Delegation reports back

Scan page 5

The Labour Movement Delegation, which visited Ireland during mid-September, made a preliminary report of its findings to a 100-strong audience at the London School of Economics on Monday 11th October.

Delegates spoke of their impressions of the trip, which lasted four days and visited Dublin, Crossmaglen and Belfast.

Although the final report has not been written yet, there seemed to be a general consensus among delegates that the only way to further the Irish people's right to self-determination was to call for an immediate withdrawal of British troops.

Delegates emphasised this in contrast to the British Communist Party's call for "a return of troops to barracks" pending their eventual withdrawal.

One delegate pointed out that in Crossmaglen; the troops were efféctively confined to barracks - yet they still managed to intimidate and oppress the people of the area.

Socialist Press will carry a full analysis of the delegation whenever the final report appears. We would, however, urge all Trade Union branches that supported the delegation, to contact the organisers and ask for speakers to give a report on their findings. The address to write to is:

Labour Movement Delegation to Ireland, 1, North End Rd., London W.14. and in 1968 became Chairman o the Islington Irish Civil Right: Solidarity Campaign.

While in prison, he went or hunger strike in solidarity witt Frank Stage, and, as a result spent months in solitary confine ment.

REPRESSIONS

Noel's imprisonment in 1972 after a farcical trial, marked the beginning of the current repression against irish miltants in this country. His death now only signifies a further round of repres sion.

Exactly how Noel died is unclear. What is clear is that we in the labour movement have a duty to ascertain all the facts of his death. By doing this we will be actively furthering the cause for which he died - the removal of troops from Ireland and an end to British rule there.

Scan page 6

pege 6 SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 20th October 1976 This is the second of five parts of the Document by the Communist Internationalist League, 1 expelled majority of the Greek Workers Internationalist League, The majority of the WIL were expelled after intervention of Gerry Healy, (then General Secretary of the British Workers Revolutionary Party) acting in name of the International Committee of the Fourth International. Reyelutionaries do not Issively propagandize their ¡cialist programme - or ther they don't limit themIves to propaganda.

They organise and lead every ruggle, they push the struggle rward in practice and in the ocess of its development they not ly try to use the appropriate ucational vocabulary, but they : at any moment ready to change eir slogans, to combine them with hers, at every new stage of the uggle.

But the sectarians justify their fusal to take up the struggle for a iss revolutionary party with their imical rejection of such a policy "reformist"

WAR To engage in war against a bourDisie which is so experienced, so xible and so ruthless, the bourDisie which has successfully fended its power under the most ried conditions and to approach ch a war armed with ready-made hemes - excluding in advance try "manoeuvre" in our practice is not only ridiculous but also «gerous, Lenin says in Left Wing Comunism: "Is it not like making a difficult cent of an unexplored and hitherinaccessible mountain and fusing in advance ever to move in -zags, ever to retrace one's steps, ¡ ever to abandon a course once lected and to try others?" (Left Wing Communism p.53) But read the WRP Perspectives! ey only want to know about raight lines. Everything ditterent sturbs the calm routine of their jopagandistic circle.

I They write:

GATe stil 1571* revisionism to produce a mountain of quotations. which instruct the working class to pass through a series of stages of experience with social-democracy, right at the point where, on the contrary, the objective conditions necessitate a revolutionary leap • by the working class..." (Page 7).

OPPOSED

Our sectarians find the series of quotations heavy going because the WRP is essentially opposed to the whole voluminous work of Lenin and Trotsky, not to mention Marx and Engels.

Listen gentlemen:

"Here again we find that the "lefts" [Left Wing Communists] do not know how to reason, do not know how to act as the party of a class, as the party of the masses. You must not sink to the level of the masses, to the level of the backward strata of the class. That is incontestable. You must tell them the bitter truth. You are in duty bound to call their bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices what they are -prejudices. But at the same time you must soberly follow the actual state of the class consciousness and preparedness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of all the working people (not only of their advanced elements). (Page 42).

To the "left" English Communists Lenin also explained that they should help the working class to learn through its experience that communists are right when they accuse the Social-Democrats as traitors.

He proposed that in alastian on 1 a seiden ikes Saigon, 1975.

Labourites Ramsey MacDonald and them "as a rope supports a hanging i Labourites Henderson and Snowden against the Conservatives Lloyd George and Churchill, to support them "as the rope supports a hanged man"

"To act otherwise would mean hampering the cause of the revolution, since reyolution is impossible without a change in the views of the majority of the working class, a change brought about by the political experience of the masses, never by propaganda alone."

"To lead the way without compromises, without turning' -this slogan is obviously wrong...

(Left Wing Communism p.67).

The sectarians teach us, contrary to Lenin, that we should ignore the "degree of consciousness" of the masses. Trotsky, too, whom they claim to follow is radically opposed tr +levis Tharr mania the the the certainly accuse Trotsky of "adaptation" to spontaneity in the following passage:

"I think that in the beginning the slogan (sliding scale of wages and hours will be adopted. What is this slogan? in reality it is the system of work in socialist society. The total number of workers divided into the total number of hours.

But if we present the whole socialist system it will appear to the average American as utopian, as something from Europe. We present it as a solution to this crisis which must assure their right to eat, drink and live in decent apartments. It is the programe of socialism, but in a very popular and simple form."

(Discussions on the Transitional Programme, May 19th, 1938).

Trotsky does not mean of course that tro must not sunlain to tha American workers advantages of socialism. • But he sees socialism as a question of propaganda, and he does not see it as a slogan of intervention "in the course of every economic struggle" , as a slogan for agitation or immediate activity.

This difference between propaganda and agitation was known to revolutionaries from the early days, but petty bourgeois sectarians have never bothered themselves with it.

Let us remind them that such a distinction exists. They would have already noticed if they had reai contact with the masses.

They would have noticed that difference layers and levels of consciousness exist within the mass movement, and they would take this fact into account when they took tactical decisions.

CLEARED In What Is To Be Done? Lenin clears the confusion on : this question, fighting against the Russian economists. In place of propaganda the economists substituted agitation around economic demands, while in place of agitation they put "simple appeals" for action:

'We congratulate the Russian -and international —Social Democracy on having found, thanks to *artynov, a new terminology, more strict and more profound. Hithero we thought (with Plekhanoy, and with all the leaders of the international working class movement) that the propagandist, dealing with, say, the question of unemployment must explam the capitalistic nature of crises, the cause of their inevitability in modern society, the necessity for the transformation of this society into a socialist society, etc.

hat they it that they will be understood as an in a word. he must present ""many ideas," •so many, indeed, integral whole only by a (comparatively) few persons The agitator, however, speaking on the same subject, will take as an illustration a fact that is most glaring and most widely known to his audience, say the death of an unemployed worker's family from starvation, the growing impoverishment, etc, and, utilising this fact, known to all, will direct his efforts to presenting a single idea to the "masses", , eg. the senselessness of the contradiction between the increase of wealth and the increase of poverty; he will strive to rouse discontent and indignation among the masses against this crying injustice, leaving a more complete explanation to the propagandist.

Consequently, the propagandist operates chiefly by means of the printed word; the agitator by means of the spoken word. The propagandist requires qualities different from those of the agitator. Kautsky and Lafargue, for example, we term propagandists; Bebel and Guesde we term agitators."

(Lenin, Collected Works pp409410).

What did Trotsky have to this question?

LABOR PARTY

From the time of Trotsk " Ti › ta todav the creation of a Ta

Scan page 7

DCLALIST PRESS. Medresde! 255* Ociober 1975 Page 7 French General Strike - May-June 1968.

Party in America, counterposed to the two bourgeois parties - Republican and Democrat - which have monopolised the political life of the country, has not been possible.

The slogan and the struggle for a Labor Party has been on the agenda since the 1930's when it was advanced together with the struggle for the building of the Socialist Workers Party as part of the Fourth In the period of imperialist decay and on the threshold of World War Il, the American working class needed not simply a party but needed a revolutionary Nevertheless, Trotsky thought SWP members should not limit themselves to appealing to the working class to rally into the SWP.

This was a propagandistic task. Taking into account the level of development of the consciousness of the American working class, Trotsky considered that the SWP should call on the working class, (ie. the Unions) to build their Naturally they did not call for it to be a reformist party.

In discussions with members of the swi in 1938, Trotsky said:

"In Minneapolis | where the SWP had its biggest strength and prestige we cannot say to the trade unions you should adhere to the Socialist Workers Party. It would be joke even Minneapolis....

"The necessity of a political party for the workers is given by the objective situation, but our party is too small, with too little authority in order to org anise the unshare into ito nar parl = That ic

FFу3S-36

why we must say to the workers, the masses: you must have a party. But we cannot say immediately to these masses, you must join our In a mass meeting 500 would agree on the need for a labor party. Only five agree to join our party, which shows that the slogan of a labor party is an agitational slogan. The second slogan [become members of our party is for the more advanced.

Should we use both slogans or one? I say both. -(Discussions on the Transitional Programme May 31st, 1938).

If it was possible that the masses Marx accept the socialist programme all at once and so flock all at once into the revolutionary party which is necessary for victory, the need for a transitional programme, for transitional demands and for tactics in general would not exist.

But the question is how will the masses be pushed forward, in the process of everyday struggie, to conceive the necessity for socialist METHOD Trotsky, in the Transitional Programme, tries precisely to train the cadres of the Fourth International in the method which must guide their everyday activity within the masses, showing them how they must help the masses forward.

• Neither socialist siogans, nor transitional slogans, must be simply counterposed by ready-made and inflexible lists to the living struggle of the masses.

Furthermore everv militant who 401000*: 1*0M9* •#35 Trotsky speaking during the Civil War.

has a relationship with the workers movement and experience of it understands that eyen minimum demands cannot possibly succeed if simply counterposed to the masses.

MATURED

Even a simple strike for wages or conditions cannot begin unless it has matured, unless the leadership takes into account many factors in formulating these economic demands, and unless these demands are presented in the most appropriate manner.

Going through Trotsky's discussions with members of the SWP on the question of the Labor Party, one can observe how far removed he was from a propagandistic approach to the transitional Slogans.

He says:

"Into this Labor Party we will channel our transitional slogans. Evidently not all at once, but one after the other, to the degree that the chances will be offered to us.

• In another discussion on the Transitional Programme, referring to the sliding scales of wages and hours, Trotsky says that:

"Everywhere,we must discuss localities present this idea, in all He gives a concrete example:

"I believe that we can concentrate the attention of the workers on this point [the sliding scales]. Naturally this is only one point. In the beginning this slogan is totally adequate for the situation. But the others can be added as the development proceeds. The bureaucrats will oppose it. Then if this slogan becomes popular with the masses, fascist tendencies will develop in opposition. We will say that we need to develop defence squads."

Is there anything in common between Trotsky's method and the method of the petty-bourgeois sect in the leadership of the WRP?

FULL LIST

The WRP formulate comprehensive lists of the "objective tasks" of the working class, watching pedantically not to miss anything out.

This is the way they train the whole International Committee. They see no reason to feel disturbed, existing complacent and comfortable in the routine of their small circle.

The whole of their activity is dedicated to the self preservation of their petty bourgeois leading clique when the workint "leap" they while they await a miracle: the time perform the famous have continuously predicted.

Their degenerate method reaches to heights of cynicism. They almost wish for the working class to be defeated under Stalinist leadership, supposing that the working class will in this way learn the value of the WRP, since they correctly warned it would happen.

There is no monument to cynicism in the history of the workers' movement comparable to this extract from the perspectives proposed to the 4th International Congress of the International Committee!

"As part of the international role of Stalinism, the Stalinist parties will undoubtedly (!) lead the workers in certain cases (?) to defeats. There will be no shortcuts around these experiences (!), as the working class goes through the preparations for the decisive struggle for power."

This is not the method of revolutionaries. but the method of anical perty bourgeois, who are finished for 2ood.

Neo-Hegelianism and Dialectical Materialism Behind the sectarian falsification of Marxism, there are not only the material conditions which ted it, but also a wrong philosophical method - the method of the bourgeoisie, subjective idealism.

The science of dialectics has remained a sealed book for the prophets of the WRP, despite their prolonged theoretical and revisionist wanderings. Every work of classical Marxism and its method was reduced by these sectarians simply to material for propaganda.

COVERED UP

What is more, they use dialectical categories in the manner of sophistry, invoking 'contradictions' to cover up their idealist theories and their opportunistic practice.

These tricksters who expect the working class to come to their feet in a single "leap" tell us in bold type in their 1974 'Perspectives' document for the WRP Conference:

"So, the form of the "bridge" is the unity and conflict between the revolutionary party and the working class. " Party Nonsense! This "theory" has nothing in common with dialectical materialism.

It sends us back to the days of Bruno Bauer and the whole Holy Family of the neo-Hegelians, which amused Marx in his time and still amuses his followers.

Healy (front) witi The "conflict" which the WRP petty bourgeois sect describes as a conflict between the party, (which is the "conscious' element) and the working class (which is simply "spontaneity'), represents only an idealist diving into a vacuum.

In practice, it is an argument of the propagandist with the workers.

The world does not change as a result of such "heroic" battles of ideas. "The arms of criticism cannot be a substitute for the criticism of arms" wrote Marx.

What distinguished Marx iron previous philosophers, is that they all believed that men should first of all reject their wrong conceptions and see the world correctly, in order to change it.

They could not understand that the wrong ideas which they were criticizing were rooted not within people's heads. but within material conditions of people's lives and so they could not be rejected except through practical activity to change these conditions.

Ideas are neither self existent nor self moving. They reflect the movement of the material world.

CONFLICT

Every development, in the world of reality and of ideas, originates first and foremost with the conflict of material forces and interests.

The possibility of the working class developing socialist consciousness exists within material reality.

This reality, characterised by the deepest-ever economic crisis of the capitalist system, Is the result ot the many sıded activity of man: of work, of technological and scientific progress, of the class struggle, of conflicts between individual capitalists, of preceding wars and revolutions and of the inflationary policy applied by the imperialists after the war, (a policy applied not on the coatE of an individual callet Fester S because the imperis choice).

Now the imperialists 2e n3hi to normalise the contadiesses Di their system or to resti ITE old equiibrium. ==: 305€ imposing the great Me: * now ceci human being who i : :: paupersation, starvation ard death without resistance.

ENERGY

The imperialists therefore cannot face their problems without ensuring that Middle East oil and all the energy sources in the world as well as basic raw materials are in their hands.

But the epoch of colonial robbery has gone for good. The oppressed have one by one risen and won their independence.

Now the imperialists can get what they want only through successfully waging war. It is evident that this is not at all easy.

The struggles of the working class and the struggles for national libmaoion, way ut for the imperialway out for the imperialists, but also deepen the crisis of their system.

The one-time economic "stability" of France - of which De Gaulle was so proud - was ruined after the General Strike of 1968. This is only one of the innumerable examples.

ACTIVITY

Though man, through his activity, changes material reality, ideas change more siowly. Ihis creates a gap between objective reality and man's thinking, which retains many of the old ideas rooted into his head during the previous period, the period of boom.

The working class, hit by the crisis, is thrown into battles to " (right) Slaughter, IC Secretary. defend its standard of living. Initially - and inevitably - it does so through the old organisations and old forms of activity.

But in its everyday struggle, the working class not only changes the world, but also its own thinking, and creates the conditions for a forward movement and for a qualitative "leap" in its consciousness.

WRONG

conflict with the new reality, the working class sees its old conceptions every day proved wrong.

They no longer work or help the class. As old ideas are rejected through struggle, and alter an inevitable stage of confusion, the possibility is created for the masses to accept new ideas and conceptions, corresponding to their experience, better adapted to their needs.

So the task of a really revolutionary leadership is not completed by propagandising fixed lists of slogans, but on the contrary, it first of all consists of the task of organising and leading the struggles of the working class for its demands to help it draw the necessary lessons from its own practice, and in this way. develop its consciousness and drive the movement forward for the final battie.

This is the only way to train really revolutionary cadres, leaders of the masses, rather than clique propagandists in small circles.

In this way the party broadens the scope of its propagandistic activity and creates for itself an ever-increasing audience of workers peasants and youth who will examine its analysis oi the crisis, the state, Stalinism, socialism, and so on, and will join the party.

Continued Next Edition

Scan page 8

EPEN EN On Afri On Transi /Africa i Denm Part Four our of le of October 26th the i, a small area of South about the size of i, will be given "inde:e" by the South anvernment The ranskei is one of the ten African cribal areas or Bantustans ¡in whic Africans are permitted to own land and carry on farming activity ior themselves.

The South African government ¡intends eventually, it all goes well with the Transkei, to turn all these areas into independent States.

This manoeuvre, it is important to understand, is in no way a concession to the rising demands for freedom from economic and political tyranny in South Africa by the oppressed African masses.

On the contrary, granting indeHer , tis!")

HYR T M¡ A Z ]" TN' ARF NOW ENTERING THE TRANSKEI be used to extend the political control of the chiefs over the thousands of Africans permanently resident in the towns in South Africa.

Africans will become "citizens" of their respective Bantustans on an ethnic basis whether they live there or not.

Thus all African workers of Xhosa origin will become citizens of the Transkei. This will include those who have no intention of going there.

In one move they will all become the political subjects of the government of Chief Kaiser Matanzima. well known as one of the most right wing collaborationist stooges of Vorster.

At the same time the African workers will lose their South African citizenship, becoming foreigners in their own country with no rights at all, and any worker subject to almost instant deportation to "his country" for any trivial offence.

Imagine if all British workers had their British citizenship taken away and replaced with citizenship of an independent Isle of Skye to which they could be deported

----- pull-quotes -----

pende lafrica