Aspects of the History of the Fourth International (edited transcript of a lecture to the WSL Summer School, July 1977)

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Aspects of the history of the Fourth International By hn l Last year e first-ever Summer School held be he Workers Socialist league heard a series o.

lectures on Marxist Philosophy, Internationalis, the History and Method of the Transitional Programme, Stalinism, and the History of the Fourth International. A series of articles in Socialist Press carried the main substance of the lecture on Stalinism, and a series to com- mence in April will deal with some basic questions of philosophy. The problems of the post- war International, however, are less easily tackled in the confines of serialised articles, and we are therefore reprinting a slightly edited transcript of the lecture on this topic in these pages.

We invite readers to send us writter responses and comments or this article in order to fur rital the Trots vist movement.

ther develop the discussion on these restion I am going history of the major splits of have to includi processes where in the post-wa states. We have questions that Questions have to concentrate on aspects of the post-war Fourth International centring on the two 1953 and 1963. To examine them, I will : in this report some examination of the by the buffer countries in Eastern Europe r period were transformed into workers' to do that in order to answer the kinds of have come up in discussion on Stalinism.

been asked for example about whether stalinist parties were not in tact capable or carrying out centrist policies, and whether it would be correct to say that Stalinism in certain instances has played a revolu- tionary role in the extension of nationalised property relations into these countries.

The position I will be arguing is that it is not correct to say that Stalinism at any point in those processes played a revolutionary role. I will argue that the processes are entirely explainable from the standpoint that Stalinism remains the major counter-revolutionary force in the workers' movement on a world scale. I will trv to show whv the task of Trotskyists international -not simply in those countries parade capitalism or bureaucratic those which might from time to t face-is to build independent revol the struggle for the conscious establ ship of the proletariat. This means bureaucracy and the overthrow nationally. We mus ourth Inte t begin at national. ly and in every country which most obviously deformation, but also ime even put on a left utionary parties to lead ishment of the dictator- both the overthrow of of capitalism inter- he sta hat w rting p as the oint of recogn the f tion igh by for the rotsky Page in 1933 that it was now impossible to transform the Com- intern from within and to turn that into a revolutionary force. The betrayals of Germany 1930-33 and the failure of any sections within the Comintern to take up any strug.

gle whatsoever against the treacherous policies in Germany were indicators that the Comintern was now dead as a revolutionary force within the world proletariat.

It was clear from the very beginning that the Fourth International had to differentiate itself sharply from Stalin- ism. It had to take the line of establishing the absolute political independence of the working class from the Stalinist bureaucracy in every country. That was the reason, the necessity of the formation of a new International.

Otherwise the struggl could have remained within the Comintern. So when the Fourth International was formed, the Transitional Programme spelled out not simply those dem- ands on which we tend to concentrate in our daily agit- ation and propaganda work within the working class - demands designed to relate the Trotskyist movement to the mass movement and to form a bridge to the working class.

The Programme also contained fundamentally and centrally a series of principles which differentiated Trotskyism from Stalinism and drew the lines of political independence of the working classs. This political independence was of course not simply independence from Stalinism, but was also developed in the sections dealing with the colonial revolution and the under-developed countries and Fascism, as well as declaring opposition to all the various forms of popular frontism in which the working class could fall under the influence of petty bourgeois liberal leaderships.

ikes tnem Torw ie Fourth Interi em al Progi wafd in lation immed 939 tl hir ne Mi embodies or ganised International in 1939 there began an extremely bitter fac- el after th e igan an • it its biggest the sections y within the F a basically petit Schachtman. the appearances ents and actior in fac the S kei

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tior the Bu tio ne th lo! Iter ter Jest atic Wi Witl led The 'arat nun Juished that eme Burnhan rgued fi if devel auci stoi ged anc ipm tha y Burnham and Schachtman.

argued from the appearances of events, fro es of developments and actions carried out bv th IS iov event ed ou Jnion acy tec In capitalist country. In other words they declared that there stinc regi atic th Of course war was an immediately impending aspect in the situation in 1939. It was necessary for Trotsky to take 1D :sT ecl Weel e Sa ty now d thi se nd nd gains against imperialism in the case of war.

939 much of the responsibility for directing the SWP in the struggle against these tendencies and towards the Marxist method of dialactical materialism. Trotsky showed how the movement had to focus on the understanding of the Soviet ig as sky t iWP he l Str ggle hod vemi iga OW. 80=* sky anda y pa the iOn, ichir tan! 191 ant ldıкı tis could not be acnieved simply by label to it as it seems to be today, saying that s the question. It is necessarv to understand the vel the nth thi the cess role emergence of the Soviet Union as it is today as a process of development, a historical development in which a whole evelopment, a mistorical development in which a whole ber of forces have played a role. Seen in this light, sky insisted, the most decisive material force which still Sov hist nave nc Trotsky insisted, the most decisive material force which still remains predominant in the Soviet Union is the overthrow of capitalist social relations which took place in the social lal 10 rOV icial revolution in 1917. It was this overturn that still deter- mined the fundamental essence of the Soviet Union, and al Di UEn : Sc Whereas of course the Stalinist dictatorship within Russia exercised police powers and methods as reactionary in many cases as those of Hitler, and attempted in many irry our brutal and totalarian meinoas witnin Union, the fact remained that that bureaucracy propertv relations fundamentall different and

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th It was absolutely necessary to take these material facts bi the moral response or the indignation of people who res- UR 'uc sple alla ing list lati The Ion ablı 30 ySE th ea Union in 1939 as a historical process had to be the key also al s agedy aspi This understanding of the development of the Soviet ide 139 th to 5 = 77 ur US In E : 80 method. Few were able in fact to apply the method of STa Marxism in the fight to understand the post-war period. Of course this was hampered vastly by the impact of the thi au pe Second World War on the International.

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cond As ave pr ictions his Voi ie l As we have sketched in the international documents we have produced the leading cadres and the most advanced sections in many cases in many countries of the world 1d V lave duced, in ma ght+ fa pup InO: cil pressed by fascism on the one hand and the bureaucracy on 22. small forces of Trotskyism. The movement suffered tremen- Hou inter for t antı-con revoluti‹ harpeni the post-wa with many having bee the war r was com witi war dously. From its very strength, from the very fact that the Fourth International alone carried the torch of proletarian internationalism through the second world war, precisely ed ti force urin‹ the sUSP nai eason ununıs inar thi - 93 = 56 g

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at preci iks of posed f cour e faced ied forc ed fighti iple duri tion whi not fit iat sely thi ley and cial asur leir rific had ne la tally wal That, ns It wer mall, weaker and dedicat es for princ ist-war situa tu did r up tand tac thi F4=85855 measurably ine probier period, because the sr i their most principled PERr the nfre ed. spled struggl it a po The si 1h ec th ation drawi at s Isto new, often unseasoned leadership, unaccustomed to leading war period. It had to be tackled from that standpoint by a What were the particular problems? Well, firstly, Stalin- a world movement. srid oy war by its working class. Both factors had been very real by CH war period, both had come to the surface and had to be contended with by the Stalinist bureaucracy, but neither had in fact taken place. The spon- taneous resistance of workers within the Soviet Union to Sit bur taneo wage perio able i time: defe and crat re ne Inl ISt IOn- period had lacked conscious leadership and had not been able to remove that parasitic bureaucracy. But at the same time all the military might of imperialism had failed to wage cuts and speed-up that had taken place during the war IsciE iras piat D ai luri hac it a hat ly 1 npte Un est Iso tr g tr not he ail de le war been same ed to tc icy. le lis defeat the workers' state, despite the criminally inadequate and wrong policies through which Stalin attempted bureau- ite, rougi cratically to defend relations within the Soviet Union.

man but lot wa 18

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ent irea Cal So en1 ng on. 00 = ith currents within the bureaucracy that had also emerged during the war had not found support within the Soviet dui al hal hai -int acy

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for res he atio mer So he SO Ive ser rld Thi ble to be ther verge ievi jeri of hat Cal hel sod Ite c a su lich every period was sE fa I of iter sis and coll tained peric xpansion o e wreck he work ited witt ig class. 1ot imm verits ar he apse, id of f the thi productive forces, but upon exploiting the wreckage, the ts il sh € uctiv uctic base it not xpli iealthy ting t upon ts infl workir ch did ce of e adersh age cted efea the So there was a new situation, which did not immediately the tri Irty ade

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res Jras ear: lass id of the treacherous leaderships of the working class.

treacherou there was e its main fe show its main features on the surface of events and could not immediately be grasped by the leadership of the Fourth ts med ition diy I'st Tu: on per Trotskyist forces cut them off from an ability to intervene itskyist forces cut them off from an abi hin the workers' movement of their or kene them nove secu test lass IS without the ability to test out and to develop their theories forced sili ani ind and to feel their 01 de way th hen we come on to examine the sho ems of the International in that period way underestimate the difficulties the ms Ildi

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mings must infronted. here were positions post-war out com positions, ake place. i simply in any way underestimate the difficulties they confronted.

be entirely unscientific simply se. and these wrona theories at these, these, and these wrong theories and wrong positions WIti wrong in the leaves ect to t VI pletely the fact that in order to develop correct positions, in order to develop politically, a struggle had to take place.

In that post war period a struggle had to be waged simply di le Page 8

to exist as the Fourth I simpler to us today when the benefit of hindsight.

That does not mean of course that we must pull back from analysing the errors that were made. These errors have affected the whole of the development of the post-war Trotskyist movement. If we look, for instance, at Cannon's Theses on the American Revolution, written in 1946, we can say that Cannon both overestimated the stage of acute capitalist crisis, failing completely to see any possibility of the reconstruction of capitalism in the post-war period and, more important still, minimised the crisis of leadership within the working class internationally looking to a whole series of growing revolutionary waves which would eventually bring Trotskyists to the leadership and enable the overthrow of capitalism in a comparatively short space of time. Within those Theses, this position contained two oppo- sites. On the one hand was the strength of Trotskyism, its complete faith and confidence in the ability and the determination of the working class to struggle against im- perialism. But on the other hand, there was a dangerously wrong estimate of the way in which those struggles would take place and a failure to stress adequately the necessity for leadership within those struggles.

That failure was to characterise many of the problems that subsequently emerged within the International. Prob- ably more imporant, from 1946/47 onwards, the Fourth International was forced to take a stand on the complex and very uneven evolution of the Buffer Zone countries in the post-war period. This was complicated by the fact that before a coherent theory was worked out on the Buffer Zone question, Tito split with Stalin. This brought a new complication. Yet before the Stalin/Tito split was properly and satisfactorily worked through, there came the decisions of the Third World Congress of the Fourth International in 1951. From then on there was a continuous failure to solve one problem before the next one arose. In 1953 while con- fusion reigned, there came the emergence of political revo- lution in East Germany. And the failure of the leadership to seriously attempt to go back to the beginning and to re- assess the way in which discussion and positions had emerged on these questions, created an accumulating theo- retical problem for the Fourth International, which we are only now beginning consciously to grasp. I think we should emphasise this point. We are only now beginning consciously to grasp the problem of theoretical development within the International over the last thirty years, particularly in relation to the problem of Stalinism.

nternational. we look back Things and see seem much things with Europe as a whole between 1944 and 1950. I wi move on to examine what happened during a similar in Yugoslavia and in China, before returning to exam responses within the Fourth International to these and the way that these developed towards the crisis : split in 1953 Il then period ine the events, nd the When talking about the extension of nationalised property relations into Eastern Europe and the process that brought that about, the most decisive question is not whether this or that country became a bureaucratised wor kers' state. The most decisive question in the role of Stalin- ism internationally is that the Buffer Zone formed a part of an international deal between Stalinism and imperialism.

While Stalin had the use and the control over the Buffer Zone countries in the immediate post-war period, this formed part of a scheme in which he cynically traded the selling-out and conscious betrayal of revolutionary struggles particularly in France, in Italy and in Greece, for "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism in the post-war period.

The moves by Stalinism that took place in the Buffer countries can thus only be seen as completely subsidiary to that overall goal and overall drive by Stalinism for the stabi- lisation of post-war capitalism, and the consolidation of the balance of power with a capitalist class which was racked by deep crisis and in an extreme state of nervousness and exhaustion after the war. This was exactly the time that, given an ounce of leadership and assistance from the Soviet Union, in Italy in particular, and in France and Greece, capitalism could have been overthrown by force of arms by the working class and genuine social revolutions could have taken place. That possibility was consciously sabotaged by the Soviet Union. As Tim Wolforth says in The Theory of Structural Assimilation: "The whole shape of the post-world-war world was determined not so much by the transformations in the buffer, but rather by restabilisation and the growth of cap- italism over two thirds of the world's surface, something that could not have been achieved without the Kremlin's active cooperation." The second point to stress is the way that the Kremlin approached the question of the Buffer Zone. Why a Buffer Zone? Firstly because the Soviet Union had very nearly been defeated at various points in the war. The basis of the bureaucracy had very nearly been taken away by the mili- tary intervention of imperialism. Quite clearly, Stalin as a representative of the bureaucracy was not about to stand back and allow that kind of situation to recur if it could be prevented, but neither was he prepared to utilise what we would see as the main asset of the first workers' state in the world, the international mobilisation of the working classes in their own countries against the bourgeoisie in order to defend the Soviet Union. Stalin had categorically refused that course of action throughout the whole of the war, even in defence of the Soviet Union. In the post-war period he remained deter- mined not to do so, so there was a situation where in order bureaucratically and militarily to defend the Soviet Union by the most conservative means, Stalin set out to create a 'buffer' of states round the borders of the Soviet Union to guard against the immediate threat of a military attack by imperialism. That was the situation at first. This objective was assisted by the fact that, in the process of the defeat Page 9 With all these difficulties was combined the problem of new forces that had some history in the Trotskyist move.

ment, coming forward into leadership positions in the post- war period, and wanting simply to fit what was taking place in the very new post-war situation, into the established writings of Trotsky, Lenin and Marx. They wanted to find rigid schemas that they could bring forward from the pre- war period and just fit them round the new events. This would mean they would not have to apply the method and the content of the theories that were put forward in the earlier period, but that analysis of fresh events could be brought ready-made into the movement. This kind of approach resulted also in a distortion of theory and wrong positions emerging within the movement.

I want to go on to account for these problems of deve- opment by examining first what was happening in Eastern

of German imperialism, the Russian marched into many of these countries in Army, that had actually driven out the in force in those countries. The imp mainly concerned with stabilising relat capitalist countries, did not feel in too attempt to regain those "buffer" states grudgingly to concede hem in a deal post-war settlement. Stalin also saw these states as a bargaining counter, to be held over in case of further diplomacy and exchanges taking place. By holding these states, Stalin could argue that if imperialism conceded this or that, the states might be ceded back; if no concessions were made, he could threaten that they be absorbed into the Soviet Union In addition, we should not forget the fears that Stalin had of revolution on the borders of the Soviet Union. In every area where the Red Army had gone into the buffer countries, they had been greeted by spontaneous revolu- tionary upsurges of the working class. Factory occupations, demonstrations and strikes were staged by workers through- out these countries, though the workers movement in many of them had been laid waste for years by fascism and by oppression during the war period. The workers greeted the Red Army, seeing it as a force for revolution. Stalin was not at all confident that if he pulled the Red Army forces out of the Eastern European countries that the native capitalist class--which had been decimated during the war period in those in particular, either as active pro-Nazis, or as active collaborators, while others chiefly consisted of foreign capitalists not on the scene--could restore "order" in those countries. Stalin saw the danger if the Red Army simply with.

drew, that there could be actual revolutions on the very borders of the Soviet Union itself, at a time when Stalin was still contending with struggles of his own working class rebelling against further exploitation as result of the war period. So this calculation was also a very real factor.

was a need for the Kremlin to halt the moveme working class before anything further could be d these buffer countries. The final factor which was also of importance again re lated to the internal situation within the Soviet Union which had suffered massive industrial devastation durin!

the war period. In order to find a rapid way to reestablist the industrial processes Stalin looked around for the mos convenient bureaucratic solution.

Red Army had any case. The Red Nazis, was present erialists, however, ions in the major good a position to and were prepared with Stalin in the nt 10 There of the le with The most obvious answer was to loot factories, plan and equipment wholesale from the Buffer Zone countries.

From this respect also, these countries were of value to the bureaucracy. Whole sections of industry were shipped out by the Red Army for use within the Soviet Union itself.

Now all of these objectives could be satisfied just as well, or better, if these countries were formally speaking not workers' states. Certainly if you are going to plunder plant and equipment out of a country in the name of Socialism it is much better if the plundered nation is not regarded as a workers' state. And certainly if you are going to use a country as a bargaining counter with imperialism it is much better if you have not gone the whole hog and actually removed the capitalist class altogether before you offer to trade it back again. In this way many of these ques- tions left a short-term option for Stalin to attempt to retain control over these countries without the complete transformation of them into bureaucratised workers' states.

Page So we find that while this post-war working-class upsurge was at its height; while the factories were being occupied; while the strikes and demonstrations were at their peak, Stalin set out with a policy of establishing a coalition government with the bourgeoisie in each of these countries. In many cases this meant he had to retrieve the bourgeoisie from imperialist countries where they had fled. As the Nazis had run, so had the native bourgeoisie, scared that they would suffer the same fate as the Nazis' leftover, discredited agents, getting short shrift from the working class. So in many cases it was necessary for the Stalinists to go and find the bourgeoisie to form a 'popular front' co- alition with. There is a definite comparison between these efforts and the move towards coalition governments to head off the mass movement in Italy and in France in the immediate post-war period. While Stalinists actually entered bourgeois governments in these countries, in the Eastern Bloc countries they set up bourgeois governments, to form a coalition. In many cases there are accounts of the way they even had to reconstruct the bourgeois parties themselves. You had the spectacle of soldiers driving round in Red Army vehicles setting up bourgeois and peasant parties in these countries in order to establish the basis of a coalition government. These coalitions, once established, were the means to syphon away the power from the hands of the popular committees, local committees, occupation committees and peasants' committees that sprang up with the defeat of the Nazis. The objective was to remove local power from these popular organisations, and gather it into the hands of a state power over and above that of the working class. Where necessary, these governments nationalised factories in order to get the occupying workers to leave them, and put the control back into the hands of appointed state managers.

This was one of the original causes of the nationalisations that took place in the Buffer Zone. In other cases, nation- alisation took place for different reasons. In many cases it was made necessary because the factories had been owned by known pro-Nazi employers, who had skipped out of the country as rapidly as possible when they saw the Nazis were going. This left no other way of running the factories except through nationalisation, there was not even any bourgeoisie to take them over. In many cases foreign- owned plants were taken over where again the bourgeoisie failed to take them up and resume production.

After the working class upsurge had begun to die away.

after these coalition governments had in most cases estab- lished themselves, came the emergence of the Cold War and serious attempts by the imperialists to isolate the Sovie Union and as far as possible weaken it.

Stalin became nervous of the bourgeois element within these coalition governments so close to the borders of the Soviet Union. In particular he began to question whether he could seriously control these areas and use them for their purpose as a military buffer against imperialism, if within the governments of those areas were actual bourgeois elements who could at any point form a rallying point for pro-capitalist elements to fight against the Soviet Union.

This was a major turning point in the decision to go towards the all-out transformation of these countries It is interesting to see that included among the Buffer Zone countries in the early period were Austria and Finland. While the majority of the Buffer Zone countries were in fact transformed into workers' states, Austria and Finland stopped short that point. They did not go

th re in ugh sin t enc rme the oday ed b d wc final r witi y thi irkers rocess i the i bord tates ransformat of capitali lations wit ion im course leavily id the size of the state administration apparatus. In Poland for instance it increased to the point that the state bureaucracy virtually doubled while the population substantially fell as against the pre-war period. The increase in the state administrative bureaucracy was accompanied by a fusing of the party apparatus with the state bureaucracy, so that in a process directed from above the state machine and the state bureaucracy was taken over completely by a purged and a monolithised Communist Party.

All these changes in these countries were imposed from above, without the involvement and even in many cases despite the feelings of the masses. This period following 1946-47 was not a period of working class upsurge. There was no 'pressure from the masses' on these CPs to lead these actions. Instead it was a period in which the postwar upsurge which had flowed through these countries had been squashed or allowed to die away by the governments in those countries. All of these policies were imposed in a bureaucratic manner by a Stalinist leadership determined to avoid the mobilisation of the masses in the slightest independent action. This F ceived plan an uneven independen all cases wi the land. It movina on ocess of transformation was not a precon It was in each country within the Buffer Zone nd empirical process, designed to exclude the mobilisation of the masses. It began in almost h increased nationalisations of industry and of then developed in pace with Cold War pressure, to the elimination and suppression of the bourgeois and peasant parties ments within the buffer states.

This was linked to moves to destroy of the petit bourgeoisie, in particular ste retail and wholesale trade, on which the largely functioned in those countries. In there was a push towards forced collect were directed in this way in each of regardless of their national peculiarities. T set up economic colonies functioning on 1 Soviet Union. This meant each country was expected industrial-based economy on the model Union. There was no attempt at scien Wi thin the coalition govern- the social power ps taken against petit bourgeoisie the countryside ivisation. Affairs these countries he object was to he model of the The only slight exception to that was in Czecho- slovakia, where in order to remove a slightly more stubborn bourgeois element from the coalition, the Communist Party effectively mobilised mass demonstrations and in the end a coup against it. That was the only real exception in the main Eastern European countries to a process in which the masses were consciously excluded while piecemeal and empirical social changes were partly and unevenly taking place in each of these countries.

Tim Wolforth in Structural Assimilation, spells out the impossibility of analysing such a complex process by taking single aspects of developments. He shows the way in which that process is a whole series of quantitative changes which at a certain point-extremely hard to define-finally produces a degenerated workers' state. He says, "No single factor, such as nationalisations, or even the dominance of the CPs, should be viewed in isolation, but rather one must seek to understand the process as a whole.

Essentially, structural assimilation is a combined process of the destruction of the political and social power of the bourgeoisie through administrative means, the consoli- dation of a monolithic party, which is essentially an extension of tie soviet bureaucracy, the purging of the state apparatus of the bourgeois elements, and the fusion of the party and the state bureaucracy into a single ruling bureaucratic caste. Of course we must add that it all took place under the aegis of the Red Army, in many cases physically present in those countries, in other cases implicitly present in that the Buffer Zone had been ceded by imperialism to the 'sphere of influence' of the Soviet Union. The imperialists didn't feel able to combat that process or intervene in those countries in order to hold it back.

What took place there was the crumbling of bourgeois power cracked by its own self-created crisis, and the moving into that vacuum of new forms of government, under conditions where the masses were not mobilised and power was at all points kept out of the hands of the rank and file of the workers movement and of the peasantry.

This is the general pattern for Eastern Europe. But because of the importance of Yugoslavia in subsequent discussions, I'll go through Yugoslavia in a little more detail just to show the way that i fits and the way that it slightly differs from this pattern In Yugoslavia, the to d of tific evelop as an the Soviet division of labour on a planned footing. Instead relations stayed on a country-to-country basis between Buffer states and the USSR. Then came the emergence at various points within this development of five-year plans. Also key in the process were the purges to remove various elements from the Stalinist parties of these countries. These purges showed the way in which the process was headed. First out were many bourgeois elements who had recently joined and had been allowed into the Communist Parties as part of the coalition moves. They were now purged as part of the steps towards structurally transforming the countries, for which many bourgeois personnel were not sufficiently reliable. Secondly those within the CPs who might be more conservative on the pace of transformation were purged. Third, and most important, almost all those with some roots in the mass movement, or roots in the old CPs from before the war who might possibly seek to defend the national interests of those countries against the overall domination of the Soviet Union, were purged. Particularly feared were those who had the possibility of actually mobilising action against the direct exploitation of their countries by the Soviet Union. These purges were absolutely massive-for instance in the Polish party, 370,000 were purged, in the Czech party 550,000, in Hungary 200,000 and in East Germany 300,000. All these moves were aimed at setting up an absolutely monolithic Communist Party absolutely subservient and dependable for the Soviet Union. At the same time came the decision to fuse the numerically depleted CPs with the national social democratic parties. The leaders of the social democratic parties had devoted their whole existence to subservience to their own national bourgeoisie. As a result they had become very much accustomed to the idea of simply administering whatever state regime happened to be around. They could therefore provide some safe but experienced personnel to step into leading positions in these monolithic parties.

At the same time there Page 11 par uggl

during the war period wer under the leadership of Cr monolithic CP. Tito had t command to construct a Moscow, and had done so many other countries had another of a popular front against the occupying Nazis.

But in Yugoslavia the bourgeoisie programme that their Communist Party partisan struggle. This was because in order to win a sufficient force to actually challenge the Nazis in Yugoslavia, the Communist Party had to include demands for land reform and nationalisation. When attempts were made to remove that from the programme of the partisans, the peasant forces on which they were dependent threatened to depart. It was therefore impossible for Tito to actually remove those demands, although he would very much have liked to do so then in order to involve the bourgeoisie in the fight.

The call for land reform and nationalisation meant that the national bourgeoisie thought it much preferable to keep the Nazis than to fight with the partisans against them.

Indeed they actually fought with the Nazis in many instances. The eventual liberation of Yugoslavia concluding the victory against the Nazis and their agents within Yugo- slavia, was therefore carried through by the partisan forces under the leadership of the CP.

The coalition deal that was then done-as in every other Eastern European country-was extremely fragile because the vast majority of the Yugoslavian bourgeoisie either met grisly ends at the hands of the partisans or else had decided to avoid that by fleeing the country. So the deal was done by actually importing exiles from the United States who were to form part of this coalition, and the Tito/Subasich agreement was drawn up in 1944. It only lasted a few months, despite the efforts of the Stalinists because of the incredibly weak position of the Yugoslav bourgeoisie. The state apparatus, which had been riddled with people who had sided with the Nazis and which had been overthrown by the partisans, had also been completely destroyed in the process of the civil war. Virtually nothing in terms of existing repressive apparatus could hold back the working class in Yugoslavia.

But this did not mean that ditions, was prepared to move i tion of the factories that had with the victory of the partisans.

In fact the major nationalisations in Yugoslavia, despite this weakened position of the bourgeoisie, took place eighteen months after they did in Poland or in Czechoslo- vakia. In other words, simply because capitalism was weakened it did not mean that the Stalinists in any way whatsoever took advantage of that to develop the move ment towards transformation. In fact the mass movement that Tito confronted was seen as a problem because of the rapid collapse of the coalition whereas in the other Buffer Zone countries such coalitions lasted for two or three years.

It meant that the forward tide of working class struggles hadn't entirely subsided at that point.

It was therefore necessary for Tito to move much more rapidly towards the transformational process than in many other countries in order to head off that movement and control it, and to keep it within the national confines of Yugoslavia. Tito had an advantage in this task. He had a firm base of support within the Communist Party, which he had established and led through the partisan struggle.

Page 12 e led by the CP. Th CP was mintern agent Tito. It was a seen sent in with the specific monolithic CP subservient to • The national bourgeoisie, in been prepared in one form or to struggle to a limited extent saw a threat i put forward fo its the Tito, n and taken even given those con- legitimise the occupa- place simultaneously This CP had actuall country prior to the Nazis. Tito therefore overall pattern of the confident to proceed within Yugoslavia. The new constitution of Yugoslavia, which embodied most of the points which were to be commonly adopted by the Eastern European countries later, was actually adopted as early as in 1946. The beginnings of the process of removing the remaining bourgeois elements, nationalising property and so on, began fairly rapidly from that point onwards. y controlled distinct areas of the complete partisan victory against the felt a certain independence from the Eastern European countries, and felt to the process of structural change By the time of the 1948 bi which was later heralded as Tito course in order to lead the victo Yugoslavia had already virtually tion process which was to take several years more. The process had simply begun earlier, with less resis- tance and complications. So when we look at the conflict between Stalin and Tito, we're not looking at a conflict between one man who wants to make a revolution against another who wants to stop him, we're looking at a disagree- ment over the pace and extent to which Soviet require- ments could be imposed upon the economy and the new situation in Yugoslavia. We're dealing with Tito's resentment of being ordered by Stalin not to give any support whatsoever to the Greek partisan forces with whom the Yugoslav forces on which Tito rested had formed a close fighting relationship. More important still was the question of the economic develop- ment within Yugoslavia, because Tito knew that to hold the masses within Yugoslavia within confines it was necessary to provide certain economic-not political-con- cessions. That would be impossible if the full-scale exploi- tation of the Yugoslav economy projected by Stalin was to be carried through. This was a basic element in the split between Stalin and Tito. eak hea riot COr the with Stalin-the break ding on an independent s Yugoslav revolution- npleted the transforma other Buffer countries Stalin for his part of course couldn't allow Tito to stand up against his strategy under conditions where Stalin was still carrying out similar transformations to those in Yugoslavia , at uneven stages of development in the rest of the European Buffer Zone. If Tito could stand up and defy Stalin then Gomulka might also stand up in Poland and the various other leaders might also rebel in the other countries. From both sides, then, the bureaucratic interests which led to the division between Stalin and Tito can be seen as flowing out of their national requirements and the contra- dictions they confront as bureaucracies attempting to balance between opposed social forces within their own countries and internationally-particularly in the case of Stalin. Tito was different from the other leaders in that he had a basis to resist Stalin. He had sufficient self-confidence and basis within Yugoslavia to resist Stalin's requirements.

But of course Yugoslavia didn't have the basis to proceed independently to the development of the economy on a national level. And instead of attempting any kind of a principled call within the international workers' movement, Tito preferred to put out an appeal to imperialism for economic assistance and in various ways to lean towards imperialism rather than mobilise the masses within Europe

and internationalle. In that, Tito showed that he !

to the full the Stal nist heritage, the bureaucratic me approaching these questions, seeing it as necessary back the working class at all costs, and seeking a which the various forces can be played off one aga other in order to preserve his own position.

But because the break was not-as some subsequently claimed-on ideological grounds, when the reconciliation took place in 1956, and Tito came back into the Stalinist fold, welcomed by Kruschev, toasted in the blood of the Hungarian workers, it was without any internal ideological problems within the Yugoslavian CP.

The break with the Kremlin through as an ideological break, but move based on bureaucratic interes interests dictated, Tito and Kruschei again etained thod of to hold way in inst the Firstly the Chinese CP had been armed by the Soviet Union with equipment that they had taken off the defeated Japanese forces during the war. In this way they were equipped with modern arms capable of setting them up as a full-scale army. Secondly, the industry within Manchuria that Stalin had ceded back to Chiang was destroyed. The means of production were put out of commission before they were handed back. In other words, a major economic base was not returned to Chiang, though of course the act of ceding the territory back could well be questioned.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the international balance of forces between imperialism and the USSR, combined with the internal problems of the imperialist countries led to the decision that thev were unable to inter- had not had been ts. When • moved t been carried an empirical bureaucratic ack together vene at that point. they estimated that a decision by the Chinese CP. Even after tive was not in out instead to private holdings were taken ove It was ruled out under conditions where by intervening they could well confront USSR to intervene on behalf of the the itial try th fall of Chiang after 1949, Mao's objec- ly to construct a workers' state. He set and create a new coalition. Only the at had been deserted by their owners Other whole sections of substantial We should look also at the events in certain extent show a parallel. One clear in the case of Yugoslavia, nobody in the ment between 1947 and 1949 interpr struggles in the way they described ther Nobody claimed that the Chinese events taken by Mao Tse Tung's party as they them afterwards. Everyone went back to questions and substantially rewrite them China which to a parallel is that as Trotskyist move- ited the Chinese 1 after the event. were an initiative were to describe reapproach these in order to fit in noldings and capitalist enterprise remained, the capitalist class was defeated, it was actually and put in a position of influence by th continued craving for popular front regimes.

and tnougn propped up e Stalinists' later impressions-as was the case with Yugoslavia.

In China as in almost every country there was a post- war upsurge of militancy within the working class move- ment. In Shanghai there were strikes and occupations with demands for a sliding scale of wages against the Chiang Kai Shek government. There were demonstrations, there was student unrest, and peasant struggles throughout China.

This was part of the world wide movement of the working class in the immediate post-war period. But this was precisely the period in which the Chinese CP was most earnestly seeking a coalition with Chiang!

with Mao in 1949 stated explicitly that 'Our policy is to restrict capitalism, not to eliminate it. It was much more gradually and in a much less planned manner than in Eastern Europe that the social changes took place in China.

The old state apparatus was retained for a long period, with many of the old bourgeois personnel still in their offices: and it was only gradually, and without at any point the real involvement of the masses, that the steps towards the structural transformation in China were taken.

Firstly, under the pressure of capitalism, steps were taken to suppress and then eliminate the bourgeois parties and cliques from the coalition and from high office within the administration. Secondly, steps were taken to purge and to change the composition of the CP. Thirdly, a process of nationalisation of bourgeois holdings took place from above and of course, moves to merge the party and the etata annaratic in China Thie neanace wac not narried Ant Far from mobilising, developing and strengthe these movements of the working class, Mao's party hoping for a coalition with an increasingly bankrupt discredited bourgeois nationalist government, and no was given to these struggles.

This is an exact parallel with moves in Europe and in the Buffer Zone countries by Stalinists in order to consolidate peaceful co-existence he problem that Mao faced was that Chiang did not want a coalition. He wanted Mao's head on a plate and the heads of the militants within the Chinese CP. Mao's eventual offensive which began in response to determined moves by Chiang to extinguish the CP once and for all, didn't begin until 1947, after the main post-war upsurge had again fallen away and Chiang had beer able to impose massive repression. Chiang found however, as he began to confront the CP, that his administration completely lacked popular support, and was completely discredited in the eyes of the whole population of China.

As one defeat followed another, there were no forces remaining that Chiang could call on to stand up aginst the offensive of theChinese CP. It was precisely a sense of such weakness that had brought Chiang to refuse a coalition deal with Mao. Even though Stalin withheld open assistance to Mao, we should point out that in a number of ways the influence of the Soviet Union was of great importance in the eventual victory of the CP-led forces.

Page 13 the the ning was and lead under the instructions or there was no evidence at t Mao's course of action. Despite the fact that capitalism had to purposes been defeated and crushed in Chin dictatorship of the proletariat was not decla 1956. Throughout that period, the relation Kremlin had been close. We can say therefore direct control of he time that Stalin the USSR, but disagreed with all intents and a in 1949, the red there until ships with the throughout that period of struggle and period of transformation. It never departed and it was the most enthusiastic supporter attack on the Hungarian workers in 1956.

It would be absolutely wrong to allow impressions of divisions that developed subsequently to make us attempt to backdate them. Undoubtedly differences did develop later. But it is essential in defending the basic method of Trotskyism to see the processes that brought these differences as processes, and not simply attempting to label or backdate the finished result. To start today, for instance, from the various positions being taken by Maoism and simply say that Maoism has always been this or that, going that the CCP was a Stalinist party throughout the from Stalinism, of the Kremlin

back to find instances that prove obviously ridiculous. It was a similarl method applied by Pablo, which did building of the Trotskyist movement.

What I'm going to do now in analysing the response of the Fourth International to these events, is to work through in a fairly chronological way, the way the struggle and the different positions developed.

And the aspect that we are going to centre summed up in Trotsky's In Defence of Marxism, "The primary political criterion for us is not the trans- formation of property relations in this or another area, however important these may be in themselves, but rather the change in the consciousness and organisation of the world proletariat, the raising of their capacity for defending former conquests and accomplishing new ones.

From this one, and the only decisive standpoint, thi politics of Moscow, taken as a whole, completely retains it: reactionary character, and remains the chief obstacle on thi road to the world revolution."

In Defence of Marxism, the case, would be y false and deceptive great damage to the nal in apl at We have to look at the wa approached the questions c the post-war period. Firstly, proaches by Mandel (writing the wav in which the Kreml We have to look at the way that the Fourth Internatio ir that the Fourth Internatio Russia and Eastern Europe ve should look at the initial s Germain). Mandel looked i bureaucracy as the centre piece in between no longe imperial! socialiser ded agail had all t ably ho Russia. But the Stalinist movement was now forced to balance the classes in a new world situation in which it was r so simple, as pre-war, to attempt to play off one st nation, or one bloc, against another. Instead, the 1 property relations in the USSR had to be defen- ist a world-wide bloc of imperialist countries which seen shown in the course of the war to be implac stile to socialism and the social system within nade to call any way qpon tre the working class movement, because the mobilisation of the working class would question the bureaucracy's own role and would challenge the stability of Stalinism within the USSR itself. Mandel wrote a document in 1947 going into detail on these questions and showed how the bureau- cratic answer to this was to establish the Buffer Zone. He pointed to Trotsky's In Defence of Marxism for a method to analyse the changes in the Buffer Zone. Comrades will recall that Trotsky in In Defence of Marxism sketches out the possible stages of development if the Kremlin bureau- crats should decide to assimilate Finland or Poland in the USSR in the pre-war period. He sketches the way in which that could be done from above, in a bureaucratic manner, in a way similar to that we have sketched out in discussing Eastern Europe. Trotsky demonstrates theoretically how that process could be conducted in a counterrevolutionary way. But in his hypothetical account, Trotsky included one key factor which turned out in most cases not to be borne out by events-that is the partial and controlled involve- ment of the masses. Mandel however picked centrepiece in declaring tha been mobilised in anyway i was impossible to assimilate property into workers* sta at he same time the bureacra man tha inton cy vati was completely anal etronath of on this aspect and made it his t because the masses had not n Eastern Europe, therefore it all the elements of bourgeois te formation. For that reason, Je Mandel argued states. He said, "But in order to completely assimilate a given terri- tory, that is to say, in order to expropriate and destroy as a class the landed proprietors and capitalists, the bureaucracy is compelled-even if in a limited way and with the aim of always controlling it and crushing it where necessary-to call upon the autonomous action of the masses...because of this...because the bureaucracy fears the autonomous action of the masses like the plague, it will be unable to accomp- lish assimilation except on a relatively limited scale."

Mandel thus latched on to one part of In Defence of Marxism and attempted to apply it in a fixed way to the post-war period. This provided a wrong basis for estimating the process of change in Eastern Europe, because, as we have just seen, it was not so much a mobilisation of the masses that brought the transformations in Eastern Europe, as the state of collapse of domestic and of international capitalism in the face of the threat of action by the Soviet Union and the parties it had established in the Buffer Zone.

That collapse was the decisive factor, and Mandel's search for instances of mobilisation of the working class became a dead end search leading to all kinds of wrong positions and impressionism. In 1947, however, Mandel's analysis of Yugoslavia was as follows: "The beginning of structural assimilation corresponds to a very revolutionary pressure in Yugoslavia, but the nature of the economy and the state remains bourgeois.

Nevertheless the relations of forces are such that the bour- geoisie finds itself for the moment at the mercy of an action by the proletariat. It is only the bureaucracy's fear both of the proletariat and of imperialism which restrains it from dealing the native capitalists a death blow."

the Buffer had to be regarded as capitalist In other words, Mandel in bility of revolution should the mobilise a mass struggle agai defines the Tito leadership as back from that step because of i working class and of imperialism.

examination of the Buffer Zone: "All these buffer countries, including Yugoslavia, will however be exposed to an especially powerful pressure from imperialism. It is not excluded that in this case the Communist Parties, basing themselves firmly on the revolu- tionary aspirations of the masses, will move forward and abolish the remnants of bourgeois power and property."

Again the notion that the masses have to be involved there somewhere, and that it is impossible to impose social change from above, in a bureaucratic fashion, creeps into even this detailed study by Mandel-a study which is about the nearest to a thorough and serious examination of the question in the immediate post-war period. The slogan that Mandel put forward as a result was "For the immediate withdrawal of all Red Army troops from the Buffer Zone countries" to focus on the need for the revolution to be carried through independently by workers themselves in the countries. That orientation formed the basis of a major resolution passed by the International leadership in 1947, which did not differentiate in any way between Yugoslavia and the rest of the Buffer Zone. It included Eastern Europe as a whole, with which Yugoslavia had simply gone further in the uneven process of transformation.

In general, however, Mandel upholds all of the Buffer Zone countries are on to that position until he collapsed began putting a completely different that held and 1947 clearly sees the possi- bureaucracy have chosen to nst imperialism. He clearly bureaucracy, which holds ts mortal fear both of the And Mandel concludes his the view in 1947 still capitalist. He in front of Pablo position in 1951

looked back after that and Of course Mandel Pablo from that day to this.

remained collapsed In 1949 the International Executive passed a resolu- tion which declared, "There is an undeniable existence of a police regime in Yugoslavia." That was in April 1949; but by December of that year, Pablo had begun to challenge this whole position and to question the analysis that had taken place. And in May 1950, Pablo developed the argu- ment further to declare that: "A revolution of a special development had taken place in Yugoslavia and it led up to a seizure of power, to a radical transformation of the capitalist property relations, and the destruction of the old capitalist state and the con- struction of a new state apparatus."

That was Pablo's opening shot in his offensive against the established position of the International on the role of the Stalinist party in the buffer states. And when Pablo had to confront the obvious gap in time between the CP-led partisans driving out the capitalists in 1944, and the structural transformation of Yugoslavia, which was still gradually taking place only from 1947 onwards, he did so by quoting the Titoites: "They [the Titoites] insist that none of the political and social conquests of the struggle was endangered by the [Tito-Subasich] 1944/45 coalition with the bourgeoisie, for the simple reason that the reaction had no real base among the masses and that the coalition was realised at the top between representatives of the masses and impotent shadows of the bourgeoisie."

So if the Titoites say nothing wrong happened, then according to Pablo nothing wrong happened. Pablo set aside any idea that the revolutionary process might have actually been held back by the formation by the CP of a coalition with the remnants of the bourgeois class in Yugoslavia. Pablo then proceeded to rewrite completely every account of Yugoslavia that had been put forward up to that point. He denied, for instance, the established Trotskyist view that the people's committees that were set up in the cities in Yugoslavia after 1944 were formed from above by the CP as bureaucratic organs specifically to control the working class and to limit its actions.

Pablo claimed instead that the workers were con- tinuously active and mobilised from 1941 to 1948, and he quotes Tito's constitution to prove it. In fact Tito's consti- tution does of course say that they were active. Pablo goes on to claim-again completely in defiance of the positions that had been passed and adopted by the Fourth Inter- national-that the period of real ascendancy of the Yugo- slavian revolution which resulted in a radical change of property relations, is situated precisely between 1945 and 1948-in other words, precisely the period in which the Yugoslavian CP actually did step in to stem the movement of the masses, and attempted in every way to shackle that movement. Pablo declared that this very period was the high point of the Yugoslavian revolution-the point recurs about five or six times in this 1950 document. Pablo went on to term the leadership of the Yugoslavian CP as partly bureaucratic, and says that the peoples' committees were 'led by a party which, for all its other merits, went through a Stalinist education and still maintained relations with Moscow' He is conspiciously silent merits' are. Pablo added: "Is it surprising that, freed from is is now alluding to the 1948 spl never before th it e yoke of Moscow between Tito and Stalin) the Yugoslavian revolution raises itself to new heights, becomes constantly more democratic, etc., etc.?"

Every one of these revisionist arguments starts from the appearances of events and the 'left' rhetoric being used by Tito to justify both his stand against the Soviet bureauc racy and his descent to unprincipled deals with imperialism.

Pablo uses surface appearance as a starting point and then attempts to explain surface appearances by rewriting history, actually retrospectively rationalising the positions held by the bureaucracy. From these positions Pablo draws the conclusion that: "Certain CPs in a favourable conjuncture, when they are linked to the real revolutionary movement of the masses, can detach themselves from the yoke of the Krem- lin and begin to act on their own. To regard every victory achieved by a CP as synonymous with a victory of Stalin- ism is an absurd generalisation and a mistake."

Here we have the emergence of the notion that by initi- ating a revolutionary" process that Pablo has just retro- spectively fabricated on the basis of impressions, the Yugo- slav party broke from Stalinism and became-at least in a partial form-a revolutionary force. Such a revision does not jeopardise orthodox Trotskyism, according to Pablo, because the Yugoslav events were not really a product of Stalinism at all, since according to hi the Yugoslav CP ceased to be Stalinist! 1950 was the start World Congress of the Fc the preparation Pablo wri document Where Are We went much further than erected an entire theory nhenomena. thinas on the of the preparatio of the Third urth International, and as part of ›te the now completely notorious Going? In this document, Pablo his document on Yugoslavia. He on the observations of empirical surface. Firstly, Pablo said that solidation and expansion o that the world could now more. Instead he advised camps"-"imperialism" on other. Now this leads directl role of the working class. If ist camp" over here which "Stalinist camp" over here the apparently permanent con- f Stalinism after the war meant not be seen in class terms any the terminology of "the two one hand, "Stalinism" on the y away from the independent you say you have the "imperial- is hostile to the USSR, and the which is generally in favour of .. of thin

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ten b mint competely the muepenuence or tie working class in fighting both capitalism in the imperialist countries, and fighting the Stalinist bureaucracy in the degenerate workers' states.

The position leads away from any independent role either in defending the workers' states, or in overthrowing capitalism. In the same way, by eliminating the indepen- dent role of the working class, the path was cleared for the other notorious Pabloite conception of an imminent Third World War. Of course there were Cold War condi- tions which we find it hard to imagine now; there were very real tensions; there was a situation of massive witch-hunt against Trotskyists and communists of all types in the post- war period. It is not entirely realistic for us to brush this aside and say in 1977 "How could anybody even dream of a Third World War straight after the Second?"

On the other hand, the way in which the Third World was put forward as a concept ignored completely the of the working class in the developed countries in fight- Page 15 War role

ing their own bourgeoisie during the course of such a war.

No policy of any description pendent struggle of workers made the War idea absolutely "To understand that cap war, for it has no other sho that this process cannot be able destruction of the regim fundamental law in the evolu tion." was put forward to prevent such central: italism is now heading toward rt or long term way out, and stopped short of the unavoid- e, is equivalent of describing a tion of the international situa- for th a War a war. le inde- •Pablo say that the masses, irrespective of the bureaucratic of their leadership, can take the power, is to de purpose of any form of Marxist party whatever.

Such a view, however, was endorsed by the Third World Congress. This is the stage that capitulation to sur- face appearances had reached within the movement: people were almost universally accepting the positions that were being argued by Pablo, precisely because they corresponded to appearances. Pablo's ideas were not just snatched out of nowhere, they corresponded to the appearances of the situ- ation. And unless his opponents went to a lot of trouble to dig beneath these appearances and probe to the processes that brought them about, you could only see through Pablo from an extremely limited standpoint.

Another section from the same resolution reads: "In the long run, objective conditions determine character and dynamics of the movement of the mas: which, raised to a certain level, can overcome all subject obstacles on the road to revolution."

What need, then, for a Trotskyist party, wha independent cadres to lead that struggle?

"It is not excluded that certain CPs, with the bulk of their forces, can be pushed out of the strict orbit of the Soviet bureaucracy and can project a revolutionary orienta- tion." All this was passed at the Congress.

"While the counterrevolutionary role bureaucracy remains unchanged, its possibi fully performing this role is determined no tive desires, but by an objectively revolutic we ight the So the War concept is a main axis, not simply an acci- dental trimming by Pablo. It is now simply a question, says Pablo, of how soon it all takes place, not whether or where, just how soon. Linked to this is then brought in the ques- tion of the defence of the USSR. It is this which leads in to the concept of "War-revolution"-the idea that because the USSR will have to defend itself against the whole of the imperialist world, therefore the Kremlin will be forced to call upon the CPs in every country to launch civil war against their own bourgeoisie Thus, claimed Pablo, by fighting for the defeat of capi- talism in this new war, the Soviet bureaucracy will actually give the lead, wittingly or unwittingly, to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism internationally, and, of course, to itself, because once capitalism goes, then so does the base of the bureaucracy. In this context, Pablo brings in the develop on Yugoslavia, also now in include China. Pablo declared: the ses, ive In this context, Pablo brings in the views that he began to develop on Yugoslavia, also now increasingly extended to include China. Pablo declared: of the Soviet lity of success- t by its subjec- inary situation. 'the Communist Parties retain the possibility in certain circumstances of roughly outlining a revolutionary orient- ation, that is to say, of finding themselves compelled to engage in a struggle for power.

Under these exceptional conditions, the mass move- ment, which found only the Communist Parties available as a channel, compelled these parties to go further than their leaderships and above, all the Kremlin would have wished, and literally pushed them into power.

Developments in Yugoslavia ration of the events to come Throughout that section on the Stal there is no mention of the fight to build in those countries. It goes on to Tasks of national In countries where the majority of the working class still follows the CP, our organisation, necessarily indepen- dent,(this is before any call to liquidate the Stalinist parties) should orientate towards more systematic work among the ranks of these parties and the masses they influence. In the Peoples Democracies, our supporters who are not known should try to integrate themselves into the CPs'. Those Communist Parties are ones which had had hun- dreds and thousands of people purged from them as dissident elements; they were CPs formed specifically from above as monolithic arms of Soviet policy within those countries; they had been fused with the state apparatus, and formed as the basis of a bureaucratic system of government. Yet here Trotskyists are actually suggesting that Trot- skyists who are not known should try and 'integrate' them- selves into the CPs and remain there, 'in order to take advantage of the revolutionary possibilities that will develop'. That was passed at the Congress.

If the Congress was prepared to sanction this kind of policy and was in a state where no substantial opposition was put up to them, then quite obviously it was a fairly small extension from here when Pablo proceeded to claim liquidation into the European mass CPs was part of the policies endorsed by the conference. It was not actually written down, but this was the political conclusion that did indeed flow from the resolutions.

The same Congress actually passed two resoluti buffer countries-one on Yugoslavia, and one Page 16 The proposal for entry into the CPs is not actually in- cluded in Pablo's discussion document, or in the Third World Congress resolutions of 1951. Such calls were added later on by Pablo, after the Congress was complete. The Theses on Orientation and Perspectives which were adopted at the Congress (and remember this was voted for not just by Pablo, but by Pablo and the whole of the leadership of the Fourth International) said: "It would be anti-Marxist not to recognise the possi- bility that CPs placed in favourable conditions may possibly see themselves obliged to undertake a struggle for power against the possessing classes and imperialism... this is proved by the experiences of the CY and in part by the CP of China... To affirm that the weight of the bureaucratic apparatus will prove more decisive under all conditions than the weight of pressure of the masses would be anti- Marxist." Now here you have a specific, deliberate reversal, a revision of the Transitional Programme. When the Prog- ramme states that the pressure of the movement of the masses is in the long term more powerful than the pressure of the bureaucratic apparatus, it is specifically in the con- text of building an independent Marxist leadership, in the context of the masses being headed by parties of the Fourth International. Not in any other context. It emerges in a whole section dealing with the crisis of leadership within the working class. To divorce it from that, and just nly a pre- inist bureaucracy. Trotskyist parties the Fourth Inter- ons on on all

the rest. In snecial case "rY resolution which declared: 'Stalinism can be defined as the su interests of workers of every country to bureaucracy. The CPY, beginning in orientation which was to lead to the b because of this fact ceased to be a stalin meaning of the word. The difference in o the CPY and that followed by the other affected in the first place by the pressure There was no call in that resolution Tratekwict narty in Yunnslavia Ohvint this and way all of Yugoslavia could Pablo's conceptio be SU singled out as a embodied in the bordination of the those of the Soviet 1941, outlined an reak of 1948, and ist party in the full rientation between CPs of Europe was of the masses'. for the bulding of ıslv if the pressure of the masses could in fact break the most monolithic CP in that part of the world from Stalinism, and force it to project a course towards the taking of a power, this quite obviously questions the necessity of a Trotskyist party any- where. It goes on: "Beginning with this time, the CPY has ceased to be a semi-Stalinist party and evolved as a centrist party carried to power by the revolutionary masses. In this connection the positions and the attitude of the CPY towards Trot- skyism, either openly or by attempting to ignore it, acquires considerable political importance. What is involved is not merely a historic rectification of the past, it is the test of whether a workers' current which emerged from Stalinism has succeeded in linking itself with the traditional programme of Bolshevism, and thereby definitively and decisively surmounting capitalism'.

We can now see strong parallels betwee annenach and the various overtures beina

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ciliatory articles and Stalinists today. You "complete his break' workers democracy tendencies within his The Third Cong went back and 'con Fourth Internationa people aga nst it n that method made and con. debates now ha with Sta and al own part ess resol ected' ti . It as between the USFI and the ve Mandel urging Carrillo to linism by actually calling for lowing the right to form y and so on. ution explic le previous adopted tly

JOS

ith re tic OI wrote ins of and the few t would be nice if we coul now line up all the forces that were fighting against this ne for a correct line on Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe. But only a handful of individuals in the Fourth International took up a stand for the fight to build Trotskyist parties in Yugoslavia and China. The opposition was hamstrung by the same political weakness. On the one hand Mandel clung to the fact that since the masses hadn't been involved, Yugoslavia and all these other Eastern European countries theoretically ought to be still capitalist countries. When Mandel actually began to move from this position, he moved very dramatically and in such a way that while he toned down some of Pablo's more dramatic statements, he ended up drafting "Ten Theses'. These were put forward at the Third Congress by the French section-against Mandel's own wishes. No vote was actually taken on the document. But the Ten Theses were only marginally better than the original account by Pablo, because they accept that the Yugoslavian and Chinese CPs are different and it actually says: 'In the coming revolutionary upsurge in We during the period of preparation and unleashi growing pressure of the masses is liable to ado the stern ng of force Eur. war, the Page French and I 'neutralising' project a re forced to und talian the bo volutio ertake CPs urg! nar a st to m toisie. y orit ruggle Thes intati for p th OW eir pacifist arties could and see ti er course then. emselv The docum rope as well: 'during the period of preparation and unleashing of war, the growing pressure of the masses is liable to force the French and Italian CPs to modify their pacifist course of neutralising the bourgeoisie. These parties could then project a revolutionary orientation and see themselves forced to undertake a revolutionary struggle for power'.

In other words a theorv based on a misunderstan dr of events in Eastern Europe is actually directed by into the class struggle in the whole of Europe. But attempts to get away from the worst excesses of position, declaring that it is one thing to project lutionary orientation, another to accomplish a rev therefore its possible only that the Yuhoslavian or experience be repeated in the middle East maybe or Asia but not in Western Europe'.

He goes on to say that Mandel Mandel Pablo's a revo- olution, Chinese Eastern retormist parties because tney can conquer independent fashion'. That's the difference draws between them! In other words while of on a certain level particularly on the notion o and Stalinism as blocs and camps, at the same wavers between Pabloism and orthodox posit unable to fully develop a critique or present an position. In 19 Sta inist par ties are not power in an that Mandel posing Pablo f imperialism time Mandel ions. He was independent document Where Are We Bleibtreu, a leading member from the conception that th were centrist parties that| led revolutions. Within that framewo correctly many of the more was one of the documents we carried through the stru!

Fourth International in the the WRP. During Bliebtreu's d the split ocument, his whole ion wrote an Going? This in 1951, but e Yugoslavian ›roke from St attack on was writ again star and Chin alinism ar Pablo's ten by ted out ese CPs id then rk Bliebtreu appalling aspects that we least unt agle for a unders early period of hen criticises of Pablo. This lerstood when tanding of the the split from we ittle app actu reali roacl all Sit oted cht importai ink ice from that In America an individual called B. Lens ar called Irving Steiner got together in 1950 to sharp attack on the editorial line of the Milital paper, stressing the need for political indepen working class. 'Fight with Yugoslavian workers against Stalinist invasion? Fight with them against an ogical barrage? Absolutely. Support Tito in th for an instant. But the most important thing party in Yugoslavia.' These seem to be about the only people raised that rather impolite question about build skyist party in Yugoslavia. Nobody else even necessary to mention it. None of the main in documents actually put such a line forward.

there was no opposition. Healy backed the Pablo. id a co write it, the dence smrade a very SWP's of the tr is is e possible tual ideol- fight? Not to build a who ever ing a Trot- thought it ternational In England position of Pel

in 1952. In taking this step Pablo had of further than the Third Congress resolution He instructed the French section to do entry wor French CP. According to Pablo, this meant tr internal and external work of the Trotskyist would thus have as its aim to speed up the rad the Stalinist workers and the development tionary leadership emerging basically from Stalinist movement. The whole of the Trotskyist movement in Pablo's view had to be directed towards waiting for progressive leftwing currents to emere out of Stalinism and the nolitical inde.

course gone had actually k within the iat the entire organisation icalisation of of a revolu- within that pendence of th to that. Now e movement was to be strictly subordinated under those conditions it doesn't matter whether Pablo going into the he didn't advor proposed an in material aimed conditions witt was proposing the whole of the CP, or only half of it. In fact at sate that everyone should go into dependent apparatus be retained at their work within the CP. TI in the CP and the perspective Di movement that point the CP, he to provide ie political nosed bu Pablo were so the turn could inadequate only end in and the so wrongl liquidation y moti of the vated that Trotskyist parties 1 towards place w Internati resisted with the impleme to stalinism. Mather than draw Trotskyism, the reverse process th the loss of the precious cadr onal. The French majority re it fiercely, and were expelled in fu support of Healy and Cannc is policy Stalinı would es of t jected 1952 for st workers be taking he Fourth this step. ›y Pablo efusing to was some juggling around by the bureaucracy in the Union with economic reforms and various so-called • sation' measures, which were taken as good coin Pabloites and being put out as indications that the were 'pressuring' the bureaucracy to the left.

It was under these conditions that the British and Americans saw the emergence within their own parties of Pablo-sponsored factions, actually advocating these positions within their own parties and trying to worm them into the Trotskyist press in their own countries. At the same time some of the illusions had heen sliahtly dienelled Soviet iberali- by the masses in Yugoslavia. Healy 1953 to Cannon: Take this talk thinking in terms of the USSR, see the forces, but fail to rec know, we have not these areas. In other words, ton on to the fact cot for instance was able to write ananda. in May about Stalinism: impatient comrades China, Eastern Europe and now even impact of the post-war revolutionary ognise one vital thing; that as far as we one single organised cadre group in Healy was that someth now at last ing had been beginning to missing from all the discussion and the high-flown theories that had been put out by Pablo-and that is, any direction towards the building of parties. In this way the experience of these slightly older, more experienced forces with a base in their own working class, coming together with response to the struggles taking place, began to come into conflict with the theorising and web-spinning of Mandel and Pablo.

When these parties began to be threatened by Pabloite policies, the question became of immediate relevance. The British section between May and September completely re- versed its position. In May Healy defended Pablo against Cannon: bv September he was denouncina him as virtuallv a Stalinist and attempting in every way Pablo administration to the Comintern.

There was a similar rapid turn in the SWP. Until middle of 1953 they were taking very little interest and bothered at all about the line being taken by the In national. This hardly affected their orientation wit America. Suddenly the SWP swung from indifference issuing the Open Letter in November, making a call break with Pabloism, and all of a sudden dragging u whole series of weil-founded but newly-discovered polit criticisms of Pabloism. compare the the not ter- hin to to ical Such rapid turns can only be accounted for by both the response of those leaderships to the problems of their own parties, and the way that those problems reflected the developments and the new situation in the international class struggle. But they took place only on the most sketchy theoretical basis, in particular the SWP and the British both continued to defend the positions adopted at the Third Congress, positions which Healy was so embarrassed about that if you look through Trotskyism versus Revisionism you will see it begins immediately after the Third Congress, and does not reprint any of that material. Healy also abstains consciously from printing any Pabloite material at all, making it very difficult to judge what the British and the SWP were polemicising against. In fact the whole affair becomes detached from time once you take away the sequence of events and remove the statements and documents of Pablo. Healy makes it very difficult to understand the split and to reapproach it today.

The charges of revisionism against Pablo in the Open Letter were all taken from the period following the Third Congress, and none of them attempt to trace where those positions had come from. They take up four issues. Firstly move on events within the nationally served Pabloism in 1953. Firstly the East German uprising, which was the first manifestation of the political revolution. Workers, arms in hands, were fighting to depose the Stalinist bureaucracy that had been imposed upon them by the development of the East German Buffer state into a workers state. By showing the independent movement of the working class that uprising within what was supposedly a 'stalinist camp showed the completely fraudulent nature of the blocs-and camps theory, and showed the urgent need for an indepen dent programme of Trotskyism to lead such movements in the workers' states. All of a sudden it was realised that the national had no such programme developed i period. It didn't have any, and much of material, many of its publications, refused to for example, for the withdrawal of the Red East Germany during those upheavals.

as the SS ue: ug! oti tion of t jle of the ve force e 1953 s working for the plit. class split 62 3 ree er- ith ourth Inter- the postwar ts publicity put the call, Army from Secondly the French general strike was sold out by the Communist Party. This was the party which was supposedly going to be 'pressured' by the movement of the masses into projecting an orientation towards power. But instead it sold out the general strike, with the Pabloite forces failing to criticise it, saying that it wasn't really the job of a trade union to contend with political issues.

Thirdly of course the death of Stalir the question of political revolution in R question of what leadership was necessa 1 brought to a ussia itself, ar ry to lead it. head d the There Page

the failure to Union; second programme in Pabloites in th Pablo secretly methods again national cal for politic ly. the failure East Germany: e French Gener promoted facti st the sections al revolt to prest thirdly. al Strike ons and within tion nt al he b and used the the Soviet independent etrayal by the fourthly, that Stalinist-type Fourth nter. All of There is no But none of tation of the Those expelled by people even many sectio confused by indonandant these charges reason to quil them goes to Fourth Intern supporting th Pablo from realised what ns, bemused t the situation, thanratinal an were a ›ble abo the real ational. ie Open Letter were rapidl the International before man was going on. For that reaso ›y the lack of prior discussior unable at that point to chart a iren of anu dren intina failal e in sein bsolutely ut them problem well- eing f the under cluder isorier carry through the spli confined largely to sections. In 1954, the confirmed by the fact tha what they called the Four

TLL

t wit the h Pablo. The split was therefore British, French and American inadequacy of the split was t the Pabloites went on to hold th World Congress, in which the resolution, ine mise, of Stalinism, manager uprising, but went on vecine, and respectives tor I scarcely to mention the East to say absurdly: the rall German "The revolutionary tide which the Sov is no longer capable of smashing and arresti nourished by certain of its methods of self- by the bureaucracy." In other words, the Pabl questions that emerged in 1954 to sav that the iet bureaucracy ng is even being defence applied and even own oites ignored all of from East Germar bureaucracy was the lessons , turning igging its grave, The resolution went on to specify the way Pabloite positions were an extension of the Third positions, and in particular to spell out the logica sion of the Third Congress positions on Yugosl China. It says that since the Chinese CP, and to extent also the Yugoslav CP, are both in reality: "bureaucratic centrist parties which however themselves under the pressure of the proletariat countries, we do not call upon the proletariat that the Congress I conclu- avia and a certain I find these these o pre- countries to consutute new revolutionary parues or pare political revolution in these countries."

That is the Rise and Decline of Stalinism, and it specifically states that it is an extension and not a reversal of the Third Congress. If you look at the points I have drawn out of the Congress decisions, you can see it was in- deed simply spelling out the realities that had been included implicitly in the congress resolution.

Since the major questions of method had not been con fronted in 1953, and the forces of the new Internationa Committee concentrated merely on disgreement with Pab loism rather than establishing mutual agreement, there was very little in the way of an answer to the revisionist analysis put forward by Pablo from the forces that considered them- selves 'orthodox Trotskyists'. This was the real weakness of the IC, despite its correct break in 1953.

But in the aftermath of the Hungarian events, Pabloite faction held a Fifth World Congress in 1957 which they adopted an even more appalling document, Page 19 the • at The Decline and Fall of Stalinism. This repeated all eulogies of the Yugoslav CP-which had since jo with the Kremlin in the repression of Hungary illusions in the "left' leadership of the Polish CP been installed by the Kremlin in order to head movements in Poland as had taken place in Hu uttered no call anywhere for the necessity of bui skyist parties in Eastern Europe.

Some of the worst aspects of that document are ta up very sharply in an article by Bill Hunter, of the Bri Section, entitled Under a Stolen Flag. But at the same t Cannon in the USA in 1957 was saying that The polit pronouncements of the two sides appear to come cli together than in the period prior to the formal split. If thinking of the two sides would continue to evolve in same way, then they both would have to consider question of unity'-this was Cannon's response to Decline and Fall of Stalinism, and it gave a hint as t dangers best tting the International Committee as a of its lack of political agreement on method of the old ined hands • peddled which had off similar ngary, and Iding Trot- ken tish ime ical ›ser the the the The the sult the 1 Cuba many East E be tac based sible fe TI was are were [as det similar urope, kled, a themsel or those sund the Cul events most openly displayer ailed in Trotskyism 7 ties to the processes there were, of course, 1 nd which proved too ves on impressions, and who merelv cluna to we at the weaknesses of 1. While the events in oday number 1] had outlined in post-war particular problems to much for those who equally incomprehen- soden "orthodox". The right wing Batista dictatorship was overthrown in by pett • Initial y bourgeois Iv the naim wing Dausta nationa ronimo HIST TOrCES led lankad to imi

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into seM di Cactro aimed mainly capitalist inves ; American sun exploitation o

HOMONE M

big land- 1 Cuba. In ucers that le Cuban Dy ridel samant a fairly radical programme, owners and against foreign particular they opposed th imposed virtually coloni: economy But the Castro talist. In the initi the int in prod ti capi gove I per rnm iod ent after was the not dowi at ifa first Il of B ament the 1 the restric anti- atista com iberal most t US tne Tirst move was to set e dn coa gov eri anu in 1

SAA

UI bourgeoisie who also repressive aspects of economic domination. At first Castro was opposed to the Soviet Union from a nationalist standpoint. But as expropriation of US holdings in Cuba got underway, reprisals were taken which drove Castro towards the USSR. The US government broke off all purchases of sugar in a bid to sabotage the main bedrock of the Cuban economy and create a situation in which Castro could be overthrown by the right wing.

But the Soviet bureaucracy for its own nurnoses tonk wan Batis ted ta's to dismant regime and over this trade, provic they come to the bourgeois nationalist USA? The reason is problems confronted USSR itself. Kruschev faced development of the finnod the halanca n ling vital assistance to Castro. Why direct aid of this particular pe regime on the very doorstep of to be found not in Cuba but in by the Stalinist bureaucracy in did tty- the the the an extremely serious prob Intercontinental Ballistic M farea in the arme huild an lem. issile in for The had tipped the balance of forces in the arms build up in favour of the USA. were being problems in But in the held back controlling Soviet Union by an acute the working cl similar developments economic crisis, and ass. The large sums of

money necessary for such a But Kruschev, to preserve h needed to find some way Cuban situation seemed to the chance of establishing a

USA.

If this were to proceed it would not be enough to have a nationalist regime in Havana-Castro had to be drawn more and more into a bloc with the Kremlin, to ensure that there was a firm basis of support So as Kennedy responded to Castro's further expro- priations by escalating to a full-scale economic blockade on Cuba. the Castro reaime found itself driven further into programme were not available.

is prestige at home and abroad of redressing the balance. The offer an opening for this, with low-cost military threat to the the open arms of the combined Soviet and US property in Cuba was taken The Kremlin's part in the interests of Cuban wo based on a calculation of i quest for global 'peacefu The Missiles Crisis of reference to Havana. The between Washington and M Stalinist bureauçracy. Under pressure, the bulk of private over by the Castroite regime.

these affairs paid no regard to rkers. Stalinist involvement was international diplomacy and the coexistence' with imperialism.

962 came and went without whole affair was one conducted oscow. the Guban Communist rarty aiso played its role in ine Kremlin's efforts at sucking Castro into the Stalinist orbit.

The CP had earlier supported the Batista dictatorship-even had a minister in his wartime government. CP leaders had attacked Castro. But under Moscow directives they began, shortly before the final fall of Batista, to move closer to Castro's movement. Castro homself needed a means of controlling and intervening within the working class movement as a whole a task that his July 26 movement could not carry out. The CP had such an apparatus, it had a political organisation which could be used for such a purpose. The CP, which also sought to control the working class in the interests of Kremlin foreign policy, was able to see a common interest emerging after the overthrow of Battista and stepped up their moves towards the Castroites As the American blockade and economic pressures were intensified Castro needed to rally popular support within Cuba for the measures he was forced to take, while of course he had no intention of allowing things to overstep raise questions of workers' the mark and actually control. He wanted to keep the mobilisation very much within certain confines. This too lined up with what the CP wanted to take place in Cuba-the very last thing the Stalinists wanted to see was an independent mobilisation of the working class. in 1961 there was an atl July 26 Movement. But in C Buffer Zone, the weight of with the petty bourgeois Cas There was no chance of Red Castro into submission. The Castroites terms. Conflict empt to fuse the CP with the uba, unlike the East European influence was predominantly troites, not with the Stalinists.

Army intervention to pressure unification had to be on the arose over the high-handed moves or stalinist the CP, and exiled In 1963-in a SWP alike-Castro Party, intended to July 26 Movement AniDal Escalante. me was purged trom to the USSR. The merger attempt failed.

move welcomed by the Pabloites and the set up the United Revolutionary Socialist fulfil the role of merging the CP with the . This, too, collapsed. Finally in 1965 the Castroites and the jointly and from above set up the Cuban C The process of fusing Castro with the Sti pressed ahead id the Soviet outpost in ti Stali omm ilinisi le Ca nists finally unist Party. : movement ribbean was Page ured of a future. These events provoked what ferent responses from the Trotsky The SWP, at one on this with announced that Cuba had become a onlv question in their minds was at appeared st moveme the Pablo "workers' what date to nt tes, blandly state". The this change had taken place. Castro, in overthrowing Batista, they said, to lead the establishment of a workers' state. A had soci gone on al revol- Eastern is lent a ution nad taken place led not by tne stalinists as in Europe, nor (obviously) by a Trotskyist party. Th new dimension to the problems of the 1950s.

If in Yugoslavia and China Stalinist parties h seen as breaking from Stalinism and "projecting ad been a revol- utionary orientation , in Cuba d petty bourgeois nationalist grouping appeared to have set up what the Pabloites saw as only a mildly-blemished workers' state. In other words, petty-bourgeois forces had unconsciously and spontaneous- ly moved to embrace Marxism.

To buttress this belief, as they had done previously with Yugoslavia, the Pabloites chose all of the most "left" appearances and statements of the Castro regime as their evidence. Every piece of Castro demagogy, every attempt to bolster his position with the Latin American CPs in case he should be abandoned by the Soviet bureaucracy was taken as good coin and retailed in the "Trotskyist" press of these sections. All other evidence was discarded, and Cuba was regarded not in an international context, but as a thing in itself But the other main position-that of Healy in Britain, and the French-was no more satisfactory. Starting from the notion that the capitalist state in Cuba could not have been overthrown since there had been no Trotskyist leader- ship, they ran into immediate problems in their analysis of the transformations in Eastern Europe and China. Just as Mandel had been crippled in fighting Pablo by his line that Yugoslavia was still a capitalist state in 1950, Healy was hamstrung on the Cuban question by his wooden "orthodox" view that Cuba remained a capitalist state. And while the Pabloites ignored the "bad" sides of the Castro regime, painting it as an almost undeformed workers' state, Healy brushed aside the progressive aspects of the changes that had taken place in his determination to prove it remained capitalist. The Pabloites' joy was proof" of their belief that Trotskyist parties based on country to lead a revolution: "What is new for Revolutionary Marxism this experience is this: that we pass from the of the revolutionary role of the peasantry and of the workers and peasants alliance to the u of the possibilitv of beainnina and carrvina t unlimited. it was not the work At last they had necessary to build ng class in every in relation to appreciation the necessity enderstanding hrough for a colonial and of the revol- whole period the Revolution in a nu semi-colonial countries by the armed utionary peasantry". (Quoted by Wohlforth the Future?' And as future Cuba building of arasned the mber of struggle in The Way- the Pabloites began to comb the world for s and budding Castros as an alternative to the Trotskyist parties, the SWP, having never real issues posed in 1953, began to belittle and the differences that had led to the split, and to ification: substantial differen of the 1954 split, depoliticise call for reun "While causes ces remain the area especially over of disagreement

appears to be common basic current events sides". (For Early Reunification of ment, March 1963). This attempt to dismiss the difference between the Pabloites and the IC forces in 1963 on the basis of "common analysis of major current events" recurs later in the same document: ••. it is self-evident that the continued division of the world Trotskyist movement in factions wrangling over obscure issues will vitiate its capacity to attract these new forces on a considerable scale".

While the SWP saw it as setting aside past differences, the Pabloites clearly recognised their change of position as an acceptance of this political method and analysis: "The political basis of the 1953-4 split, as we saw it, was a lack of full understanding of the correctness of the International's turn in the estimate of the world situation made in 1950-51 ... [but] starting from the XXth Congress of the CPSU, some organisations affiliated with the International Committee or in sympathy with its political views as in the case of the SWP, corrected their evaluation of the world situation and of the evolution within the Soviet Union, and arrived at an estimation of events very close to that of the IVth International. From that time on, reunification became not only desirable but also possible". (Quoted by R building of the of secondary programme ar in world devel im pm portance in view ammon analysis ot ents which unite t of the major he two eor FI ganised ' May 1 Minor 963). Trotskyist So close had the SWP come to the positions of loites that the SWP in angling for unity themsel forward the classic Pabloite formulation that: "In its evolution towards revolutionary Marxism the July 26 Movement set a pattern that now stands as example for a number of other countries" And the SWP bowed before the Pabloite notion of spontaneous revolutionary forces with whom Trotskyists could "fuse". These forces were variously termed a "newly emerging vanguard", "leftward moving currents", "a new generation of rebels" and even "mass revolutionary forces".

The SWP saw the objective as "infusing" the ideas of Trotskyism into these petty bourgeois nationalist groupings: "The infusion of Trotskyist concepts in this new Castroist current will also influence the development of a conscious revolutionary leadership, particularly in the workers' states, will help prevent "Titoist" deviations and better assure the evolution of mass pressure and direct action into the cleansing force of political revolution' (Dynamics of World Revolution Today).

Alongside these liquidationist concepts, in which Trotskyists are reduced to the role of a left-wing ginger group within petty-bourgeois guerrilla bands, the SWP adopted the Pabloite position on political revolution-aban- doning the call for the building of Trotskyist parties in the degenerated workers states and instead looking towards: "The increased possibility revolutionary Marxist vanguard mass of militants in some of these Pab put the 'ves Til an of mergers between the and the leftward-moving [Stalinist] parties." (Dynamics... a was given credentials a ie reunification documen like contained an implici The Castro leadership in Cut "unconscious Trotskyists", and ti voted for by SWP and Pabloite a Page preference sectarianism: "A revolutionist isolated by circum he has no control can fall into sectaria sciously. It is therefore a more insidious organisation than opportunism, which is recognise." 'danger' tances over which lism quite uncon- danger for a small generally easier to The SWP, however, refuted this by th tion with the Pabloites which confirmed their inability to recognise opportunism.

A year later the leadership of the USFI's Cey section had put this notion into practice, anc entered a bourgeois coalition government with Mrs I ranaike. The Pabloites were forced to expel responsible for overstepping the unspoken lim opportunism. eir very beyond reu all nif op ica- ubt lonese i had 3anda- those its of The inability of the r method of Pabloism in disarmed their opposition this period that the SLL began to challenge Pablo whole question was conf analysis of the Eastern emaining IC forces to take the 1953 and in the Cuban ents to the SWP's line. While it is in made a turn to philosophy, and ism as an empirical method, the ined within certain bounds. The European transformations was 'analysis" of form and content in premise of proving that Cuba evi WE not reexamined, and Cuba started from remained capitalist. This approach also hampered within the SWP against the ti Wolforth, who was subsequentl theoretical contribution to the Eastern European transformatio Structural Assimilation, caved in those forces that fought urn to Pabloism. Tim y to make the biggest understanding of the ns in his Theory of to pressure from Healy ana adopted ine position inat cuda state-a straight reversal of his earlier said to the SWP plenum in 1962: "I think the comrades in Britain are wrong. I'll say it, I'll be very happy to say it. They're not all wrong. They're right in saying that in agriculture essentially capitalist relations remain except in a few state forms, the bulk of agriculture remains in private hands. They're right in saying the planned economy isn't really yet fully planned. They're wrong in saying Castro is a representative of capital. He's not. Cuba is well on its way to becoming precisely what Yugoslavia, China and Eastern Europe are. Yes. That is my opinion. But the comrades today are reacting to an impression of Cuban reality. The same way that Pablo reacted to Yugoslavia. In my opinion they are going to be proven wrong. Or, if you prefer, he was proven half right.

He was right that it was a workers' state, wrong when he thought it wasn't going to be a deformed workers' state "I think, very well, comrades, you may be proven half right again. It may very well be a workers' state. If you want to call it a workers' state, all right. It's a matter of the designation of the point of qualitative change. But you're going to be very, very wrong if you try to maintain, as Pablo did then, that Cuba is going to evolve into a healthy workers' state with real proletarian rule, without the proletariat independently participating in that process".

(Report to the Plenum on Minority Resolution, 1962) Wolforth went on, in the same speech, to hit the main point that was subsequently to get lost in the argument on what kind of state Cuba was: "The real thing is that we [the SWP just going along and describing reality intervening in it. We do not feel that ou remained a capitalist position, when he had have a policy of n Cuba and not intervention, the

independent interv Cuba, will have a d look to that force ment, we look to th ention of the wo etermining impact in Cuba today. We e state apparatus rking class on events. ! • look to t itself in Ne do not le govern. Yet Wolforth in blocking with retreated from his workers' state. Thi all its strengths, abandoned when discuss it. The basically correct though inadequate positions on Cuba that Wolforth and his colleagues in the early Revol- utionary Tendency developed, were, however, largely retained by the expelled Robertson group that is now the international Spartacist tendency. They formally upheld the view that Cuba was a deformed workers' state, and the need for the building of revolutionary parties, though their theoretical footing for this remains shaky to this day. But after their expulsion, the Robertson group decided that there was no chance of winning workers in the SWP to their positions-writing them off as too old, or careerist elements. From this i onwards the Spar retreated from th Healy against th objective analysis = Theory of Struc was written by Healy and the IC is line of analysis. And e SWP leadership he of Cuba as a deformed tural Assimilation, for Wolforth but then leadership refused to nitial tacists period have cl of bun self do -imposed igedly to isolation a formal orthodoxy inked to a sectarian practice, in which to recruit workers-whom backward militants" Thus no ready made or complete answer to the Cuban question emerged in 1963 any more than a full analysis of the East European events had emerged from the 1953 split.

This account of the two major splits in the post-war International is far from complete. But it attempts to bring together an examination of the problems of method in Eastern Europe and in Cuba with a historical view of the development of post-war Trotskyism.

In this way we can see that to provide a basis for the reconstruction of the Fourth International, it is not a ques- tion of simply marrying together the "correct" position of the Pabloites on Cuba as a workers' state with the "correct" insistence by Healy on the need for a revolutionary party.

The post war history of the Fourth International must be reexamined as a whole and the method of Marxism reaffirmed both in theory and in the practice of national sections. But in broaching these a time when both IC and away from their own histor can make a contribution to of the Fourth International.

propagandist and they state openly they describe as Icre eir 'pol asingly refusal itically issues

USFI

y and the fi and focussing on them at forces are turned firmly owards opportunism, we ht for the reconstruction

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SOCIALIST LEAGUE

The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist organisation figh construct a principled revolutionary leadership in the working class in and internationally, and for the reconstruction of the Trotskyist International on the basis of the Transitional Programme.

The WSL fights at every step against the existing leaders of ions and the Labour Party-now firmly harnessed to the ..althn Tiknual Douto alran Analitina ting to Britain Fourth un po the bou trade rgeois mudans or te saucial Against their policies programme which points class, its need to organise repressive state machinery Only in this way can w standards, mass unemplo: sexual oppression. For more details any man unsponen cannon anangement.

of class collaboration we put forward instead a to the independent class interests of the working independently to overthrow capitalism, destroy its and establish a socialist planned economy.

orkers resolve today's problems of tumbling living /ment, slashed social services, racial, national and nd ork, Name. re Send to: WSL. 31. Dartmouth Park Hill. London NW5 1HR