Since 1963: a 16-year Record of Failure

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Castro - preserving 'peaceful co-existence' with The impending split, and unmistakeable present day confusion and disorientation of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, come as neither a surprise nor as an accident.

They are the outcome of a process, in which the Usti leaders' consistent efforts to evade problems in the past for the sake of "unity" have now created even bigger and more insoluable problems in the present which threaten to blow. the United Secretariat asunder.

Today's wrong positions and embarassed silence are the result of yesterday's unanswered questions and a refusal to draw lessons from yesterday's experiences.

The current open and grovelling capitulation, by the American Socialist Workers Party to Castro's Cuban Stalinist bureaucracy began not this year or last year-but traces its roots back to the 1963 documents on wnich the United Secretariat was formed in the wake of the Cuban revolution.

Wrong positions

And the method of analysis and approach underlying the 1963 documents was the outof wrong theoretical =55: 3g :hat emerged from the = : - == Destrar Fourth *253 ss=s.

- 3 - 535* 30013 223-51 TOR Áx ine tota, contusion or this question within the USFI was indicated by the fact that while the SWP and its co-thinkers unhesitatingly| backed the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea as a 'step forward for the Indochinese revolution' the other USFI wing, around Mandel opposed the invasionraising the horrific prospect of rival Trotskyists' potentially fighting each other hand to hand in S.E. Asia.

Of course the USFI leaders seeking to excuse their confusion will argue that the situation in S.E. Asia is complex and contradictory. But it is precisely to analyse complex and contradictory situations : that the scientific method of Marxism is indispendible-and the impressionism . and formal schematism of the USFI proves itself totally unable to offer workers a clear way forward.

Defy analysis

Indochina, like Nicaragua, the Cuban revolution or the post war social overturns in Stalinist-ruled Eastern Europe defy analysis by the bourgeois method of "common sense"' and formal logic.

The 'facts' of such processes cannot be understood if they are detached from the overall movement of forces that has brought them about.

The USFI leaders however, scorn the dialectical method of Marxism.

The clearest statement of all on this came from Ernest Mandel at an IMG day school on the history of the Fourth Attempting to whip up backward merriment against the theory of structural assimilation, which insists that the progressive post-war steps of the expropriation of capitalist property Yugoslavia and suntries was cared su: 8:32-55-703 1:5-2 1250=. 3=2-2 TS 5 DE palem sto Of course in Is E been-from a formal standpoint "'absurd" -and contradictory.

But Marxists must start from the premise that reality is contradiction-a continuing process of conflict between opposing forces. It is impossible to develop Trotsky's analysis of pre-war Stalinism in relation to post war events without grasping this contradiction.

Trotsky himself pointed out that:"Dialectical thinkingMarxist, Bolshevik-takes phenomena in their objective development and at the same time finds in the internal contradictions of this development a basis for the realisation of its "norms"' And in analysing the probable social processes following the Soviet military occupation of Eastern Poland in 1939, Trotsky anticipated that:

"This measure, revolutionary character-"the expropriation the expropriators" - is in this with uncritical support from USFI. bureaucratic fashion".

But of course Mandel himself as an old pupil of Pablo and a defender of the continuity of positions from 1953 through 1963 cannot grasp this necessity for a dialectical analysis of these social overturns and the more recent examples of S.E. Asia. Without such an understanding the USFI can offer no perspective on which Trotskyist parties could be based to fight there for political revolution.

It is necessary for FS out a • correct label on the "accomplished fact" of the deformed workers states of Vietnam and Kanpuchea (though it is of course necessary to get the label right).

It is essential to comprehend the ways in which Stalinism has acted consistently in the post war period to stem and halt revolutionary struggles.

Rather than exchanging subjective polemics-each based on rival empirical theories-the task facing the various factions and fragments of the USFI is to work in a Marxist manner, historically through these major questions of the post war role of Stalinism The theoretical standpoint they have adopted-the impressionist and revisionist positions ot the • Third and subsequent World Congresses cannot provide Trotskyists with any coherent or principled analysis of Stalinism.

Rationalised

And attempts now to work superficially backwards through history from present problems in a search for belated past justification for pres nt day theories is most destructive; particularly when this is combined with splitting up social processes into individual fragments which can only be grasped as part of a whole.

The chief hurdle to the post war development of the Trotskyist movement has been The very fact that the questions oi the post war overturns of bitalism under Stalinist leaders I rave not been thoroughly an adecuately debated as they C = acE 45:33C rave been =ar == areri. *C = = 750-050 000-5 reassorst - 052= WEis Buifer as a mana cos -= key to Yugoslana.

The analysis of the particu ar differences in Yugoslavia holds the key to understanding China.

And it is the Chinese revolution under rigid Stalinist LN its adaptations to post-war Sto leadership that offers us the means of understanding the contradictory progress of the revolution in Vietnam.

Attempts to analyse the events of Indochina upside down-starting from todays "facts" and seeking to fit them into a schemä drawn from them alone-must lead, whether it is done by the USFI or their fellow "orthodox formalists and empiricists of the WRP and the Workers Party, to a de facto rationalisation of the role of the Stalinist Vietnamese leaders, or artificial attempts to distinguish them from Stalinism.

Tidier question

In this way, of course, the nagging contradiction of reality anndare to ho masthod magy appears v away .

A much tidier question can be posed, in which we would decide whether (i) an undeformed workers state was created; or (ii) a reactionary leadership momentarily broke from Stalinism at the point of the overturn of capitalism.

But reality is contradiction, and in seeking to eliminate contradiction from our analysis of S.E. Asia and present simply ₫ l one sided view, we must inevitably wind up failing to grasp reality, and liquidating the Marxist programme which sees in contradiction the basis for advancing the working class towards its emancipation.

But it is not only S.E. Asia which exposes the bankruptcy of the USFI's approach. They are now also divided in opinion on the nature of the Cuban leadership-which was one of the pillars on which the 1963 reunification actually rested.

"Natural Marxist"

Wh le readily agreeing for ten years not to discuss the lessons of the 1953 split the two sides found themselves perfectly in agreement that the Cuban revolution was led by a nonStarist, revolatiorearn, "natural learerchin under COUT SEN Castro; that it had produced an undeformed workers' state, and that it contained the potentiality of a new international development of

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SOCIALIST PRESS, #'ednesday 31 October 1979 and SWP_loaders into a hasty A. much lesser threat • clinging on to ine ultra-ense aissolution or tactions ana ine seen in ine statements produced and guerrillaist schemas of the formation of a new, "united" by a new, "Leninist Trotskyist leadership prior to the Xith Tendency" which has also emer. his adaptationist politics still in majority. struggles of May-lune 10K8 in Franro amaht TØDT ,amannnana whose post-war period has been charasiariss by profound political disorientation and a continuing series of incomplete and opportunișt spiits ana rusions.

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 ad deunlanmsnd ef tho nalitino crIsIs WnIch nas, Characteristu which has adame aside so el the USFI's existente 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, USFI's European Secretariat.

But the untenable positions. Congress. lism since 1949.

Yet the USFI's analysis of the Cuban revolution rests on a similar attempt to work backwards from the "fact" of the overturn of capitalism, and a determination to see the events in Cuba in isolation from the combined world crisis of imperialism and Stalinism.

The USFI's wrong view, enshrined in the reunification documents, led as naturally to the guerrillaist "turn" of 1969, as it did to the SWP's "orthodox" opposition.

For the Mandel/Pabloites in 1963 the tailending of Castro was simply the latest expression of their willingness to tail end "progressive currents" within Stalinism in Eastern and Western Europe which had existed from 1953 onwards.

So as the Cuban revolution engendered petty bourgeois nationalist guerrilla groups throughout Latin America in the 1960s. it was derfectiv understandable that the petty bourgeois impressionists of the European Secretariat should wax ecstatic about the prospects : for guerrilla warfare and on the basis of an entirely impressionist sche.na advocate this as a strategy for an entire continent in 1969.

Profound lurch taken by both the LTF and the IMT during the Portuguese events of 1974-6| and the Angolan war led to a sharp realianaand at fan. auyument or rorces wnicn now shapes the coming XIth World The bulk of the USFI's Latin American momber the SWP and the LTF and, led by Nahual Moreno's Argentinian PST, formed the Bolshevik Tendency'.

The growing challenge from these forces, combined with the complete collapse in the credib. ility of the IMT's guerrillaist perspectives of 1969 and 1974, pressured both the European The mass of guerrillaism-began to join with the SWP in this stand.

But while they ducked the manifestly false guerrillaist conclusions which the Mandelites drew from the Cuban Revolutron, and began to polemicise with increasing fury against guerrillaists strategy, the SWP and LTF would never go back to rework the false analysis of the Cuban revolution itself and the Castroite leadership in particular that had given the necessary room for such false conclusions to arise.

We must remember in this context that the SWP leadership swung their entire movement from orthodoxy to Pabloism on this issue: to question that analysis would amount-and does to this day amount-to questioning the entire leadership of the SWP.

For the Mandelites however, with their openly lightminded approach to historical experience and orthodoxy the matter is more straightforward.

This is why it is from the Mandel wing of the USFI that recent challenges to the USFI analysis of the Cuban leadership as "revolutionary" and even to the idea that Cuba remains an undeformed workers' state have It was this new majority leadership that drafted the five main documents tabled for the Congress. But their manifest failure to raconcile 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 itselt a racuon 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.

Correct errors

ged, with forces in a number of as they entered the bourgeois coalition government. with Mrs. Bandaranaike.

And in May-June 1968 in France the bankruptcy of the European perspective of deep entry into CPs and Socialist Parties could be empirically seen to be a major handicap in intervening in the massive struggles that emerged.

The French party had to be effectively rebuilt-rebuilt on the basis of an influx of students and youth, whose political impatience and inexperience then served to compound the petty bourgeois impressionism and inexperience of the European secretariat, and paved the way for the 1969 Rather than recognising the need to combat the spontaneity of the youth and channel their drive and energy into the struggle for the Marxist programme, the USFI leaders adapted their politics to the youth, and trailed behind them as yet another "progressive" current.

The 1969 turn indeed took place under the banner of the turn to the "new youth vanguard".

The Ninth World Congress itself opened the door to a chapter of USFI fiascos in Latin America. sections, pledged to "correct the errors" of the existing USFI The article below, part. five 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 Dictatorshin of the Prolet. ariat". unce cunğm vors unprepareu from its ranks!

No serious objective analysis of the Chilean experience has ever been presented by the USFI-with good reason!

"Orthodoxy"

The 10th World Congress of 1974 shifted the emphasis of the guerrilla strategy from the countryside to the towns-the urban centres.

And the "youth vanguard" adapted to in 1969 was broadened to the vague. and illusory notion of the i'new mass vanguard" which basically means the gamut of left-reformist, centrist, Maoist and semiStalinist groupings and currents thrown up by the crisis of leadership in the European and other working classes.

It was orientation towards these currents that ensured that the IMT wound up trailing limply after the left talking officers of the Armed Forces Movement and the Stalinists in The SWP's empirical efforts at "orthodoxy" on the other hand led them into the reformist camp of Soares' Socialist It was these blunders, together with the SWP's criminal position on Angola which triggered the launching of question mark over this Tendency's ability to break from empiricism and opportunism.

The most obvious recent case was the decision of the Spanish Morenists simply to pull up stumps and leave the Socialist Party and fuse with the. LCR immediately prior to the conference that forced the resignation of Socialist Party leader Felipe Gonzalez.

They thus ended a whole period of rather opportunist entry work at the very point that opportunities were opening up.

'When challenged on this, a leading Morenist simply announced that the defeat of Gonzalez wasn't really all that important anyway!

The emergence of the Bolshevik Faction as an organised opposition capable of outvoting either the IMT or the LTF was clearly the trigger that prompted the hasty marriage between these two factions to form a new majority leadership on the basis of the IMT's ridiculous Self Criticism on Latin America.* Since then the five key texts for the XIth World Congress-couched in the most studiedly abstract, "orthodox" terminology and avoiding taking a position on every one of the major world developments since 1974—have been drawn up.

As Marxists we must draw lessons from the USFI's desperate but unsuccessful efforts to flee from its own past.

History is not dead "facts' with no relationship to the present.

The events of the past not only materially shape the present, but it is also with the ideas of the past that we are forced to confront each new situation.

Only through the method of dialectical materialism can we accurately analyse the processes of change that are taking place around us and attempt through the test of practice to bring our ideas-and therefore our programme into accord with the new contradictions that the real Poisoned world presents.

In other words, both materially and ideologically we must-whether we like it or not -carry our history "strapped to our backs"

While the USFI struggles to ignore history, history refuses tr ignore the USFI. Again and again the wrong, revisionist, opportunist methods and positions of the past disorientate it and leave it divided or wrongheaded in testing situations, We do not hold the position that only the WSL can reach and act upon correct conclusions.

There is a profound political ferment now at work within the USFI as a whole within which all kinds of questions are arising whether the leaders like it or not; there are splits and cracks that have amornad aven within the monolithic Healy and Lambert movements; and various emerging currents are searching for a road to a revolutionary International.

Above all the continued hammer blows of the class struggle are refuting the idealist, opportunist and sectarian schemas • of the other main tendencies.

All these: factors convince us that this is the period in which we must fight harder than ever and with better than ever chance of success for the Trotskyist movement to turn back to the principles and the method of the Transitional Programme and to reaffirm these in a practical way in the development of that Programme as the basis for the reconstruction of the Fourth International.

This is why, in addition to countering the false positions and evasions of the USFI, and fighting to clarify the issues involved in the post-war crisis of the Fourth International, the Workers Socialist League is struggling for the building of a democratic centralist international tendency on the basis of a clear and explicit programme.

The draft of this platform document, entitled The Transitional Programme in Today's Class Struggle', was adopted two weeks ago by a national meeting of the Workers Socialist League.

It will shortly be published

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