'socialists' Who Oppose

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Armed workers march through Berlin in 1921 Second edition of the opposition documents presented inside the WRP by the present leader ship of the Workers Socialist League Price {2.50 plus 20p postage and package from Workers Socialist League, BM Box 5277 The Labour Party, like its fellow social democratic parties throughout the world, is a reformist party, committed to struggling for reforms within the framework of capitalism, through parliamentary means.

Yet despite the fact that their politics are confined within the limits laid down by the capitalist class and its formal bourgeois democratic system, the reformist parties continue to parade themselves as 'socialists' committed - in the indefinite future- to the establishment of a socialist society.

In practice, however, this is not the case.

Their disagreements with the capitalist class are not as to whether capitalism should continue, but simply on how it should be run. The differences are, therefore, purely tactical.

How best should they try to keep bankrupt world imperialism on its feet?

Where the Tories preach direct confrontation with the working class and the smashing of basic rights, the Labourites urge caution, collaboration and compromise.

There is, as the saying goes, more than one way to skin a cat. The central emphasis remains, however, the maintenance of the capitalist system come what may.

We see this clearly in the period of the 1920s and 1930s, when the world economic crisis drove capitalism to the very brink of destruction. The role of reformism in preserving class society was, then as now, crucial.

If we look, for example, at the position of social democracy in Europe, faced with economic catastrophe, mass unemployment, pauperisation of millions of workers and the rise of fascism what do we find?

In 1932, speaking in the Belgian parliament Vandervelde the Chairman of the reformist =of With a new introduction London WCIV 6XX Second International had this to say:

"The capitalist system is cracking in all its parts. It can only be saved by serious and urgent measures. We are at the eleventh hour. Take care that the proletariat, like Sampson, does not bring crashing down the columns of the temple."

That is, perhaps, the most succinct statement of the position of reformism with regard to the capitalist crisis one could hope for.

But it is, in fact one of many, a culmination of the whole politics of reformism.

In Germany, for example, we tina Leipart, the leader of the trade unions stating:

"One must not lose sight of the fact that the working class is part of the capitalist system, the downfall of which system is its own downfall; and therefore the great historical duty of the working class is to obtain by means of the regulation of its place in that system the improvement of the whole social structure."

Similarly, in France, Montel, one of the Socialist leaders, had proclaimed as early as 1928:

"The Socialist Party will present itself as the only party capable of saving bourgeois society."

With their view totally confined within the bounds of the continuity of capitalism these 'socialists' are unable in the end to offer the working class anything at all.

So when the crunch came in Britain in 1929 Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald voted with his feet and went to take up his seat amongst the Tories in the National Government.

Agents of capital

Such politics take these traitors much further, however, than mere collaboration.

In order to preserve capitalism they are also obliged to act directly as agents of capital against the working class. And this they do quite consciously! Two examples will suffice.

In an infamous court case in 1924 the German Socialist leader Ebert, defending his actions in strike six years earlier:

"Declared that he had entered the Strike Committee to bring the strike to an end as soon as possible"

He was supported in this explanation by fellow leader Scheidemann who said:

"The strike broke out without our knowledge. We joined the Strike Committee with the firm intention of putting a speedy end to the strike by negotiating with the government. There was a great deal of opposition to us in the Strike Committee: we were knipwn as "the strike stranglers"

We son tha antinne not of see the actions not of confused or misguided men but of the political leaders of German Social Democracycarrying out their programme to the letter.

The strangling of the strike wave was a conscious political act, provoked by fears that the strikes might challenge the very foundations of the capitalist system in the wake of the Russian Revolution.

The leaders of the British TUC acted with equal resolve to destroy the General Strike of 1926.

Thus, J.H. Thomas, the Joseph Hansen railwaymen's leader, entered the strike praying that the government would win, and was to comment after the Tories' unqualified victory:

"What I dreaded most about this strike more than anything else was this, if by any chance it should have got out of the hands of those who would be able to exercise some control, every sane man knows what would have happened."

As Joynson-Hicks, the Tory Home Secretary, gleefully informed his constituency association:

"The responsible trade union leaders retained their hold upon ef Underneath a full page piece by the OCT's leading Trotsky historian Pierre Broue, giving an account of the newly opened Trotsky archives at Harvard University and what they contain, appears a short boxed piece with the title On the Slanders against J. Hansen' which reads as follows:

"I cannot resist the temptation to add a few lines. Readers of Informations Ouvrieres will be aware of the slander campaign which has been conducted on a world scale against Joe Hansen and George Novack, who are accused by the British WRP of being 'agents' of the GPU and of the FBI.

The charges against Joe Hansen are particularly disgraceful in that they allege he was an agent of the GPU who played a direct role in the murder of Trotsky.

Faced with this campaign, Joe Hansen was led, two years before his death, to state that he had been contacted in 1939 by the GPU and, under instrucEbert (in overcoat) chats with troops the trade unions, and took the constitutional course of admitting the general strike was illegal and called it off."

Social Democracy, therefore, in times of crisis is obliged by the logic of its politics to line up with the employers and the ruling class against the working class.

This is the bitter reality-as true today as the Labour Party debates its way forward as it was in 1926.

The only answer-now as then-requires the building of a principled revolutionary leadership in the workers' movement. tions from Trotsky, had prolonged this 'contact in order to strengthen the protection of the house at Coyoacan.

The slanderers howled scandal, certain that Trotsky could never have approved such a 'contact' , that Joe had therefore 'confessed", , etc.

Their structure is in smithereens. I have in my hands a letter from Joe Hansen to Trotsky where, in 1939, he confides to him his anxiety on the eve of his "first contact with the GPU.

It seems probable to me that this is the only evidence that we will find on this affair, since this letter will have escaped a *cleaning out that Trotsky carefully made when there was a question of documents that might, if the archives were stolen, risk the life or the security of anyone (Joe Hansen in this case). But this one letter is decisive evidence.

At least the slanderers cannot now show that Trotsky was himself an agent of the GPU and that he took part in the preparation of his own murder! If they wish to do that, we can only wish them good luck!"

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PRESS, Wednesday 11 June

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The Battle Trotskyism