Defend the Method

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This is the third 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.

This article began by stressing that the split in the Greek WIL must be understood as a political struggle, and not in terms of individuals or personalities.

It then went on to trace the historical roots of the propagandist, sectarian method of the leadership of the International Committee - showing the way in which it produces a rejection of Trotsky's Transitional Programme and the materialist method of Marxism The sectarians seek a foundation for their neo-Hegelian concepts, (which are a complete rejection of Martism) on the most tenuous basis.

res on a single formulaFr To Re In reality, the sectarians never understood Lenin, and so falsity him. Their theory and their practice is completely opposed to the whole life and work of the leader of Bolshevism.

First of all, Lenin himself recognised the one-sidedness and thus the incorrectness of the point on which they take their stand.

Trotsky, in his book Statin writes:

"The author of What Is To Be Done? recognised later the one sided and consequently wrong character of this theory, through which at a particular point he directed his fire, against "economism" with its excessive respect for the spontaneity of the workers' movement."

(Stalin, Volume 1).

CONSCIOUSNESS

Of course we know that when Lenin writes that consciousness comes to the proletariat from the outside, he understands this in a completely different way from the sectarians.

Lenin means, (and this is absolutely correct) that socialist the class struggle, but it must be brought to the proletariat from the "outside" , from the Marxist party.

But this does not at al mean that the scientific consciousness of the party develops within the four walls of a newspaper office, independent of the class struggle, or outside of it.

Rosa Luxemburg Nor does it mean that it will the the the struggle. Lenin was the last man upon whom the sectarians can offload their idealist "theories"

And in What Is To Be Done?, which they invoke, Lenin's critique of the economists turns precisely against the sectarians also. The economists limited the movement of the working class to trade union struggles for economic demands and refused to struggle for political demands because in their view it was not "possible" that the autocracy would concede them, so that the struggle did not promise "tangible results"

The economists, from being critics of the autocracy slid into becoming its apologists. Lenin fought precisely against this tendency.

'LEFT' COMMUNIST

Lenin fought the same sectarian method, when he took up the struggle against the Russian "left" communists and Rosa Luxemburg in his critique "For the Brochure of Junius" Because democracy and national independence cannot exist in the epoch of imperialism, the "lefts" refused the struggle for Aladina damonda no a restinname Our sectarians line up in practice completely with the opportunists; placing no demands under a government like that of Heath in Britain or Karamanlis in Greece.

Why should they? These governments are not in a position to meet workers' demands, and the struggle for such demands does not promise us "tangible results", , as the Russian economists put it. One of the practical consequences of this method was that Healy's puppets in Greece accepted the anti-union laws of Karamanlis and publicly, in front of workers, opposed violation of these laws, defaming Trotskyism within the trade union movement.

OVERTHROW

The reason was - they said -that the real question is not to violate the laws of Karamanlis but to overthrow him! What a perversion of Marxism!

Let us see what the "reformist" Trotsky has to say on this question:

"Mr Roosevelt insists on public works. But we insist that this,, together with mines, railroads, etc, absorb all the people. And that every person should have the possibility to live in a decent manner not lower than now, and we ask that Mr Rooseyelt with his brain must propose such a programme of public works that everyone capable of working can work at decent wages. This is possible with a sliding scale of wages and hours."

(Discussion with Trotsky, May -19th 1938).

Let us say in passing that Healy's London clique defends itself by using the argument that the reform- * ists have always accused revolutionaries of being sectarians, and so they declare that sectarians are revolutionaries!

LUDICROUS

There is not a kernel of logic within this ludicrous demagogy, intended only for interna consumption.

We say: if the reformists brand revolutionaries as sectarians, sectarians blame revolutionaries for the opposite failing: they attack revolutionaries as "reformists"

Isn't it true that the "left" Bukharin at one point characterised Lenin as a "right"? This should not be forgotten.

The demagogic conclusions of the petty-bourgeois Healy clique, arrived at through a process of empirical analysis, bear no relationship to the dialectical method of Marxism which teaches us to judge thinos as they are and not based on

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Wedenday ird November 1976 in ust be judged on objective criteria; such an assessent must not be based on remations coming from different olitical groups.

Let us say here that the Tories • Britain and Karamanlis in Greece pould very much agree with the pinion of these "revolutionaries" hat it is "reactionary utopia" and reformism" for the working class do place demands on bourgeois overnments.

This is immensely more important than the sophistries of the leading clique of the WRP.

Lenin writes in What Is To Be -Done: Teracy has alway included the 4D. Kevolutonary Social-Demostruggle for reforms as part of its activities. But it utilises "economic" agitation for the purpose of presenting to the government not only demands for all sorts of measures, but also (and primarily) the demand that it cease to be an autocratic government."

(Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.

REJECTED

Let the "revolutionaries" of the WRP compare their method with that of Lenin and Trotsky. But why should they do so now? While they accept these leaders in public, they reject them in private.

Trotsky led a revolution and founded an International. The cowardly Healy clique in London has achieved nothing comparable.

Despite this, they treat Trotsky with arrogance and contemptible ignorance. They never accepted his method.

Even when they published his work In Defence of Marxism, they answered him in the appendix with the petty bourgeois conceptions of James Burnham.

Their double dealing cannot tolerated any longer.

Banda can turn as much as he likes around what, in his opinion, is the 'decisive' question of whether demands are "realisable"

But the working class in the struggle for demands vital to its survival, does not have "dilemmas" of that description.

The miners in Britain did not stop to ask Heath whether he could satisfy their demands or not. They started a prolonged, heroic struggle - and they overthrew him.

VERIFIED

The leadership of the WRP claims that the overthrow of Heath verified its policies. Sectarians are equipped only for such commentaries.

In fact, they missed the most important lesson from the miners' strike: that the task of revolutionaries is not simply to comment on the facts through their newspaper, but to be in the forefront of the struggle and to lead it consciously to its conclusion.

Capitalist governments repeatedly explain, as they introduce demands for national "selfrestraint" that capitalism is in no position to satisfy the demands of the workers.

Revolutionaries, too, explain this in their propaganda. But only sectarians draw from this the conclusion that they must abstain from the struggle for economic demands. This is simply capitulation, in which the sectarians in practice go hand in hand with the reformists.

In the Transitioes Programme. Trotsky rejects with contempt the sophistries of the sectarians and the reformists:

"If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated lisabity, then he lisbeniy: perish. is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, matter what its immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery "

(Folrose edition, DEFAMING In their application, the concepts of the sectarians are a real comedy - defaming Trotskyism. Let us take two of the many Greek examples.

The first strike after the collapse of the Junta was in the National Can factory at Elefsis. The Stalinists and the centrists were in the process of shamelessly selling it out in front of our eyes, when one of the puppets of Healy's London clique took the platform at a strike meeting. This comrade considered it his duty to fight the "spontaneity" of the masses.

He did this by speaking to the workers not about the problems of their struggle and the concrete betrayal of the Stalinist and centrist leadership, but - 11 you piease - by denouncing the stand of the Greek Communist Party towards Aris Velouhiotis in 1945!* This is not a joke. It is a real story.

This puppet was one of the main partners in Healy's faction, which later expelled the secretary of the organisation and the majority of Secretary of the WRP the members. (Z1S oI the members 1^15 111were expelled, and more are on the way to joining us).

In the second case another Healy puppet - who says that he learned Marxism studying Banda's cap during the Conference - speaking as a Trotskyist, said in a meeting of students of the Dental Medicine School where he studies, that the broken panes in the School's windows could not be replaced without the overthrow of Karamanlis!

Naturally. Karamanlis, fearing his overthrow by the students of the Dental Medicine School, preferred to replace the broken glass.

The London leadership tried to turn the international Trotskyist movement into a madhouse of this description.

And they still dare to claim that they have a relationship with Marxism and Trotskyism!

The Healy Sect's Policy in the "Eskimo' factory occupation.

Within the framework of the factional effort to create a clique of puppets within the Greek sectin the leadership of the British WRP sent Mike Banda to Greece last summer (1975) to observe the 7th Conference of the Workers Internationalist League.

Banda tried to impose the policies of his petty-bourgeois sect by criticising the way in which the leadership of the WIL led the sit-in Stalin with ally Bukharin: Bukharin once "ermed Lenin 'right wing". strike in the 'Eskimo' household appliance factory.

According to the logic - if one can use this word of Healy's petty-bourgeois sect - our comrades, who were leading this strike, should have put in front of the 800 strikers ot Eskimo the question of the overthrow of Karamanlis and asked for support on this basis.

We say that only people who have spent a whole life carrying out their "revolutionary" tasks within the four walls of a newspaper office cold understand the struggle to remove Karamanlis in this way.

Another variety of sectarianism was shown by those that said that our comrades in the leadership of the strike should put the question of removing Karamanlis, but....not as an ultimatum!

CONFUSION

Such petty-bourgeois confusion comes as a complete surprise. First of all, the 800-strong workforce at 'Eskimo' understood very well a fact that others, whose ambition it was to bring consciousness into the working class from "outside" could not understand: the fact that 800 people in one factory, cannot overthrow Karamanlis!

The workers would correctly consider any "leader" who proposed such a thing to be crazy.

Secondly, even the more advanced workers at "Eskimo', those who really want to overthrow Karamanlis, were obliged, before taking up a struggle, to take into account their less advanced colleagues, including the conservative white collar personnel who were participating in the strike, and so on.

Without making an alliance with these layers in the factory, without a provisional unity, the strike at 'Eskimo' would have been impossible.

The advanced workers would never give their support to a lightheaded "leader" who, in a strike of 800 people the overthrow of puts forward the Karamanlis...."not as an ultimatum"

98:2 "The question of the overthrow of Karamanlis should have been put forward, and it is not important whether our comrades in the factory would have gained support OUT petty-bourgeois revolutionaries' kept saying.

And they added with enormous cynicism:

"The workers, through their failure, would understand that the Trotskyists were right."

What workers would really understand in such a case, would be that the Trotskyists are babblers and unable to help the workers.

They would say to these "Trotskyists":

"You are good prophets but bad leaders. You do not know how to defeat your enemies. We would like to see this struggle ending with the overthrow of Karamanlis. That is why we wanted to give you our support. But with your unskilled stand you prevented us from doing sO."

The consequence of this petty bourgeois policy. - had it been applied - would have been the domination of the strike by the Stalinists - ever ready to betray.

DEGENERATE

The occupation would not have taken place, perhaps not even the strike. The struggle would degenerate into work stoppages of only two hours a day, with long drawn out 'negotiations" and with the sacking of the most militant workers.

So the workers would not have had the chance to know - as they have now learned - not only the role of Karamanlis, who sided with the employer (the employer himself was an Under Secretary under the Junta) but also the role of the Stalinists of ESAK and AEM (trade union fractions of the two Communist Parties).

The Stalinists acted as maniac strike breakers, openly allying themselves with the employer, the "trade unionists" of the government, and the government itself.

The workers learned more in eight days about their enemies and their friends than they could have Age 7 Trotsky.

Karamanlis learned in 800 years of propaganda by Mr. Van Der Porten. [Banda, ed].

At every step we exposed all the strike breaking conspiracies of Karamanlis and his Stalinist agents. The prestige of our organisation among the 'Eskimo' workers was tremendous and it grew among workers throughout the whole of Athens.

The fruits of this struggle and perhaps its development would have been different if the leadership of the organisation had been more experienced and if it had taken up the struggle conscious of its tasks.

The same lessons could be drawn from the intervention of our organisation in the struggle of the peasants in Oropos. Not for one moment did we ask for the support of the peasants on the basis of the struggle for the overthrow of Karamanlis.

Despite _that, in the course of our struggle, the influence of the government among the Oropos peasants collapsed.

We went with the peasants to Parliament and we lobbied their right wing MPs. We showed the peasants who the people who had promised them democracy and the heavens really were.

We can show the result of this struggle with one picture: the photographs of Karamanlis and the posters saying "He is the ( mnly capital of the nation" were 1 from all the public places in Oropos.

Continued Next Edition.

*FOOTNOTE: Aris Veloubiotis: One of the most popular and militant leaders of the ELAS (army of the Communist Party) who refused to surrender the army after the Vauliza agreement and continued the struggle with small forces. He was denounced and expelled by the CP leadership for that, and most probably betrayed by them to the Gendarmerie which finally killed him and his men.

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Page 8 SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 3rd November 1976

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essons from the split in the Worl nternationalist League (Greece). Internationalist League (Greece].