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out compensation under workers control. . «Demand a sliding scale of hours and wages!?.]...

HOMES FOR ALL. Nationalise the land, the construction industry and building societies without compensation under workers control with protection for savers. ..

EXPAND THE SOCIAL SERVICES.

• • End private medicine and the public schools. Nationalise the drug industry without compensation under workers control..."

Presumably then, to follow the WRP's logic, putting forward a "programme" is just a question of stringing together a long enough list of monopolies to be nationalised at a stroke from above by a Labour government while the workers sit back and wait.

In this they are effectively at one with the Militant group of opportunists within the Labour Party, who even specify they want the top 250 (not 249, not 251, but 250) firms nationalised. Both maintain a verbal "programme of nationalisation"; but neither group attempts to mobilise the working class along the lines of the Transitional Programme to force such "FIRST STEP"

The SLL 1965 programme did, however, put forward such an idefeat right-wing.

-attempt:

"In private industry, as a first step to nationalisation, the workers' reprecurates assistea Dy sympathetic accountants and technicians from the growing white-collar unions, must demand access to all accounts, order books and plans of the big monopolies such as in motor-cars, chemicals and building contracting."

This is a clear call for a fight to establish workers control of production, before nationalisation, as a preparation for nationalisation itself. If this approach had been developed and not discarded by the SLL in the period following 1965, then the ultimatums which stud the 1974 Manifesto and the present WRP programme would not have appeared.

This is evidence of how the WRP leadership has gone backwards theoretically in the last ten years. As Comrade. Thornett's Second Document pointed out:

"By repudiating the correct use of the 'workers' control' slogan... the party is, in fact, blocking the road to the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is not established by a single "leap" from reformism to revolutionary consciousness, but by the working class through its own struggles and the conscious intervention of the revolutionary party, passing through stages of development, each of which is a qualitative development...

the party telescopes these essential stages (or leaves them out) by using the single catch-al slogan "Nationalise industry, banks and land without compensation under workers control", we open up no road to the working class for the eventual seizure of power and the establishment of its dictatorship. This is, after all, the precise reason why Trotsky developed the Fourth International Indeed, as Trotsky states in the "Only general revolutionary upsurge of the proletariat can place complete expropriation of the bourgeoisie on the order of the day. The task of transitional demands is to prepare the proletariat to solve this problem." (p.24) (emphasis added)

Why then did the SLL move away from the attempt to carry transitional demands into the working class in the 1960's? The answer must be that the SLL leadership increasingly became swayed by surface impressions of the developing situation, and in particular the treachery of the Wilson government, coupled with - hi the refusal of the "left' to fight, along with considerable successes by the SLL.

Increasingly during the life of the 1966-1970 Labour government, the Healy SLL leadership began to minimise the working class support for that government - going on the appearance of increasing hostility from workers to Wilson's attacks on the working class.

The expulsion of the YS majority from the Labour Party in 1964, the pay laws and the anti-union laws all strengthened the notion, recurring today in WRP propaganda, that this government was more reactionary than any other Labour government.

When this combined in the late 1960's with waves of spontaneous working class militancy as a part of a world-wide movement, seeming in Britain to threaten the old leadership within the unions, the hour seemed as Healy saw it, about to strike for the Socialist Labour League after years of propagandising the need for revolution, to step into the leadership of the working class.

Accordingly, less and less attention was devoted to programme and demands, and more and more restating the depth of the crisis and the general question of the 'need to build the SLL' Let us compare some sets of demands to show this process at work. We have examined the transitional demands of the 1965 SLL Manifesto. In the 1966 Conference resolution of the Young Socialists there were similar transitional demands for the Trade Unions: «*Independence of the trade unions from the state. *Sliding scale of wages to keep pace with the cost of living. * Abolition of business secrets. Open the books of industry. Make the bosses pay. *Suspend all interest payments which burden the nationalised industries, workers control of the mines, railways and docks."

The programme for youth included the demand for:

"A full programme of public works (hospitals, schools, youth clubs, housing projects, swimming pools) paid at trade union rates under workers management." and "Work-sharing without loss of pay."

On September 10th. 1967, while the SLL Manifesto stil called:

"Through the demand "Make the 'left' MP's fight' there must be a united mass movement inside as well as outside Parliament This movemen1 can and must be built..." the demands on which the 'left' were to fight were: "1. Repeal Prices and Incomes Act.

2. Restore full employment.

3. Implement a policy of paying full wages whilst working full time. Nationalise the basic industries, including the motor industry."

Here, important steps in the fight for nationalisation are omitted making the call one for nationalisation from above rather than a struggle from below to force nationalisation, but at the same time, there are concrete demands which workers can fight for in the factories.

By October 1969 the Political Committee statement of the SIL was posing no demands at all except the call to join the SLL itself:

"The British working class will not stay at a purely economic level in its strikes. It already raises the question of the leadership of the unions, the political character of that leadership and its relations with the employers as with the Labour government...

The road now opens for the buiding of the revolutionary working class party which every worker is beginning to Tie.

recognise is needed.

The SIL . .. calls upon all workers to join with it in • the task of constructing that party."

The passage here reflects a superficial response to the spontaneous movements of the class more akin to the syndicalists of IS than to the political method of Trotskyism. The strike wave opened possibilities of going beyond an economic level - but only through the intervention of Trotskyist leadership. And there is a strong element of nationalism contained in this statement also.

The implied contrast is between the British working class - which is supposedly of its own accord going beyond "a purely economic level in its strikes" , and the huge general strike movement of France in May - June 1968, which was betrayed when no leadership emerged to break workers from spontaneity.

Based on this view, which completely mis-assesses the weight of influence of reformism on the British labour movement, the impressions of the spontaneous strikes of late 1969 become the starting point of an abstract call to "every worker" who is supposedly "beginning to recognise" the need of a mass SLL to join, while any attempt to fight for programme is abandoned.

1971: SLL The re-election of the Tory government as a result of the betrayals of the Wilson 1966 government gave the SLL a period in which programme again seemed to be pushed into the background.

The maximum slogan of "nationalise the economy" could remain and not be put to the test until the re-election in 1974 of the seventh Labour government. Meanwhile, the strong surge of anti-Tory feeling from a betrayed but undefeated working class between 1970 - 1974 brought a continuing flow of recruits to the SLL on its correct platform of "bring down the Tory government" • which enabled the Workers Press to grow in size and circulation, the apparatus of the movement to grow, and the leadership's inability to train working class cadres to be concealed.

For this reason, as the verbal adaptation to the Transitional Programme which characterised the last twelve months is increasingly dropped by the WRP, the real weaknesses of the impressionist method are only now beginning to make themselves felt.

And no grandiose "education" sahemes, no demagogic displays of phrasemongering by Healy and its leaders can conceal the degeneration of a movement which has become divorced from any real centre of the fight to build an independent revolutionary party to lead the struggle for the taking of power by the working class.

ADAPTATION

At the same time the struggle against impressionism and for an objective analysis of the balance of political forces in the working class movement is fundamental in the defence of Trotskyism. It was Pablo's empirical adaptation to the appearance of change in world Stalinism in 1950 - 1953 which caused him to revise the principles of the Fourth International, pro voking a split from which the International Committee emerged as defenders of "Orthodox Trotskyism"

But, able only a little more than Pablo to probe to their roots the problems for Trotskyism in understanding the role of Stalinism and its relationship with imperialism post-war, the IC became less and less equipped to critically orientate in changing situations.

In the early 1960's the American SWP as a result succumbed to opportunism and drifted off in search of "natural Marxists" in the form of Fidel Castro and colonial revolutions, and split from the IC. But still the SLL was unable to develop beyond defence of "orthodoxy" and left itself exposed to empirical adaptations.

Our task is now to take the historic and theoretical gains of the SLL - WRP into our work of building the WSL and into the necessary discussion on perspectives for rebuilding the Trotskyist Fourth International. At the centre of this is our knowledge that we have to find the road to the masses through building a party along the lines marked out in the method of the Transitional Programme:

"It is necessary to help the masses in the process of the daily struggle to find the bridge between present demands and the socialist revolution. This bridge should include a system of transitional demands stemming i from today's conditions and today's consciousness of wide layers of the working class and unalterably leading to one final conclusion: the taking of power by the proletariat." TP p15. mass anti-Tory rally at Alexandra Palace.

FOOTNOTES Many of the points from the historical section of that document were incorporated into the article in Socialist Press 2 "The WRP School of Falsification". ** So embarrassed are the WRP leadership at their complete lack of programme prior to the critique raised by Alan Thornett that they now feel they have to resort to the most barefaced lies in order to suggest they were right all along.

Thus we find S. Johns claiming in Workers Press of Tuesday 16th September: "In the two General Elections the WRP stated unequivocally that the working class had no alternative but to fight for socialist policies to defend its most minimal gains. This required controlling prices by nationalising the food monopolies without compensation under workers' control; defending jobs by occupations; starting the fight for workers control with the demand to open the books [!!]; and launching an all-out campaign for nationalisation without compensation in every trade union branch and industry". [emphasis added] We challenge S. Johns to produce evidence of any WRP campaign in union branches for the demand to 'open the books' • or any mention of this demand in either the February or October Election Manifestoes. STRANGER THAN FICTION What was celluloid hero Michael Jayston doing last Friday with a boatload of armed thugs and Sandhurst 'patriots' ', sailing across the central Mediterranean? He was playing the part of "Quiller', gilded hooligan of the British intelligence services in BBCI'S new thriller series if the same name.

In last week's episode, "The Assault on the Ritz', , Quiller was sent to infiltrate a gang of merceneries hired to trigger a coup d'etat in an 'oil rich Arab state' in North Africa, toppling the left wing nationalist government and restoring a right wing monarchy favourable to Britain and the western oil monopolies.

As the faithful instrument of British foreign policy Quiller's task was to discover the gang's target and sabotage their plan - which needless to say he dia, the whole atfair ending in a very satistying blood-and-sand shoot-out on an anonymous North African beach.

After 50 minutes of jet-setting intrigue, CIA-provided electronics, seagoing skulduggery and Whitehall wrangles the mercenaries wicked plans were foiled and the peaceloving values of British • foreign policy triumphed.

What's strange about such goings-on on the box? Just that the plot was closely based on a real episode in 1970, a year after Colonel Gaddaffi and the nationat ist officers who supported him booted out King Idris of Libya and the corrupt clique of courtiers, grown rich on oil revenues zad speculation, who ran his dictatorship.

INVASION

And an armed invasion to oust Gaddaffi, financed by one of Idris' chief lieutenants exiled in Geneva, led by 'retired' British intelligence officials, and using mainly French mercenaries, was planned over several months in late 1970 and early 1971.

Details of the plot were given in a book, "The Hilton Assignment', published in 1973 by two Observer journalists who specialise in espionage and whose main contacts clearly lie within the British intelligence services.

The difference is that in real life the British intelligence was well aware of the plans from the beginning, through Anthony Royle, a former officer of the Special Air Services (notorious for their role in Northern Ireland) and then a junior Foreign Office Minister in Heath's government.

The government did nothing to obstruct the conspirators, beyond indicating they would take a dim view if too many British citizens were caught armed to the teeth in Tripoli. The main go-between between the organisers and the Tory Government was Colone David Stirling, who last year announced plans to form 'Great Britain 75', ', organising and training the Tory middle class to 'assist the police during major strikes or "civil disorders' Though Stirling denied his Great Britain 75' would be armed or use force, the book makes it quite clear he put his talents to work planning a full military attack against the Libyan government in 1970.

scriptwriters did not dwell on these aspects. The Arab state was not named, Stirling's role was altered to that of a friend and confidant of the main organiser, the package was embellished with an erotic subplot and a public-school booby. Above all the actual role of the British government was reversed, to make it appear that the Arab government can thank its lucky stars for the benign intentions of continued on page :

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SUCIAL IST PRESS, Wednesday Uctober Ist, 1975 9 al

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Transitional Programme, and why the founding document," adopted it as its

CZECHOSLOYAKIA NO RETURN TO CAPITALISM WITHORAW ALL SOVIET TROOPS ARM THE CZECH WORKERS