[have been an essential step in the defence…]

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have been an essential step in the defence of the Spanish Revolution.

In their support for such policies, the Maxton-Brockway leadershir of the ILP bear a heavy responsibility, in granting them a certain credibility. Some illustration of how they eventually succumbed to Stalmist influence is provided by their mbiguous attitude to the Moscow frame-up trials. It was not long before these people found their true home again in the arms of Stalinism or social democracy. Incidently, it seems somewhat odd that the publishers have chosen to picture one of the main anti-heroes of the volume, James Maxton, on the cover, when he is castigated throughout, most notably for 'his public solidarity with the slaveholder Chamberlain by speaking in support of the 1938 Munich capit ulation to the German fascists.

BREAK

Despite his complete break with the centrists after 1935, Trotsky did not underestimate the importance of the experience of having worked in their organisation. In 1934, he compared favourably the successes inside the ILP the "minority' of the movement who had decided to enter it, with the barren organisational autonomy' of the majority who had stayed outside Nevertheless by the summer of 1936, Trotsky had become a strong advocate of a rapid break with the ILP and immediate entry into the Labour party. He makes it clear the basis of his attitude in the important interview with Collins published in this volume, taking into account the specific international sitation and the stage of development of the movement in Britain.

As a result of experience in The conference of the revisionist International Marxist Group, held just over a fortnight ago, could do nothing to resolve the political crisis and paralysis of the IMG or of the Pabloite 'United Secretariat of the Fourth International of which it is the British section.

The fundamental reason for this lies not in this or that political position or difference within the IMG or the USFI, but in the fact that Pabloism has abandoned the struggle for the political independence, the historical necessity of the struggle for Trotskyist parties Underiving all the differences between tendencies - and causing them to proliferate - is one common element: the revolutionary par ty, its programme, tactics and organisation, are put forward just as one factor among many, an element helping the situation along, but not as the indispensible means for the working ciass to make the socialist It is this, the political liquidation of Trotskyism, which has been the essential characteristic of Pabloism since it crystalised. as a political tendency within the Fourth International before the split of 1952-3 stands on its head the Trotextension ot told rey to the extension world revolution is in the hands of the subjective factor, i.e. the revolutionary party Instead of the revolutionary party being the necessary element in the revolution, the 'engulfing' revolu tion by its own inherent power resolves the subjective factor. This formula transforms the traditional workers' parties, the agencies of defeat in the past period, into agencies of revolution in this so-called new epoch.' (International Committee documents 1951-1954, SWP, 1974;

The wheel has now turned ful circle, and the SWP leadership, one of the prime movers in the split with Pablo in 1953, have returned to an unprincipled (and uneasy) bloc with Mandel's Pabloite International since 1963.

Not only that, but the pro-SWP faction within the IMG (Tendency C) now takes the lead in subordineting the political independence of Trotskyism to 'single-issue campaigns abortion, women's liberation and the Troops Out Movement at the present time. Yet the situation in 1975 is in many res pects the opposite of that in the early 1950's, when the retreats enforced on the working class in the US and Europe made the isolation of the Trotskyist organisations largely unavoidable, and facilitated the growth of Pabloism. But Stein's words remain essentially true. And his standpoint - irrespective of this or that manoeuvre or theory produced by the Pabloites from month to month - remains the essential basis for understandine the development of the IMG and the USPI.

Erne The conduct and outcome of the IMG conference discussion demonsion consists of a biod of tendention consists of a cies, held together by political ambiguity. Three of the four tendencies had their positions published in Red Weekly before the conference; delegates were flooded with a total of 37 pre-conference disabdicated every responsibility of international leadership by refusing to intervene or take sides in the political struggle between them.

He was unable to intervene because to have done so could well nave produced a split in the IMG and would certainly have eroded the combination which supports him against the SWP. Mandel has, in fact, stood aside from the political disputes in the IMG ever since Ross's tendency took over the leadership in the Spring.of 1972.

At the recent conference, theretore. the IMG and the USFI leadership declared more clearly than ever before - both publicly and to their own members their inability to fight through political differences and then act unitedly on the basis of policies understood and accepted by all the cadre.

The publication of faction positions in the IMG's paper is the public expression of the fact that IMG members feel themselves to be first and foremost supporters of this or that opinion or tendency, and only secondarily members of a single organisation. This is underlined by the fact that delegates' support for tendency position shifted scarcely at all in the course of the conference discussion. Inus, while some of the forms of democratic centralism were preserved, its living content, the active struggle for conscious leadership within the revolutionary organisation and the class, was completely lacking. Democratic centralism does not mean "peaceful coexistence" of diverse elements but rather provides the framework for the strugele of opposed tendenlande?

cies to be carried through within the Party and thus strengthen it theoretically and in its united practice.

An example illustrates how the IMG's politics - though painted in broad strokes - are essentially dependent on those of the reformist and Stalinist bureaucracy. The majority tendency (B) position ('The Strategic Line of the IMG, Red Weekly, February 27th quotes Trotsky's essential statement on the unite front of the rolem lane united front of the working united need i secure too the urgent secure working class the possibility of a united front in the struggle against capitalism.

But there must be, says the IMG leadership, a concentration around a few demands of the Transitional Programme (rather than the Programme as a whole). So how are the 'few demands' to be iden tified? No problem for the IMG leadership it is clear what type of united front action the IMG must attempt to create, and with whom. The *decisive field of battle' turns out to be 'the defence of living standards, organisations and social conquests of the working class.

Well! We did not think that these are a few issues. Certainly such a statement is of no help in concentrating one's political forces. But it turns out there is another criterion. The IMG must make a systematic attempt to gain united action with left social democracy, and given 'the weakness of revolutionary Marxists in relation to the present leaderships' it follows that only united action around specific questions on term basis will be possible. out, specifically. the statement mentions only the Troops Out Movement, the Working Women's Charter, and the anti-anti-abortion campaign.

Limits This is the key to why the IMG dissolves the fight for programme into "activity' on a string of issues. Behind the grandiose generalisations on the need for unity, the working class is made to accept, in practice the limits set by the left' bureaucrats. This is the opposite of what the Workers Socialist League fights for: unity on policies which both answer the immediate problems of large sections of the working class and in so doing pose as sharply as possible the need for ar alternative leadership to the reformists - whether "left' or right.

This is why precisely because the forces of Trotskysim are small in relation to the hold still exercised by the bureaucracy - the WL takes as its main duty to pose clearly to the advanced workers the need for revolutionary leadership, not subordinating this to campaigns which are hedged round by reformism from the word 20.

In this difference - how the method and specific demands of the Transitional Programme can be made a living force within the mass movement - is contained the whole history of the struggle against Pabloism.

The present policies of the IMG eadership are only their particula interpretation of Mandel's line that tanguard spontaneously there Europe 'mass breaking with the politics of the Stalinists and reformists. In England the IMG majority points that this vanguard remains *left social democratic man But the recipe is the same: on the one hand reliance on the 'objective process to break the hold of the bureaucrats on the labour movement: on the other the party's activity hemmed round on every side by the fact that the hold is not yet fully broken.

Political paralysis feeds internal confusion. The two largest tendencies in the IMG both claim to base themselves on Mandel's positions. If this is so there is no basis for two tendencies they exist only because Mandel dare not commit himself, and the