[Recent months have seen the emergence of a…]

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Recent months have seen the emergence of a campaign by two former Trotskyists, Robin Blick (a former member of the SLL/WRP and of the OCRFl's British 'Bulletin Group') and Adam Westoby (once a member of the Workers Socialist League) aimed at discrediting those who fight for revolutionary politics today by falsely establishing a link between the politics of Lenin and those of Stalin.

We take seriously the need to defend the revolutionary programme and tradition of Lenin, Trotsky, and the first four Congresses of the Communist International. The attack on these fundamentals by Blick and Westoby is a reflection of a trend of anti-communism at present rife within certain layers of the radical middle class: for this reason, and because the questions raised have a wide interest, we have given over two pages to an extended reply to their letter, which we published in last week's Socialist Press.

Red Army leaders Budienny (left), Mikhail Frunze and Voroshilov in 1920 Blick and Westoby are prime exaniples of petty bourgeois intellectuals whose search for a "theoretical" basis to their anti-Leninisn: has brought them to reject the most basic concepts of Marxisn:.

As a result their letter offers us a pathetic attempt to link together and equate a successor of "invasions" each of which is separated in reality by total differences of objective situation, time and place.

Like any bourgeois commentator with two eyes Blick ard Westoby are able to spot the superficial similarities: in each: case troops from one country have cressed borders into another-there to exercise various degrees of control and forcible suppression.

But they leave out precisely the differences that make each of the examples they cite an important individual episode in the class struggle, necessitating individual study if it is to be filly understood.

Ir. 1920, for instance, the Soviet Union was economically backward, war-exhausted, and militarily weak, facing the real immediate danger of counter revolutionary reaction from the White Guard and the Inperialist countries and their agents.

Tcday the Soviet Union is industrialised, economically powertul, militarily strong and facing no real and immediate military threat which endangers its very existence, internally, or on its borders.

Wilful distortion

Any attempt to equate actions fron these two very different periods must stem either from ignorance or, as in the case of Blick and Westoby, both of whom have made in the past a considerable contribution to the understanding of Stalinism, a wilful distortion of history to justify their own present anti-communist positions.

Given the very real difficulties facing revolutionaries in developing a principled way forward in adverse political conditions (sharply exacerbated by the Stalinist bureaucracy's counter revolutionary invasion of Afghanistan) it is necessary to examine the invasions referred to by Westoby and Blick with a seriousness which their own anti-Leninism and hypocritical moralising does not itself warrant.

Serious socialists attracted by some of the ideas which they put forward should beware.

Fcr beneath their apparent championing of the interests of the napalmed oppressed in Afghanistan is a deep suspicion of one of the central lessons of the working class in struggle and one of the cardinal political starting points of revolutionary Marxist politics-that without a revolutionary party, there can be no revolution.

Their apparent commitment te Marxist political principle is nothing more than concentrated layer of flabby bourgeois moralism, ceagulated by the chilling encounter of observing the way in which Soviet soldiers and workers are being used as the cannon fodder in the murderous repres sion of Afghanis in a misconceived defensive measure by the counter revolutionary Kremlin bureaucracy.

In May 1920, just as the Civil War was draining the exhausted Red Army to a point where defeat by the counter revolutionary White Army was a real and immediate threat, Pilsudski, the Polish Prime Minister entered into an anti Soviet pact with the Ukranian government.

On May 7 1920 Polish ard Ukranian armies invaded the Soviet Union and occupied Kiev. • In June, Red Army forces of Tukhachevsky and Budienny repulsed the attack and crossed the Polish border to continue their actions against the retreating invaders.

In mid July, the Polish Communists set up a provisional government in Bialystok.

Imperialist efforts to boost the Polish arny were severely undermined by the refusal of Danzig dockers to unload arnıs shipments and by the pressure exerted on hesitant imperialist governments by international working class solidarity expressed through movements such as "Hands off Russia" in Britain.

The Red Army however proved unable to maintain this military effort against the Polish army and was forced to retreat, having advanced to near Warsaw.

Like any revolutionary concerned with the defence of revolutionary gains against counter revolutionary attack, Trotsky had no objection to the Polish Army being defeated on Polish soil (the "invasion' of Poland, according to Blick and Westoby).

strength Neither did he object in principle to utilising the military strength and victories of the Red Army over the forces of the Polish state to promote a workers revolution in Poland (the attempt to force upon Poland a revolution, according to Blick and Westoby).

For unlike Blick and Westoby, Trotsky realised the capacity and the necessity of irternational working class solidarity in defending and promoting working class gains and interests.

"We more than once arnounced the duty of the proletariat of countries in which the revolution had conquered to out a number of my statements to the effect that, in the event that war was forced on us by Pilsudski,, we would try not to stop halt-way.

Such statements were the result of the entire setting. But to draw the conclusion from this that we wanted a war with Poland, or were even preparing it, is to lie in the face of facts and common sense.

We strained every effort to avoid that war. .. Even more perhaps than anyone else, I did not want this war because | realised only too clearly how difficult it would be to prosecute it after three years of continuous civil war . . . We sincerely wanted peace. Pilsudski imposed war on us.. The Poles were rolled back with a velocity I never anticipated, since I could hardly believe the fcolhardiness that actually lay at the bottom of Pilsudski's can: paign.

But on our side too often our first major successes, the ideas of the possibilties that were opened to us became greatly exaggerated.

A point of view that the war which began as one of defence should be turned into an offensive ard revolutionary war began to grow and acquire strength.

In principle of course, l could not possibly have any objection to such a course. The question was simply one of the correlation of ferces. The unknown quantity was the attitude of the Polish workers and peasants.

on the late J. MarChievske uch as thelate J an marlor nf Roca LU-WULACL Luxemburgs, weighed the situation very soberly. The former's estimation was an important factor in my desire to get out of the war as quickly as possible.

But there were other voices too. There were high hopes of ale uprising of the Polish workers. At any rate, Lenu fixed his mind on carrying the war to an end, up to the entry into Warsaw to help the Polish workers overthrow Pilsudski's government and seize the power".

(My Life pp456-6)

As Trotsky goes on to argue, Lenin believed that the defeat of the Polish army and the fall of Warsaw would be the decisive factor in triggering workers' insurrection.

Assessment

While Stalin maintained hi support for continuing the war even after retreat of the Sovie army, Lenin waited for a repor from Trotsky who was sent to investigate the western front.

On the basis of Trotsky' assessment, Lenin changed hi position and supported ar immediate armistice.

This then is the reality o