[now that. they are there (and is the…]

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now that. they are there (and is the WSL so reticent concern- whether it is possible to carry how!) they should stay, lest ing that classic dry run for people closer to socialism by others (Afghans, perhaps!) till Afghanistan: Lenin and napalming them. the 'vacuum' that would be Trotsky's "satellitization' of created by their too precipitate Outer Mongolia? departure. The Red Army invaded theoretical responsibilities, fail(Yet you have unaccount- Mongolia in 1921 and installed ing to draw out the essential ably failed to denounce the a government thickly laced with lessons of Lenin's pioneering fifth column' which may yet Soviet "advisors' . Moscow had to role as "proletarian' imperialist. force the rapid redeployment of intervene repeatedly to the Red Army-the workers of guarantee the subservience of the USSR was as a 'counterMost members of the 1921 But the concents of dialectical The last substantial article, itself on its Leninist-Trotskyist cabinet were purged in 1922. At science, you have reminded us, pIvorIre a buurs -----almost a fortnight after the orthodoxy should have little the August 1924 Congress must be ever-mobile to escape Kabul uprising in February, was difficulty in discovering the Danzan, head of the Party and extinction. demonstrably written by two precedents for a more forthright Congress chairman, was foolauthors. The first half accurate- defence of the Soviet subjuga- hardy enough to argue for a statement on the historic gainsi ly described the mass uprising tion of Afghanistan. Has the WSL Executive Moscow. Before the end of the the 'genocidal workers' state"? measure of independence from embodied in the expansion of was suppressed, helicopter gun- forgotten the days ships strafing unarmed crowds. "healthy workers' state' in 1920 approval, he had been removed Robin Blick The second, shifting from when Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin and shot. facts to programme, recalled jointly attempted to force upon that Trotskyists defend the Red Poland precisely that revolution Army's presence and, from by foreign bayonets' that Marx condemned half a century members is understandable.

Has it overlooked the similar hand by the unqualified properplexing. You have said, more but more successful military Stalinist racism of such as the than once, that the Russians annexation of Georgia in 1921?

And, last but not least, why other side by their own doubts 74 Regina Road, London NW4 12 August 1980 Dear Editor, You have repeatedly invited discussion of the WSL and TILC's politics.

Brezhnev's war in Afghanistan remains front-page news in the world's press, yet for months Socialist i Press has nreserved a onilty otto voce.

and the violence with which it editorial safety, advised Afghans before?

Your ambiguities are should not have gone in, but Togliattigrad and Poland).

An organisation that brides the tiny Mongolian Party. the Congress, with full Soviet So the confusion of WSL They are bufetted on the one Spartacist tendency and on the Meantime the WSL leadership itself abdicates its Trotsky's mature analysis of revolutionary workers' state' Forty years on, why no clear Adam Westoby come to the aid of oppressed and insurrectionary classes, and that not only with ideas but if possible with arms.

Nor did we limit ourselves to announcements. We ir ou own time aided the workers of Firland, Latvia, Esthonia: and Georgia with armed force: we made an attempt to bring aid to the revolting Polish proletariat by the campaign of the Red Army against Warsaw. We sent organisers and commanders to the help of the Chinese in revolution. In 1926 we collected millions of roubles for the aid of the British strikers"

(Revolution Betrayed p285)

But Trotsky also shows the problems of such actions:

"After the retreat of the Red Army from the vicinity of Warsaw in 1920 only a powerful wave of revolutionary protests prevented the Entente from coming to the aid of Poland and crushing the Soviets"

(Ibid p 187)

The assessment of the actual balance of military and political forces led Trotsky-in disagreement with Lenin-to favour an early armistice, once the Polish invasion had been defeated.

"It would be easy to pick

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what Blick and Westoby denounce as Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin's joint attempt to force a revolution by foreign bayonets through an invasion.

It was a defensive war, imposed on the Soviet Union. Even if Blick and Westoby are reluctart to concede its legitimacy and necessity in defending the very existence of the workers' state, surely they will at least extend their declaration of the right of Afghanistan to defend itself against foreign aggression to the Soviet Union?

Or has their hostility to Leninism ard the gains of the Bolshevik revolution led them to deny that right only to nations in which the working class has followed the banner of Marxism to the seizure of power?

As an effort to turn the initial defence into an offensive, aimed at aiding the Polish working class to seize power, the 'invasion' stands condemned only by virtue of the fact that it was misconceived-and founded on a wrong assessment of the balance of forces.

Aiding workers to seize power with whatever resources can be mustered is not only consistent with every principle of revolutionary Marxism-it is a clear responsibility of every revolutionary Marxist.

October • LEMNGRAD (left)

MON LIA In the autumn of 1920, Baron Ungern-Steinberg, a White Guard general, invaded Outer Mongolia and captured Urga, the principle town in February 1921.

With the support of Japanese imperialists and reactionary Chinese militarists, he exerted a brutal rule over the Mongolians which was characterised by almost inconceivable oppression.

Partisan Mongolian groups had been organised, initially in opposition to the military dictatorship of General Sui-Si-Sehin [leader of An Ful which controlled Northern China] and later against Izin Gun [after An Fu lest control in mid 19201.

Those military dictatorships were exercised with the collaboration of Mongolian feudal dukes, who had accepted the invaders rule in return for guarantees of feudal privilege.

When Urgern Steinberg, sponsored by the Japanese, invaded Cuter Mongolia the Mongolian partisans turned their struggle against the White Guard.

In March 1921 a popular government was organised by the partisans in Khalkha.

Spearheaded the Mongolian Peoples Party formed at the beginning of MATE -MUM 8 73 MMYM Petrograd!', 1920 from two nationalist groups), a majority within the partisan government favoured turning to the Red Army for aid against the White Guard.

With the successful defeat of counter revolutionary armies in Siberia, the Red Army moved into Mongolia to attack UngernSteinberg who, with Japanese support, was preparing his own attack into Siberia.

Fighting alongside forces of the partisan government, units of the Red Army particpated in the defeat of Ungern Steinberg in June 1921.

Numbers of White Guard detachments remained in Outer Mongolia-under General Bakitch, Colonel Karagrandi, General Resvonkin, Colonel Karanlsev, Kitargorodov and others. The Red Arniy continued to cooperate with the Mongolians in the war against those bands.

In November 1921, a Mongolian Peoples Republic was proclaimed. The fact that units of the Red Army remained in Mongolia and that there was massive Soviet influence does not mean as Blick and Westoby imply, that they did so as oppressors against the interests of the oppressed classes in Mongolia.

With Outer Mongolia having been historically divided between competing Russian, Chinese and Japanese capitalists, and the country almost completely economically backward, there could of course be no 'Mongolian independence' which did not involve extremely developed economic ties with at least one of these relative economic powers.

By sending substantial military aid to the Mongolians in their struggles against the mlitary oppression of the Japanese, Chinese and White Guard, and by ushering in a new set of economic ties, based on renouncing all Tsarist treaties, property and the exploitative benefits accruing from them, the Bolsheviks and the Red Army won the political support of layers of militants, particularly in the youth section of the party.

They moved from the national struggle to embrace the socialist programme through which alone the material interests of workers and poor peasants, mobilised under the barner of nationalist slogans, could actually be met.

It is worth noting that the workers' state was able to offer real material aid, even at a time when its own existence was militarily threatened and its own economy backward and drained by the imperialist and Civil Wars.

And though the revolu1918 October tionary Third International, the Soviet leadership was central in acquiring from Sun Yat Sen assurances that he would not pursue the imperialist Chinese claims to Outer Mongolia.

We have no precise reliable information concerning the reported interventions' by Moscow to guarantee subservience, the 1922 purges; and the execution of Danzan referred to by Blick and Westoby.

In particular, we have found no information which supports Blick and Westoby's implications that there was mass resistance [or indeed, any resistance, save from individuals and reactionary sociai layers) to the presence of Soviet troops, advisors and political influence.

As revolutionary Marxists, we would indeed expect, what to Blick and Westoby must clearly be unthinkable, that oppressed peasants and workers would welcome troops, advisers and influence from a state and a party irrevocably committed to prosecuting the interests of oppressed classes.

Danzan was executed. But we have been unable to find any evidence which suggests that this was due to arguing for a measure of independence from Moscow.

As a previous Minister of Finance, he was charged with collusion with Orlev (Tsarist representative) and with aiding Chinese merchants in extracting debts.

In the absence of concrete information to the contrary, we tend to think that the mass oppression, bureaucratic control and disregard for socialist principles with which Blick and westoby accuse ine Boisheviks are to be explained more in terms of Blick and Westoby's own receptivity to anti Leninism, than actual historical fact.

Together with Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgia formed the Transcaucasian territory, an oil and mineral rich region between the Black and Caspian Seas.

The Georgian republic, set up in 1918 under a Menshevik government, covered two provinces of former Isarist Russia.

Three quarters of the Georgian population was peasant, and the Mensheviks secured a level of peasant support through a limited land reiorm.

The Menshevik government banned the Georgian Communist Party in 1918 and carried out severe repressions against conimunists. They continually looked to the imperialist powers to preserve their bourgeois republic.

In 1918 a deal with the German government against the Turkish, led to the occupation of Georgia by German troops as a protection against Turkish claims.

At the end of the world imperialist war, British troops occupied Georgia. In 1919, the Georgian Mensheviks appealed for an imperialist mandate (through the League of Nations) over the Transcaucasian region, under British control.

But world imperialism staked its hopes on the White Army (troops of which under Denikin were occupying the territory bordering on Georgia to the north) and British troops were pulled out at the end of 1919.

At a time when the Soviet workers' state faced the full onslaught of the imperialistbacked White counter revolution, the Georgian Mensheviks were offering an open door to imperialism.

In a situation of morta danger to the workers' state, the Red Army moved into Georgia in May 1920.

But the invasion of the workers' state by Polish-Ukraine forces that same month led to a withdrawal of the Red Arniy units while Moscow concentrated its efforts on repelling the invaders.

The Red Army moved in again in Rebruary 1921 and toppled the Menshevik government with the aid of the Georgian communists.

The forceful sovietisation of Georgia was undertaken by the Soviet Republic as a necessary act of self defence by a revolutionary workers' state under imperialist siege.

Ir. the same way that workers in strikes against big capitalists may cause the bankruptcy of small capitalist concerns, the revolutionary workers' state in military struggle against inperialism may be forced by imperialist aggressic n to violate the independence of small states.

The tactical decision to invade and sovietise Georgia flowed from the over-riding task of safeguarding the socialist revolution that had been accomplished.

Lenin called for the subordination of policy in Georgia to the control of the Georgian Communist Revkom under Makhardadze; for the arming of the workers and poorest peasants of Georgia; and for maximum flexibility in con"The Soviet Republic in 1921 peacefully sovietized Georgia which constituted an open gateway for imperialist assault in the Caucasus.

From the standpoint of the principles of national self-determination a good deal might have been said in objection to such sovietisation.

From the standpoint of extending the arena of sccialist revolution, military intervention in a peasant country was more than a dubious act.:

Fron, the standpoint of the self defence of the workers' state surrounded by enemies, forceful sovietisation was justified: the safeguarding of the sc-cialist revolution contes before formal democratic principles.

World imperialis for a long time utilised the question of rallenge y in morising wothd public opinion against the Soviets.

The Second International took the lead in this canipaign. The Entente aimed at the preparation of a possible new military intervention against the Soviets."

(In Defence of Marxism p 173)

While unequivocally defending the right and the absolute necessity for the forceful sovietisation of Georgia, Trotsky, with the increasingly expressed support of Lenin, was to sharply attack the bureaucratic method and chauvinist attitude with which Stalin, as Commissar of Nationalities took up the specific problems and questions posed by Sovietisation.

In response to a challenge, we have examined the bogus historical "parallels" cited by Blick and Westoby. We have answered their allegations that the early Bolsheviks in fact nurtured imperialist ambitions.

But for revolutionaries, who unlike Blick and Westoby still uphold Trotsky's analysis of the process of degeneration of the workers' state under the Stalinist bureaucracy there is a far more important political difference which makes the siniple drawing of parallelis between the "invasions' totally misleading.

For whatever appearance, there can be no genuine similarity between measures taken to defend the gains and interests of the working class, and those taken to defend the benefits and caste interests of the parasitic Nothing in revolutionary Marxism suggests that there is anything unprincipled in crossing borders to defeat counterrevolution, or to aid and promote workers' revolution.

But everything in revolutionary Marxism shows that the Stalinist bureaucracy seeks to defend its own caste interests through class collaboration and oppression which hold back, and are directed against workers It is precisely because the military action of the Bolshevik government was necessary to defend the gains of the October revolution and the interests of the working class that we defend them, and it is precisely because the invasion of Afghanistan was undertaken to protect the Soviet bureaucracy from a self-perceived threat, at the expense of workers' interests, that we oppose it.

Unlike Blick and Westoby, the WSL approaches questions and problems of class struggle, not merely to announce principles, and evaluate as right or wrong what has already occurred.

We seek to develop an intervention and perspective which, drawing on the lessons of class struggle, can provide militants and workers in each situation a way forward; to turn the adverse conditions persistently imposed on them by imperialism and Stalinism to the maximum possible advantage of the working class and oppressed allies.

The war in Afghanistan, imposed upon workers and peasants by Stalinism, imperialism, petty bourgeois nationalism feudal reactionaries does not serve and cannot serve the interests of either Soviet or Afghani fighters and workers. A return to the status quo (if it were possible) is a return to exactly that set of political factors out of which the war actually grew.

The only way forward is one which politically confronts the counter revolutionary leaderships which have imposed this war.

The basis of the WSL position thus lies in taking up the adverse circumstances as they actually are and developing demands which provide a way forward against the counter revolutionary leaderships which have imposed this war.

It is only by forging links, on the basis of their common objective interests against their existing leaderships, that a way forward from the adverse circumstances imposed on them exists for both Afghani and In their trite "similarities" Blick and Westoby not surprisingly fail to draw out the one central similarity and lesson which is common to the invasions they falsely equate: the task of moving forward from adverse political conditions is a task which can only be taken up by the united strength and solidarity of workers against the leaderships which divide them to the point of war, and on the basis of the common independent interests which unite all workers.

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Page 8 SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 15 October 1980 Tribune platform; Benn: the Parliamentary 'lefts' are finding themselves overtaken by Renders' letters and a reply