1953: Why the Internatiunai Sput Took Place

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The struggle for the reconruction of the Fourth Interfional as the world party of • socialist revolution can ider no circumstances be tried forward in a • nonIt can in no way be separated mu the real history of the intertional workers movement, the at political questions which face and the fundamental divisions lich have taken place among the They are silent on the fact that the majority of the FI leadership All this is part of the continuing then supported the positions - for aggie to build parties which can liquidation of the Trotskyist cadre dive the crisis of political leader- into Stalinist parties - put by For this reason it is important This difference led, they tell us - claiming that the Bolsheviks and : examine the points raised by even more regrettably - into a split Mensheviks were in a real sense • Weekly, paper of the Inter- into two "public factions"; Pablo simply two factions with a common lional Marxist Group, on the and Mandel's 'International Secre- party between 1903 and 1912! (see tory of the Fourth International. internationai Committe, on the 'IMG Attacks Bolshevism' , Socialist In a recent series of articles, the "International Committee on the dership of the IMG, speaking other (supported by Cannon and But perhaps more important D for the majority tendency the Socialist Workers Party in the still, the IMG proposes "principled He clearly explained how the thin the USFI polemicise against USA, the majority of the French fusions" with not a word about the Pabloite adaptation to Stalinism : positions taken by the Workers movement led by Lambert [pre- political principles which should - struck at the roots of the Trotskyist viously expelled by Pablol and the in their view - form their basis. majority round Gerry Healy in If you agree with us join our faction; if you don't form your *Leadership is the one unsolved But by 1963 Red Weekly own. But above all unity, unity problem of the working class of the We welcome such an open dis- tells us, these differences had hap- entire world. The only barrier ision. We have already replied to pily waned, and a "principled between the working class of the * - quite artificial - line of the reunification" to form the USFI world and socialism is the un'G towards 'unity' in the workers' took place between the I.S. and resolved problem of leadership.

part of the IC - most importantly That is what is meant by the | We have also exposed the way in the American Socialist 1 Workers Now we ask the IMG were the question of the party'. That is what uch they distort the history of issues that split the movement in the Transitional Programme means nin's struggle for a Bolshevik And since then - claims the IMG 1953 secondary ones? Were they when it states that the crisis of the rty (see Socialist Press, March - the USFI is the Fourth Inter- resolved by 1963? And can they labour novement is the crisis of national, and since it has not now be brushed aside in this way? • this article, we will theretore committed any betrayals of the 'And if our break with Pabloism ke up the political signiticance of working class comparable to those Nor did the leadership of the as we see it now clearly; if it boils & 1951-53 split in the ranks of of the Social Democrats or the SWP when it issued its famous down to one point and is concenStalinists, the only correct course 'Open Letter" Against Pabloist trated in one point, that is it - it is for revolutionaries now is "prin- Revisionism (see Fourth Inter- the question of the party. That rolved in it, and the apolitical cipled fusion" with the USFI - national September-October 1953). seems clear to us now, as we have ¡proach of the IMG leadership to naturally, as a distinct faction, The 'Open Letter' starts from seen the development of Pabloism • history of the International the political divide opened by the in action. The essence of Pabloist All this is proposed on the basis Pabloite revision of the Trotskyist revisionism is the overthrow of that of a fraudulent rewriting of the position that world stalinism is a part of Trotskyism which is today history of the Bolshevik Party - counter-revolutionary force. It its most vital part - the conception of the crisis of mankind as the crisis COME ON IN! ed into a pressure group, and the "The working class is transform- of the leadership of the labour movement summed up in the HE WATERS FINE along with it which pushes a section Trotskyists into a pressure grouping *Pabloism aims not only to overthe bureaucracy leftward throw Trotskyism; it aims to overtowards the revolution. In this way throw that part of Trotskyism the bureaucracy is transformed which Trotsky learned from Lenin. from a block and a betrayer of the Lenin's greatest contribution to his revolution into an auxiliary motor whole epoch was his idea and his determined struggle to build 'Such sweeping conclusions on vanguard party capable of leading the changing character of the the workers in revolution. And he Kremlin dictatorship and the dissol- did not confine his theory to the ution of world Stalinism have a time of his own activity. He went logic which is bound to assert all the way back to 1871, and said itself. If the objective processes are that the decisive factor in the marching along so fast and so far, defeat of the first proletarian then an equivalent reorientation revolution, the Paris Commune, was the absence of a party of the must be made by the revolutionary vanguard if it is to be on top of the revolutionary Marxist vanguard, unfolding events. A general turn capable of giving the mass would have to made towards the movement a conscious programme Communist parties and into the and a resolute leadership. It was Communist parties to help along Trotsky's acceptance of this part the disintegration already proceed- of Lenin in 1917, that made ing at an accelerated rate and take full advantage of the transform- 'That is written into the Transstion and imnendino hreakun of itional Programme. that Leninist 'Red Weekly" , papr completed a series of League: We welcome this article we reply International in 1953.

Mitical manner.

Diutionary cadre.

p in the workers' movement. calist League.

WELCOME brement.

Ith and March. 24th).

portance today of the jelf. i The first point to make is that ed Weekly has scarcely a word to USFI//r of the articles this pul to the polemicising : lic discussior IMG version Britain).

rxist Gro ist ti 1e W poli tical the split say in defence or of the political USFI (or,, before unification, the Secretariat [I.S.] They simply • put that in 1953 certain regrettably - arose Fourth International.

SILENT Michel Pablo. should you wish it.

1220x1 CEYLON landel urges "unity" has fer the TIM DICKSAND.

recently Socialist inces. In Fourth even assessment record of the the 1963 : теthe Fourth the position differences -within the Press, March 24th). unity! - so runs their refrain.

SECONDARY?

We do not think so. summarises: force of it.

Cannon 1953).

ESSENCE over more than two decades.

• Yugoslav workers And how d James Cannon assess to the SWP cadre their experience of the faction fight against Pablo's supporters in the USA (the Cochran-Clarke political course first took sail. tendency)?

when its leadership would, as: against Stalin.

Tito.

But had Tito, in breaking Stalin, ceased to be Stalinist?

DICTATORSHIP side the Yugoslav CP.

question of the party.

the Kremlin. revolution in Eastern Europe.

the Soviet army.

to ensure his support.

Trotsky a Leninist.

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and at dawn on November 4th Red Army tanks opened fire on Budapest - thousands of Hungarian workers died in the fighting.

And Tito backed the intervention with, naturally, numerous "regrets'. . Retailing the Kremlin's line that the Hungarian rising fascists were gaining the upper hand, Tito told his party members that:

'if it meant saving socialism in Hungary, then, comrades, we can say although we are against interference, Soviet intervention was necessary"

And he recomended the Kadar regime, installed by the gun:

"I know these people in the new opinion, represent that which is government and they, in most honest in Hungary". . (Speech at Pula, Nov. 11th, 1956).

This is clear enough. The 'remarriage' of Tito with Stalin's heirs was toasted in the blood of the Hungarian workers' movement. Tito, as . a Stalinist, stood four square with world Stalinism and against the working ciass.

And he showed this in the sharpest and clearest possible material test. In the same way, the other 'anti-Stalinist' Gomulka in Poland showed his real colours when Kruschey agreed to leave him at the head of the Polish CP in return for Gomulka's promise -wholly fulfilled - to use state force to repress the support for the Hungarian revolution which was surging up within Poland.

But how did the Pabloite faction of the International assess Tito in the light of these events? Did it reverse and correct the assessment of Tito and point clearly to his counter-revolutionary role? Did it -the central question - point to the need for a Trotskyist section and the struggle for the political revolution in Yugoslavia itself?

Quite the contrary! In 1957 the main resolution on Stalinism of the Fifth World Congress" of Pablo's International Secretariat glossed over Tito's role in the Hungarian events as follows:

"It was not only subjectively but also objectively that the Yugoslay Communist Party became Time of Trotskyist p Tito's break obstacle to the full and complete unfolding (sic!) of the revolutionary forces in Eastern Europe.....Unquestionably the absence of a living and victorious example of democratic workers' state delayed the ripening of the revolution and especially in the case of Hungary contributed to preventing a rapid revolutionary solution of the crisis created by the popular rising of 23rd October. The scope and audacity of the revolution also frightened the leadership of the Yugoslay CP and produced its hesitant attitude (sic!) during the decisive days in Budapest'. (Resolution: The Decline and Fall of And during 1957 and 1958 the main journal of the International Secretariat - stressing the polemic between Tito and Moscow which broke out again in 1957 - carried long articles by Pablo and Ernest Mandel speculating on the "positive' features of developments in the leadership of the Yugosiav CP.

We should make it clear that the Pabloite faction did not renege on defence the Hungarian workers against Krusche's tanks.

CENTRIST

But, as a centrist current, it vaccillated on the political role of world Stalinism - and this example is only one of many: others include equivocation on the political character of the Cuban leadership to this day; the politically lethal accomodation of the Portuguese section of the USFI to the left' shifts of the Portuguese CP last year; the continual refusal of the Pabloite tendency to stand on the principled need for Trotskyist sections and the political revolution in Stalinist China and Vietnam.

Always seizing on the "left' aspects of particular national Stalinist formations, they disintegrate the struggle against the international counter-revolutionary Tole of SUPPRESSED The Hungarian revolution which was already beginning to ech through the rest of Europe - was suppressed not just in Moscow and Budapest itself, but equally in Belgrade and Warsaw.

Without grasping this fact, it was and is impossible to lead a principl ed struggle for internationalism or the rebuilding the Fourth Now - were these principled questions, which were in essence those that divided the International in 1951-53, resolyed in the reunification of 1963?

The answer, without any doubt, is "No'.

The reunification Congress adopted several documents, the main one dealing with Stalinism being "The Sino-Soviet conflict and the situation in the USSR and the other workers ' states. is the Tito (left) and Stalin. Pablo's revision rogran 1948.

ed, the resolution calls for political revolution against the "its strategic aim in the USSR and the people's democracies of Eastern Europe remains the anti-bureaucratic revolution in order to carry out the programme laid down in the Transitional programme"

EQUIVOCAL

But as far as China and Yugoslavia are concerned, there equivocation. In China the resolution called for greater democratisation and rights of communist criticism, linked to critical support of Mao against Kruschev.

In Yugoslavia it saw an advanced process of 'de-Stalinisation' already under way:

"the new constitution which is to be adopted shows that on the level of problems relating to the structure of a workers' state in the phase of transition, the Yugoslav Communists have made a very positive contribution and are ahead of the workers, Other leaderships of the favourable to de-Stalinisation'.

And it calls, not for political revolution, but for the real and complete democratisiation of the economic and political life' With oppositionists and their defence lawyers in Yugoslavia being jailed in 1976 even for remarking on the obvious fact of the country's economic backwardness, the positions of the 1963 reunitication on the political revolution can be seen for the 'diplomatic' compromise they were.

We have concentrated on the case of Yugoslay Stalinism because it shows up so clearly the political character of the Pabloite tendency and the dangers reflected in it.

James Cannon was quite right to insist that the question of leadership in the class, of a clear and principled political hostinty to the international bureaucracy, 'left' and right, were at the very basis of the struggle for the international revolutionary party of the working class.

No party truly independent of the bureaucracy and the ruling class can be built without a leadership clear on these basic questions, consciously struggling to train and temper its cadre against such vaccilations.

We of the Workers Socialist League consider that a principled reconstruction of the Fourth International is not possible without basic political unity on the fundamental questions which have split -and continue to divide the world movement, including the USFI itself.

DESTROY

Pd foremost a ure of Stalini articles of Red Weekly there is scarcely a word on these questions, and what there is, is wrong! They deny categorically that the IS majority in 1953 had a wrong position on the East German uprising. They insist that they did call for political revolution.

This is an important question, since the International Secretariat's analysis of this event was a major factor in the decision of the grouping around the SWP that a split must take place.

Red Weekly however prudently refrains from examining any documents on the question.

Pablo's analysis quite clearly directed most attention not at the building of Trotskyist leadership for the East German working class in their struggle to politically overthrow the bureaucracy, but at looking for a leftwards split in the bureaucracy itself.

GUNNED So as workers were gunned down by Stalinist troops, the I.S. majority could write:

"These events have not demonstrated above all the reactionary and repressive role of the bureaucracy (which we well know), but its weakness in relation to the masses and its dislocation under the pressure and influence of the masses. In East Germany the native and Soviet Stalinists have not above all replied to the revolt of the workers by a large-scale repression, shootings and so on, but much more by a series of concessions...It is in a second phase that in East Germany the bureaucracy, in order to survive and maintain itself is combining reform and repression.

On the other hand, the events in East Germany have provoked an extremely significant and valuable phenomenon for understanding the real, and not the bookish, course of the political revolution in these countries: namely a split from top to bottom in the Stalinist party. with an entire wing of the bureaucracy capitulating before the workers and siding with them at the moment of the workers' uprising" (Letter from the I.S. to the SWP N.C. majority, 3rd September 1953).

This is clearly not a Trotskyist but a centrist position, taking the phrase "political revolution' while avoiding completely the fight for the political independence of the working class. Red Weekly pulls back from tackling such political questions. Instead there is a purely organisational proposal for unity:

"The 1953 split in the Fourth International was a split not into two world parties, but into two public factions. Because no historic betrayal of the interests of the working class had taken place, it was possible for a principled reunification of these two factions to take place. in 1963" • (Red Weekly, March 18th).

This proposal is embellished by an utterly spurious parallel with the supposedly principled 'unity' between Bölshevism and Menshevism before 1912!

What can one say of 'unity' proposals which avoid the basic political issues? It is as though, when your proposal of marriage is queried, you were to argue - But I am not cruel to you, I do not commit adultery, etc..in sum if we were married, you probably would have no immediate grounds for divorce. So how can you possibly resist 'unity"?

This position is purely formal.

Trine les that the organisational that apply to a jigsaw, but not to a revolutionary party.

The world Trotskyist movement has had enough of such unity" . The USFI has been internally divided on Stalinism since it was formed in 1963, and its present crisis flows from this. The International Committee, similarly, existed as coalition without any effective international centre from at least 1966 up to its split (between the SLL and the OCI in France) in 1971.

The divisions have turned not on secondary questions, but on the key political issues facing the masses in revolutionary struggle.

The cadre of the WSL have been compelled, starting from the struggle in the WRP, to draw the lessons of these divisions.

We are in no sense factionalists the or sectarians who wish to maintain door to the unification Trotskyist movement.

But it would be a complete dereliction of our duties to the international working class to agree that 'unity could take place on the basis of some diplomatic compromise on fundamental political questions.

This is why, while we welcome the public discussion opened by the Red' Weekly, we insist that the IMG and the USFI must come to these questions politically.

NOT HISTORICAL' For these are not 'historical" matters, they directly concern the day-to-day struggle for revolutionary leadership: As we showed in the first article of this series the Pabloite origins of the majority in the IMG leadership lead to continual vaccillations, hops and jumps towards 'Stalinism and left' reformism, in the IMG's trade union and other work.

And to take up the issue which above all cemented the reunification of 1963 - Cuba - we find in the very latest issue of Intercontinental Press an article by Livio Maitan which in its essentials repeats the arguments of Mandel and Pablo on Yugoslavia in the 1950's.

Maitan argues that Cuba is a workers' state in which the leadership • has not crystallised as a bureaucracy, and has shown evidence of its willingness to resist bureaucratisiation.

Consequently, Maitan explicitly reaffirms the position that it would IMG Secretary Grogan incorrect to call for the buildin a Trotskyist section in Cuba!

The fact that the Castro leader ship has been increasingly assimilat ed into the international politica bloc led by Moscow Stalinism and that - as a direct result of this. he supported the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, is thrus altogether into the background.

PRESSURE

History repeats itself, but fo Pabloism the centrist hope that the bureaucracy can improve itsel springs ever new - precisely becaus it represents the pressure of thes forces within the ranks of thi revolutionary movement.

The WSL is a national organisat ion. But it fights as an internatione political tendency. Our documen "Fourth International: Problem and Tasks' opens a discussion in thr world movement as a whole.

We in no way hold that we hav nothing to learn - one of the man tasks of the WSL and of the WRI opposition has been to trace badl the roots of the degeneration of th Healy leadership in the WRF Specifically we do not hold that because the reunification of 196:

did not take place on a principle basis, the opposition to it by Heal Lambert and Wohlforth stood ol adequate political foundations.

Nor do we seek 'confessions o error' from those whom we politic ally oppose; still less do we wish tu make an issue of every incidenta error of assessment in the past.

But we do insist that the Fourt International was created abore e else because Stalinism passed to thi side of counter-revolution, and tha it can only be reconstructed am complete its historic task whea th political principles of unremittin struggle against, and political inde pendence of, the bureaucracy ae Once more bult

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"Is individual terror for example permissable or impermissable from the point of view of pure morals? In this abstract form the question does not exist at all for us. Conseryative Swiss bourgeois even now render official praise to the terrorist William Tell. Our sympathies are fully on the side of the Irish, Russian, Polish or Hindu terrorists in their struggle against national and political oppression. The assassination of Kiroy, a rude satrap does not call forth any sympathy. Our relation to the assassin remains neutral only because we do not know what motive guided him. If it became known that Nikolyev acted as a conscious avenger for workers' rights trampled on by Kirov our sympathies would be fully on the side of the assassin. However not the question of subjective motives but that of objective expediency has for us the decisive significance. Are the given means really capable of leading to the goal. In relation to individual terror both theory and experience bear witness that such is not the case. To the terrorist we say: it is impossible to replace the masses; only in the mass movement can you find expedient expression for your heroism. However under conditions of civil war the assassination of individual oppressors ceases to be an act of individual terror. If a revolutionist bombed General Franco and his Staff into the air it would hardly evoke moral indignation even from the democratic eunuchs. Under the conditions of civil war a similar act would be politically completely expedient. Thus even in the sharpest quéstion -murder of man by man - moral absolutes prove futile. Moral evaluation together with those political flow from the inner needs of struggle" At a Provisional IRA meet5 a few weeks ago, Kevin new warned that if Frank agg was allowed to die, taliation would be sought in gland. In the event, Home cretary Roy Jenkins backed • by the British government d without protest from a OR Their Morals And Ours, L. Trotsky, 1938.

nothing in common with pacitistio indignation of the IS "Stop the Bombing" approach. Nor do we limit ourselves like Workers Action to "moral condemnations" that speak of "indefensible actions" that harm the good name of "Irish Republicanism" . Platonic solidarity that neither criticises the politics of Republicanism nor points beyond the defence of its good name is an Northern the attempted assassination of John Taylor, the Unionist champion of the "B specials" . He perfectly symbolised all that the mass movement was fighting against and his escape was not welcomed by the nationalist population.

On the other hand the kidnapping of the Dutch industrialist Herrema by two Provos had no relation to such a movement and was entirely disastrous in its consequences. A strike in progress when the kidnapping took place was called off and workers marched through Limerick in a demonstration against the IRA and for the return of their boss.

PLEA

Instruments Loyalists are as divided and as demoralised as the nationalists. The recent massive redundancies in heavy engineering in Belfast touch the very heart of Protestant working class ascendency.

JOBS

The thunder bolts that capitalist profit seeking has delivered to Rolls koyce, Standard Telephones and Sydenhams have destroyed jobs with a suddeness that makes the explosions of the Provisionals puny and primitive by comparison.

And it goes without saying that those bought and paid for moralists who wax. so indignantly over Provisional terror remain silent at this havoc being wrought amongs! the Protestant working class.

In the fight to build an Irish section of the Trotskyist Fourth International, revolutionaries then start with a situation of recession North and South which can provide a starting point. The growth of such a section to lead the national liberation and social revolution in Ireland can only take place through a break from the bankrupt heritage of militant catholic nationalism.

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M.PABLO RISE & DECLINE OF STALINISM