[The extreme right wing infiltration of Newham North…]

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The extreme right wing infiltration of Newham North East Labour Party suffered another setback this week.

After the failure of the latest court action, supporters of Mr J. Lewis and his backers found themselves ousted in Branch elections for officers and GMC delegates.

Their defeat in St. Stephens Branch was seen as a particularly severe blow.

However these people who have done little to disguise their intention of using Newham as a test run for paralysing the movement (see back issues of Socialist Press, remain in the Labour Party.

With their sinister and apparently unlimited financial backing, money is no object. Since their defeat they have already declared their aim of pouring yet more cash into court actions.

The labour movement cannot rest until people who rely only upon cash reserves and sympathetic Tories are expelled from its ranks once and for all.

Last week's court proceedings served to indicate only the determination of the Labour leadership to obstruct the essential work of clearing out crypto-Tory elements.

Lewis and McCormick were unsuccessful in their effort to obtain an injunction preventing Transport House suspending them from Party membership-but only because Party agent Reg Underhill had submitted an affidavit declaring that no such action being considered! was "Now, with unemployment over 1.5 million there has been scarcely a ripple of anxiety or concern from Labour ranks". , he said.

Left talker Eric Heffer, who has loyally walked into the Lib-Lab lobby to vote support for every wage cut and every rationalisation measure, was stung by this home truth.

As usual he responded not by deeds but by more words.

"Had he been given the opportunity" Heffer announced, he would have produced not a ripple of anxiety but "a positive explosion"

And, as usual, he sat straight down again.

Eric Heffer and his 'left' cronies must be confronted on their record by the labour and trade union movement.

And they must be told, "Either mount a fight to break the Lib-Lab coalition and oust the Callaghanaside for tadership, or stand

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Compillo Irentrel at last vear's Labour Party Conference.

A review of 'Eurocommunism and the State' by Spanish CP leader entiago Carrillo, (Lawrence & Wishart, £2.75) and The Italian Road to Led Italian partisans in 1945: Stalinist policy led to the CP ente most immediately g aspect of these looks is the similarithe positions argued Carrillo and tano. Both men * the very basis of Communist moveand the policies dvocate show how have been drawn attempting to solve roblems of capital• their own counpolicies are similar same way that social _acy throughout • argues an identical I class compromiseito the "historic compP in Italy, the Moncloa vith Franco's heirs in and the Lib-Lab Do as the continuation Social Contract in Special role e link between all these ans is that they flow bureaucracies within the i movement operating • the requirements of 'own" capitalist class.

the fact that munist Party leaders can rward identical policies , unlike the reformist r, falsely claiming to ent the continuity of bassian Revolution and Communist movement, • that they play a very • role in holding back tilitancy of the working ich book in its own way fates this. Napolitano's the form of a series of news with British Stalinric Hobsbawm between 11977, and shows the ing of the immediate es of the Italian CP. rillo's book, on the hand, was written in , when Carrillo was still enground", , and contains ach more "theoretical" rach to the position of b-called "EuroCommunHistory defended ith of these Stalinist leaset out to defend the ry of their own parties, i trying to separate these ithe history of the Soviet apolitano, for instance, his to say on the origins the Italian Road to atism":

Ibe Italian Party had red greatly from the fact 1947 on an intermal lesel, the search for roads to socialism had abruptly cut off by the Communist movement, even though this search had been undertaken right after the end of the Second World War and not only in Italy. The Italian Party had suffered particularly, because it had advanced considerably in mapping out an original road to socialism and had begun to do so in the period between the two wars, after the Seventh Congress of the Communist International. . . Well, when the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU presented us with the opportunity to vigorously resume the interrupted search, to render consistent a whole series of our positions, including theoretical ones, the leadership of the Italian party did not hesitate to seize this opportunity."

(pp 26-27)

Seventh Congress Carrillo likewise defends the Seventh Congress of the Comintern, which in 1935 developed the strategy of the Popular Front embracing both workers' and bourgeois parties.

Like Napolitano he defends the decision of the French and Italian CPs not to struggle for power in 1945-47 (when there was a real chance of success:

"They continued to develop a strategy towards unity and democracy. .. They worked out their own road to socialism based on democracy."

And, like Napolitano, Carrillo looks back favourably to 1956 and defends Kruschev. He claims that there were continuous differences between the European CPs and the Soviet The fact that both "EuroCommunists" look back to the same historical periods is important. It confirms that the positions of these leaders are not the outcome of some "theoretical" development exclusive to the Italian or Spanish CP. WU!!

The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International, the official birthplace of the strategy of the Popular Front, took place under the control of Stalin. The policy was clearly endorsed by him, and reflected the interests of the Soviet Carrillo falsely claims that it was the experience of the rise of fascism that drove the national Communist Parties to adopt the policy of unity of what he terms "democratic" forces.

"Experience"

As Carrillo writes:

"What the experience of fascism really demonstratedand the Seventh Congress of the Communist International took this into account-was not the usefulness or uselessness of the vote and of the democratic road, but the experience of a working class doomed to impotence by division and incapable of uniting and rallying round itself a section of working people and the middle strata in order to confront the danger.' Napolitano clearly shares this view.

But the reality was very different. The first experience of fascism was not in Germany but in Italy. Yet the Stalinist-led International drew no lessons from this whatever.

It was not the inability of the workers to unite that opened up the danger of fascism-in France workers united spontaneously.

'Social fascists' Rather it was the criminally false and divisive policies of the German Communist Party, implementing the line of the Communist International, and declaring that Social Democratic workers were "social fascists".

On this basis, asserting that "social fascists" were worse than open fascists, the German CP opposed any unity in action with social democrats against the Nazis.

As a result of this disastrous policy, Hitler was able to crush the entire German workers' movement, including its giant social democratic and Communist parties that, if united, could easily have defeated . him.

United The "social fascist" policy was opposed by Trotsky and the Left Opposition-and for doing so they were hounded by the Stalinists.

Trotsky continuously countered Stalinist ultra-leftism by a call for a workers' united front against fascism.

But in every country the bureaucratic directive from the Communist International caused obedient CPs to call for setting up alternative «red" trade unions in opposition to the existing reformist unions, and to brand social democrats as social fascists.

And this line continued even after the German debacle. • No lessons were learned from this catastrophic defeat.

The very lack of any response to this within the ranks of the Comintern showed that it was a completely bureaucratised body, dead for the purposes of revolution, and brought Trotsky to the conclusion that it was necessary to prepare for the building of a new, Fourth, International to give leadership in workers' struggles.

Deal with Hitler

The 1935 "turn" by the Comintern to the strategy of the Popular Front was not the outcome of the German defeat, so much as the result of Stalin's failure to reach a diplomatic arrangement with Hitler.

Seeking a means of "protecting" the Soviet Union without mobilising the working class at home or abroad, Stalin looked instead to treaties with the "democratic" bourgeois states.

A lesser motive for the Popular Front turn was the massive fall in CP membership brought by the ultraleft policies of the "social fascist"

period.

From the outset, then, the Popular Front policy can be seen to seek not the unity of the working class in struggle, but an attempt to tie the working class to a section of the bourgeoisie that claimed to oppose fascism, in the interests of the Kremlin bureauThis same policy led to the defeat of the Spanish working class-just as an ultra-left Comintern line had led to the defeat in Germany.

The Popular Front line obstructed the fight for demands that could win the Spanish middle classes-and in particular the peasantry that made up much of Franco's army-to the side of the working class.

This was because the Stalinists' and reformists' bourgeois partners in the Popular Front refused to accept any policy that threatened private property. The Stalinists thus ended up opposing peasants who took over the land, and suppressing workers' uprising in Barcelona.

This kind of "unity", venerated by Carrillo and Napolitano, led to the victory of Franco and the 38-year illegalisation of Carrillo's own Yet the only criticisms he voices of this line now are that the CP were not actually in the French Popular Front governments.

For the benefit of his "liberal" supporters today, (and his self-styled "Trotskyist" admirers in the Pabloite "United Secretariat'') Carrillo also criticises the murder of centrist leader Andres Nin.

And he tries to claim that the Spanish Stalinists' attitude to Trotksyism was different from that in other countries.

Suppression

Yet Carrillo specifically defends Stalinist involvement in the brutal suppression of the Barcelona uprising-demonstrating that his defence of "democracy" means no more than defence of capitalism, as

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he signing of the Stalin-Hitler ell as pointing to his resent-day attitudes to the ruggles of Spanish workers. An earlier series of articles • Socialist Press traced the evelopment of a dual ressure on Communist arties in the capitalist countres.

On the one side there relained the control exerted y the Soviet bureaucracy brough the Comintern, while n the other was an increasig accommodation to their own" ruling class in their fforts to preserve "peaceful dexistence"

Diplomacy

The Communist Parties bilowed the twists and turns Moscow diplomacy broughout the war period.

From the signing of the Italin/Hitler pact in 1939 to he Nazi invasion of the JSSR in June 1941, every Communist Party denounced hose nations waring against fermany, and branded it an Imperialist war.

But, just as unanimously, hey all switched direction fter June 1941, and allied vith their "own" bourgeoisie n each country in what they ermed a "people's war gainst Germany.

Cold War This collaboration ontinued even after the end if the war, until in 1947 the JSA launched the «Cold Var" against the USSR.

But throughout this period mother process was at work ¡ehind the scenes. The ontrol exercised by the Kremlin bureaucracy was veakening and the bond between the CPs and their town" capitalist class was itrengthening as the working class engaged more and more trongly on the scene, threatining to disrupt the cherished "peaceful co existence" of bureaucrat and boss.

This process grew more rapid with the divisions between the bureaucracies in he deformed workers' states, specially the Stalin/Tito split ct, 1939. of 1948, and the increasing independence of the Chinese CP.

Tactical divisions also arose within the Soviet bureaucracy itself as how best to combat the working class.

Each of these divisions interacted with the bourgeois pressure on the national CPs.

Significantly, while both Napolitano and Carrillo now point to the importance of 1956, for both it was the 20th Congress of the Soviet CP and not the Hungarian uprising that is the main event.

Indeed no current within Stalinism has ever been able to draw strength from the independent struggles of the Hungarian workers', councils ralinist tanks in Budapest 1956 against the Kremlin Today's "Eurocommunists" support 'liberal' section of the same bureaucracy because they see in such a course a further weakening of Moscow control over their daily increasing collaboration with their "own" bourgeoisie.

Most of the points argued by Carrillo and Napolitano therefore echo the cynical arguments of the Popular Front period and in particular the class collaboration of 1945-47.

Those two years saw French Stalinists taking ministerial posts in the French coalition government, and voting war credits to support the repression of Vietnam and Algeria, while in Italy CP ministers lined up with monarchist forces.

No more than the conditions today are changed from that period-the bankrupt line is the same. This is why the "Eurocommunists"

closer than ever to their "own" bourgeoisie, are now engaged in a systematic attack on Lenin and Marxist theory.

Lenin, clearly:

"Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is what constitutes the most profound difference between the Marxist and the ordinary petty (as well as big) bourgeois"

(State and Revolution P 40)

Carrillo, however, has no time for such theories:

"I am convinced that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not the way to succeed in establishing and consolidating the hegemony of the forces of the working people in the democratic countries of developed capitalism"

Napolitano, too, talks o1 the need to "correct" Lenir on this issue.

But Lenin was not advocating a slogan or discussing conditions peculiar to Russia.

He was actually drawing on experience from precisely the so-called "democratic" countries. On parliament, he wrote:

«To decide once every four years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through Parliament-such is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentism, not only in parliamentary constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics"

Lenin also replies to Kautsky, a forerunner of Carrillo, who had written that "The aim of our political struggle remains, as hitherto, the conquest of state power by winning a majority in Parliament and by converting parliament into the master of the government"

Lenin vigorously attacked this reformist perspective (which strangely anticipated the formulation in todays British Road to Socialism):

"For "winning a majority in parliament" and converting parliament into the "master of the government".

A most worthy object, which is wholly acceptable to the opportunists and which keeps everything within the bounds of the bourgeois parliamentary republic"

(PP 141-2)

Kautsky of course was from one of the most advanced "democratic" countries.

Yet Carrillo was in hiding from the fascist state forces at the time he wrote his book. His members were actually being gunned down and tortured while he was formulating his call for winning power peacefully through parliament and for taking over the "ideological apparatus" of the press and television.

He goes on to argue that the family unit is a force against capitalism, and even makes a case for winning over sections of the Francoist army and police force, including officers, as well as "executives".

All this is proposed to take place peacefully, without the development of organs of workers' powel. Indeed Carrillo argues against antiofficer agitation in the army and in favour of "law and order" against "multiple police forces"

Increased votes

Having shown that they adhere to an entirely reformist perspective, both Carrillo and Napolitano grandly point out the increasing votes for the Communist Parties.

Both men brush aside the stark warning of Chile as an "exception" '. Napolitano goes further and argues that Allende's mistake was not bringing the extreme right wing into the Popular Front!

But of course it was the complete capitulation of Stalinist and reformist leaders to the bourgeois forces in the Chilean "Popular Unity" alliance that left workers defenceless against Pinochet.

Allende literally disarmed the working class in the face of the fascists, while bringing the army into his cabinet, branding them as "workers in uniform". The catastrophic result of this policy needs no repetition here.

But it is ominous that Napolitano ignores the grim opposite of' the increasing CP vote in Italy. While the Stalinists hold back the working class in a "historic compromise" with the Italian Tory Party, the fascist movement is growing and attracting capitalist support.

If no break is made from Stalinism Italian workers could learn in the harshest way that Chile was no exception but the working out of the rule of the Popular Front strategy, which has brought nothing but disaster and defeat since its first conception.

On policies for today, Carrillo has little to add to his call to maintain the investment of multi-national corporations.

Napolitano, however, _is much more specific. He argues for just and equitable relations between income levels among all the different categories of workers and goes on to argue for "redistribution within that share of the national income which goes to income from labour"

He attacks "each group looking exclusively after its group interests"

"Questions of making sacrifices and of a redistribution of income even inside the working classes can be posed only insofar as they are related to the objective of overcoming the crisis along the lines of a profound renewal of the economy and of society". (p.4445).

So having argued for acceptance of the continuation of capitalism, Napolitano argues throughout for cuts in Bitter fruits of Popular Frontism - Chile the standard of living. For example he praises the worsening of the escalator clause agreement:

"When it was realised that extraordinary fiscal measures were necessary we could have argued that the working class should pay nothing or, on the contrary, that only the working class should be called upon to make sacrifices in order to maintain its alliances especially with the middle groups.

"In fact, however, the problem was and is to establish an equilibrium whereby neither objective nor subjective conditions would exist which would require the working class to make sacrifices without the middle sectors also paying a price for the crisis.

66 At the same time, we had to combat tendencies which do exist at present in the working class to unload the weight of the crisis solely on the middle sectors on the grounds that the middle sectors have up to now enjoyed far better conditions than the working class.

" We have been and still are engaged in the search for a point of equilibrium between the defence of the interests of the working class, a correct division of concessions between the working class and the middle sectors (and other social strata) and the consolidation of the politics of alliance of the working class and the whole alignment of democratic forces." (p.112). (Our emphasis).

So this is the real meaning of the "historic compromise" whereby the Italian CP protects the right-wing Christian Democrats in Napolitano is calling for nothing other than wage-cutting and he even goes so far as to attack workers fighting for wage increaseson the grounds that this could lead to the "disintegration and dissolution of society"

Far from this strengthening the support of the middle class for the working class, they will regard this as a sign of weakness and complete acceptance that the capitalist crisis should be put on their backs and those of the working class.

As a result. middle class forces will be attracted to the only "strong" force they can see-the fascists.

The Workers Socialist League does not regard these books in the same way as other self-styled "Trotskyists" have approached them.

They look eagerly for points of agreement, or for signs that the Stalinists have been "pressured" to the left under the influence of their mass membership.

This is because deeply embedded in the thinking of these "Trotskyists" is the hope that a spontaneous development within the Stalinist movement or among petty bourgeois nationalists will throw up a ready-made revolutionary leadership with which they can simply "fuse" and dissolve.

For us, on the other hand, the arguments of the Stalinist bureaucracy flow from their counter-revolutionary role in the workers movement.

Common Carrillo for instance now argues against the age-old Stalinist tenet of "socialism in one country"-only to argue in' favour of the capitalist Common Market!

If the policies advocated by these Stalinist leaders were implemented they could only lead workers to crushing defeat at the hands of fascist movements throughout Europe.

The only answer to the consistent line of complete class collaboration spelled out in these two books is the conscious development of Trotskyist parties in Spain, Italy and internationally.

Only the Trotskyist movement is equipped with a programme capable of leading workers in the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Expose CPs A Trotskyist party in Spain or Italy would have to begin by exposing the daily betrayals carried out by these CP leaders and their class collaboration in action.

On a world scale the working class is on the move, in the fight to assert its rights and defend its living standards.

It is the Stalinists' determination to hold back that movement and maintain capitalist rule that keeps them tied on the one hand to the counter-revolutionary Kremlin bureaucrats, and on the other to their "own" capitalists.

Napolitano shows the Stalinists' fear of the working class and its ability rapidly to expose the Stalinists when he argues against calling on the Italian Socialist Party to join with them in a workers' government. He argues that this would be wrong even if they won 51% of the vote!

The demand systematically made on the European CP and SP leaders, that they break from the bourgeoisie and its parties and form a government, is thus a key element in the fight to expose their reactionary positions to the millions of workers who still mistakenly follow them, and in building Trotskyist parties on the basis of the Transitional Programme.

By Tony Richardson.