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establish a basis for peaceful coexistence between the deformed Soviet workers' state and the power of capitalism elsewhere.

At Yalta, Tehran and Potsdam Stalin agreed with the imperialist leaders on the carving up of the world into new "spheres of influence"

Stalin was willing to betray revolutionary struggles in France, Italy, Greece and Vietnam and even China (where in 1945 he signed a 30-year treaty with Chiang Kai Shek) in pursuit of his deal with imperialism.

But the imperialists were still not reconciled to the existence of the USSR and wished to establish their military superiority over the Soviet Union.

It was as an attempt to intimidate the Stalinist leaders -and nothing whatever to do with defeating the Japanesewho were already seeking terms of surrender-that the Americans took the decision to unleash the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Seal of approval

The Kremlin bureaucrats gave their seal of approval to the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb on August 6 1945 by joining the "allies" in declaring war on Japan three days later.

This was in spite of the fact that the USSR had three weeks earlier been approached to act as mediator in the moves to a Japanese surrender.

The Stalinist press in Britain and in the USA enthusiastically welcomed both the bombing and the declaration of war, claiming that:

"All intelligent people know that the atomic bomb helped to shorten the war and thus saved millions of lives"

(Pamphlet: Atomic Energy and Social Progress)

Stalin himself according to US President Truman also endorsed the barbaric action against Hiroshima:

"All he said was that he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make "good use of it against the Japanese" "

Within three years, course, US imperialism would be deploying the Bomb in Europé-against the Soviet Union!

Even in the 1950s the Stalinists in Britain, as always responsive to the intrigues of Kremlin foreign policy, opposed the struggle by socialists and Trotskyists in the Labour Party for a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament.

In 1957 a Trotskyist-backed resolution calling for unilateral disarmament was tabled by Norwood CLP for the Labour Party conference in Brighton. It was attacked not only by Gaitskell and the right wing, but also by the former darling of the left, Aneurin Bevan.

Yet Bevan's line came after discussions in Moscow with Kremlin leader Kruschev-who explained that he did not want a unilateralist policy adopted in Britain.

European nuclear weapons could counter-balance the USA and be used as bargaining counters, argued Kruschev.

Bevan came back to denounce unilateralism as "an emotional spasm", , and dedlarein terms reminiscent of William Rodgers and David Owen today -that a British Foreign Secretary could not go "naked into the conference chamber". The British CP obediently took up this line, accusing the unilateralists of being "sectarian" The CP denounced the establishBy ment of the CND in 1958 as a step that would "split" the peace movement.

In 1959 CP-influenced union delegations at the Labour Party conference voted against the scores of unilateralist motions.

A 1958 CP pamphlet Close all US Bases called not for unit unilateral disarmament, but for:

"A ban on the test, manu" facture and use of nuclear weapons by interntional agree. ment"

CP General Secretary John Gollan chose his Party's 1959 Conference to wage an explicit attack on the unilateralists, fo for:

"Emphasis on the issue of unilateral disarmament in a way which has tended to slow up the activities of the forces of peace, at a time when utmost unity is the need :..

The real issue is what will unite the greatest number of people to get rid of the bomb. We think that every experience has shown that to make an agreement on unilateral renunciation of nuclear weapons a condition of the fight for peace only divides the movement.

It tends to divert attention from the real issue-international agreement".

In pursuing their goal of an "international agreement" with the imperialist leaders the Stalinist parties began a campaign of feting the then US President General Eisenhower.

The French CP leader Thorez publicly criticised those Stalinist municipal and general councillors who had failed to obey a CP Political Bureau instruction to attend a reception for the imperialist war-chief in Paris.

In Italy, too, the Stalinist daily paper formally declared that:

"We Communists of Rome salute Dwight Eisenhower and, graleful acknowledgements to the Guardian in the name of 250,000 elector electors... express our contidence and our determination that the great hopes for peace which were aroused in the hearts of all peoples, hopes created by the meeting between the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, shall not end in disappointment."

The May 1960 talks between Eisenhower and Kruschey were in fact followed by a renewed lurch towards Cold War politics with the U2 spy plane scandal and tensions over Cuba.

In line with this situation and growing pressure from the Young Communist League, the CP swung round to support for the CND's Aldermaston marches -and supporting the CND's pacifist and left reformist leaders.

This leadership had foughtunsuccessfully-to keep Trotskyist banners off their demonstrations and to avoid the sharp class issues that they raised.

But they welcomed the arrival of the Communist Party, with its global perspective of class collaboration and peaceful coexistence.

It was not the Stalinists but Trotskyists organised round The Newsletter who first raised the demand on the TUC to lead industrial action to halt nuclear weapons.

A Newsletter pamphlet in March 1958 was entitled "Black the H Bomb and the Rocket Bases" • it called for action by all unions concerned to stop the construction of bombs and bases.

Campaign

And it correctly demanded the Labour Party NEC mount an international campaign for working class action to force an end to the manufacture and testing of H Bombs, and to pledge itself to halt such tests and construction work the moment Labour was elected to office.

It is significant to note that while it was the Stalinists who tailored their policies to every twist and turn of the foreign policy of the Kremlin, it has rmansk eningrady Moscow OKiev only ever been Trotskyists who have unambiguously fought within the CND and other antiwar movements for a principled defence of the Soviet Union.

The whole of the period since the Russian Revolution has confirmed that the war danger is one that stems from the contradictions and aggressive policies of imperialism in its search for ways to destroy the nationalised property relations of the workers' states.

Trotskyists, in defending every historic gain made by the working class, do not stand neutral in the face of such a threat.

We are in favour of the maximum defence of the Soviet Union against imperialist attack.

We call for the unilateral nuclear disarmament not of the deformed workers' states which stand in the gravest danger but of the imperialist bourgeoisie in each country, which has shown by two world wars the extent of its barbarism in the pursuit of profit.

Opposed

It is the right and the duty of the workers' states to arm themselves with the most modern techniques and weapons for defence.

But of course the privileged bureaucratic caste that holds political power in the deformed workers'' states stands fundamentally opposed to the development or use of the most powerful potential weapon: the mobilisation of the working masses in the imperialist and semi-colonial countries in revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of capitalism.

So long as the Soviet Union and deformed workers' states remain isolated enclaves of nationalised property relations in a hostile world dominated by finance capital, there will remain an ever-present threat of war-a war more horrible, more destructive and final than any previous experience.

The struggle against war is therefore bound up with the fight on a national and international level for a revolutionary leadership within the working class that can mobilise the Miles 1000 Miles 1000 Baku mass struggles necessary for the defeat of capitalism, and the overthrow of the counterrevolutionary bureaucracy in the Stalinist-ruled states.

Thus while Trotskyists of the Workers Socialist League will be participating in the mass demonstration of October 26 we will do so from our own independent standpoint, to argue in opposition to the pacifist leadership that has reemerged with the resurrection of the CND.

We do not agree with the standpoint of E.P. Thompson and the varied signatories to the Appeal for European Nuclear Disarmament (launched 28 April 1980), who seek to equate the Soviet moves for self-defence in Europe with the aggressive moves of the US imperialists, when they declare that:

"We do not wish to appor tion guilt between the political and military leaders of both East and West. Guilt lies squarely on both parties... We ask the two superpowers to withdraw all nuclear weapons from European territory ... We must commence to act as if a united, neutral and pacific Europe already exists. We must learn to be loyal, not to 'East' or "West', ' but to each other..."

Workers must on the contrary learn to be loyal not to smooth-talking liberals who approach the issue as simply one of protest and propaganda, but to their own independent class interests.

International gain The proletariat, as an international class, must focus its main struggles against its own bourgeoisie in each country, and fight to defend the nationalised property relations of the Soviet Union as an international gain for the workers' movement.

And the working class of the deformed workers' states must fight in their own defence not by the military/diplomatic methods of their bureaucratic leaders, but through the overthrow of these leaders and the struggle for world revolution.

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front of workers' parties tol combat German fascism In this issue we begin an occasional series of articles on the history of the Trotskyist movement in France. This week we present the first part of a study of the movement from the beginnings of the crisis of the Comintern to the outbreak of the Second World War. It is based very largely on 'Les Enfants du Prophete' by Pierre Roussel, who was at the time he wrote the book associated with the group 'Socialisme ou Barbarie' which had links with the British

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