PORCIAS Defend the

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To take a 'neutral' position in the struggle between imperialism and the workers' states is to permit the imperialists the chance not only to overthrow Stalinism, but also the nationalised property relations of the degenerated workers' states.

This was precisely the implication of the position adopted by the forerunners to today's Socialist Workers Party when, during the Korean War, they refused to support the workers' states against an imperialist offensive launched under the guise of a United Nations intervention.

By viewing the war as struggle between two capitalist blocs, these renegades from Trotskyism refused to defend the gains of the October revolution claiming that these had already been destroyed.

No finger lifted Unable, of course, (as we pointed out in the first article to say how or when these gains were destroyed, the state capitalists, in taking up a so-called 'neutral' position, in effect open the way for imperialism to. threaten the gains of the October revolution without a finger lifted to mobilise the working class against the imperialist threat Our policy must be to defend the gains of the October revolution and, if that means in the first place defending the Stalinist bureaucracy against imperialism, then we do so in the knowledge that it is the task of the international workers' movement and not imperialism to finish off the job and deal with the Stalinist Part Two.

Brezhnev bureaucracy once the imperialist threat has been defeated.

How then is the Soviet Union best to be defended? The Stalinist bureaucracy of course is forced to defend the nationalised property relations of the Soviet Union.

But this defence is not carried out for any principled reasons. The bureaucracy defend the Swindale nationalised property relations because it is on this that their power and privileges rest.

The biggest asset that the Kremlin bureaucracy has is the willingness of workers throughout the world to fight imperialism and come to the defence of the Soviet Union. But this is an asset that the bureaucracy dare not use.

Extended

Lenin and the Bolsheviks, the International Left Opposition and today, the Fourth International all based themselves on the understanding that the October revolution could only survive if the revolution were extended from Russia to the major capitalist powers of Western Europe and beyond.

In this way the isolation and economic backwardness of the Soviet Union, apparent to this day despite the creation of numerous other workers' states, could be overcome.

But the Stalinist bureaucracy has consciously rejected this course of action.

Their attempts to defend the Soviet Union cannot include the independent mobilisation of the working class within the USSR or internationally, for the extention of the revolution.

* Political revolution To do so would, on the one hand destroy the international relations established between Stalinism and imperialism for the division of the world into two camps, and, on the other hand, would be to invite the working class of the degenerated workers states to carry out the political revolution that is a pre-condition for the establishment of the rule of the working class through its soviets throughout. Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

So the parasitic caste that holds power in the Soviet Union uses its own bureaucratic methods to defend the property relations on which its privileged position is based.

But these bureaucratic methods have time and again, not strengthened the position of the USSR, but actually weakened it.

In the late 1930s, when it was clear to Marxists that war between the USSR and Germany was inevitable, Stalin murdered 70-80% of the army leadership as part of his drive to liquidate any potential opposition to his attempts to buy peace with imperialism through class collaboration.

Invaded As a result, when the German imperialists broke the contemptible Stalin-Hitler pact and invaded Russia in 1941, the Red Army was left without any experienced leadership.

Defeat was only averted by the unmovable determination of the Russian workers not to permit the return of capitalism to Russia which cost ten million lives..

This shows why a political revolution, a revolution which has as its task the removal of the bureaucratic caste which rules in the Soviet Union and other workers states is a necessary objective in the strategic defence of the USSR.

To lead such a revolution, a Trotskyist party must be built in the USSR.

The social revolution in Russia has already been completed. The expropriation of the capitalists has led to the establishment of nationalised property relations and a planned-albeit bureaucratically deformed-economy.

Restore Soviets Now the bureaucracy must be removed and Soviet democracy restored. As Trotsky argued in the Transitional Programme, this task can only be carried out under the leadership and on the programme of the Fourth International.

In Trotsky's view: "A fresh upsurge of the revolution in the USSR will undoubtedly begin under the banner of the struggle against social inequality and political oppression. Down with the privileges of the bureaucracy •.. Down with the Soviet aristocracy and its ranks and orders! Greater equality of wages for all forms of labour!

"The struggle for freedom of the trade unions and the factory committees, for the right of assembly and freedom of the press, will unfold in the struggle for the regeneration and the development of Soviet democracy.

... It is necessary to return to the soviets not only their free democratic form but also their class content. As once the bourgeoisie and kulaks were not permitted to enter the soviets, so now it is necessary to drive the bureaucracy and the new aristocracy out of the soviets. In the soviets there is room only for representatives of the workers, rank and file collective farmers, peasants and Red Army men."

Trotsky goes on to argue that democratisation of the soviets is Next 'Mal Fighi impossible without the legalisation of soviet parties with the workers and peasants themselves deciding which parties they recognise as soviet parties.

A revision of the planned economy and the restoration of workers management of production would be necessary to correct the bureaucratic deformations of the soviet economy and the reactionary international policy of the bureaucracy would have to be replaced by a return to proletarian internationalism.

War threat

As the capitalist crisis continues unabated, the threat of war, including fresh attacks on the Soviet Union and other workers states must increase.

The fight against imperialism, against attacks on the living standards and organisations of the working class internationally and in defence of the workers states is the task which confronts all workers in the capitalist west and the degenerated workers states of the east.

Not the least of these tasks will be the defence of the Soviet Union and the overthrow of the bureaucracy which through its counter-revolutionary policies can only endanger the gains of the October revolution.

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