USFI perplexed by wars between workers' state

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This is the fifth of a series of articles about the major Steve Clark, "Imperialism vs, Workers of the World" political and theoretical crisis in the 'United' Secretariat of Militant March 23 1979, also reprinted in Intercontinental the Fourth International exposed by the recent wars in South East Asia. The main sources which have been ref- Ernest Mandel, "Behind Differences on Military Conflicts in erred to in the articles are the following: Southeast Asia" Intercontinental Press/ Inprecor, April 9 Fred Feldman. "Behind Fall of Pol Pot Regime"; " Mililant Jan. 19 1919, reprinted in Intercontinental Press/ Alice Waters, "War and Revolution in Indochina- What Steve Clark, Fred Feldman, Gus Horowitz and MaryFred Feldman. "Socialist Revolution in Vietnam", Policy for Revolutionists?". Intercontinental Press/Inprecor national Socialist Review, April 1979, reprinted in continental Press/Inprecor, April 9, 1979:

Inprecor, Jan. 22 1979.

The American SWP's view of the world, to emerge in the recent articles on Indochina, is roughly as follows: the world is a struggle between imperialism on the one hand and the oppressed and exploited masses on the other.

There are the only two material interests involved. So in this two-sided war all participants-whatever their subjective position or intentions-must be on one side or the other.

This gross oversimplification emerges most clearly when it comes to dealing with the Stalinist It admits only two possible positions on the Stalinist bureaucracy: an ultra-leftist one (the bureaucracy is simply part of imperialism), or an adaptationist one (the bureaucracy is, despite itself, on • the side of the masses).

Dissolved

Within the SWP's scheme of the world the Stalinist bureaucracy as a counter-revolutionary material force of immense strength, independent of, though in collaboration with, imperialism simply dissolves.

This schema is developed more concretely in the article by four leading SWP members Clark, Feldman, Horowitz and Waters (henceforward retInterIntererred to collectively as CFHW) - (Intercontinental Press/Inprecor July 16, 79)

According to CFHW, there are six 'facts' of the world situation which their approach alone is able to explain. We will comment briefly on each in turn (ICP, July 16, 1979 p. 710).

First "the imperialists were hostile to the 1975-78 developments in Vietnam". But they do not mention the fact that the imperialists were also hostile to events in Kampuchea.

Omission

This 'omission links to the second point that "the imperialists were able to carry out a rapprochement with Pol Pot". The impression is falsely created by CFHW that such a rapprochement (which was extremely limited in its extent) was a feature of the whole of the Pol Pot regime whereas in fact it was partly the result of a sudden desperate switch of line by Pol Pot in 1978.

In any case, if CFHW hope to suggest (as it appears they do) that any rapprochement of bureaucracy with imperialism proves that their state is capitalist then they will have to explain the meaning of the rapprochements which every Stalinist bureaucracy has made time and time again with imperialism.

Third, CFHW say "the imperialists backed Peking's invasion of Vietnam". That is, to say the least, a sleight Press/ Inprecor, April 9, 1979;

1979;

July 16 1979.

Chinese soldiers waiting of hand. The imperialists in fact publicly opposed Peking's invasion.

Of course, it is right to say that they did not oppose it very vehemently, less than they opposed the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea.

It is plausible that in his visit to Washington_just before the invasion Deng Xiaoping assured himself that there would be no serious US objection to his proposed invasion.

And it is true that in the middle of the invasion the US imperialists signed new, more far reaching, economic agreements with the Beijing (Peking)

But all of this falls far short of CFHW's bald assertion that "the imperialists supported Peking."

Welcomed

The last three points made by CFHW are related. They say that "the workers and peasants of Kampuchea welcomed the Vietnamese action in toppling Pol Pot" that the workers and peasants of Vietnam" rallied to the defence of their state in the above conflicts" and that "there was disenchantment and ...signs of opposition in China to the invasion of Vietnam". (Ibid p. 710).

Only on the third of these points is there any evidence to back up CFHW's contention: The other two conform to their wishes-and the propaganda put out by theHanoi bureaucracy and its puppet to be sent to fight in Vietnam the Heng Samrin regime in Kampuchea.

So we see that of the six 'facts' about the world which only CFHW are supposedly able to explain, five are either wishful thinking without evidence, with very selective evidence.

So it is fraudulent to say that there are six "facts" to be explained. Because the "facts" are carefully doctored in advance so that only the the theory advocated by the SWP's leaders can seem to provide an explanation.

Dishonest

Beneath such dishonest methods and the specific failures of the SWP's argument runs a current of thought which is much more serious and amounts at best to a severe underHeng Samrin estimation worst to a and at complete of the denial objective counterrevolutionary nature of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

The programme of the Fourth International, the programme for which Trotskyists continue to struggle against the two world forces of counterrevolution- imperialism and Stalinism-is based on the idea that the crisis of humanity expresses itself in a crisis of working class leadership on a world scale.

This is another way of saying that there exists a formidable material force which stands as an obstacle to the revolutionary overthrowing of the rotten ripe capitalist system by the working class. That obstacle is the Stalinist bureaucracy.

Parasitic

The bureaucracy derives its material strength from living parasitically on the blood of the working class and its organisations. The centre of that parasitic power is in the states where capitalism has been abolished and which are ruled by the Stalinist bureaucracy. which denies the workers all political independence.

The bureaucracy holds back the struggle against imperialism as a whole by making compromises with it.

This collaboration with the class enemy is necessary for the Stalinist bureaucracy because its political and material privileges are inimical to workers democracy just as they parasitically depend on workers organisations.

The survival of the bureaucracy as a privileged caste, therefore, depends on its ability successfully to balance between imperialism and the working class. That means that when the bureaucracy has initiated progressive measures, such as the expropriation of capitalist property in the deformed workers states, it has done SO in the context of an overall policy which is profoundly counterSo for instance social overturns were carried out by Stalin in Eastern Europe at the end of World War Two. But they were part of the same settlement with imperialism which included the betrayal by Stalin of the revolutionary possibilities in France, Italy, Greece, the restoration of imperialist rule in Algeria and Vietnam and so on.

Gains reversed

The role of the Stalinist bureaucracy has been to reverse historical gains which have been made by the working class, and so to prolong the rule of an exploitative system in its death agony.

It is only by understanding the nature of the enormous counterrevolutionary force represented by the Stalinist bureaucracy that it will be possible to defeat it.

The tradition of Trotskyism has insisted that the bureaucracy cannot be understood and defeated either by regarding it as a force which will always move in a revolutionary direction under sufficient pressure from the masses, or by regarding it as simply a part of imperialism with no relation to the working class.

Its balancing role explains its weaknesses and the reason why it cannot be considered permanent. But its balancing role between the workers movement and imperialism is also its strength as a counterrevolutionary force, which has been capable of existing and growing in power for a period of over half a century.

The actions of the bureaucracy and the contradictions between different sections of it must be understood by revolutionaries as one of the major forces influencing the struggle between the oppressing and oppressed classes on a world scale. Khmer Rouge soldiers captur It is quite correct to say that the current weakness of imperialism makes physical interventions around the world more difficult to undertake and so means that it attempts more and more to intervene by exploiting inter-bureaucratic conflicts.

But that in no way is equivalent to saying that the bureaucracies in alliance with imperialism cease to be Stalinist bureaucracies and become in effect part of imperialism, which is what CFHW and the SWP in its resolution in effect say happened to the Chinese and Kampuchean bureaucracies in relation to the Indochinese wars.

Nor does it mean that a bureaucracy which is forced

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esday 5 September 1979 SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday S September 1979 Page 7 Cambodian refurees flee from Vietnamese invaders into neighbouring Thailand By Henry He Phi Phillips to resist the pressures of imperialism thereby becomes, in spite of itself, nart of the movement of the puie vt liv LUVALL VAIL oppressed classes, which is what the SWP in effect say happened to the Vietnamese So CFHW characterise the war as one "with the Kampuchean masses and the Vietnamese workers' state on one side; and the Pol Pot gang, Bangkok, Washington and Peking on the other" (ICP, July 16 1979, p.728). But, what about the Pham Van Dong gang?

Blemish

To CFHW that was just a slightly unfortunate blemish on the scene which does no more than illustrate that wishes and reality do not always exactly correspond.

• "Certainly," they say, "it would have been better if the opposition to the Pol Pot regime inside Kampuchea had been better organised. Certainly would have been better if the Kampuchean masses had had a revolutionary leadership capable of doing the job themselves.

"And certainly it would have been better if Hanoi had been guided by a revolry Vietnamese forces utionary Marxist rather than a Stalinist leadership." (ICP, July 16, 1979, p.710 bur emphasis).

The implication of this astounding passage is that the difference between Stalinist and revolutionary Marxist leadership is merely one of quantity. Stalinist leadership can be good; revolutionary Marxist leadership would be better.

But the SWP leaders abandon the Trotskyist lesson of the massive counter-revolutionary obstacle created by the Stalinist bureaucracy by denying to it any independent role, by making it into an insubstantial feather which simply noves according to the play if the wind of class struggle.

In discussing the origins of the Indochinese wars, therefore, they say that:

'The castes were not acting as independent historical agents. They were responding to pressures and initiatiyes from the two major contending - class forces-the imperialists and the world working class." (ICP, July 16 1979, p.713).

• What is the main pressure to which the bureaucracy responds? According to CFHW, it is the working class in the workers states:

«The most important obstacle to the castes is the working class of their own countries. However silenced and politically atomised, the workers are still the ruling class in the workers' states "Stalinist rule is rigid but also fragile. Thus, castes must always weigh the risk of open political opposition from their own working class if they take military action against the international interests of the working class...

"The working class in the workers states is a formidable check on the ability of the castes to simply act as they like in the world arena." (ICP, July 16 1979, p.714).

We do not wish to say the rule of the bureaucracy in the Stalinist states is permanent or invincible. Nor to deny the ever-present and growing danger to bureaucratic rule of the hostility of the working class.

But we consider that the emphasis on the relationship between the working class and the Stalinist bureaucracy placed by the SWP leaders in this passage amounts to an abandonment of the Trotskyist position on the nature and counter-revolutionary power of Stalinism.

If the bureaucracy responds so much to its fear of the working class then how do the SWP leaders explain that after more than 50 years of Stalinist rule in the Soviet Union the working class remains in their words "silenced and politically atomised"?

This denial of the political power of the Stalinist bureaucracy goes hand in hand with tic optimism about the certainty of victory for the working class.

They are silent on the major condition for this victory: to take place-the construction of a revolutionary Marxist leadership.

In relation to wars between workers states CFHW sum up their position in these words:

«The bureaucratic castes are not the major actors on the world stage. The decisive historical force for humanity's future is the working class.

"The workers can and will (our emphasis) prevent the bureaucratic castes from making war as they would like, just as they must eventually wipe capitalism from the face of the earth.

"Yes, the rise of world revolution will cause the bureaucratic castes to try to lash out; but wars between workers states will become less likely with each new victory in the class struggle on a world scale, because the working class, which is the ruling class in the workers states, will become stronger." (ICP, July 16 1979, emphasis in original except where noted).

CFHW are saying here not only that the working class is becoming stronger, but that its victory is guaranteed unconditionally by some kind of historical predestination and in no way depends on the conscious intervention of revolutionary leadership.

It is some "natural" and inexorable process of "the rise of world revolution" and not the intervention of revolutionaries which will guarantee victory.

This relates to the SWP's (as well as the USFI majority's) implicit view of "permanent revolution" as a process which "unfolds" rather than as the political theoretical basis of a conscious revolutionary strategy, which we discussed in the previous article in this series. (See Socialist Press, August 29 1979).

The whole position is an abandonment of Marx's position that "Men make their own history"; of Lenin's lifelong struggle for the revolutionary party; of Trotsky's emphasis on the political counter-revolution represented by Stalinism and the need to combat and destroy the parasitic bureaucracy.

CFHW say that the workers will win, with no conditions. Defeat is ruled out.

Moreover, they imply that the workers will win through the construction of deformed workers states because in those states the working class "is the ruling class"

But what does it mean to say "the working class is the ruling class" in the deformed. and degenerated workers states?

It is a "ruling class" which exercises none of the functions exercised by ruling classes in history.

This "ruling class" has fewer political rights than does the working class in many capitalist countries where it is not the ruling class.

CFHW do not explain this contradiction; they scarcely consider it worth mentioning. Their position here is a more global version of their view of the social overturn in Vietnam (critically analysed in the fourth of these articles in Socialist Press, August 29 1979)that the creation of a deformed workers state is an unambiguously progressive development.

That despite its intentions the Stalinist bureaucracy must play a historically progressive role and its rule is in effect a stage on the road to full socialist Centuries , Once again it is a position which echoes that of Michel Pablo in 1952 when he foresaw the development of "centuries of deformed workers states"

For the SWP leaders today, as for Pablo in 1952, that would not be the best possible world (revolutionary leadership would be better) but it represents, nonetheless, an unambiguous step forward.

The direction of the SWP leaders' analysis, theretore, is towards the liquidation of the Trotskyist programme of unremitting struggle for the independence of the working class against the Stalinist bureaucracy.

We must now examine the answers which are being presented by both sides in the USFI dispute to the questions which are the newest and in some ways most challenging and urgent of all those raised by the events in South East Asia:

Why have wars taken place between workers states, what are the consequences of those wars and will they extend?

If so, are they a threat to the property relations which have been established in the countries we know as deformed workers states?

In the case of Vietnam and Kampuchea, the SWP avoids the need to answer the first of these questions.

Its resolution and the articles by its leading members assert, falsely, as we have argued, that Kampuchea was not a workers' state and so what has to be explained at least in the case of the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea is not war between workers' states but a war between a workers' _state and a capitalist state.

Spearhead

They go on to argue that the capitalist state in question was being used as a spearhead of attack against workers' property by the imperialists and the carrying out of war by Hanoi was an act of self-defence by the Vietnamese against imperialist attack.

This argument has, for the SWP, the added virtue that it can be presented within the framework of what they argue is the orthodox Marxist analysis of the nature of deformed workers' states, that they are not expansionist and will go to war only to defend the property relations established against imperialist assault on them.

And, therefore, that the only source of war in the world remains imperialismin particular inter-imperialist rivalries and imperialism's desire to restore capitalism in the workers' states.

The SWP's argument must be disputed on many scores.

In the first place, we have already disputed the analysis that Kampuchea was a capitalist state as well as the extent to which it can be placed in the imperialist camp.

Second, we have •-=0 we +.rO .... explained something which the SWP chooses to ignore completely-the way in which hostility between the Cambodian and Vietnamese bureaucracy had developed for many years prior to the defeat of US imperialism in 1975.

This was a rivalry for which the Vietnamese bureaucracy must bear a considerable amount of responsibility and which undoubtedly helped to contribute to the permanent state of tension and hostility between the two countries after 1975.

Denial of this element in the prelude to the war between Vietnam and Kampuchea is, of course, part of the SWP's whitewashing of the Vietnamese • To back up its argument that the Vietnamese invasion was a defence against imperialism it is also necessary for the SWP to deny • another theoretically possible reason for the invasion-a threat of political revolution in Kampuchea which might also pose a political threat to the Hanoi bureaucracy.

CFHW assure us that this had nothing to do with the invasion.

But they choose to keep us in ignorance of the reports coming from Kampuchea before the invasion of uprisings against the Pol Pot regime not from the right and of the purges which took place at the top of the KCP which might have indicated pressure against the Pol Pot leadership from sections of the rank and file and the masses.

It is impossible to say with any certainty that this was one • of the motives which affected the Hanoi But it is necessary to face the question honestly instead of covering it up as the SWP leaders do.

Continued next week Sihanouk in Irving

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July 15 saw the founding conference of the Workers Party, a new organisation formed by forces recently expelled from Gerry Healy's Workers Revolutionary Party.

The founders of the Workers Party had raised differences with Healy's opportunist and degenerate alliance with the Middle Eastern despotisms of Libya and Iraq, as well as the WRP's assessment of last winter's strike wave in Britain. As usual in the WRP such differences were met with bureauAlong with two political documents, the Workers Party has now published five issues of its Bulletin.

Number 5 was produced to coincide with the WL's summer school and contains articles attacking our This article is the first part of a reply to the points raised in that Bulletin and focusses on programme and practice; the second part will take up the Workers Party's views on organisational questions and on the Fourth International. LONDON )ER mEM DIVISION HAT Newham Health District ST. ANDREW'S HOSE

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