Letting the Tory hounds off the leash

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A bored Keith Joseph Business as usual-Prentice A "Young" Conservative attacks the Campaign Against Youth Unemployment Isn't it wonderful?

This was how one delegate aptly summed up the content of the monotonous 'debates' that have filled the four days of the Tory Party conference'debates' in which the only question raised was whether the Thatcher government's reactionary course was sufficiently right wing.

The Tory Party's idea of "democracy" at its conferences must certainly have Callaghan flushing green with envy.

Nobody even pretends that the policies adopted will in the slightest way alter the policy of the Tory leadership.

There is not even the pretence of seeking to discuss the vast majority of the resolutions tabled.

Token vote

And after every ministerial winding-up speech, no matter how many may have spoken against the selected motion there is scarcely ever more than a token one vote against.

Tory Central Office is unable to recall an instance when the platform has been voted down.

But since they are all-or nearly all-capitalists, there isn't much for them to disagree about!

Why, since all appare ntly agree completely with the leadership, do the Tories ba ther to hold annual conferences?

Publicity value

Of course there is the publicity value-a renewed and intensified barrage of press propaganda for their vicious witch-hunting of the trade union movement and for the reactionary measures the Tories are preparing to implement.

But there are also other reasons. Again and again it becomes clear, for instance, that substantial numbers of the 'lords, ladies and gentlemen' on the floor of the conference are far to the right of the Party leadership, howling for the most draconian I measures against the working class; against immigrants and youth.

Like a pack of hunting dogs, these slavering beasts must be let off the leash every so often, and given the run of the Blackpool Winter Gardens to sound off their various forms of pent-up class hatred.

Nauseating.

A handful of nauseating upper middle class Tory school youth must also practice each year the rhetorical skills needed to become nauseating Tory students-and seek to give the impression that the Party cares about youth.

Ageing ex-military men and assorted reactionaries from farflung county seats seek in turn to pass on their Victorian worldview to up-and-coming young reactionaries.

The conference also allows millionaires and experienced spokesmen for big business to point the way and offer a glimmer of hope to crisis-ridden small-time company directors.

Privileged

A whole coterie of privileged and extremely rich people-few of whom have ever worked in their lives-can posture for a period as "the party of the people", and the "caring party" before closing still more hospitals, old people's homes, Deposed schools and social services.

And a handful of beleagured Tory trade unionists, (trying to persuade themselves that some of those workers conned by Saatchi and Saatchi into voting Tory actually now. support Thatcher's policies of mass sackings, cuts and speed-up) get the chance to hobnob with employers who observe their efforts with the detached, morbid curiosity of a circus audience watching a nervous, outnumbered lion tamer.

And of course in the collective hysteria that is generatedin which the most grovelling compliments receive wild applause; stilted, boring and time worn cliches are greeted as flights of oratory; and the most feeble jest gives rise to guffaws of rehearsed laughter-the Tory rank and file are able to convince themselves, for a day 'We're all capitalists aren't we?' or two at least, that they really are able to do what they want to the working class.

In their minds they picture themselves slashing without restraint at the overgrown welfare state; riding in triumph through broken picket lines; stamping angrily on the windpipes of Arthur . Scargill and Tony Benn; screwing endless increases in productivity at no extra cost from a workforce convinced into submission by Sir Geoffrey Howe's economic arguments; and eagerly hanging, shooting and flogging a vast army of scroungers, vandals and yobbos, along with the workshy, the militants and the terrorists land a good proportion of the blacks as well).

These dreams and fantasies reach culmination in Thatcher's Friday speech.

With a united, well-heeled, well-oiled, over-nourished yelp of delight they greet their triumphant leader-and declare their thanks for the tax cuts that have benefitted every parasite in the hall.

But then will come the bitter come-down of seeking to implement the Thatcher package in the real world, where workers resist, where ITV is still off the air, and, where the Engineering Employers Federation-the toughest and most ruthless of employers' bodies-has just been defeated by 2 million workers.

Then, for all the ritualistic abuse wheeled out this week against the Labour and TUC leadership, the Thatcher cabinet will find themselves in reality increasingly dependent on these self-same Labour leaders' ability to hold back the anger and militancy of their members.

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SUCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17 October 1979 the slightest ambiguously on Page 9-leaving governments should reject leadership.

self-criticism- it completely open for inter- participating in any invasion of eir discredited pretation as to whether or not • Eritrean territory or any continues to regard Cuba as an ring: Cuba is acting in liaison with attempt by the Derg to re- undeformed workers" state and nstituted one of the Soviet bureaucracy.

"The Cubans, recognising Eritrea. Withdraw the Ethiopian tionary' , forces are emerging if the CIA and paralysis, sent material aid with Cuban recognition of the within the USFl as a whole iking military Moscow's acceptance, including right of the Eritreans to decide which challenge this view, and ed by the racist thousands of troops to Angola, their own fate would strengthen regard both the Cuban state and th Africa" [this Ethiopia and other countries in the defence of the Cuban the Castro leadership as bureauworkers' state against imperial- cratised, or seeking a half way Ford and subsequently ism. To follow an opposite house in which to hide outeaving out the Carter threatened reprisals, course would lead to negative brand it elusively as "centrist" 'their "invasion" which they are prepared to results [!], injuring not only the -as does the IMG's Alan Jones. se efforts were carry out. However, Havana Cuban revolution [!) but also by the MPLA accepted the risk, winning the the important revolutionary position around which most [!] anti- gains made in Ethiopia itself." iban troops. The imperialist fighters in Africa. (Our emphasis) the XI Congress documents Washington's standing of revolutionary Cuba South African America among the insurgent of Moreno's Covering up policy. problems facing the Cuban Эn. role in Angola, in Mozambique Note the deliberate use of and in the war in Zimbabwe; gainst the SWP's the term "revolutionary Cuba": and their offer of an agreement Schema lupled them with we should note also that Cuba to Carter to hold back rebel rective of their does not appear in the docu- forces seeking to cross from ches new heights ment's long, rambling section on Angola to Laire all fit perfect- doing so, the document spells ly and consciously into the out beyond doubt the schema And we should note as well Kremlin's strategy. t conceive the that IP/Inprecor and the SWPBlack mobilisa- taining this uncritical stance has imperialism, coupled with the dution on the also been shamelessly covering, winning where possible of selec- to act toward the Cuban leaderP limits itself to being waged by the Ethiopian Africa to compensate for its advances in the class struggle, lack people of its dictatorship of Mengistu against weakness in losing total control especially in Latin America, and ck world revolu- are reflected in this diplomaticinguard was the ally worded World Document.

Almost certainly the USFI major components can evolve opportunistic emphasises the "left" domestic majority would disagree with towards Leninist policies and the IMT and of policies of the Ethiopian Derg, such an assessment of Stalinist norms of workers' democracy?" raise the inter- and is at pains to minimise the strategy in Africa. permanent pro- Derg's vicious hostility to any importance of these questions is inadequate: the USFI should stion" organisation of the Ethiopian both from the standpoint of be asked whether such a tailtheory and for practical pur- endist perspective should ever poses in assessing every day have been adopted by a move... revolutionary Marxist diplomatic-military comings and ment regarding itself as a of a world- forces everywhere in the world goings-particularly revolution" is i combine their defence of the Zimbabwe-there is no attempt African revolution with strong in the World Document to suddenly move to concede from a tendency support for the right of inde- present an analysis.

itself as a pendence for the Eritrean leadership is now also divided actions of the Castroites are, of The Cuban and Soviet over the nature of the Cuban course, not new.

PIE:

The last two articles have examined the significant silence of the USFI documents and their actual positions on the massive revolutionary upsurge in It might be thought that such an omission would be a big enough scar on a series of documents supposedly pointing the way forward for the USFI's militants.

But a closer examination shows other major holes in the USFI's analysis.

What about Vietnam and Kampuchea? The contradictory outcome to this war, and the nature of the Stalinist leadership is "analysed"-if you can use the word in this contextin four inches on page 9 of the World document:

'The Sino Soviet conflict, in which Moscow and Peking jockeyed for position, and the restlessness of the rank and file in many Communist parties, who were affected by the prestige of the Indochinese, made it impossible for the Stalinists to block the revolutionary victory of the Vietnamese masses. With the elimination of capitalism [!] and the fusion of the two halves of Vietnam, a single deformed workers' state has been established there"

Thus the USFI offers the members not one word about Cambodia-even for discussions sake!

Counter-revolutionary And the glib, generalised statement of the defeat of imperialism and "the elimination of capitalism" turns resolutely away from any serious analysis of the social processes involved- processes which echo similar overturns under Stalinist leadership in Yugoslavia and China in the post-war period and which in nur view clearlv remonetrate VUI the essential counterrevolutionary role of the Hanoi Despite the formality of referring to Vietnam as a "deformed workers' state" there is no call in the World Document for a political revolution in Vietnam, or the building of a Trotskyist 1 party. Nor do the majority offer any real clue as to what is 'deformed' about it, And this embarassed evasion on Cambodia is a reflection of the major division that has now ... ..... •..rameui erupted within the USFI.

The Mandelites now argue that Pol Pot's Kampuchea prior to the Vietnamese invasion was a deformed workers' state, and call for the withdrawal of the Vietnamese invaders.

The SWP's supporters on the other hand describe the Pol Pot regime as "state capitalist" , and fully endorse the Vietnamese invasion as "a step forward for the Indochinese revolution"!

A similar embarassed evasion marks the World Document's references to the struggle. in Angola in 1976 by the MPLA against the CIA-South African backed UNITA/FLA forces.

At the time, of course the US Socialist Workers Party refused to take sides, branding it as a tribal war.

No-one could win the war, the SWP declared, and if the MPLA were to win then this could lead to genocidal extermination of much of the Angolan population.

Pogroms

Tony Thomas's report on the issue, approved by the SWP VC, deciared that:

"I do not think that any of these groups can 'win' the war... If one of them does gain a decisive victory over the others... the real winner would be imperialism"

"We have to anticipate that the victory of either side in this war may mean pogroms, with victims running into tens of thousands. Already leaders of the MPLA. have talked about turning the Bakongo areas held by the FNLA into 'another Biafra' . In Africa the word 'Biafra' is synonymous with the civil war in Nigeria and the immense slaughter that occurred over the so-called tribal issue. A similar perspective is involved in Angola"

The SWP never, until after the event declared its support for the MPLA's military struggle against the South. African-CIA backed mercenary forcethough it did, off-handedly, condemn the UNITA and FNLA forces for collaborating with the South Africans.

Uncritical • The Mandelites on the other hand lurched towards uncritical support for the MPLA.

Now however, the real positions of both sides are covered up in the World Document by a refusal to analyse. the issues involved the war. a war which so dr. amatically tippped the balance of forces for the Zimbabwe liberation struggle and found an echo also inthe Soweto events.

The Angolan war receives a mere one column inch in the World Perspectives Documentin which the SWP prudently -but without the slightest analvcic nr colf-criticiemMILI Y JIO VI ~I P abandon their discredited positions, declaring:

"Angola constituted one of the main battlefields. battlefields. Washington sought to intervene ight to intervene Washington's through use of the CIA and through backing military invasion mounted by the racist regime in South Africa" [this inflates the analysis of the analysis of the Africa. power of the South African South African regime, by leaving out the proxy nature of their "invasion" attempt] "These efforts were beaten back by the MPLA government in Angola with the Angola with the gratitude assistance of Cuban troops. The aid of the Cubans was decisive ans was decisive in defeating Washington's imperialist scheme and in heme and in and driving the South African invaders out of the country"

But while this is an open this is an open evasion and a totally inadequate stally inadequate emphasis/ the position of Moreno's analvsis. it is worth lookina at vorth looking at Bolshevik Faction.

They have made some made some correct points against the SWP's position, but coupled them with d. vicare perspective ur tren o hizarro normantiva nf thair own which reaches new heights of vagueness and absurdity: J absurdity:

"Gravest of all is that the : all is that the CWD dnae nnt ronroino tha does HUL LUTINGIVE UIC struggle of the Angolan MPLA Angolan MPLA as part of the Black mobilisation and revolution on the whole planet,, including the Black people the United the United States. The SWP limits itself to including the Black people of its own country within an appeal to the American people, and not • people, and not as part of a Black world revolution, whose vanguard was the MPLA ... Against the national, inst the national, trihal annandiniatin Zanu conception of the IMT and of the LTF, we raise the internationalist and permanent programme of the Black Afro- re Black Afro- and American revolution"

For the Morenists, carried orenists, carried masses. away with the Angolan struggle, Angolan struggle, class analysis is abandoned-and abandoned-and the novel idea of a worldwide "black revolution" is substituted.

This comes from a tendency that regards itself as tendency more orthodox than orthodox than people. ever" PART FOUR But the new majority's evasion on Angola is coupled with their complete evasion and cover-up on the role of Cuba in Africa-and the strategic aims of the Kremlin, towards which the Cuban army is being used as a convenient lever.

The World Document describes the Cuban role ambiguously on Page 9-leaving it completely open for interpretation as to whether or not Cuba is acting in liaison with the Soviet bureaucracy.

"The Cubans, recognising Washington's temporary temporary troops! paralysis, sent material aid with Moscow's acceptance, including thousands of troops to Angola, Ethiopia and other countries in Africa.

Ford and subsequently Carter threatened reprisals, which they are prepared to carry out. However, Havana accepted the risk, winning the gratitude of most [!] anti-imperialist fighters in Africa.

The contrast between the The contrast between the standing of revolutionary Cuba and counterrevolutionary counterrevolutionary America among the insurgent peoples of Africa could hardly be more dramatic" . Our more emphasis, Covering up Note the deliberate use of the term "revolutionary Cuba" we should note also that Cuba Anoe not annear in the Anril. nut aputat HE LIIG WULUment's long, rambling section on political revolution. political revolution.

And we should note as well that IP/Innrecor and the SWPinfluenced press, while main- influenced press, while maintaining this uncritical stance has also been shamelessly covering up for the Cuban role in up for the Cuban role in supporting the genocidal war being waged by the Ethiopian dictatorship of Mengistu against vithin an appeal the Eritrean people. the Eritrean people.

Aspects only of this cover-up Aspects only of this cover-up are reflected in this diplomatically worded World Document.

It singles out and strongly It singles out and strongly Chiselasiste ICIE VUILICOLI amnhacicac the "'loft" Anmactir policies of the Ethiopian Derg, and is at pains to minimise the Derg's vicious hostility to any and every form of political organisation of the Ethiopian masses.

It goes on to say: It goes on to say:

... revolutionary Marxist forces everywhere in the world combine their defence of the African revolution with strong support for the right of independence for the Eritrean people.

The Cuban and Soviet The United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) is undoubtedly the largest and most widely known of the currents that have emerged from the postwar, crisis of the Trotskyist movement.

With thousands of members and sections or sympathising sections in dozens of countries, it is viewed by many militants as "the" Trotskyist Fourth The • Workers Socialist League does not share this view.

We see the USFI as a movement that has departed on numerous key questions from the positions and method put forward in the Transitional Pro.

gramme on which the Fourth International was founded in 1938. establish Ethiopian rule Reactionary role This is in our view a brazen the Castroites as willing and We believe that the Cuban This is to seek overall a based: peacefu! coexistence with military pressure points of the mass European CPs.

No analysis Yet despite the intrinsic This is because the USFI We know, of course, that the two other main groupings that lay claim to the title of "Fourth International" are both now substantially smaller than the USFI.

Both of them-the Healyite "International Committee' (run by the British WRP) and the "Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International". (run by the French OCI)-certainly hold political positions as bad or far worse than the USFI on many questions and are themselves {like the USFI) wracked by internal crisis.

Disorientation

But the bankruptcy of their rivals is in our view no argument for recognising in the USFI the exclusive continuity of the Trotskyist movement, Eritrean liberation figh While the SWP leadership While the SWP leadership continues to regard Cuba as an undeformed workers' state and the Castro leadership as 'revolu- the Castro leadership as 'revolutionary' , forces are emerging both within the SWP itself and both within the SWP itself and within the USFl as a whole which challenge this view, and regard both the Cuban state and the Castro leadership as bureaucratised, or seeking a half way house in which to hide outbrand it elusively as "centrist" -as does the IMG's Alan Jones.

Sooner than take a clear Sooner than take a clear position around which a thorough debate can take place, thorough debate can take place, the XI Congress documents fudge the issue, presenting a fudge the issue, presenting a confusing and utterly inade- confusing and utterly inadequate stand. quate stand.

Of course it is true that in Of course it is true that in' the Latin American document the USFI does now at last concede that "a further evaluation of the achievement and of the achievement and problems facing the Cuban revolution is in order." revolution is in order.

It is worth noting that in doing so, the document spells out beyond doubt the schema on which the USFI's attitude to on which the USFI's attitude to the Castro leadership has been the Castro leadership has been based:

"Should the USFI continue "Should the USFI continue to act toward the Cuban leadership on the basis that, under the ship on the basis that, under the impact of revolutionary advances in the class struggle, especially in Latin America, and under the influence of a growing under the influence of a growing Fourth International [!] differ- Fourth International [!] differentiations will take place INB, entiations will take place [NB in the Cuban leadership] and in the Cuban leadership| and major components can evolve truarrle leninict nolirioc and a calls and norms of workers' democracy?"

(Our emphasis) (Our emphasis)

The question itself of course The question itself of course is inadequate: the USFI should be asked whether such a tailendist perspective should ever have been adopted by a movement regarding itself as in Trotskyist!

But why does the USFI now But why does the USFI now suddenly move to concede a discussion on Cuba? discussion on Cuba?

The counterrevolutionary The counterrevolutionary actions of the Castroites are, of course, not new.

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• SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 17 October 1979 whose post-war period has been characterised by profound political disorientation and a continuing series of incomplete and opportunist splits and fusions.

The forthcoming XIth World Congress of the USFI is however an important event. It offers Marxists the opportunity of assessing in more detail the stage of development of the political crisis which has characterised the USFI's existence since its formation in 1963.

At its Tenth World Congress in 1974 the main factions were the Leninist Trotskyist Faction, politically supporting the formally "orthodox"" , opportunist positions of the US Socialist Workers Party, and the International Majority Tendency, clinging on to the ultra-leftist and guerrillaist schemas of the USFI's European Secretariat.

but ine untenabie positons taken by both the LTF and the IMT during the Portuguese events of 1974-6 and the Angolan war led to a sharp realignment of forces which now shapes the coming Xith World The bulk of the USFI's Latin American member sections and sympathising sections broke with the line of the SWP and the LTF and, led by Nahuel Moreno's Argentinian PST; formed the Bolshevik Tendency'.

The growing challenge from those forces, combined with the complete collapse in the credibility of the IMT's guerrillaist perspectives of 1969 and 1974, pressured both the European and SWP leaders into a hasty dissolution of factions and the formation of a new, "united" leadership prior to the XIth Promor It was this now majority leadership that drafted d.= five main documents tabled for ine Congress. But their manifest failure to reconcile past political disagreements is demonstrated by the pattern of conspicuous diplomatic omissions and evasions in the documents.

The Bolshevik Tendency has in the meantime declared itself a Faction dedicated to the removal of what it calls a "Castroist current' and an 'unprincipled bloc" at the head of the USFI and the restoration of "orthodox" Trotskyism.

A much lesser threat is seen in the statements produced ded with forces in a number of lenA sections, pledged to "correct the errors" of the existing USFI The article below, part four of a series examining the position of the USFI in the run-up to its Xith Congress, is a critique of the five main texts presented to the Congress by the new majority leadership.

These deal with:

*The World Political Situation.

*European Perspectives.

*Perspectives for Latin America.

*The fight against women's oppression.

* Socialist Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat' Soweto events-the USFI draw European sections of the USFI.

It is therefore behind the formal orthodoxy and the notable silences that we need to look for the real, practical face of the USFI.

The position is no better on South Africa. Much of the press of the USFI at the time was packed with articles on the huge no lessons Finally we should just look at the situation in Turkey where, at the time of writing, cevit's supposedly 'democratic' RPP government was clinging to office by the skin of its teeth and by severe martial law repression of the workers movement (including repression of the USFI section's paper) in the

----- pull-quotes -----

"After all, we're alists, aren't we?"

peoples of Africa could hardly cover-up for the scandalously . the Latin American document the country" be dramatic". (Our reactionary role being played by the USFI does now at last con- servile tools of Kremlin foreign cede that "a further evaluation

by a new, 'Leninist Trotskyist Tendency' which has also emer-