The WRP school of FALSIFICATION

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Since its foundation in 1938, in opposition to the international betrayals of Stalinism, the Trotskyist Fourth International has always been a living leadership Part of that life is the struggl to grasp objectively its own history, with all its strengths and its limits.

As Trotskyists, we can never let pass falsificațions and distortions of our own history.

That is why we take up immediately some of the central distortions contained in the Workers' Revolutionary Party four-volume so-callec 'documentary history' "Trotskyism versus Revisionism' (1974, edited by Cliff Slaughter) and the review of it (four months later, by the previously unheard-of Richard Bryant') serialised in 'Workers Press' of January 31st to February 8th, 1975.

A fuller account will be publishec shortly by the Workers Socialist League, but some points must be taken up at once.

REVISIONS

The key political crisis in the International developed between 1951 and 1953. In 1951 the Third World Congress adopted many of Michel Pablo's revisionist positions on Stalinism, with only the French leadership opposing him. Pablo's line, put simply, was that under pressure of class forces, the Stalinis bureaucracy could lead revolutionary movements, and could reform itself.

Bill Hunter, of the British SLL, was able in 1957 to summarise the essence of Pablo's revisionism in this way:

" Then in 1947-53 came the period of the Cold War. The question was constantly posed: could we build revolutionary parties in time before war was upon us? During this period certain prominent individuals in the Trotskyist movement, headed by a man named Pablo - under combined pressures of European Stalinism and world imperialism - began to revise and reject the fundamental principles, criteria and method of analysis of the Trotskyist movement. The result of all this was a profoundly pessimistic world perspective and a false orientation based on a sceptical rationalization: the imminence and inevitability of the Third World War. This prognosis presum:.

ed not only the organic incapacity of the American and Western European working class to prevent such a war/and thereby dismissed its revolutionary potentialities)

but conversely it also attributed to the imperialist bourgeois a power, homogeneity and stability which it did not possess. Trotsky's prognosis of Socialism or Barbarism was consequently replacea with the Pabloite schema of Barcarism first, Socialism afterwards.

Pablo developed the theory that ince the next war would be againit the Soviet Union, it would by te very nature be transformed almost immediately into an international civil war. Under these conditions, so the argument went the Stalinist parties would move to the left and in certain circumstances could be expected to taki the power as has happened in Eas tern Europe and China." (Trotskyism v Revisionism page 3, emphasis added)

EXPULSIONS Early in 1952 Pablo bureaucratically expelled the leadership and majority of the French section when they refused to follow his directive to liquidate the Trotskyist party by "deep entry" into the Stalinist Communist Party.

Pablo was supported to the full in this by both James Cannon and the Socialist Workers' Party leadership in the USA, and by Gerry Healy in the leadership of the British section.

Only in the autumn of 1953, after it had become clear that Pablo was supporting a faction (the CochranClarke faction) within the SWP, did Healy and Cannon take up a political struggle against Pablo.

This struggle very soon resulted in a split. Following the famous (Oper Letter' of the SWP leadership (November 16th, 1953), Cannon, Healy and Lambert (leader of the expelled French majority) came together to form the International Committee of the Fourth International against Pablo.

The International Committee, therefore, although it was based on a wholly principled opposition to Pablo's liquidationism, had also great weaknesses (some of which are only now coming to the surface It did not come out of a thorough and developed theoretical struggle within the world movement, and two of its main leaders (Healy and Cannon) had supported Pablo almost up to the last minute.

DISTORTION

How do Cliff Slaughter and 'Richard Bryant' deal with this cru cial period? They try to prove that Gerry Healy and the British majority were essentially right all along: and that the real blame lay with Cannon. Slaughter writes:

'From the start the British sectiol viewed the struggle as the organic expression of conflicting class interests within the Fourth Internation..... There was not a trace of idealism in this attitude which was totally opposed to treating the opposition administratively, as a conspiracy, or to any propagandistic view of the factional struggle as a point scor ing debate'" 'Trotskyism versus Revisionism', , Vol. 1, p.xiv)

Of Cannon, on the other hand, ¡laughter says:

What is abundantly clear is that the SWP leaders were only too eager to get an unprincipled com promise with Pablo based on a re definition of Stalinism .... whil allowing Pablo a free hand in Eur ope to liquidate the Trotskyist movement into a Stalinist milieu (Vol. 1, p.xix)

Cannon's support for the expulsion of the French majority Slaughter calls 'two-faced and incredibly unprincipled' (Vol. 1, p. xviii).

'Yet neither in Slaughter's volum nor Bryant's review is there one single mention of the fact that Gerry Healy, as a member of the international leadership in 1934, also backed Pablo's expulsion oi the French. In fact Slaughter is unable, in the whole four volume to quote a single word of opposi on to Pablo from Healy or the British leadership before a (cor dential) letter to Cannon of M: 27th 1953.

SUPPRESSED

This seems bad enough - but there is worse distortion, since four-volume series deliberately suppresses at least one letter writter by Healy in February 1953 which not only supports the politics of Pabio, but also the expulsion of the Freach, and describes Pablo as the best international secretary the International had ever had!

Since the WRP is too embarassed Healy: suppressed letter on "nearness of war"

to reprint this letter, it was left to the degenerated SWP to print it in their selection of documents on the split..

Appropriately, they group it together with the documents written by supporters of Pablo (the International Secretariat), and not with those of the future International Committee.

We reproduce it here in full:

London Feb. 19, 195 Dear Morris, Farrell and Joe, Please excuse my delay in commenting on your recent letter which M. showed me. I have also seen the letter from E.G. & P. to you and in addition it has been possible for me to discuss with them on the spot. This letter, ho ever, is purely personal, although John expressed himself in agreement with the general line I take.

From your letter and minutes, the situation appears extremely sharp. Something big is coming up the line - or all our past experiStalin ences of such things count for no thing. On occasions such as this we must bring all our thoughts to bear upon the overall picture of our world movement. The problem is not simply Cochran - all sorts of questions can be posed, with serious consequences for our whole work.

First, the war seems to be gettin very near. Since the end of the last one, our sections in Western Europe have had a rough time, splits and sharp internal fights have taken a severe toll, both in England and France. In other countries, lack of cadres has held us back considerably. Over the past year, it is my distinct impression that the picture on an overall scale has distinctly improved (despite the PCI split). Some very serious work in the mass movements is being done now, and in France in particular. Everyone wants to get on with the job and the nearness of the war adds to their determination.

My first feeling, therefore, is one of extreme worry - are we threat ened with another international split? If so we must avoid it at all costs. Our movement must not go into the war, smashed up and divided.

Please do not misunderstand me.

I am for the fullest political clarification - this is basic, but it is not wrong to consider all things in an objective way before the fight starts. This is the worst possible time for yourselves and the international. It is not 1939. The steady activity of the Secretariat has co-ordinated and guided our work to a semblance of world organisation entirely unknown then.

Whatever happens with you will have almost instantaneous repercussions over the most important countties.

Let me add one thing more. 1 am fully aware that our secretariat has some defects, but it is the best -the very best we have ever had.

Their letter to you, in my opinion, is not too good. . What it says politically is O.K., but there was no need for a sermon on Stalinism.

The line is what is important.

There is agreement to support the SWP against a propaganda orientation towards Stalinism, There is agreement on the line of the 3rd Congress - these are the things which are most important. (emph sis added) So far as we are concerned here, we will stand firm on these two blanks. I realise that there may be some comrades in your majority who oppose the 3rd Congress resolutior on Stalinism. That is a complication. Negativism on this point could very well feed people in the Cochran camp who may be dithering about on the Stalinist issue. We must have clarity all round, no matter whose toes may be trodden on. For instance: S. (Sam Gordon) here took it upon himself to bring to G's notice that he opposes the 3rd Congress on Stalinism. O.K., but it is not our line and we should certainly defend the line of the international if called upon to do so.

Cannon: with Healy backed Pablo until late 1953 It is absolutely necessary to proceed as cautiously as possible (1 know you are doing your best) because we do not wish to have a split on our still very weak international movement.

Best wishes, Jerry INVOLVED Notice Healy uses the term "PCI split" to refer to France - whilst having been personally involved in carrying out the expulsion of the majority of that section.

Healy seemed blind to the impact of these actions. His May 1953 letter, mildly critical of Pablo, says, for instance:

*Pablo suffers badly from isolation in Paris. That French movement is a 'killer. It really is impossible to hold an international centre together when you have no national section to help it.' (Vol. 1, p. 113)

What Slaughter and Bryant want at all costs to conceal is that Healy had backed Pablo (and Cannon) in 'killing' 'that French movement' through bureaucratic abuse before, only to reunite with the so-called "killers' six months later.

Bryant's review, rather more sophisticated than Slaughter's introduction, attempts the impossible:

he seeks to prove that Healy analysed and fought Pablo's revisionism before the SWP leadership and Cannon. He tries, therefore to quote from Healy's scanty and nonpolitical letters.

The one quote he manages is itself a brazen distortion and an attack on Marxism. "The distortion is that he omits the sentence immediately following his quote which says the very opposite of what is implied in the review. The omitted words are here italicised:

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PhilipAgee 'nside the Company: CIA (Penguin 1975, 95p)

Radical Research Services The Labour Party and the CIA God himself, according to biblical quotations handed out as part of the basic train ing programme for CIA agen has given His official sanctio to the practice of spying. This is one of the few improbable peices of intelligence in Philip Agee's gripping expose of how US imperialism's Central Intelligence Agency spends its 2,000 million dollars a year budget and employs its 80,000 personnel.

Mr. Agee worked for the CIA from 1957 to 1969, mainly in Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico. His book - compiled in the form of a diary based on memory and a thorough use of the records available to him after he left the 'Company' - both gives a detailed account of CIA operations in Latin America and a great deal of light on its world-wide activit. ies. He reveals, among omany other things, how: "The President of Mexico, Luis Echeverria, worked in the closest collaboration with the CIA chief of station in Mexico city, Winston Scott. And the same was true of the two previous heads of state, Lopez Mateos and Diaz Ordaz. The CIA was regularly advising Diaz Ordaz when, as President, he he supervised the shooting of hur dreds of left-wing students on a CIA work is helped in almost every area by paid agents, often at the highest levels, within the local police and intelligence services. Hundreds of foriegn policemen are sent every year to the CIA-controlled International Police Academy in Washington for training, including the most brutal techniques of 'interrogation' Enormous effort and funds go into the penetration and disruption of left-wing political organisations. In the early 1960's Agee himself was responsible for operations against the Communist Party of Ecuador. At one time it: eight man Political Bureau contained no less than threeCIA agen What emerges from the book is a catalogue of the means imperialism uses to protect its power: assassinations, fake trade unions, "black propaganda', agents provocatuers, the manipulation and bribery of press and politicians, and all manner of espionage and intrigue.

The alphabetical glossary just of some of the people and organisations employed by the CIA in Latin America alone runs to 26 pages - from the Alliance for Anti Totalitarian Education' to the Young Men's Christian Associatior in Quito (Equador)!

Though Mr. Agee's standpoint is essentially that of a reformist, for social justice, national dignity and peace', , this cannot disguise the importance (and courageous ness) of his decision to break with the CIA and expose their methods He retains the exact, heutral' style of a trained bureaucrat of counter-revolution.

His detailed, factual narrative cuts through the swamp of recent, liberal 'concern' in the capitalist ector of Counter-Espionage, who came to London to be trained by British Intelligence in the latter part of the war. His rise to the too reflected the conversion ot the pre-war intelligence services from small teams of ingenious amatuers to the vast standardised bureaucracythat is today's CIA SHAKE-UP Angleton himself was one of the main CIA figures pressing for a thorough shake-up of British Intelligence over the Burgess-McleanPhilby fiasco in 1951. A fanatical cold-war warrior from the beginRIGHT WING LABOUR The Radical Research Services pamphlet on The Labour Party and the CIA (based on an article supressed by the editor of The Sunday Times) shows how tens of millions of CIA dollars have been channelled since the war to support anti-communist political groupings and publications in the European Social Democratic parties.

Leading right-wing Labour men, includingDenis Healey (Chancellor of the Exchequer) Anthony Crosland, Dick Taverne (leader of the right-wing breakaway from the Labour Party)and Gaitskell himself, have been heay. ily involved in magazines, such as Encounter and Socialist Comm entry financed by such bodies as the CIA's 'Congress for Cultural Freedom'.

As even Michael Foot remarked when Gaitskell attacked in 1960 as being a Communist Party fellow-traveller, 'But who are they travelling with?' AGENCY