[Trotskyist movement: the sunter-revolutionary role of lalinism. In…]

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Trotskyist movement: the sunter-revolutionary role of lalinism.

In the late 1940s and early 950s, Pablo sought to revise ris analysis, to couch it in oubts and evasions.

He sought to convert this undamental understanding of he Trotskyist movement into ist one of many possiblities, nd to introduce the idea that Italinism could, under certain ¡onditions, play a progressive Under 'mass pressure, uggested Pablo, Stalinist parties jould evolve to become centrist -even revolutionary-parties!

In their orientation to the iWP, the IMG have followed uit, carefully moderating their iomments on Stalinism to meet he needs of the SWP's own urrent scheme for joint work ›etween their Rank and File tont and the Stalinist-dominaied LCDTU.

No longer is the CP seen as a [undamentally counter-revolutionary body. Instead, the IMG declare:

«The objective role of the CP, since it stopped being a revolutionary party, has been to bolster the hold of the Labour Party and reformism in the working class" (S.C. 138):

And again: "The policies of the CP generally succeed in doing nothing more effectively than reinforcing the hold of leit reforminsm.

"The politics of the CP have acted as a block to those workers breaking with Labourite politics."

From this, it would appear that the CP is really no more than the alter-ego of Benn and Heffer. But they go on:

"Between 1929-31 it was the CP's ultra-leftism-its refusal to contemplate a united front with the Labour Party, its analysis that it was 'social fascist'-that led many militants to go back to the Labour Party. Either way around, ultra-left or tail-ending the reformists, the CP's role has had similar results"

No mention here, in this 'anglo-centric view of Stalinism, of the German catastrophe which led millions of militants not to reformism but to death at the hands of the Nazis following the German CP's block with the fascists against the social democrats.

No mention either of the river of blood' which in Trotsky's analysis separated Stalinism from Bolshevism.

No, for the IMG, as continuators of the method of Pabloism, the CP is just another left-reformist. block to be 'outflanked'.

And lest it be argued that this is no more than temporary aberation on their part, a quick flip to page 2 of Socialist Challenge will show, under the heading Our Policies':

•The Communist Parties in Europe are in crisis. Neither the Euro-Communist nor the pro-Moscow wings have any meaningful strategy for the overthrow of the capitalist state."

(our emphasis).

In reality the CPs have a meaningful strategy for the preservation of the capitalist state as part of their fight to preserve peaceful coexistence' with capitalism on a world scale.

Here again, therefore, we can see how Pabloism throws overboard the fixed capital of ideas of the Trotskyist movement to meet the needs of supposedly 'new' facts and 'new' situations.

Thus, in arguing for regroupment with the SWP-who actually regard the Soviet Union as "state capitalist", and regard all the post-war extensions of socialised property relations in Eastern Europe as 'Soviet Imperialism' , the IMG can cheerfully acknowledge:

«There are other differences between the SWP and the IMG 11.e. other than those about the FI itself-Ed.] -those on the character of' the Soviet Union and the use of transitional demands are well known."

A cruel person might well ask, what then, for Trotskyists, are the points of agreement, given that the SWP rejects the FI as having any claim to have ever been the World Party of the Socialist Revolution, rejects Trotsky's analysis of the Soviet Union, and rejects the role of transitional demands?

Tariq Ali If the SWP reject both the programme of the Fl and the role of the FI itself then what is to be gained from discussions for fusion other than the chance to blunder into the retaining walls of yet another cul-de-sac?

But for the spokesmen of latter-day Pabloism these crucial impediments pale into insignitio ance before the possibility o being fusion between the and the IMG ance the question which revoluwould take the grouplet stage-there would be at least 4,500 but with the join (SC 138)

Never mind the programme, feel the width! Again, of course, Trotsky had somes slightly different ideas:

"As for the Bolshevik Leninists, they must learn to draw some helpful lessons for the workers' vanguard from this painful experience. Programme first! 'Mass paper"? Revolutionaction? Regroupment? Communes everywhere? Very well, very well ... But programme first! Your political passports please, gentlemen! And not false one, if you please -real ones! If you don't have any, then pipe down!"

(Crisis in the trench Section)

Of course, lying behind this urge to multiply is the fading memory of the 'heady' days of 1978/9 when the Anti Nazi League brought thousands onto the streets for Carnivals (whilst the fascists marched unmolested).

This approach-with its appeal to bourgeois political leaders at the expense of any proletarian perspective making it an almost classical example of popular frontism-is curiously described by the IMG as a 'United Front' in the traditions of the Communist International.

Carefully ignoring the real nature of the united front as a mobilisation in united action of mass organisation i of workers, and of Trotsky's emphasis on the centrality for Trotskyists of the programme of the proletariat in these actions, the IMG subsume under the heading of 'United Front' any mobilisation like CND, which could draw out the thousands.

This is linked with a consistent evasion of the bitter lessons of Popular Frontist betrayals. Socialist Challenge 138 for instance carried an article by Tariq Ali on the Chilean catastrophe which described Allende's Popular Unity regime not as a Popular Front but as a "reformist united front"

In a whole page of text Ali fails to mention even once that Allende brought not only bourgeois politicians but also generals into his governmentthus paving the way for Pinochet's coup in 1973.

Whether or not we accept that Allende personally "died fighting" , it is crucial that Trotskyists draw the correct political conclusions from this historic defeat for the Chilean working class brought about by Allende's treacherous and utterly bankrupt policy of class collaboration-which was of course fully endorsed by the SWP leader Tony Cliff DWr At base, however, the IMG's refusal to draw out such lessons represents the lingering regrets of the current IMG leadership that Trotskyism separated itself definitively from centrism in the 1930s.

Time and again we see the IMG seeking a path to reforge "unity" with centrists. Yet if we look at the actual thoughts of the Communist International, prior to its degencration, on this subject we find a very different approach clearly spelt out. "Any member of the CP who bemoans the split with the centrists in the name of 'unity of forces' or 'unity, of front', thereby demonstrates that they do not understand the ABC of Communism and that they themselves happen to be in the UP by accident"

(On the United Front, March 1922).

Furthermore, while the IMG are eulogising the so-called 'United Front' tactics of ANL and the Defend the Unions campaign, the SWP themselves have acknowledged that for them this represented a shift to the right!

Thus, for example, in the February 1979 SWP • Internal Bulletin find Einde O'Callaghan writing:

"Rightly at this point the organisation took a tactical turn to the right in order to prevent complete isolation and also in the process preventing the danger of our degeneration into an ultra-left, semi-terrorist bunch of anti-fascist street fighiters."

Part of this turn was the 'Socialist Alternative' work for the elections, but:

"another aspect of our turn to the right in our anti-racist, anti-fascist work, i.e. ANL mushroomed."

That is the extent of the SWP's commitment to the IMG's beloved "united front"

tactic. Perhaps that is why in Socialist Challenge 138 we tind the IMG lamenting that:

• "Sometimes the SWP chooses the method of the united front, as it did with the Anti Nazi League ... But the SWP does not always choose this approach. On other occasions it follows a totally different tactic summed up by the phrase 'rank and file movement' "

In fact, the SWP does not have any generalised perspective for winning the masses to the socialist programme of revolution. Having rejected the use of transitional demands, the SWP simply blunders from one 'good idea, to the next in search of a panacea.

Thus, again in O'Callaghan's article we read:

"After four years in the political wilderness, so to speak, we suddenly found ourselves in out of the cold, unexpectedly back at the centre of the political stage, while at the same time outside the anti-fascist movement the political terrain was very difficult, especially after the defeat of the firemen and with the gradual decline of the Grunwick strike."

Here, clearly stated, is the total incapacity of the SWP to conceive of any consistent struggle to win workers towards the revolutionary programme.

If this is taken together with Cliff's notorious analysis of the working class in retreat and the SWP's accomodation to Stalinism at the LCDTU conference, CUD Dank and File Conference Kurn uru the wors the political bankruptcy of the SWP is ably summed up.

The drive for unity with the SWP is in reality the IMG itself in search of panaceas, in search of another short cut to resolving the sharp political problem of building the revolutionary party in Britain, and of building the FI.

In the interests of this marriage of convenience they will gladly mortgage the principles of the Trotskyist movement to raise funds for their dowry.

In the interests of this or that tactical or numerical advantage in 'outflanking' the CP they will trade in even the struggle to build the FI.

Trotsky's dictum on the principled conditions for revolutionary unity and the need to break from centrism must be ringing in the ears of the "unifiers" of Upper Street:

"But on whatever arena, and whatever the methods of functioning, they are bound to speak in the name of unqualified principles and clear revolutionary słogans. They do not play hide-and-seek with the working class; they do not conceal their aims; they do not substitute diplomacy and combinations for a principled struggle. Marxists, at all times and under all conditions openly say what is."

(Writings 1935-6)

We ask the comrades of the IMG: what is. the SWP? It regards the Soviet Union state capitalist, carries out the most flagrantly opportunist and economist practical work, rejects the use of transitional demands, sees the crucial problem at present as being that the working class is in retreat and regards your own World Congress as a debating society!

What is this hybrid beast?

What do you have in common with it?

And what of the IMG itself, British section of the USFI?

How much longer wil its leaders persist in hiding their heads in the sand sooner than confronting the unresolved political problems of the Trotskyist movement?

How many more splits and disasters are required before they will face up to the need for an honest discussion?

Despite the ravages of Pabloism the FI is not dead: it lives on in the struggle of revolutionaries throughout the world to reconstruct the FI on the basis of its founding programme and principles.

Only in that struggle is there an alternative to the continued adaptations to Stalinism and centrism that live on in the Trotskyist movement as the legacy of Pabloism.

We call on the IMG and other USFI forces to participate in this struggle: we have tabled documents for discussion: The Poisoned Well on the historical problems of the postwar FI and the programmatic document of the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee. We still await a political response to these from the

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Page 8 SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday Apri 2 1950 Mass demonstration during the General Strike

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