stalks the West End of London this Christmas" ", writes Geoffrey Levy, with more truth than he is aware of.

The articles, coming close together with sudden renewed TV interest in the strike are not for the purpose of informing readers, even with perverted facts.

They are part of laying the groundwork for a demolition job on the strike, in which the TGWU bureaucracy will be challenged with the results of a new poll of the scabs.

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1978 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the emergence of the Trotskyist movement in United States. The Socialist Workers Party which today claims to represent that tradi offers no more than a hollow mockery of the fighting spirit of that early movement. article is the third in a series in Socialist Press which will examine the early history of SWP, the party so central in the 1930s to the launching of the Fourth International. -rs in food queues during the Depression Fi to bear Square. The Stalinists were n people which The Militan Trotsky reviewing troops in Red Square, 1921 'On October 28 1928, Cannon, Abern and Schachtman were expelled from the Communist Party.

The very next week the first issue of The Militant was published, . "not surreptitiously distributed mimeographed bulletin such as satisfied many literary cliques but a full-sized printed newspaper."

All three had been employed by International Labour Defence, a permanent defence organisation for clas war victims initiated by the Communist Party.

They now had no jobs and no income. Despite these inauspicious beginnings, The Militant was produced regularly on a fortnightly basis.

The long process of accumulating the cadre of American Trotskyism was begun.

Outside

With no possibility of reaching wide layers of the CP before expulsion, militants had to be contacted from outside. Almost immediately the Trotskyists won people in Minneapolis where the American Trotskyists were to play such a central role in later years.

The CP leadership aided the process through their bureaucratic approach.

"Their method was to go up and down the country putting a motion in every committee and branch to approve the expulsion of Cannon, Schachtman and Abern.

"And everybody who wanted to ask a question or get more information was accused of being a Trotskyist and expelled forthwith.

.. Eventually, practically all those who had been expelled for hesitancy in voting to confirm our expulsion became sympathetic to us and most of them joined us." (History of American Trotskyism, pp.56-7).

The difficulties facing the Trotskyists were enormous. They had only one copy of Trotsky's "Draft Programme of the Communist International: a Criticism of Fundamentals"

Ones and twos

This was the document which had changed everything for Cannon while he was in Moscow. Recruitment on the basis of this document was by ones and twos.

"Soon after we were expelled ... there came a knock on my door one day and there was Morganstern of Philadelphia, a young man but , an old "Cannonite"

66 •.. He said "we heard about your expulsion for Trotskyism but we didn't believe it. What is the real low down?"

In those days you didn't take anything for good coin unless it came from your own faction. I can remember to this day going into the back room, getting out the precious Trotsky document from its hiding place and handing it to Morgie.

"He sat down on the bed and read the long "criticism"-it is a whole book-from the beginning to the end without stopping once, without looking up.

When he finished, he had made up his mind and we began to work out plans to build a nucleus in Philadelphia."

Serialised

Others were recruited in the same way. While the "precious document" was serialised in The Militant it was a long time before it James P. Cannon Max Schachtman was possible to publish it in with renewed enthusiasm. pamphlet form.

Of course, the slanders which had already been levelled at Trotsky were now directed with full force at Cannon, Schachtman and Abern.

Encouraging These denunciations of contact with Trotsky. the three former leaders of the CP were printed in the party press and found their way all round the world encouraging the rest of the international opposition. structing one.

To win forces in the USA was a major step forward. left opposition was in stark It helped the hard-pressed Trotskyist forces previous work: elsewhere to go forward expulsion I had made my While news of the national tour, speaking to American group (and hundreds and sometimes shortly afterwards the emer- thousands of people. gence of a Canadian group «Now we had to speak around Maurice Spector) to individuals. Our propainspired forces in the rest of gandistic work consisted the world, the Cannon mainly of finding out names group had to wait months of isolated individuals in the before making direct CP, or close to the party, who might be interested, Nevertheless they went arranging an interview, ahead, resolved to answer spending hours and hours the Stalinist gibe that they talking to a single individwere "three generals ual, writing long • letters without an army" by con- explaining all our principled positions in an attempt to The work of building the win over one person"

In the first phase isolated contrast • to Cannon's groups and individuals were won in Chicago and Minnea"Not long before our polis (a couple of dozen in each), Kansas (three four); Philadelphia (two); New York (a few individuals); Cleveland, St. Louis and the mining areas of Southern Illinois.

The Militant was a propaganda paper, carrying • long articles explaining the issues at stake in the divided world communist movement.

The CP responded with savage repression of anyone who even talked to the Trotskyists.

After building their whole lives in the party "a whole wall of ostracism" separated them from party members: "We lived in those first days under a form of pressure which is in many

SOCL IST PRE

American worke respects the most that can be broughi against a human social ostracism fror of one's own kind."

Cannon reports 1 how this pressure kept many " sympathisers within the ( CP away from Trotskyism. 1 The step necessary to break 1 from the CP was just too : great to take.

Throughout this i period the Trotskyist m ovement considered itself to , be still a faction of the Co1 mmunist Initial Not until 193: 3 when Titler came to po ver with lardly a ripple o opposition developing Stalinist ranks did Trotsky call for the buildin ng of a The initial work : of the American Trotskyi sts was therefore directed towards the cadres of the C ommunist Party.

As we have seen , the CP used slander and o stracism against the Tro tskyists. When that failed t ey tried to use physical force "They sought • avoid having to answer a ly arguments making impossible for usa to speak, ing it › speak, to write, to exist."

The Trotskyist: S sold their papers outside : the CP day 13 December 1978 terrific headquarters in Union being- so surprised by the speed af appeared that for a few weeks sellers were left alone.

Then the physical attacks began. Two women members were set upon punched and kicked and driven away.

Fight atter fight took place as the Trotskyists defended their programme and perspective in the face of the Stalinist terror.

Not content . with contronting the Trotskyists on the streets the CP broke into Cannon's flat and stole all his private papers, docu ments, correspondence and records.

As with the other tactici they used, the physica attacks rebounded on the Stalinists:

"We scandalised thent mercilessly, cried to high heaven, publicised their burglary and gangsterism and made them wince with our exposures ... We knew how to exploit all these things to good effect ...Weappealed to the good will and communist conscience of the members of the party. and began, recruiting the people who came to us at first as a protest against this Stalinist procedure."

The attacks sellers on.

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Trotsky speaking in Copenhagen in 1932 and meetings went on until May 1929. When Cannon made a national tour the Stalinists turned up at meetings to wreck them.

• Defence guards were formed and most of the meetings went ahead successfully.

•It was after a meeting in New York where a Stalinist was so badly beaten that he ended up in hospital that the CP called a halt to the attacks, convinced that they could not wipe out the Trotskyists as easily as had been thought.

Meanwhile every possible opening to carry the revolutionary programme to the CP members was used. • For example, in December 1928 the Plenum of the party Central Committee met in New York.

Cannon, Schachtman and Abern turned up, knocked on the door and announced "We have come to appeal against our expulsion."

The faction fight was still going on, and hoping that they could use Cannon's previous association with Foster, the Lovestone faction, who were in a majority, allowed Cannon to take the floor.

He made a two-hour speech on behalf of all the expelled. The speech was printed in the next issue of The Militant.

On February 15, 1929 as the CP was preparing its national convention the Trotskyists published the platform of their faction.

In the short period from the October expulsions every document of the Left Opposition they could get hold of had been published.

Now a complete statement was drawn up.

It began with a declaration of principles on an international scale-starting with the Russian question (the question of socialism in one country and going from there to the trade union question in the US and the detailed problems • party organisation.

Tais was put forward in Toe Militant as the faction daciom for the Communist By not turning away pom the party they kept in -ontact with the best elements there, Further recruits were made.

Later in the year this platform was the basic document of the first National Conference of the Left Opposition in the United States.

That first conference, held in Chicago in May 1929 was attended by 31 delegates and 17 alternates from 12 cities representing a total of about 100 members hroughout the country A leadership was electer and the organisation named "The Communist League of America, Left Opposition of the Communist Party' A central preoccupation of this conference was the theoretical training of th nembership rest a stone be e fight the craçy than all kinds of people wanted to join us or one little condition; that w Communcould have recruited hundreds of members in the first days had we accepted that condition."

It was vital that the nucleus of the US revoluclear on which remained the Soviet Union despite bureaucratisation.

It was also necessary to fight those who wanted to turn away from the policy of fighting as a faction of the Communist Party.

In his History of American Trotskyism, Cannon places great emphasis on the importance of a firm theoretical foundation on which to build.

He shows how Trotskyism survived and grew precisely because of an understanding of the need for a clear independent working class programme.

Without such clarity other forces such as the Lovestone group who were soon themselves expelled from the CP (at the time of the left turn) and who chose an opportunist attitude to programme in order to facilitate growth, fell apart in the face of the twists and turas of Stalinism and the political situation generally (Lovestone's group voted to dissolve itself in 1941).

Tendencies towards avoiding the difficult work of remaining a faction of the CP represented a bending under pressure of the moment.

Problems People who could not stand up to pressure of this sort would be politically destroyed for the tasks to come.

As we have said, the twin themes of the Communist League of America were the Russian and trade union questions.

The Trotskyists replied to the CP's ultra-leftist position of ignoring the American Federation of Labour and instead building "Red Trade Unions" fighting for an understanding that only by using the existing formations could the mass of American workers be reached.

The left turn had in fact created problems for the Trotskyists.

Many CP members and sympathisers now said "Look,. the party has corrected itself, there is no need for a separate organisation" • Recruitment from the Stalinists stopped and, as the depression mounted, the CP grew.

Now opened a period of increased hardship for the Trotskyist forces-"the dogdays: of the Left Opposition" as Cannon called it.

The central emphasis was placed on publishing activity and theoretical work.

Despite enormous financial difficulties printing facilities were established and even a whole bookTrotsky's "Problems of the Chinese Revolution" was produced.

Economical

The May 1929 conference. had decided on a propaganda orientation.

Cannon places great emphasis on economical use of forces. The question at the conference was «What concrete task shall we set for 100 people?"

Firstly it was decided that the CP remain the focus for activity.

•. the road to the masses leads through the vanguard and not over its head".

This period has often been misunderstood by later would-be Trotskyist forces.

In today's entirely different conditions, the sectarians of the International Spartacist Tendency in particular like to draw a parallel between their obsessive preoccupation with propaganda directed at other left groups today and the correct orientation of Cannon's group towards the CP.

The Spartacists believe that a "vanguard" is contained within the various largely petty-bourgeois subjectively revolutionary groups today in the same way that it was at that time to be found in the mass Communist Parties.

But this is profoundly incorrect. In the late 1920's and early 1930's the political vanguard of the working class was to be found in the Communist Parties, These parties had been formed hardly a decade previously by thousands of people under The Wall Street Crash the impact of a successful seizure of state power in Russia. • The Bolsheviks had immense authority amongst the most militant workers.

Thus not only were these parties the political vanguard; they were also in many cases the physical vanguard of the class. Communist Parties organised and led many thousands of working class fighters.

Stalin It was absolutely necessary to persist even in the most adverse conditions with a sharp orientation to those forces.

Even after the Trotskyists declared the need for a new International it was necessary to pay particular attention to work amongst the Stalinists.

The situation today is quite different. The various "Trotskyist" groupings have their origins in the post-war crisis and disintegration of the Trotskyist movement.

Moreover, the relationship of any of these forces to the working class is in no way comparable to that of the main CPs of the 1920's and 193.0's.

So while for us today, discussion and polemics with other forces has an important part to play in the reconstruction of the Fourth International, our prime orientation is the practical and theoretical reestablishment of the Trotskyist tradition, the fight for the Trotskyist programme and method, in the day to day struggles of the working class.

Another fetish of the Spartacists is their concept of the "propagandist period"

By this they mean that before any serious attempt can be made to fight for leadership in the daily grind of the class struggle "cadres" must be accumulatea (from other. left groups) and "trained" theoretically in isolation from the class struggle in preparation for their future role as leaders of the workers struggle.

In defence of this orientation the sectarians continually, throw at the authentic Trotskyists of the WSL the claim that in this approach they follow in the tradition of James P. Cannon.

At the May 1929 conference, as we have said, the Communist League of America set itself the task of concentrating its fire on the membership of the Communist Party.

Their method was as follows: "We set ourselves the task of propaganda not agitation."

In the next part of this series we will go into this question in more detail, but we can make a tew brief comments here. with cronies at the Black Sea For while Cannon does say that with few members it was not possible to do mass work, he also has this to say about the political situation in which they were "We had no chance whatever to participate in the mass movement. Wherever we tried to get into a workers' organisation we would be expelled as counter-revolutionary Trotskyists.

We tried to send delegations to the unemployed meetings. Our credentials would be rejected on the grounds that we were enemies of the working class."

In addition to this Cannon argues that:

... there was great stagnation in the general labour movement. There were no strikes. The workers were quiescent. They were not interested in any theoretical questions. They were not interested in any actions at that time"

parallel Despite the longing of today's sectarians for a similar period of quiescence, in no way could the situation faced by Cannon be parallel with that obtaining today.

Our own movement, with only slender forces, has shown that it is possible to play an important role in the events of today's class struggle-much to the anger of sectaríans and bureaucrats alike.

However, the attitude of the Cannon group to mass work must be more closely assessed.

It was around this question that the Communist League of America clashed with another grouping which claimed to be the real representatives of the Left Opposition in the USA.

The next part in this series will take us up to the launching of mass work by the Trotskyists. It will deal with the debates between Albert Weisbord's Communist League of Struggle and the Communist League of the points at issue and lessons for today

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It was Hansen who proclaimed OLAS:

• ,. a definitive broak

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along with maintaining a fixed exchange rate,