Left in the Limelight: State Caps Expose Spartacist Chauvinism

th State caps exi Spartacist chauvinism The individual arragance and political philistinism of the international Spartacist tendency is well known to anyane who has encountered their interventions into left wing public meetings.

facts Or 10 reason Impervious unmoved by the class struggle, and unin.

terested in practical action, the iSt has largely distinguished itself by its pro-imperiolist positions in relation to the national struggle in Ireland and in Pales tine, and by its Healyite insistence upon a full maximum programme in place of agitation around transitional demands But anather side of the Spartacists sec- tarianism is their defence of immigration controls under capitalism, as proudly proclaimed in the second issue of Spart- acist Britain. They recoil in horror from imaginary *large scale immigration flows", which, they fear. could "wipe out the national identity of recipient countries". The echo of Thatcher is not lessened by the fact that the 'small countries that concern the iSt the most are imperialist Holland and imperialist Belgium! But, as shown in from an article in l Voice - journal of US League for a R the Spartacists' posi the following ext st Spring's Soci the State capita evolutionary Part tion extends to right racialism We obviously political analysis the Soviet Union capitalist theorie iSt hits some cor political analysis of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union: but, despite their Stote capitalist theories, their assessment of the iSt hits some correct and some interesting We obviously disagree with the LAP'S 633

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The Spartac st eague (SL • several centrist groups th cl to represent the continuity of Fourth International. The SL boasts that it (unlike the other Pabloite movements) is building genuinely principled international tendency.

James Robertson, the Sportacists founder and a member of its Central Committee, recently returned from an international tour and reported on his findings at a public meeting held in New York City on January 29 of this year It is this forum to which we draw he reader's attention. It ex led he Spartacist League's lot ait the Page

Trotskyism tradition" country Europe, exclude statistics vilest spl "The bla ghett Jews drug store attribute kids rip entic begir has an 'unbroken it t is a jaded which, like Northern drips with tat f you the Negro (sic) from the • But Robertson saved his cen for the American blacks: ck population burned down oes and it's now waiting for to come back and open up stores". High prices charged keepers in the ghetto were d to the fact that "black them off" An that was his ubject, from lysis or to end na be uality mrade ('On ities December Liberation, ism, Interna ba ca by their proletarian th estion of "Autonom 31, 1922: in Socialism and tional Publisher National- isation*," National Imperial- pp.168- There as Lenin's warning itical explanation for suggests, a Robertson's behaviour. The Spartacist League is Pabloite: that is, it holds that the dozen countries where state power was conquered by Communist Parties since World War Il are ("deformed"') workers' states which means that the socialist revol- ution was made under the leadership of petty-bourgeois Stalinists nationalists. Such a no ion aban the Marxist understan ling that proletariat is the only evolutio class in this epoch. Pabloism by its nat is: capit- ty l geoisie in ulation to theory ans practice. leads its followers petty-bourgeois outlook rather that to champion the historical interests of the working class. Given the variet of layers of the petty bourgeoisie, ilverised by capitalism into an asteroid sell between the bourgeoisie the proletariat, the different branches of Pabloism (and of centrism generally) make their capitulations in different ways. Some, like the United Secretar iat majority led by Ernest Mandel and Pierre Frank, de er primarily to the petty-bourgeois leaderships of the nationalist and "third world" struggles. Others, like the American SWP, make their foremost obeisance to the labor bureaucracy, the petty harmonie kaderekin af the snobinn dons the nary and the bourgeois leadership of the working class in the imperialist (The SWP has become leaders and torch beare mild-left bureaucrats, recent of which is Ed Sc the Uni ed Steelworke centrists nar age subn of these set y geois at once IC IC VEnE countries. the cheer rs for the the ost diowskı of rs). Most sit both ncies nde ass of the St mary leftists League, its "sectarian enly re that it does not capitulate nationalism of the oppressed -because it directly refle attitudes of the privileged sec the American working class.

provides a left cover for th aristocracy's contempt for a of the oppressed worker que what jard as sarta mist ism", Is to the nat ons ets the tians of The SL e labor fea Page Spartacists appear very left cause there does not exist a current in the union bureau- of the United States. A rising struggle in the future will badly cast up, as in the past, a left bureaucratic centrism ting itself as a battling revol- ry force. ..This is what the cists are foretaste of. what real cracy class undou such presen utiona Sparta left they are for now: with, as demand gramme. the mil look at today DI cracy in that na laying e propaganda basis a rea militant reformism they say, at least one from the Transitional Pro- Therefore they don't buy uetoast Sadlowskis. One he British left Labourites racism, or the left bureau- he American past, will show onal chauvinism is just as virulen amond Robe among the right aisease e right presents refo it to rm uS ists. now And to on wit abloism. Trotskyisn bourgeois by the si the Fourt giving up S11 ngic hin Pa mindedness of the SL Jecific political concep- the general line of blo's abandenment of in favour of petty capitulation was predatec sachtmanites break from International in 1940. In n the revolutionary gains made by he workers through Bolshevik Revolution, Shacht was origi lly a left centrist re tion of ti cynical retreat of the reformist labor bureaucracy intelligentsia. Shachtman's "T Camp" was not equivalent later "third world" politics.

na the man flec- left and hird the le it TO Whi subsequently st pa tor the support of pro-Western ex colonial leader- ships, it placed its original and long- term faith in the left sections of the trade union leaderships of the demo- cratic (imperialist) countries; tl wore the "advanced" sectors to wan to the "socialist" cause Shachtmanism differed om the broader development of abloism only in the directior of s capit- ulation. The Pabloites of various lands used their pro-Stalinism to reflect adaptations made to other petty-bourgeois currents. The historic links between Pabloite and Shachtmanite groupings were not accidental; the method was the same.

The Spartacist League is a Pablo- ite-Shachtmanite hybrid. It cloaks its quite direct acceptance of the outlook of the labor aristocracy in the so-called advanced cultures with the veneer of Trotskyist orthodoxy on the "workers states" Ir act as rese be Robertso been disgus coming in a the leader organisatibi foremost in were nothing more scancia justification cynicism Lenin! Leni 1 s abs the qi ion: "That why internationalism on he part f appressors or great" ations, as they are called though they are great only in their v olence, ..i.. nanciao rema been disgusting from anyone, lic pi but "revolutionary" sed the world's ialist suntry, they art of a scandal. Even was the Spartacists' Robertson's vicious name of Marx and of ks = 37 in slutely not on formal in an nation make Ahtaine 60 03 0638456308 ly in the observance of the equality of nations but even inequality of the oppressor the great nation, that must ip for the inequality which in antual nantica Anuharv who do grasped to the as not understand this has the real proletarian attit national question he is still essentiany petty point of view and to descend to the view" Robertson's co ward seriously. DourGeois is, therefore, bourgeois poin nIs sure t of for mments They were pu were no ad jokes, defence Even had it ty for a Lenin even meant as rem and the SL in it never claimed thei that been the case kably cynic to be •sasch it uld have been im revolutionary leader. went on to say: Nothing holds up and strengthening ss solidarity so injustice; are not sensitiv much as to the and the violenc if only rough to the olatio poss for = 81 opment arian cl national nationals thing so equality equality or jest the deve of prolet- much as 'offended' e to any- feeling of e of this negligence of that equality, if only through negligence vil

we showed the article "Permanent Revolution in Southern Africa" (Socialist Voice No. 1), it was only the Spartacists' support of Russian imperialism that permitted them to come to the delayed support of the anti-US imperialism struggle in Angola. The uniqueness of the SL also lies in its clarity. Other Pabloites waver over exactly what class forces created the "deformed workers states". Not so the Spartacists, who boldly state that the petty-bourgeoisie (in "exceptional circumstances," but the exception has been the inevitable rule) can make the socialist revolution. Similarly, very few if any other Pabloites (or Shachtmanites) would express their chauvinism so baldly as does Robertson. In fact, they would recoil in anger-to their credit. Robertson is certainly not a racist in the Hitlerian sense; it is not at all a question of genetic inheritance. Nor do the Stalinists in the USSR wish to physically exterminate the Jews; they merely want to eliminate them as an identifiable cultural entity different from the Great Russians.

Such is t SL's view. Let the Alban- ians and te Greeks learn civilised behaviour. Let the blacks give up their unproductive rage ("nothing much happened after the ghetto riots," said Robertson). Let them all act like his image of good socialistic white American trade unionists who are the offspring of advanced tech nological culture and Robertson wil welcome them all into the fold.

he tl If the SL's preference for the labor aristocracy had not been made sufficiently clear by Robertson's presentation, his (and other Spartacists] defence of his perform.

ance and of the SL's long-standing positions during the discussion period proved the point. The Sparta- cists first defence against attacks from the League for the Revolution- ary Party (and also from the Com- munist Cadre organisation) was that we were "moralists" for objecting to Robertson's invective. SL speakers, Robertson in the lead, denounced the "lumpen rage" of the black ghettoes-as if anger against oppression is reprehensible and confined only to the lumpen- proletariat. We are far from moralists however, in identifying with the rage of black workers. The SL's effort to lump outraged masses with the lumpe and to separate them rom more idly employed blacks, is precise the present political strategy of the left liberals. The unemployed and marginally employed workers for whom capitalism can no longer provide jobs are tossed on the scrap-heap, and their fury is equated with that of the criminal elements. Similarly, the SL continued to defend its opposition to free immi gration from the oppressed countries into the imperialist heartlands on the grounds that it would threaten the "national identity of the recipient countries" (Workers Vanguard, 18 January, 1974). This position is a sophisticated left cover for the favourite remedy of the labour bureaucracy for unemployment, crime and the other ills of capitalism: blame them on foreign workers. The SL does not support the bureaucracy's present course, but again it serves notice of it ure course in a more left setting.

LRP speakers charged that the SL had reneged on the revolutionary obligation to give military tactical support in the anti-imperialist struggle in Angola and in the Palestinian fight in Lebanon when they were under attack by the US- backed right wing and the Syrian army. The SL replied that Lebanon was a "tribal puzzle" whose pieces, apparently, have no relation to world imperialism. Warming to the subject of the Middle East, the SL repeated the familiar Zionist slogan that the Arabs really wanted to "drive the Jews into the sea". As for Africa, the Spartacists again stressed the importance of the South African whites for the anti- apartheid struggle because of their "privileged access to culture and technology" (Workers Vanguard, 14 January, 1977); the blacks would be "wiped out" without whites on their side. In perhaps the most outrageous remark of the evening, Robertson affirmed the SL's support for the "right of the Boers to self-determin- ation"-against a black republic, not the British Empire of 1900! This was a direct appeal to the bourgeoisie's most corrupted allies in the working class. Responding to from the audience, alleged that they, like Bolsheviks, supported self-determination for critici sartaci and 1 right natio supported the right of Page 42

TROTSKYISM TODAY,

What a travesty! It would never have occurred to Lenin, nor to any other leftist until the Spartacists, that the "great" imperialist oppressor nations were in need of self-determination.

The right of self-determination means the right to secede from an oppressor. The South African whites already have their independence, and use it to enslave the blacks. To guar- antee such rights to an oppressor can only mean equating the rights of oppressor and oppressed-and that always comes down to denying the rights of the oppressed. If the South African whites demand "self-deter- mination" on the verge of a black

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will the be an? The national oppressor constant not only Palestine well. The poor to notorious South anas Afri partacists quation of self-determ and the theme of in South and Norti equal right sleep in watchwor the rights to ination of the oppressed is a the Spartacists, Africa but in sern Ireland as of the rich and the cold is a d of the bour- t of proletarian recognise such cynical defence geois democrats, no revolutionists who "equal ghts" as a of capi ist inequalit tal The partacists other repeated defences against our attacks were 1) that we were wrong to criticise Robertson's words rather than the SL programme, and 2) that Karl Marx was also famous for using strong language in describing various nationalities. The LP, in fact, said a good deal about the SL's programme in our intervention. Not surprisingly however, Robertson and the SLers who followed his lead chose not to answer our politics but instead tried to cover up the impact of Robert- son's "great nation" bullying. The Spartacists overlook the fact that programme is not just a list of positions-it is everything a party stands for. In this case Robertson's words spoke louder than his purpor- ted political message. One who claims to be an internationalist yet breathes contempt for every peopie but his own, is no internationalist.

As for Marx's language, an LRP speaker pointed out that Marx lived before the epoch of imperialism, before the holocaust of Nazism had painted in bloody colours the depths to which decaying capitalism can descend. Marx raged at those groups who had come to personify

capitalism as at the epoch whi and its oppression, as well petty nationalisms of his ch were stalking horses for threa profi son. mussian reaction, against the oppressed essive forces of his day.

in contrast. aimed hi and the Robert- 5 barbs against the oppressed an in Lenin's wo the real prol national qu essentially P nationalism d thereby prov rds, he "has not etorian attitude restion, he etty bourgeois of the ed that, grasped to the still his be an anti-nat be a Leninist between the ppressed - to De a Leninis onalist, but one c without distingu nationalisms o e oppresso

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not hing the were checked with trose of non- members of our organization who were present, we believe them to be reasonably accurate. If the Spar- tacists wish to challenge the accuracy of the quoted material, if they wish argue that Robertson did not make such chauvinist and racist remarks, there is a simple recourse.

Make the tapes available. If access to the tapes is given to us (and to others like the Communist Cadre who have requested it) we will publish any recessary corrections. We frankly loubt that the SL will yield the tapes I anly because they contain even nore insults and outrages than those isted here Tre Spartacists lency will die aborn rentation to the ten icit ntern abor iona impl cracy spells its doom. For the most oppressed sectors of the workers are where the revolutionary parties must sink their roots. These layers have no stake in maintaining the capitalist system and will inevitably make up disproportionate numbers of the leading cadres of the reconstructed Fourth International. The struggle to forge the International will have to sweep aside the chauvinist concep- tions of the Spartacist League, for internationalism abhors the slightest concession to the ideology of imper- ialism. It will reject capitulation to capitalism in any formstatified, monopolized, or petty-and thereby learn the necessary lessons from the tragic degene ation of he Fourth Interr tional We note tacists' own a the February did not quo sible comme attacked, alth speech at gn teal honestly sents: the a icisms only lumpen rage Robertson's proof quite 88 = fact that int of the Workers ny of the which h it summ length. Nor ith the SL's x tret to ou NTs bug sat the Sp forum in Vanguard reprehen ehad zed the did it ari reti icisms only as a glorification of and: crit ficatit citations speech, however, as The peech from that of different he remarks were taken down reporters at the forum, a Spartac that we could lis recording of the no Co: rage was bas siderations. that we cit by Socialist forum. Af st official ten to the talk in or VoIce r the greed pr te verify our notes. Several days however we were told that "the will not be mad naliv * As we ret later tapes e available exter- ilied to the Spar letter challenging tacis their t League refusal: "Comrade ic, and it Id, under I to have widely can wel 1113 Robertson's would seem normal circu the contents isseminated. understand talk was that you mstances, of such a However, why, you nave decided to suppress sucn a trank admission of your chauvinist politics.

Your cowardly account in Workers Vanguard No. 143 testifies to your intent to disguise the content of Robert 's remarks and the real nature the attack made upon it by the L.R.P." We again repe the SL to mak slic talk availabl to i the workers' move Since our quotati es taken by severa anc son of te th our challenge e tapes of this the left public enE. ne compt comrades rom