[Pastinn ma donlino with haurgenis Arah milers forme…]

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Pastinn ma donlino with haurgenis Arah milers forme The Trotskyist movement has seen many a grouping undergo a political degenerationstepping away from the fight for principle at the sharpest point of the All too many a current has found itself sucked on the one hand into opportunist adaptation to alien political forces, or blown on the other hand into sectarian abstention, declaiming abstract ultimatums from distant hilltops.

Trotsky repeatedly stressed that the twin diseases of opportunism and sectarianism are not polar opposites, but can and do exist within the same rotten body.

Desertion

But there can be no political organisation currently describing itself as 'Trotskyist' in which they coexist so brazenly as in the British Workers Revolutionary Party, headed by Gerry Healy.

This article will examine in particular the WRP's desertion of Leninist principles in its relationship petty bourgeois nationalist leadership in the Middle East-and particularly the Iraqi regime.

Spelled out at the Second Congress of the Comintern, these , principles constitute a guide to the method through which revolutionaries must approach the fight for "9. In the sphere of relations within states the national policy of the Communist International cannot contine itself to the bare formal recognition of the equality of nations, expressed only in words and entailing no practical obligations, to which the bourgeois democracies confine themselves, even those that call themsleves "socialist"

It is not sufficient for the Communist Parties to expose unflinchingly their propaganda and agitation both on the parliamentary tribune and elsewhere the continually repeated offences in every capitalist state, in spite of all the 'democratic' constitutions, against the equality of nations and the guaranteed rights of national minorities.

It is also necessary first to clarify, constantly the point that only the soviet order is capable of assuring nations true equality, by uniting first the proletariat and then the whole mass of the toilers in the fight against the bourgeoisie, and secondly to give direct support to the revolutionary movements dependent nations and those deprived of their rights, through the Communist parties in the countries in question.

Without the last particularly important condition the struggle against the oppression of the dependent nations and the colonies and the recognition of their right to a separate political existence remains the kind of mendacious hypocrisy that we see in the parties of the Second International."

Thus the obligation to support the oppressed Iraqi strongman Hussein against the oppressor nation in practice as well as in words is spelled out unmistakeably.

And stress is laid on the necessity for independent revolutionary parties to implement such policies and spell out the necessity for "the soviet order".

In relation to the struggle in semi-feudal, economically backward states, the Comintern Theses urge special attention to a number of points, including:

"b) An uncompromising struggle must be carried out against the reactionary and medieval influence of the clergy, the Christian missions and similar elements.

00.1 Iraqi armed forces c) A struggle is necessary against Panislamism, the Panasiatic movement, and similar currents which try to tie the liberation struggle against European and American imperialism to the strengthening of the power of Turkish and Japanese imperialism, the nobility, the big landlords, the clergy, etc. (...)

e) A determined fight is necessary against the attempt to put a communist cloak around revolutionary liberation movements that are not really communist in the backward countries. The Communist International has the duty to support the revolutionary movement in the colonies only for the purpose of gathering the components of the future proletarian parties-communist in fact and not just in name-in all the backward countries and training them to be conscious of their special tasks, the special tasks that is to say, of fighting against the bourgeois-democratic tendencies within their own nation. The Communist International should accompany the revolutionary movement in the colonies and the backward countries for part of the way, should. even make an alliance with it; may not, however, fuse with it, but must unconditionally maintain the independent character of the proletarian movement, be it only in embryo.

[emphasis added] Yet despite the fact that these quotes come from the WRP's New Park edition of the proceedings of the Comintern's Second Congress, the Healy leadership of that party departs as far from these Leninist principles as any Stalinist or centrist.

Fawning

So naked is the hypocrisy involved in publishing orthodox positions on the one hand while fawning on petty bourgeois nationalist leaders on the other that it is hard, if not impossible to imagine that there is any political confusion involved in the WRP's position.

Rather the Healy leadership has consciously turned its back not only on the history of the Communist While new recruits to the WRP in recent years may well have believed that the road to revolution led through Yassir Arafat and Baghdad, anyone with five year's membership of the WRP and any political memory at all must realise that its current positions are the complete opposite of those argued as late as 1974.

Grave-diggers

For instance: on October 11 1974, Newsline's forerunner Workers Press, examining a series of diplomatic manoeuvres by PLO leaders, put forward the view that:

"Arafat and his co-thinkers are clearly casting themselves in the role of the grave diggers of the PalesPLO supporters march in occupied tinian revolution"

Yet nów we see again and again in Newsline the same Arafat being given uncitical acclean the sole PLO described as legitimate representative of the Palestinian people."

So far so bad. Perhaps it could be argued in this instance that the WRP was being simply indiscriminate in its support for this important national liberation struggle and confusing this with political support for the Arafat leadership.

Blind alley

Such lack of criticism might lead up a political blind alley but still remained on the right side of the divide between the oppressed and the oppressors.

The Workers Socialist League of course stands with the PLO in its fight against Zionism and imperialism.

Yet we stress that the petty bourgeois limitations of the Arafat leadership. hold back the necessary mobilisation of the Arab workers and peasants indeendent of their bourgeois leaders which alone can lay the basis for permanent revolutión in the Middle East.

In the case of Iraq, however, the WRP's desertion of Leninism is far more serious. It has led to an unprincipled bloc with a viciousiy anti-communist regime.

Cross class lines

By supporting the bloodstained Ba'athist rulers, the WRP actually crosses class lines to support the oppressor against the sion of this was Newsline editor Alex Mitchell's scandalous letter to the Guardian defending the Ba'athist butchers.

But one scathing attack on the Baghdad regime Mitchell did not answer or in any way refer to however is the following:

"A new regime, with General Ahmed Hassan al. Bakr as premier was installed and immediately began a bloody purge of the Communists. At least 8,000 Communists were massacred by the Ba'athists with whom they had previously been in common front. Al Bakr issued a declaration that all Communist sympa thisers and atheists were to be shot on the spot." -Where does this attack come from? Is it a scurrilou: piece from the pages of the Guardian or the Telegraph?

No, it comes fron Workers Press of June 12 1974!

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