The Poisoned Well (document for the USFI XIth World Congress discussion, adopted by the WSL Second Annual Conference)

rties and Page 19

W THE WELL WAS POISONED

On November 16, 1953 the US suddenly published the Open L Fourth International into public fa representatives of Trotskyist arous

TROTSKYISM TODA : JULY

states. Indeed the first priority of Stalinist parties inter nationally in the postwar period was the suppression of possible upsurges most notably in France cal Italy, where Stalinist parties had also entered bourgeois coalition govern- ments while the armed masses looked to struggle for power.

As 'evicence' for ignoring this development in Yugoslavia, Pablo accepted and used the contemptible arguments of the Titoites themselves! "They (the Titoites) insist that none of the political and social conquests of their struggle was endangered by the coalition for the simple reason that reaction had no real base among the masses and that the coalition was reached at the top between representatives of the masses and the impotent shadows of the bourgeoisie*.

Pablo claimed that the masses active' from 1941 to 1948, and that special development had actually taken to a seizure of power, to a radical capitalist property relations and to the old capitalist state and the reconstructi ist Workers Party etter which split the ctions. One week later, in Britain, France, New resolution forming the idarity with the line of ial Zealand and Switzerland International Committee the SWP's appeal. In 1954, the remaining sections under the leader Michel Pablo and Ernest Germain held what they the "Fourth World Congress', which excluded the IC and effectively expelled it from the International.

The political basis for this split lay implicitly revisionist political line that had from carly 1950 t to mid 1953 been commonly accepted by the Fl leac and which been endorsed at the 1951 Third Congress. signed a (IC) in sol ship of termed faction in the hrough ership, World were 'continuously a revolution of a place leading up transformation of destruction of the on of a new state

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beçan conclusions based on the surface appearances of events in De police Hou end of 1949, when was he tha to draw ber Yugoslavia since the Stalin Tita set of 194 004080308008078008 found real events inadequate to support I "centrist' evolution of the Yugoslav CP, he • to go back and rewite the Fl's version of th result was a theory that Stalinist parties like be forced by 'mass pressure' in "exceptional to play a revolutionary role. And as the n Where Pablo sis line on the lid not hesitate ese events. The the YCP could circumstances' ation gathered apparatus' "The transf the "construction of a fact already taking pl Buffer Zone in anythi vears 1944-50. under ormation of property relat new state apparatus" wel ace throughout the who ng but a revolutionary w the watchful nuns and mu ions" e bot le of ay ne in nf Soviet Red Army. Yugoslavia was Tito cratic establishment to solidify a popular his interbureaucrati whole process of 1948) as condensed confused with the mobilisation mano What attracted 's demagogic "lef of workers' col base of support i dispute with transformation into a short per Titoites' own wres. Under Pablo's attentior I' speeches and bur incils' as part of his while carrying thro Stalin. Pablo saw (largely complete iod, which then bec. propaganda and in these conditions Pi stenger, so ine events in nina were provide a further instance of this process.

The Fl's analysis of the complex and contradictory transformation process taking place in Eastern Europe certainly left much to be desired. The general consensus to begin with was that the Buffer Zone was undergoing a state capitalist stage of development. But Pablo had to ride roughshad over such theoretical work as had been done, using the obvious inconsistencies and inadequacies of the state capitalist analysis as further justification for his own line. In particular Pablo had to discard the careful analysis made o Russia and the Buffer Zone in 1947 by Germain.

Germair pointed out that in Yugoslavia mobilisatron manoeuvres. Under these cone undertook the revision of the Trotskyist progra cl 947 as a bureaucracy afraid of both w imperialism, and in 1948 as running a po suddenly described by Pablo as 'partly bu he claimed that the Yugoslav revolution new heighs, becomes constantly more etc.", and rom the very outset these illusi were linker to a general revision of the Tr Stalinism: "Certai orking class and lice regime", was reaucratic" while *raises itself to lemocratic, etc., ans in Yugoslavia stskyist stand on •. the relations of forces are such that the bourgeois.

inds itself for the moment at the mercy of an actian by proletariat. It is only the bureaucracy's fear both of the letariat and of imperialism which restrains it from deal- the native capitolists a death blow" Pablo also had to jettison the resolution which stated that there wa existence of a police regime in Yugoslavia That this was a conscious change was shown most clearly in the 1951 Third World Congress resolution which explicitly rewrote the previously adopted positions of the Fl starting from the appearance of events after 1958: "It is the duty of the Fl to critically re-examine in the fight of events which have occurred since 1948, its past analysis of the Yugoslav revolution and the dynamics of this revolution which events have placed in a new light".

Perhaps most important of all, Pablo had to get around the fact that at the height of the mass movement in Yugoslavia and at the point where the native capitalist class was in full-scale retreat, Tito's Stalinist-led partisan forces had set out not to consolidate workers' power, but to set up a coalition with imported remnants of a terrified and pro-Nazi national bourgeoisie. This was the 1944-5 Tito- Subasich agreement. In this, as in every respect up to the point of the 1948 split with Stalin, Stalinist policy in Yugoslav was identical in content. thoug slightly different tempo, with t policy throughout e Buffer ie f the pro ing pril 1949 uncer EC bic Communist Parties in a favourable conjuncture, wien tney are uncea to the rear revolutionary movement of the masses, can detach themselves from the yoke of the Kremlin and begin to act on their own".

This concept of course challenges the very foundation of the Fl-the counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism and the impossibility of reforming Stalinist parties. While Pablo began to do this by way of exceptional' cases, the method involved left the door wide open to further similar blunders. These lines of 1950 were developed much further the pre-conference material for the Third World Congre Pablo, with the full backing of Cannon and Healy led t way with his notorious document "Where Are We Going In this document Pablo completely excluded from I analysis any conception of the political independence the working class in its struggles against imperialism or t Stalinist bureaucracies. This, taken together with t surface appearances of the Cold War period, combined create the basis for the Pabloite concept of a Third Wor War between the 'two camps'- imperialism' and Stalinisi which would, he claimed, am nt to War Revolution" Page 20

This provided a global exceptional which Pablo claimed would have the effect • Stalinist bureaucracies to drop their counter role and to mobilise the working class in a way. In other words, here, it was claimed, wi new that the most basic tenets of the Programme could no longer be applied, and al of the thoroughly counter-revolutionary beh Stalinist parties, before, during and after the abandoned "The Communist Parties retai ain circumstances of roughly out ntation, that is to say of finding ngage in a struggle for power".

The Yugoslav events had thus been 'exception' into a aeneral mile And circumstance of forcing the revolutionary revolutionary is a period so Transitional I the evidence aviour of the war, could be cert orie to e = 53 the ing a possibility in revolutionary ves compelled Pab transfe at the led CP ir med same. the bu Ea from time stern lo dr alisation which exten cratised, Europe, monoliti laiming that t the possibil f an opposition ae that these as enabled th thoir own mea o was not her Stalinism, but acy to break i ovent, the T ability o the degr which h through Pabl splits in bureaucr In ti power-w here was: ity, and in the long run the inevit- 1 arising to the Soviet bureaucracy to CP's have a mass base of their own am to conquer power by and large ns". e brilliantly anticipating the current clearly looking for a section of the from Stalinism and move left wards!

hird World Congress actopted a docu- Iding and respectives w The opposition to Pablo was muted and confused; Germain in a document entitled Ten Theses took issue with some of Pablo's positions. but left intact the central assertion that the Yugoslav and Chinese CP's had broken from Stalinism. Mandel actually named the European CP's he thought likely to break from Stalinism under mass pressure: "In the coming revolutionary upsurge in Western Europe during the period of preparation and unleashing of war, the growing pressure of the masses is liable to farce the French and Italian CP's to modify their pacifist course of "neutralising' the bourgeoisie. These parties could then.

project a revolutionary orientation and see themselves forced to undertake a struggle for power...."

Germain in other words attempted to stradile imaginary fence between orthodox' Trotskyism Pablo's revisionism, In reality he came down firmly on sice of Pablo. Cannon and He during and after the their support -(Healy moves to expel the m 1952 refused to carry in the French CP can with independent worl But even the Fr to challenge hi of Trotskyism evisionist failer wall Pabk an and the aly also were firmly behind Pablo Third World Congress, and both lent being actively involved) to Pablo's ajority of the French section who in out Pablo's directive that ent y work be mace the main axis of the r work, ‹ subordinate to it. ench leadership that views on Yugoslavia had been thoroughl did ligh Chi 1a. ter : Pablo The by Ber "It of the under a the mas In Progran masses resolver wall:-- OT dISLOTTION would be an bureaucratic Il conditions ses". this ime

SOE BE FR

ti-Marxist. apparatus than the p isitional Program: ..to affirm that ti will prove more essure of the mov nc. re weig decisi ament ht It is of course 1977 to reject the quite easily from e premises and that respect. In just the to agree today tha harder however is draw from those analyss today In doing so it is important driving force behind the 1953 split.

ing of the class struggle internatior crisis tor Stalinism and led to exposure of the impotence of Pat Stalinism. In March immediate pro manoeuvres to concessions we movement of 1 cracy was caref power. In June of 1953, the workers of Last Berlin rose in revolt against increased production targets and demanding democratic rights in the first onset of political revolution in Eastern Europe. The Pabloites who had looked simply to the bureaucratised Eastern European CP's to throw up leftward-moving leaders' for such uprisings were left with no independent policy d abandoned the 1947 call of the Fl for the withdrawal he Red Army which was savagely repressing the rising. In September 1953 y to be derailed and cisely that Stalinist project a revolution i Germai Under way 1 on the ecognise y by the he formulation "laws of history' that the crisis Fourth Internati of the ansition which will bring t if leadership "can mal" is stripped of I on its poncar co ner—e struggie tor independent revolution ary leaderst ip. The result of omitting any reference to the Trotskyist movement in this half quote is a complete capitulation to spontaneity, leaving it to th masses to resolve their crisis of leadership and brings, inevitably, a simultaneous capitulation to the bureaucracy.

The document went on to spell out even more c abandonment of the very starting point of the st Lenin and Trotsky-the paramount importance o ionary ieadership, the subjective factor: "In the long run, objective conditions determine the character and dynamics of the movement of the masses which, raised to a certain level, can overcome alf subjective obstacles on the road to revolution... It is not excluded that certain Communist Parties with the bulk of their forces can be pushed out of the strict orbit of the Soviet bureau- cracy and can project a revolationary orientation ...The developments in Yugoslavia and China are only a prefigur- ation of the events to come" Here was nothing more the struggle for independent Eastern Europe Trotskyist fo to do so, and to: "... try to integrate th remain there, in order to take ary possibilities which will deve For all we know, they may Two distinct resolutions ed-one on Yugoslav a an uding Yugoslavia Page 21 ssed excl clearly ruggles I revol. than a Trotsk FeeS WE vist re a pe for winding up parties. Indeed in ctually called upon emselves advantage lop" still on I on be th East of 1 the CP's he revolut and ion- ire rn th still wait europe Buffer one onl pre sy for us and for ever visionist policies of 11 erience that they wer hey proved wrong in ne way it is easy for th the 1969 policies were › analyse why they wer rrors lessons that can saI e Pabloite 151. We can •based on t 1 almost es le IMT and 1 wrong. Whi e wrong and strengthen ÷8F:38 sE It w sally lo's what s in lac which sid and alicies ormed a shar woduci thoro n figh 1953, the death blem for the Krem decide Stalin's sut re made to head o he Soviet working ul to hold on to all Stalin sureau or, vari ly poss . while eins of icess ar class the r created an racy. In the bus minimal ible forward the bureau- real political , an of t neral stri ayed by y which nrientati ke broke out in France the Communist Party was supoosedly about on' accordirg to Pablo

TROTSK TODAY, JULY 1978.

hard to defend. At the same time experiences of ilding in the working class prompted Healy in par highlight the fact that the Pabloites always ignor estion of building Trotskyist parties: "Take this talk about Stalinism, Impatient comrades, thinking in terms of China, East Europe and now even the USSR, see the impact of the post-war revolutionary forces upon these countries, but fail to recognise one vital thing, that, as far as we know, we have not one single organised cadre group in those areas.

But it was when Pablo-sponsored factions began to work away within the parties existing in the USA and Britain that the abrupt turn took place. Between May and September 1953, Healy swung from sympathetic defence of Pablo to bitter hostility and in the same short space of time the SWP leaders switched from virtual indifference to the point of publishing the Open Letter.

The Workers Socialist League has always defended the actions of the signatories of the Open Letter, while pointing out the inadequacies of the political fight they carried out against Pabloism. The very history of the IC has proved that it is not sufficient to present a formal defence of the Trans- itional Programme if there is no corresponding development of a method through which that Programme can be translated into the practice of Trotskyist parties in the rapidly changing class struggle both in their own countries and internationally. The danger of adaptation under pressure of events must remain, and can only be combatted by a living, dialectical method of analysis and a rigorous development and testing of the programme in the practice of the fight against reformist and Stalinist bureaucracies.

There was a need to break from Pablo's line-but it took place only on an empirical level and without political clarity. They recognised that their party-building work was politically threatened by Pablo's line. But even as they carried through the break from Pablo, both Healy and Cannon clung tenaciously to the false positions adopted at the Third World Congress. The Open Letter itself conspicuously only challenges Pablo in issues that had arisen after the 1951 Congress: (1) Pablo's failure to call for his concessions to the liberal USSR after Stalin's death.

(2) A similar failure to present in East Germany. (3) The failure to op French general strike. (4) Stalinist' organis promotion of secret facti to qU cadre- ticular ed the pol isati itical revolutı on mensures on in and the the ati promotion of secret factions to enforce Pablo's line.

onal s to methods nforce Pablo and 's line infallibility around Pablo and-most prevent the liquidation of the Fl into a Behind this conditional and transitory unit a disparateness of method.

Indeed it was not until 1957 that very much in the way of clarification on the question of the Third World Congress took place. In that year the SWP began to show signs of moving back towards an accommodation with Pabloism.

and were challenged by the leadership of the British group.

The SWP had expressed some agreement with the document at the Pabloite "Fifth World Congress". Entitled The Decline and Fall of Stalinism', the document clung on to all the old eulogies of the Yugoslav CP (which had since reunited with the Kremlin and backed the Hungarian invasion) and gave a favourable view of the 'left' leadership of the Polish CP (which had been restored to office by Moscow in exchange for their tacit support for the crushing of the Hungarian workers). The document drew no serious political lessons from the Hungarian events and issued no call anywhere for the building of Trotskyist parties in Eastern Europe if political revolution was to be carried through. However the SWP response to th summed up by Cannon: "The political pronouncements and IS appear to come closer togeth the period prior to the formal split the two sides should continue to ev then they would both have to con unity..." In thi ancestral I years later From increasingl importantly -10 Stalinist milieu. y there remained f the two sides (IC than was the case in •. If the thinking of olve in the same way. sider the question of s statement by Cannon in 1957 we ca ink to the latest stampede by the SWP to wind up any fight against the IMT.

1957 onwards, the SWP leadership began y to draw political conclusions close to those of n see the some 20 All of these charges were well-founded. But none penetrated o the essence of the problem or attempted to correct the Fl analysis of the evolution of post-war Stalinism. As a result we find that the 1954 so-called *Fourth World Congress' held by the Pabloite faction felt able to trace (correctly) a clear continuity of line back to the common decisions of the Third World Congress-Just as Mandel to this very day traces the ancestry of his latest World Perspectives document back to that same Third World Congress. The IC grouping, however which did not press for clarity WRP itself admits today: "The coalition of groups opposing Pablo was not cally and doctrinally homogeneous. They were united common desire to prevent the bureaucratic strangula- of the Fl by the creation of a Byzantine cult of politi by a tion was on th an ese uneasy coalit questions-as ion the James P. Cannon: right in 1953, wrong in 1963 on role of James/ Merris! Page 22

the Pabloite ternational Secretariat.

Cuban revolution, combined with the of method in the SWP leadership to p confusion every bit as bad as that of from the orthodox' Socialist Labour came a stubborn refusal to grapple w taking place in Cuba itself.

The upheaval of the unresolved problem roduce impressionist the Pabloites-while League in Britain ith th real events

FI TAKES A F

here are distinct political and methodolo arities between the 1969 guerrilla line and the lir from 1950 on. We will examine them in order to in our view the method in each case involves break from Marxism and from the principles of itional Programme. The 1969 "turn" by the Pabloite forces was demon strably a turn away from the central question of the build ing of revolutionary parties based on the proletariat in each country. In the wake of the momentous class battles of the 10 million strong General Strike of May-June 1968 in France, the 1968-69 battles in Italy and the escalation of workers' struggles in Mexico, the Pabloite "Ninth World Congress" adopted a resolution on Latin America which drew heavily on the appearances of events in Cuba. While Pablo had taken his impressions from the apparent 'centrist' evolution of the Yugoslav CP and based on spontaneously outlining a "revolutionary orientation", the USFI majority in 1969 started instead from their impressions of events in Cuba, expecting a natural evolution of the Castroite forces towards revolutionary Marxism'. The USFI majority nurtured the highest of hopes for the future political devel- opment of the petty bourgeois and peasant-based guerrilla movements then active in Latin America in the wake of the Cuhan strucales. Tito's nlace as the honed-for centre of a 1969: gical simil se of Pablo show why a definite the Trans new, mass, sponta national' was taken Fidel Castro. It is important note a non-proletarian even as leading future social The IMT now admits t to characterise the si nee by usly the emerging revoluti Stalinist-backed pet onary inte ty bourgeo was seen that both in anti-proletar revolutions. hat their document tuation in every Lat 19 ian 53 fo and ree 1 1969 it hat was wrong countr of 1969 in Amer was ican y Trom ine overal continental assessment nat: .. not only in a historical sense but in a more direct and immediate one, Latin America has entered a period of revolutionary explosions and conflicts of armed struggle on ifferent levels against the native ruling classes and imperial m and of prolonged civil war on a continental scale" pre-revolutionary into a revolutionary state nist character of proletarian leadershi.

revolutionary into a revolutionary is the character of proletarian leadership... (p.6).

The Transitional Programme goes on to deal with the application of this analysis to a wide range of situations of struggle-up to and including armed struggle and the fight for soviets. Each of these situations, if there is not a broadly-based revolutionary leadership (Trotskyist Party) developed, remains in Trotsky's assessment pre-revolution- ary. The USFI majority by adopting the Latin American document threw this once more out of the window in 1969. Pablo had been the first to do so, claiming that an impending Third World War! meant that there was a world.

wide revolutionary situation in which Stalinist parties could become revolutionary and none of the fundamentals of the Transitional Programme would apply. The USFI devised a new and global "exceptional circumstance" based on their assessment that the situation throughout the whole of Latin America was one of immediate civil war, in which petty bourgeois guerrilla forces could be regarded as revolutionary and the central tenets of the Transitional Programme were irrelevant • ... it is necessary to reject the schematic and para ing conception according to which everything hinges the preliminary existence of a genuine party with all traditional structures (and the Cuban experience has questionably shown that under certain conditions possible for the political organisation to develop and force itself as the armed struggle unfolds).."

The transitional demands are referred to solely as a device to mobilise the working class in a few decoy actions designed to divert the armed forces and the state apparatus away from the areas of guerrilla struggle, In this way they advocate the use of: "... transitional demands able to mobilise and raise the political consciousness of the worker, petty bourgeous and plebeian masses as well as the student masses and thus create growing tensions threatening the system (this would also make it more difficult for the government to concen- trate their repressive forces exclusively in the zones of armed struggle)." lys- un- it rei In the ma the document is pessimistic as pO- tential of the working class, the broadest layers of which are described as "still immobilised or neutralised, and sub- ject to momentary prostration". The petty bourgeoisie, however, is seen as offering a rapid means of substituting for the working class, since they are "not tied by any um- bilical cord to the traditions of the workers' movement or the traditional national-revolutionary movement". The document spells out the majority's reliance on the petty bourgeoisie: "In fact, in most of the countries the most probable variant is that for a rather long period the peasants will have to bear the main weight of the struggle and the revolution ary petty bourgeoisie in considerable measure will provide the cadres of the movement".

In 1950 Pablo had begun to advocate a turn towards 'left' currents in Stalinist parties and splits in the Eastern European Stalinist bureaucracies as the source of future revolutionary developments. The independent work of Trotskyist parties was subordinated to entry work in mass CPs. The 1969 USFI document spelled out a turn instead into the Castroite forces and the "integration" of USFI cadres into the Castroite ranks: "Integration into the hist presented by the Cuban revol oric atior and ›nary

OLA

current S, which Such w of course excludes trom the very the approach of the Transitional Programme, which from the contradiction between the undoubted riper the objective conditions for revolution and the cr working class leadership: "The strategic task the next period tionary period of agitation, propaganda and consists in overcoming the contradiction maturity of the objective revolutionary cond immaturity of the proletariat and its vanguard Trotsky's characterisation of the peri revolutionary" is not tied purely to the spec 1938. As is the case consistently in his writin characterising the period from a pofitical sta "pre-revolutionary" period is one in which prerequisite for revolution-a revolutionary absent: 9022 -a pre-revolu- organisation- between the itions and the od as "pre- ific period of gs, Trotsky is ndpoint. The the essential leadership-is Page

involves, of OLAS. Because the 1969 document saw only a subordinate role for the proletariat in Latin American struggles, it could see only a subordinate role for the party whose task it is to fight for the political independence of that class. This notion was not restricted to Latin America. It was taken up and applied energetically in Europe and elsewhere, where the petty bourgeoisie, and students in particular, were seen as the new "vanguard", and the USFI worked away at adap ting themselves completely to those middle class forces that responded to the Cuban revolution. The result could only be to deepen the isolation of the already largely petty bourgeois ranks of the USFI from the organised working class. As this increased, so did the rationalisations for their isolation. Theories were elaborated spelling out exactly why the working class was apparently no more than an inert mass in contrast with the vigorous revolutionary' zeal of the student vanguard rega And of course just as in 1953 the line of Pablo had crippled the Fl sections by denying them a political stand independent of Stalinism, so the 1969 guerrilla line of the USFI liquidated the independent voice of their sections in Latin America which began or completed wholesale adapta- tion to the Castroite forces.

A contrast emerges however between the kind of fight waged by the IC forces against Pablo in 1953 and the argu- ment against guerrillaism by the Pabloite Minority in 1969.

For all the weaknesses and inadequacies and despite the fact that all the signatories of the Open Letter had been compromised by the decisions of the Third World Congress, a significant t fight had taken place in 1953 in defence of the central core of the Transitional Programme against Pablo's liquiiationism. The SWP had not hesitated to carry this fight through to an open split-even though that split can be seen in retrospect to have been ill-prepared.

But in 1969 when Hansen spoke on behalf of the SWP in denouncing the guerrilla strategy-of which the SWP had been among the keenest advocates in 1963-he did so with no intention of taking the fight to a principled conclusion.

While the arguments Hansen advanced were in most cases "orthodox" points related to party-building. they concealed the fact that the SWP had reversed course in the USA itself and turned from adaptation to guerrillaism to.

wards an equally Pabloite adaptation to pacifist anti-war and civil rights movements. Because of this so many topics became untouchable that Hansen's 'polemic" was reduced to the most superficial level, criticising a policy that he knew full well flowed directly from the reunification platform jointly agreed in 1963.

In this sense neither side in right. And neither side was pre sufficiently seriously to probe Diplomacy ruled even at the mo of the debate, an nobody raise with any enthusiasm. Jack Barnes today must know how ludicrous it is for him to compare the partial and largely dishanest 'debate' on the Latin American dacument to the struggle against the Burnham Shachtman opposition in 1939•40. In that struggle Trotsky took up the struggle for dialectical materialism on the side of the SWP majority, and set out constantiy to deepen the discussion precisely on the question of method so studiously avoided by the SWP from 1969 to today the 1969 polemic could be pared to take the polemic into its historical context.

st apparently heated points d the question of method

OTSK VISİ TODAY, JUL

look at Barnes" response current IMT Self Criticism. He accepts the critique almost entirely at face value. As we have shown he fails to ask the most obvious questions which the Self Criticism fails to In contrast let us current IMT Self Criticis entirely at face value. As most obvious questions answer. This cannot be because the questions have not occurred to Barnes, or because he believes them answered.

On the contrary, Barnes and the SWP leadership are worried that the discussion might actually get started, and having started might go too far. In doing so it might disturb the skeleton of 1963 jammed in a now dusty cupboard. Should the IMT actually pursue their Self Criticism further, and seek to re-examine the analysis of the Cuban revolution that brought the SWP back into the fold, then this could make life very uncomfortable for the SWP leaders.

"Once you begin revising a correct theory, then you have to revise an accurate account of events, because correspondence with reality is demanded of theory" " sat here yesterday and the Fourth International apparently revised, in their own minds, the common grammatic understanding of the Cuban revolution constituted part of the principled basis on which Fourth International was reunited in 1963".

Thus, Barnes in his conclusion warn approach history cautiously. slowly-il at all. This method is the very opposite of Trotsky's ing, testing method of polemic against Shachtman in In Defence of Marxism.

We need to look at the 1963 dea is the case. to the almost ask the fails to he nha that the This sob. and

FAM

The 1963 'Reunificatio: formed the bricige between 15 turn. In the resolution Dynar Today can be found elements revisions of 1950-53 (in particu building of Trotskyist parties i 'new" Pabloite revisions on the t the failure to call for a Trots Cuba). But it would be wrong all of these points. Indeed the first plank in the bridge was laid by the SWP in its March 1963 resolution "For Early Reunification' in which the SWP proposed to exciude any discussion of the 'secondary' matters involved in the 1953-54 split. This of course stands opposed to the verbal line adopted now by Barnes on the need for the history of revolutionary organi- sations to be a living history. The SWP in 1963 recognised that history was still very much alive-and attempted to seal it off from the movement. Hansen spelled out he thinking benind this in 1969: . at the Reunification Congress agreement to leave the assessment of the 1953 to a time in the future when we could an educational way without any heat.

best to leave that discussion to a period viewed in the proper, historic perspecti agreed on that." Hoping that in a few years the issues would be dead Deyond recall, the SWP proposed to set them aside. Unfor- tunately for them the issues were far from dead. They sprang back to life most forcibly in 1969. How many of the Latin American comrades who had to implement the disas.

trous turn of 1969 can now agree with Hansen that it is easy to discuss these questiors of method- a method that ind its political documents 53 and the 1969 guerrilla nics of World Revolution of both the original Pablo lar the failure to call for the n Eastern Europe and the ost-Cuba era (most notably kyist party to be built in to blame the Pabloites for we reached differences discuss them we thought when it could ve... All of S8==0g Page 24

can actually mean life or death without any heat"?

Hansen's position reeks of a completely sectarian and cynical disregard for the living problems of the workers' movement which can only be tackled if there is a continu- ous struggle for the Marxist method and an honest appraisal of the experiences and lessons of the past.

At the same time as shelving the most important issues for discussion the SWP went enthusiastically along with the 1963 phase of the eternal Pabloite search for a non-prole- tarian "newly emerging vanguard". This concept has been redefined from time to time and from country to country.

Today it has been re christened the "new mass vanguard" a concept with which the SWP now profess to disagree. In 1963 however the theory was that the "newly emerging vanguard" was in fact the forces (almost exclusively petty bourgeois in composition) thrown forward spontaneously in various countries in response to the Cuban revolution.

It was also the old anti-Pabloites' of the SWP who proposed the formulation that Castro's July 26 Movement in Cuba "set a pattern that now stands as an example for a number of other countries"-deceptively claiming that the Cuban revolution was carried out under a leadership com- pletely independent from the school of Stalinism', Wherea the Castroites certainly did not emerge on the scene a Stalinists, it is dishonest to simply characterise them a progressive on that count alone-especially when thei petty bourgeois and bureaucratic opposition to Trotskyisn was by 1963 becoming clearly exposed.

Pablo's world schema of 1953 had divided up the class struggle into the 'imperialist" and 'Stalinist' camps without regard to the independent role of the working class. The 1963 document divided it into three component parts- the Colonial Revolution, the Political Revolution and the struggle in the Imperialist Countries. A pessimistic view was taken in 1963 of the prospect of the working class moving into action. Rather USFI déclared that the "most probable variant " was: "the colonial revolution will continue, involving new countries and deepening its social character as more workers states appear (11. It will not lead directly to the overthrow of capitalism in the imperialist centres but it will play a powerful role in building a new world revolutionary leadership as is alreedy clear from the emergence of Castroite currents. The pressure of the masses in the workers' states will continue with a tendency towards increasing mass action and the possible beginning of politi- cal revolution in several workers states. Both these develop- ments will favourably influence the resurgence of mass militancy mong the proletariat in the imperialist coun tries. This spells out the way in which the Reunification lution saw the organised proletariat as a largely passive e, requiring to be mobilised externally by national wars independence and spontoneously emerging political lutions. Under these conditions it was inevitable that USFI saw only a secondary importance in the fight ndependent political leadership in the working class.

But the 1963 deal went one step further than Pablo been prepared to go openly by implicitly stating the that it is better to be opportunist than sectarian: "A revolutionist isolated by circumstances over which he has no control can fall into sectarianism quite uncons- ciously. It is therefore a more insidious danger for a small organisation than opportunism, which is generally easier to recognise." Following this extraordinary Ceylonese section of the USFI plun evil" of opportunism only a year lati fo the Bandaranaike coalition governi did the 'United' secretariat step in to ible and in this way set an ad hoc opportunism was not to be tolerated.

had view political sped for ir when nent. Or expel th limit be line, the this "lesser it signed up ly belatedly ose respons• yond which Yet the reunification resolution goe ev approvingly quotes "an astute American radi who apparently "observed" that the Cuban li "unconscious" Trotskvists. The resolution di = 8ă = further and I journalist" lership were not attempt ran uncons• licit parallel rotsky in a to elaborate on the advantages the USF cious leadership. But at the same time was drawn between Castro and Lenin manner echoing Pablo's praises for Tito: "The attack Fidel Castro laurched Escalantes of Cuba sounded like a rej and Trotskyist speeches heard in the S forty years ago" In a particula towards Stalinism 1969 document, clear parallel 1950-53 and a ler resolution I saw it an exp and T against the Anni etition of Lenir oviet Union alm bal sist OSt with clear sees Pablo's orientation anticipation of the Trotskyism as a pressure grouping subordinate to tne castroite guerrilas: "The infusion of Trotskyist concepts (!) in this new Castroite 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 " And in the clearest anticipation of 1969, we should note that it was the SWP's call for reunification which pro posed the incorporation of the policy of armed guerrilla warfare into the strategy of building revolutionary parties in colonial countries. The section of the document on 'Political Revolution' sianificantiv failed to call for the So when for instance today's IMT Self Criticism refers to the political errors made by the Majority in 1969 in making a complete compromise on programme in an effort to keep the Argentinian PRT in membership of the USFI, they are doing no more than detailing the way that the 1963 deal lived on in 1969. The IMT and SWP are both tactfully silent however about the opportunist practice of the much bigger Argentinian PST, which made wholesale adaptations to left' Peronist forces in Argentina prior to the Videla coup. The IMT remain silent hoping that the Bolshevik tendency led by the PST will swing in their support, while the SWP leaders are only too pleased to stay silent on the revisionist positions adopted by the party that until recently was the biggest single supporter of the LTF.

The rotten "non-aggression pact" embodied in the reuniti- cation thus continues to act as a varrier to the slightest political clarification within the USFI. And while Barnes and the SWP hastily accept the Self Criticism as good coin while at the same time pursuing the SWP minimum programme of democratic and reformist demands in the USA they indicate that they too have implemented this aspect of the 1963 policy and that opportunism is far from Page 25 building of Trotskyist parties to lea instead looked for leftward moving ised East European CPs, describing: " •.the possibility of real mass opposit developing within some of these parties, possibility of mergers between the revoluti vanguard and the leftward moving mass of mi of these parties, and the rapid disappear Trotskyist prejudices inside many Communi result of the decisions of the Twentieth second Congresses " d such a l splits in t evolu he bu tion, but rat- ion tendencies the increased onary Marxist itants in some ance of anti st Parties as a and Twenty.

the monopoly of the IMT. It is hardly surprising that various shades of opportu- nism have been the only offspring of a "United Secretariat" which itself was born out of a compromise with the empiri- cal waverings of Pabloism and nurtured on an agreement that neither side would discuss the past. As a political method which directs Trotskyists to discard principles and programme and adapt, "fuse" and "integrate" themselves into the latest prevailing form of "newly emerging vanguard", it must be said that Pabloism must inevitably drive its followers willy-nilly into the arms of opportunism.

But the flip side of opportunism is of course sectarian- ism. The method of Pabloism also ensures that a promis- cuous longing for fusion with each and every spontaneous movement and acceptance of every "left' posture by bureaucrats and petty bourgeois demagogues is combined with a sectarian disregard for the problems of the organised ranks of the working class itself the workers that actually face the need to fight the bureaucrats; the workers who need to assert political independence from the petty bourgeois nationalists, and who need political leadership.

Abandoning the fight for the Transitional Programme means abandoning those workers to existing political leaderships. Perhaps the most cynical expression of such a sectarian abstention from the struggles of the working class ever documented appears in Jack Barnes' response to the Self Criticism. Astonishingly he reveals that the SWP leadership see the resolving of their factional squabble with the IMT as more important and pressing than the problems of revolutionary programme in Spain: "It seems to me that we need a little time in Spain. I hope that a crisis is not precipitated right away as the Francoist regime comes apart, that would deny the Fourth International time to sort out these political questions."

The sight of Barnes holding up his hand to delay the revolutionary process in Spain so that a backstairs deal can be struck with Mandel and the IMT must be a revolting one for the reported thousands of US militants even now engaged in struggles against the Francoist regime. And the request comes from the very same leadership that refused to carry out a political discussion at the time of the reunifi- cation in 1963. This in our view amply sums up the rotten nature of the compromises on which the whole edifice of the USFI has been so flimsily constructed. If any real strides forward are to be taken as a result of the Self Criticism discussion then the first step must be to reject Barnes response out of hand, and to reapproach the central questions of method which must arise.

TROTSKYISM TODAY, JULY 1978

party. And it is what the Pabloites are throwing overboard in favour of the conception that the ideas will somehow filter into the treacherous bureaucracy, the Stalinists or reformists, and in some way or another "In the Day of the Comet" the socialist revolution will be realised and carried to conclusion without a revolutionary Marxist, that is, a Leninist-Trotskyist party. That is the essence of Pabloism.

Pabloism is the substitution of a cult and a revelation for a party and a programme." (p.182) Yet from 1957 onwards it was Cannon who gave approval to the SWP drift back to Pabloism after the Hungary events, it was Cannon who in 1962 led the pack in justifying not only Castro and the Castroites, but also even the actions of the Kremlin in the Cuban missiles crisis.

"What else could he (Kruschev) have done under the given circumstances? ... In our opinion Kruschev sensibly backed away from such a showdown, thus saving the world from war and the Cuban revolution from attack by over- whelming forces for a time... The retreat was unavoidable ... "(Letter to Dobbs, Oct. 1962) and it was Cannon who backed the unprincipled reunifica- tion' of which the Pabloites were already boasting that: "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 this 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 Fourth International. From that time on, reunification became not only desirable but possible " (Declaration of Reunification 23rd plenum of IEC)

10 EL A EN ISONED?

While we have detailed the continuity method through the post 1953 Internati the 1963 reunification and the 1969 guel the present, this does not mean to say that sational rather than a political continuity.

On the contrary, experience shows t been those that have most vehemently organisationally "broken' with Pabloism wl be its most crass exponents.

Cannon in Speeches to the Party in 1953 tor instance correctly defined the way in which Pabloism strikes at the very heart of the revolutionary movement—at the Leninist concept of the party: "That is written ist concept of " of the Pable onal Secretari Tilla turn, up it has an orga 7838 hat it h i0 have as often ced and come to into the T the decisiv ra nsiti TOle onal of t Programme, he revolutio that nary Page 26

Th ber fact and the Br sh SL efused to g ong to ion' did not sean that correct positions. While strawing that the Castroites were 'natural Marxi the continued need for independent . neither SLL. nor OCI themselves + face events. as no real diftere Cuban queston those aspects o cous emergence leformed nature scardedi ar ig fae that the tea

ICI

along w th such they took destrov sts" anc revolu. ent any artur completely he notion o insist ul ionary par urther t1 Ther ysis of seizuc u the spor and the state -an The ugh Cu 10n ties ice in overall n The SWP and surface events f a revolution: Cuba as a other evide the other argument e. and urgeois rethod of ane- the Pabloites tha: "prover. ку leadership new workers' 1ce. hand to that the spontancous emergence of a revolutionary leadership of nored any French on rances for ill capitalist more than "left" petty taring all contrary ev lence.

her side penetrated tot race in Cuba-because ne sifted thro that through surface appearances for stat bo prove Castr onalist was while igr Neit taking t the real the But le processes ither site had ... inca.. pedise it method of analy must be said quate the spon eist in maintaini he organised important ethod Progr positive 1963, ke that reflex and interm failure of the remain real theoretical prob to increasingly abstr either to press new to attempt any seri the real importance of the differences of 1953 or re-exam- ined the method of analysis of the Fl prior to that split.

that Leni

SETS US SO UNCERE

the Fl prior to that split.

1963, by defending. hor • concept of the party of the Pabloites and the rentation into the mair nat, the SLL in narticula the preservatior of th cent al feature of th eve agait SIVP, and forces of t played an Marxist m transitional inade st the ly. In mIS concepts ig an o prolet ole i th The positive role played by Healy and Lambert in forces nme ole th anc 953 was knesses. to probe the Iber lar reflexive and intermingled with damaging weaknesses. The IC forces after posed by Cuba, philosochical' at

IICE

sing Tells act 963 the port instead ialvsis the failur itiat 1 50 aves for internati corganisation of onal the discussion or International that the Committe 810 way 10 211

BIAS

Iself tt the pas democratıc 1966 for altempt permanen ransm, meant ternational shelve the .. Cra questions of the past by retitling itself the IC of the Fl and by adopting an agree to disagree formula on whether or

SEO S

adopt Pable ue to d 29- - 10% not Pabloism had destroyed the Fl in 1953.

formula 1953 her agil wer agitational increasingly mands gly set ası L the need atemen Is wnatever of ti Transit favou: the SL Programme maximum By October red contain- to join the programme and "the need to build the SLL. By October 1969 a major PC statement by the SLL was issued contain- oth 8887

SEL.

ma de wa he

ISSI S

call last 1969 became the focus for an abstract call for "every from car focu join the SLL Ison brought ma y government, the oupled to the cor vernment' - rema -electior the By this ecti #8*209 Wil ions ne the SE an ca dw king class and the elec ss abste SLL's ma um program rect slogan of Bring down ined, not to be put to the Labour government in Febr the leadersnip's h ched nt absti hen nti ike And when working class hos inability ina ds Ar under T 15it mal P frem an assessme fundamental proc vorking class in The false method Iv's efo Th Transitional Programme in this period is thus inseparable An understanding of the SLL's turn away from the stai boi an 1g imm 15 the inability rom epar • assess ins from an assessment of its growing inability to assess the ical SS. of pol every late lerlying this sotion of elation: bility develo: factor, Heal thes re is Ang ref lacentric lected in Class was eloping not a consta evelopment 1960's also served nternatior s with the correctly anents wit but overa Br гу 19 to exacer valis and Frer COI ess wor meant in t Can he itish 10's. hate E882 it and king that le wear continued to expand uner icary arter for us sauersmp never sotte developing vorkers into national. leadership. The only new forces brought into leadership were from the petty bourgeoisie organisationally and technically capable people. but with out the ability to orentate the movement within the work ing class. Precious worker cadres ere lost and the move ment began to lose its bearings dependent Tixed schemas every bit as as those taken I becoming ace loite Ins Pal in creasingh; pressions the split from which the WL traces its roots- has now reached the extent of the defence of flagrantly Pabloite This process of degenerationwnich brought about his he cn 1 its ra WI 11 abo has now Pabloite uncritical lafi's reac

PLO

ear alt. ing n part: mese St. ctatorsh hysterical haps them OCI inter ernat snalis nd c visa the Party. Liwa Pabloit laciDus tal grot (0311W7 ada tionary bonapartist dictatorship in Libya.

anti tel Meanchile the OCI's international grouping, claiming Alea

LETTE

democracy the yestery ite of claim ealy. nas ito social The OCt itself, even while proclaiming venomous home iced

HESE

113 manoeuvres aimed at unprincipled shile s altes ancer

ISE

lesn a series of backstage im: tomous last few unorine home years inled lamental di the USFI, the biggest international grouping claiming the the ame a cent those Trots ISt rom. ot ie weru hovenie. e tienal grouping claiming we have shown, in the grij othoil and nmoarse those of Trotskyism but that post-war perverson of Trotskyism that we have analysed as Pabloism. As a result -represents in our view neither the political nor the orga- 1s obstruction of any serious international discussion on the historical problems of the Fourth Interne-nal.

smup wh skyism stand post-w as Pali for all he polit kyısr terna Fou ton ar bossins. its pr cal nor Rather. nal disc Intern: the si per Vers As ete th =248.- it 555= the USFI as it stands today-for Fre nsio through ion nal nisational continuity obst *79 2 88= of In our new the time has come to take objective stock rot bonally and to con mut the problems that must be resolved 10g 150 In La on Britain lengthy ar leadership. Also uenced uation ant fully gras This was successes 520-3 Lambert over conflicting analysis of the Middle East War Thi 957 mber ly t 923= di rett nces hon pted flic only to be opportunistically left aside.

nisti is

VSIS O

y left hornet ao and

VEETI

Idle Meannile y publishing letnam Stalin fealy am ast Wat L was influenced by surface impressions of the developing sit- conv of the was combined with considerable organisational Britam py surface in particula the tre bined SL spre y ti becom of tne iC ing mcreasing y developing sit- tion that workers had Wilson government. rable organisational I interventions Trades Council and by 1969 a May Da ins and i the Heal chery with ses led sind the th fight against Wilson's L nitiated strike against mobilised 900,000 workers.

the wake of the trench ever I lership began to hope th ork • ho the er sh

FISACHE

subs Lambeth pay laws. union laws on ent conditu Ma ne 1968 of ist the S banner in the fight against Wilson's first pay laws, and by 1969 an ant mobilised 900,000 workers. Under these conditions and in the wake of the French events of May-June 1968 the Healy propaganda work the hour had struck for the SEt to step best viJu leadership began to hope that after years of isolation and nd into the leadership of the British working class.

ta Ipad BI ruC ist k fo The Page

if the Fl is to be reconstructed an a basis of principles.

No tendency internationally can claim to represent an organisational or political continuity of Trotsky's method and principles. Every tendency has to begin from the standpoint that fundamental issues long aga dismissed or explained away must be re examined: the evolution of post war Stalinism, the role of petty-bourgeois forces, and the method of orientating Trotskyist forces to build cadres root rooted in the working class all stand as questions to be answered in a discussion which must extend beyond state ments to include a thorough examination of the practice oi each national grouping in the class struggle of its own con- try. from ment Pablo to lin skyist and and of p nISn and

TROTSKY

the method involved in th towards Stalinism under -both prior to and after th k this to an examinatiot tendencies towards the petty bourgeois nation: Igeria in the years foliowin sent attitudes to the latest so callet Euro Communis

M TODAY, JUL

onentation of ti he leadership o ne 1953 split. It is of the orientation Castroite leadership rist forces in Latin g 1959, changes Y 1978. le move F Michel essential of Trot: in Cuba America I 0 dil d •D0S-War capitalist alysıs Stali- states. And such nination of the the wipin analysis attituce amese CP. ITERSE alsı : of the vat word Trotskyis such as the post sive bonapartis Above all firm both rach sectio , the basic ariat the e of ciety involves ious tentler A sea icies rching of the Such intert must a discussion in our ational tendency begin by bringing RFl and e IC to

VICHEST

nd the USF very possi allicinate ncl ude nd ress I movement to s 1974 AM regime regimes such as t we must establisl your curtent programme • as well as by drawing starting point of revolutio the prope tyless class ex ivan 1S11 ment of capita vali i e only consist gressive me a Portugal, a lat of Gaddiaf basis to and in the the lessor ry Marx ited by I produe ita set ry juntas progres in Libye. ositively practice if the that bour nanc la 8=3% 93₴

THE ANTIDOTE

pIc (sie

SOL

SIn itio In our view it is essential that the Trotskyist movement be reconstructed by a practical and a theoretical caffir mation of the basic tenets on which the movement was founded. They can in our view be summarised in the follo In our view reconstructe tion of the inded. They It points:

OVI

class in society .Falt sm aganst ramn Trots syster appro sing t leuda fictat wertt sensit capita irmers its ma I with e with bourge ing itse trancis gority a prot Those roisie if on if per onal lemot ayers stiona lead: talist Mal conti a sizeable se is necessary the nme around which pressed small propi big landowners. Si theoretical gams er entre oution mus - u3 cassar kers to illiance holders E prog- lied in tam a here nobili mainst fascist " the indis twer 7 th Sta 1. Daily confirmation that this is the epoch of imperialist Daily cor ay Is 10 nomic crit I ex-coloni Europe ar linist and h finding the growit serialism-1 stion tre o ofi stion found ies convuls al regimes, ki Asia. In Social Der new depths ig movemen lighlights t the Four world part epoc ound sitalist stat legenerate iod the be parties ir collaborat kers and f necessity tonal as cialist reve the irot g thi and t this polit es, the worke *trayat Iternat ion east for ili talis and lonial states both ally • face jainst cons isine and Social Democratic parties of class t of wol Vital ster the pr with he broadest relations, *ship an row of c le basis fe mocratic ictionary sheviks ›pposed ky demands tratic dem of mass se I oppressi 1g I. Such on strug socialis of th adopt ed in cor ods, spor 1. Be wagr and volu strug ctici nibu capat Lin st stru the rUt tis the strucele for the is the Ige bi Ivoca ms ol 38 a the inseparab lism and the defer working class from in the workers' mo ona: was and ren I and political r proletarian lead ialism onal wa internal movement today confronts a crisis in which its whole post.

war history must be re-examined in order to probe the polt- prole

CID

Ou etarian hum sive 1 sal str But ob nder 19: nter sna lence of the encies with th Internati an, materia he crisis of uggle for soc the Internat jective and today to

PERORE

850=52 - 389 Ipt of pi the polit irgeoisie: , the task of prepar necessary the inter and the defence of the political he ition elea nists, is opposed and defeated in practice.

ItS the bo vemen wains tha esources ership ir 5. r the stre key is ikewise can form a bri union struggle necessary const the dictatorshil such a progran working class i today undertak Be Donna huge mov war tical such recor history must reasons behir a basis ca istruction re Is in TUn

SUP

isis in pab way i the cultii in w orde

SOFC

urwa begu rich i 1 10 1 ¡ faced Frotsk: hole po y fn ob fou iggle to a proge Ige betv carried ious sti ) of the We to s the m e the ta mobilise he worki amme of ransition veen the taily spon on by tie worki uggle for the social proletariat. The fir form the basis of 1 aterial way in whi sk described bv Le class itse the lemands which eous and trade class, and the revolution and in practice for actions of the Marxists must in What Is To 3. Trotsky tary Marxis working clas revolution. F on principie classes in wh class in subor bourgeoisie, bureaucracy Because ciple, nt is r post-war hist shandoned i was throw jat tay contr ty of t in seeing le need hi rad n the struggle for social is only Trotskyists who reject or partnerships with other nary strength of the working terests of the peasantry, petty ilitary juntas, or sections of the the workers movement sell, ental importance of thi examine those episodes thr.

ism in which that posit was the tethodd or ch costs In particular, it is necessary to analyse anew and break й F ands alor preser take the or this reason political ble ich the revolut dinated to the "progressive m parasitic upon of the fundan recessary to re ory of Trotsky 1 pract and into que cular, it is •.. to combat spontaneity, to divert the working class movement from this spontaneous, trade unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Democracy... all worship of the spontaneity of hte working class movement.

all belittling of the role of the Social Democracy, means, guste indepencently of whether he who befitties that role desires it or not, a strengthening of the influence of bour- geois ideology upon the workers".

For this reason, also, therefore, an light for leadership within the worki retreat from the task of Marxists tod.

ciple therefore for Trotskyists to on serious work, propagandising and ands of the transitional programme, Page 28 this ind lem y abstention from ng class movement iy. It is a matter of Jertake systematic agitating for the within the labour

ent whol rammi In the eventio hrined the mass nisa ithout ta the secomes simply words. leological arming of the working of Marxists into the labour also the need for parties ana al constructed on the Bolshevi itical and organisational princip complete democracy thin t decisions, combined w strict centralised d pli in ajority. and er nation the po tralism ving at membe decisior ens inti decisions of the majority.

rga bu tion fig WI 42! to WOl his arena class and he movemen is reconstructed k pattern, based le of democratic he movement in adherence by all the independence o bureaucracy in th with an analysis o wor uggle COur class ate g ter-revolut ng ir st lower. sonaty whici Stalinist is, along strategy clearly "evolution of ne or in Asia ry nature in Easte the need fo. revolution in as the USSR is th vorid refutes the Stalinisn in ands which "Eurocommi Europe. It the building Cuba, Vietn and Eastern me post-war porka abloite notion of a left cent the Eastern European buffer shows most clearly the react "Eurocammunist criticism of the regimes in Eastern s this position also that confirms of Trotskyist parties for political am, China and Yugoslavia as well Europe. rist za the t uanst beset refor time mave And by open discussi spectives and be brought plays a cruc dogmatism, t the Marxist n Similarly must be u a the reconstr Socialist League "moratoria" have ch shops wi We tal the fight against the petty bourgeois tendencies to individ- ualism, propagandism, opportunism and careerism which beset the bankrupt ranks and leading echelons of the The fig I for t ight against th n, propagandi the bankrup mist, Stalinist it challenges ment by trade ringt his inte e petty sm, opp it ranks id cel nelical reg: irgeois ter unism an id leacin ¡trist mover ist posit nion comrades i the practice ling the theor y developing cor flict, in ight form 52 g gs to a encies career echelo nts. At ought gh point individ- n which s of the the same into the ng renab he dait ita sh tal role ogett method o on an in pheid as ucted Il n unsi the tne sa of

TIETIT

ablisher the par centr natisn et into sharp conflict, pract democr against s of idea waterialist lever ten with ail f dialectical n ternational the essential Fourth Inter st be a Joke from nISi iona y rel aggressior organisat : and the org nat it central ional principle The Workers setition of the pacts" that onal relatio

SCRE

Icra arac thin irised opp he IS USF unda taly I° in ch : : agreement tween its wot We tunist the If pposed to pline that disci so weak factions We insist on the af the combined with a strict adherence by all sections to the line men nic ogi take place between the ar pl around discu aua

IS S0

jand liffe loose ic warfare rent count ullest internal the 2115 line of the majority. he ou or d ts by Tro uncen that Comin st bu caucracy. w and a thoroughly ter national workers moveme sm was seen as a fundamentall of ule, balancing between th ins established in the October origins its reason Der for nal tra exISTer he Left prone 1933 Stalin ution the it Stalin form relatie ent the

TSH

ter existence from the sked nated Stalinist bureaucracy, was dead for the purposes of revol- inter-revt to by the the purposes if revol Motionary force within .At the some time unstable, bonapartist lationalised prope Revolution and y domi inta nati nat nrescuiree of imperialism

LOJ

skv establishe clear position of unconditional defence of the Sovi as a workers' state against imperialism, coupled to to prepare political revolution for the conscious o if the bureaucracy and restoration of soviet power This analysis still has to be defended botl idencies that have attempted to see tne Sta permanent a progressive force in ists, and Pablo in (pre-war t cactionary force 1 € achtmanite et Ur the t inst acy as a ovement periodie class :apital lanıs the workers Dost-wa' ruling state he a per Sov ayl. ding ing ma sky important starting peint is the question of the political per litical re-examine Stalinism: that have and OCR ›ositions- her Ive y fo issues to clar been adopted. Fl leadership ega themselves outside the world Trotskyist movement.

cessar these cani I0I sid th rotsk movement to bearing on the post-war role of y and correct the wrong positions he USFI, the IC for this pr and ill their fal rded having ac ment worid secti in rot

HOOSE I

ins for yist move 8. It is impossible to reconstruct the Fourth International without a conscious break from the method of impression- r a st $17kg CT Fourt :methoc of ir ruggle for the In Defence of rom attempts groupings fr ass tic thar ad ernati npres dialec Marx ism and empiricism to take up a struggle for the dialectical itsky in reak 1 spiricism fought fa ak ca bsti ganda the m cha fight for the transitional programme on an international scale take on real meaning and life at the centre of the ite tute petty bourgeois propaganda groupings for ta fres 355. devek Only gan is isa lous of the an the ional f the • Shr principles, isationally principles, the way would be opened up for steps to organ- ni sternational he ganisation or ruction. We arrangements a history of the Dractice of each ca 82 reCE ne WSI way 1151 rul th "exible In discussions these must parties. and th whole, and the open to examin regard ard Dive at bott present ation. ty the ched

IST

1Bd Inste tendenc aí aspects insist only ceptable ti novement rt of it mus of aS d

SOCIALIST

PRESS *

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