Trotskyist Discussion Bulletin no. 1

Le TROTSKYIST DISCUSSION BULLETIN

CONTENTS WHAT IS CENTRISM? THE POLITICS OF SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT PARTY BUILDING IN THE PRESENT PERIOD

ARGUED [EN7

INTRODUCTION

The docunents contained in this first issue of Trotskyist Discussion Bulletin,are a contribution to the open discussion initiated by the Workers. Revolutionary Party following its expulsion of Gerry Healy.

Workers Power has never hidden the fact,in the course of the open discussion, that it vregards the history of the SLL/WRP as a history of centrism.That centrism,in our opinion,stemmed from the programuatie collapse of the Fourth International during the period 19)8-51.Against this analysis sone WRP comrades have objected to the use of the term centrist.Reference has been made instead to the ‘contradictory! history of the WRP,or to the subjective revolutionary intentions of rank and file nembers.Some WRP riembers have construed the label centrist,as an insult,a charge that writes off their personal contribution to the struggle to build a marxist movement in Britain.The first document in this bulletin takes up these points,It is an analysis of centrism as a concept. developed and used by revolutionary narxists since the first world war,It rescues the term as a scientific, marxist category,It denonstmuates precisely the contradictory nature of centrisn,

A key question fer WRP members is whether any of the groups that originated in their ranks,coustituted a revolutionary break from Healy's centrisn, The second document in this bulletin looks at the comtemporary politics of a group that originated in the WRP,namely the Socialist Group.This group was expelled from the WRP in 197h.For a period it was known as the Workers Socialist League.Its present title dates from 198).The docunent traces the rightward trajectory of this group since the late 1970s and demonstrates the real dangers that a failure to break from centrisn holds.

The third and final document published here was originally addressed to the Workers Internationalist League in 1983.This group broke with the WSL of Thornett and Matganna after the Malvinas War.However it enulated sone of the nost negative features of the old WSL ~ particularly with regard to party building, the subject of this docurnent.In so doing it sealed its fate.It was shortlived,fragnenting rapidly.Sone comrades formed other groups (the Revolutionary Internationalist League and Red Youth), others retreated into purely local or sectional politics.A promising opportunity to break with centrism and achiewe principled regroupment was missed,

In the light of this the warnings raised in the docuwient and the call for principled regroupnent are apposite for WRP menbers today.

We hope these docunents will stinulate discussion. They do not exhaust the subjects currently Being studied and debated by WRP nembers and others in today's "crisis of the left".We intend to take up other

important political questions - The Method of the Transitional Programme, Dialectics and Method,the Folitics of Pierre Lambert and his British supporters in the SLG,and nore - in future issues of this bulletin,

WORKERS POWER MAY 1986

; Centrism 1. WHA T Is CENYTRI SM ?

"One may state it as a general rule that antipathy toward the concept ceutrism,and toward all further subdivisions‘of centrism is typical of tendencies that are either centrist themselves or have not yet finally freed themselves from their intellectual amorphousnegs,"

Trotsky Writings 33/34 pl69

Two attempts have been made so far to draw up a political balance sheet of the WRP's degeneration, Despite the sharp disagreements of Hunter and Banda over the history of the FI, one thing unites them: an "antipathy toward the concept centrismn",

This is not unique on the British left. Whilst the word "sectarian ism" is generally bandied about as an insult, the term"centrism" is seldom heard, Militant, for example, refer to all. their political opponents as "the sects", The SWP in turn characterises Militant as "revolutionaries with centrist tendencies", The RCP refer to us all as the "radical left",

In recent years the WRP itself worked with only two political categories: Ydialectical. materialist" and "police agent'', Before this, the International Committee characterised its rival , the USFI as 'Pabloite revisionist",

The Thornett group and its former international affiliates were similarly unwilling to call degenerate Trotskyism "centrism", unless of course it was “centrism with special features".(GBL Theses on the Crisis of the FI 1979)

For us, on the other hand, an understanding of the FI's history, and of the fragments which today clutter the ground between reformism and revolutionary communism ig impossible without understanding centrism and its diffe.ent subcategories.

Can we define Cenmtrism?

van we oetppe venir sme Trotsky's writings on centrism in the mid-40s contain the most developed under standing of centrism, its different features, stages of development and laws of motion. Yet, whilst Trotsky wrote in 1935; "the concept of centrism has a precise meaning in a Marxist dictionary" (Writings 35/36 p 153) he also warned repeatedly abouw the difficulty of positively defining centrism,

He wrote, for example, that centrism "is characterised to a much greater extent by what it lacks than by what it embraces" (Writings 33/34 p232)4 This is because ‘'centrism", like every Marxist concept, embraces a process, It is not a motionless category. Outside of metaphors, there is no "Marxist dietionary", For this reason, Trotsky wrote, any general definition of centrism:

Yof necessity always has a conjugctural character"

Trotsky Writings 33/34 p 233

We must however start with a provisional definition of centrism, For WORKERS POWER centrism is a current which stands between reformism and revolutionary communism, often borrowing from both or vacillating botween the two, or confining its revolutionism to theory and its reformism to practice, It is also essentially a transitional phenomenon, moving either towards or away from Marxism. Paradoxically, its transition can be swift or it can take the form of years of ossified, motionless centrism, Unlike reformism and Marxism centrism has no historic class basis, but it has, nevertheless material roots in the class struggle itself,

We think the whole FI collapsed into centrism between 1948 and '51, and that -the split of 1953 which formed the IC, was an incomplete break with cetrism,. Unlike Banda, who says the IC "fought Pabloism with Pabloism" we prefer the

more scientific formula: they fought centrism with a different kind of centrism,

Centrism 2 ,

We have explained this indetail elsewhere, The task of this document is to develop an understanding of centrism, by looking at the historical development of the concept itself,

As Trotsky wrote in 1940: “Dialectical thinking gives to concepts by means of closer approximations, corrections, concretisation, a richness of content and flexibility." Trotsky In Defence of Marxism New Park p65

Whilst centrism entered the Marxist lexicon afte. 1914, it was explained

with the greatest "richness of content and flexibility" by Protsky in the

1940s. The degencratioa of two internationals was the mater_al premise for this, The degeneratioc.. of yet another - trotsky's Foubth International - calls for even wore "dialectical thinking" on the subject of centrism, We can rise to

this task only if we reconquer the gains of understanding embodied in the writings of Lenin and Trotsky .-cn centrism,

the Second International

The concept centrism was first developed in relation to the Marxist "centre" of the Socialist International after 1914,

From the end of the 19th Century the main conflict in the 2nd Intenational was that between "orthodoxy" and 'revisicnism", Bernstein, the chief revisionist attacked the Marxist goal of a -cevolutionary transition to socialism, He argued that capitalism had become more stable, and that the struggle for social reforms within capitalism had to replace the end International's formal comm- ittment to abolishing it.

Against Bernstein, "orthodox Marxism was defended by a number of writers, and most consistently by Karl Kautsky, the main thceoretician of German Social Democracy, The problem was, however, that the Trade Union and Parliamentary

right wing of the end International was perfectly willing to stand by "orthodox" Marxism in theory, whilst being thoroughly reformist in practice,

Trotsky wrote of Kautsky's orthodoxy:

MKautsky untiringly defended the r volutionary essence of Marx and Engels doctrine, although the initiative in repelling revisionist. sallies was often taken by the more dcwisive elements (Luxemburg, Plekhanov, Parvus). In the political arena, however, Kautsky made total peace with the Social Deinocracy in the form it had acquired, never comacnting on its profoundly opportunist nature-and never responding to the efforts to make the party's tactics more rosolute,As far as that went the party, ie the ruling bureaucracy also made peace with Kautsky's theoretical radicalism,"

Trotsky Portraits Political and Personal (1922) Pathfinder p3l

The nature o£ the right wing's committment to orthodox Marxism was summcd up

in the famous comicnt of Ignaz Auer to Bernstcin:'My dear Ede the sort of thing you ask for is not done - by passing. a Besolution; one docs not say it, one does it." (H Grebing History of German Labour Movement p 82)

Prior to the outbrak of the first world war the weakness of th Kautskyite "centre was that was able to defend orthodoxy, but not apply it consistently in practice, The emergence of Imperialism, the threat of war, the appearance of revolutionary crises all domanded that revolutionary Marxism develop a

new kind of programme, difforent to the Maximum and Minisum programme of Social Democracy, and a new kind of party, based on class combat

and with disciplined ofganisation, as opposed te the electoral broad church of the Socialist Parties,

Marxism developed these new tools vartially, seperately and one-sidedly before 1914, often with the "centro" taking a more or legs correct position in the debates. However when war broke out in August 1914 the whole of the "centre" sided with the social chauvinists. Under pressure from the left and the right

. Centrism 3

“the Kaytskyite "centre" vacillated between the two, At the anti-war conferences of the left - Zimnerwald and Kienthul - the centre sought to reconcibe the

left with the old reformist bureaucracy. Clearly the concepts "orthodox" and 'revisionist" were no longer adequate to describe the conflicting political tendencies, or to understand the betrayal of the centre,

The war, "drew a balance sheet” on the leaders of the 2nd Internatioaal, It required the Marxist left to evolve a new characterisation of tue Kautskyite centre, This characterisation was put into place by Lenin,alongside the other key elements of the communist programe for the Impurialist epoch, at the

end Of the war,

Writing in 1917 Lenin described three distinct tendencies within the labour movement: the social chauvinists, the revolutionary left and the "centre", Referring to the third group, Lenin outlined the fundamental features of Kautskyite centrism:

"Historically and economically speaking they do not represent a seperate stratum but are a transition from a past phase of the labour movement - the phase between 1871 and 1914, which gave much that is valuable tothe proleteriat, particularly in the indispens-~ able art of slow, sustaindd and systematic organisational work on a large and very large scale - to a new phase, a phase that became objectively essential with t e outbreak of the first imperialist world war, which inaugurate the era of soe al revolution,” = Lenin fasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution p44 Progress

He continued:

"The Kautskyans , the "centre" , are revolutionarties in words and reformists in deeds; they are internationalists in words and accomplices of social chauvinists in deeds,"

Lenin Lbid

Two impertant poluts spring imsecdiateky from Lenin's initial understanding of the concept centrism, First, he sees it as a transitional phenomenon, from

one kiad of politics to another, Secondly, he tries to explain its material roots in history and the class struggle, These two qualities, discovered

in Kautskyanism by Lenin, were to form the basis 8f the later, more generalised concept of centrisn, ,

-It is important to note also, that in dealing with Kautsky and co., labelling them centrist, Lenin is not simply lumping tnem together with the social chauvinists, Neither is he insultiiug them, He describes their contr.ibuticn as "valuable", despite their inability to adapt Marxist orthodoxy to the new epoch, In the same way when we describe the SLU/WRP as "centrist" we are not implying that it could not make correct and "valuable" criticisms of Pabloism, nor that its history of intervention in the class struggle should be "written ofr, oe

What we are saying is that.even at its point of origin, the concept centrism better describes the process of degeneration of Marxism toward reformism -

a process that was to be .epeated several times after Kautsky - than the labels "orthodox" and"revisionist! It does so becauge , in the 20th century, Marxism is not a series of truths and theories to be defended against bourgeois professors and systematicaliy explained to the working class: it is a guide to revolutionary action, In our epoch workiug class leaders no longer stand or fall by their ability to read"Capital" to the masses, but

by their programme, Centrism encompasses better than any other concept the process of programsatic degeneration which was a feature of Kautsky, and was to be a feature of the Stalinist Comintern anda the post war FI.

1917 to 1923

To describe the emergence of Kautskyite centrism is mot to exhaust the subject of centrism and the 2nd ITnternational. Towards the end of the war a

Centrism 4 different kind of centrism emerged = the centrism of the masses. Under pressure of defeat and extreme privations masses of workers in Europe were pushed away from their old social-chauvinist political leaderg in the direction of the newly founded 6ominterm, Oftem too, a section af the old Lleadersnaip was lixewise propelied leftward by the pressure of the newly radicalised mas@s,

Rather than fading away, as mignt be implied from Lenin's original definition of centrism, centrism was renewed by the leftward urge of the workers, Centrist parties, and centrist ‘factions within parties now emerged, The Comintern leaders saw them correctly as both an expression of and an obstawle to the movement of large numbers of workers towards communism, Tn combat with such forces, the Comintern. developed the concept of centrism from a specific characte,isation of Kautsky (one of the earliest centrist formations in this period was the . TSPD led by both Kautsky and Bernstein!) to a more general concept, Ia particular tne Italian "maximalists" of Serrati and later the Frossard-Cachin tendency within the French Communist Party were characterised as centrists.

Summing up the period of th> Comintern's programiatic struggle with leftward moving centrism, Trotsky wrote, Ll: March 1923: “After the war, an irresistible leftward movement set in amongst the working masses,.....the genuine revolutionary sectioa of the working class was unable in the space of a few months either to fine or educate new leacers., And it must be recognised that during its initial years the CI had many sectio.s headed by some leacers sho were revolutionary but inexperienced and not firm enough; and by others who were semi-revolutiscnary anc eternally . vaclillating but posessing considerable authority and political aptitudes.... the guala atitive sameness of the politics of Paul Levi, of Frossard and the rest shows that involved here are not at all peculiarities inherent 1. any specific situation ~- which of course must be carefully taken into account - but a wholly internationalist tendency in the spirit of left centrism, which bs preparec to adopt the external ritual of the CI, to swallow 21 and more conditions without a grimace, but all ou the sole condition that everytniug go on exactly 4s before, Trotsky Balance Sheet of the Completed Yer od

. First 5 Years of tae Comintern Vole p334 Monad,

With the crystallisation of « revolutionary comaunist programse and Internattonal, also came the crystallisation of "centrism" as a concept describing

a whole series of tendencies with the same essential features, Like the centrism of Kautsky , the centrism of 1917 to 1925 also had its material

roots - iu the transition of the masses from reform to revolutions, As with Kautsky, this centrism was not just derided and written off: over and above attempting to win the masses and their leadei's away from centrism, Trotsky recognised the "political aptitude"! of the leaders, as well as their political ineptness,

The defeat of the revolutionary wave after the first world war had the effect of stabilising tie mass movement, Where organised centrist currents continued to exist seperately from the Second ar“ Third I[aternationals they did so by virtue of their marginalisation fron ~ MASS PPESSuUres

However the defeat and stabilisotion post 1923 also, in an indirect way provided the conditions for tne emrgenco of yet another form of centrism: with different material roots to that of the end Iiuiternational but exhibiting many of the same features, This form of centrism cmerged from the Stalinist degeneration of the CowLatern itself,

The Centrist Comintern 1925 - 55_

Even before 1924 the Comintern's sections comiitced centrist errors. It is very important to understand the qualitative difference between these listakes

Centrism 5 *

«and the systematic centrism of the Comintern alter 1923. As we saw above, it was necessary to incorvorate leftward moving centrist elements into the early Comintern, Later, even before 1923, the ECCI itself presided over centrist vacillatious, such as that of “Ainoviev and Kun on the question of tho"revolutiomary offensive", and the mistakes of Levi i. Geimany,

Despite. .thig however, we describe the period or the first four congresses of the Comintern, from 1919 to 1923, as a healthy, revolutionary period. Why? Because in this period the Comintern was creating a revolutionary programme against which centrist errors c.uld be judged, and a leadership capable of judging them. The revolucionary legacy of the early Comintern is thus embodied in the theses and resolutiens of the first four congresses and in the work of the Comintern sectiogs in this period.

After 1923 a qualitative break occured. Starting with the German events of 192% the Comintern leadership a. a while became seriously disoriented. Between 1924 and 1925 the Comintern endorsed ultra-left, adventuristie “putsches" in Germany, Bulgaria and Estonia, At the same time it also developed bureaucratic and opportunis pacts with non-proletarian forces (eg. the foundation of the Peasant International), This right wing tendency increased and was consummated with the disastrous adaptation of the Sritish CP to the TUC Wefts" in the 1926 General Strike, then in the liquidation of the Chinese CP in the Kuomintang, which led to the crushing of the Chinese Revolution in 1927,

Following this defeat, and the expulsion of t:.e Trotskyist opposition, the Comintern again veered left, inaugurating the ‘Third Period", This again combined strident ultra-leftism (where Social Democracy was equated with fascism and

the United Front rejected) with accomodation to certain right-wing and bourgeois democratic figures; in the case of Germany even to risit wing national chauvinism,

The end result of the "Third Period" was the defeat of the German proletariat

at the hands of Hitler, and the rise of fascism, This in turn provoked a new opportunist swing in the Comintern's line, First of all in France, then as

a generalised tactic, the Comintern elaboratec the Popular Front strategy,

The rise of fascism made necessary for Stalinism an a lliance with so called Ndemocratic" capitalist parties, and with capitalist countries where "democracy" held sways Secause this involved the conscious and open betrayal of the workers of the "democratic" countries - such as the Stalin Lava} pact of 1945 which endorsed the "defence and security" of French Imperinlism - the Popular Front policy signalled the end of the Cémi.rtern's centrist period, Its evolution into a coOunter-revolutionary, reformist iauternational was complete, and its self-liguidation in 19443 already inevitable,

The Trotskyists , who formed the only consistent opposition to the Comiatern's centrism, were able tc pin-point the material roots of this centrist evolution in the state- and party- bureaucracy of the Soviet Union, The 1936 theses on "The Evolution of The Comintern" outlined this understanding:

"The two methods adopted by tne Comintern for handling the masses - on the one hand, unprincipled asiaptution to existiug circumstances and the bourgeois dsamocratic and petty bourgeois reformist parties, and on the Otner the sudden unpreparcd apoeals to the revolutionary instincts of the masses - have their roots in the social position ot the Soviet bureaucracy ( the Comintern bureaucracy being its obedient appendage), Owing to its social character, the Soviet bureaucwacy inclines to.ards adapting itself to the priveleged and exploiting sections of Soviet society (Kulaks, intellecthal strata, labour aristocracy). However as soon as tue development has reached a critical point, where these strata become so powerful socially that they threaten the bureaucrucy's position %f political privelege, the La&éter saves itself only by an ap»veal to the masses,"

The Evolution of the Comiatern Documents of the FI p 119-120

Pathfinder,

For this reason Trotsky adapted the label "bureaucratic centrism" for the

Centrism 6 ‘

Comintern in the period 1923 - 1935, Although originaring in the vacillating petty bourgeois interests of the Soviet bureaucracy, Comintern centrism exhibited all the classic features of previous centrist groupings, It vacillated between reformism and revolutionism, violently swung between ultra-left and ae opportunist errors, elevated Leninism into a rigid orthodoxy whilst

sparting from it at every turn. Like previous centrist formatious however it al o contained competent leaders, wus akbhe to make correct criticisms ef reformism, syndicalism anarchism; it educated cadres in Marxism and provided thousands of heroic martyrs for the revolutionary cause,

As webl as illustrating yet another type of centrism, the Cominterm contains other valuable lessons, The tactics of the International Leit Opvosition toward the centrist Comintern passed through different stages, taking account of

the qualitative phases within the Comintcrn's centrist evolution,

Throughout all tue defeats which the CI presided over, through all the left and visht zig-zags, and even despite their official expulsion in 1928, Trotsky and his followers remained loyal to the Comintern, They argued this was necessary as long as the possibility of reforming the Comintern existed, They argued

that the existence of masses of subjectively revolutionary workers, particularly in Germany, within the CPs, offered _ the possibility or a return to

the revolutionary programme elaborated in the flirt five years, under the pressur of the masses. Following the defeat of the Yerman workers in 1933 Trotsky abandoned this perspective, Not simply because of the deieat itself, but because

no section cther than the ILO criticised the Comintern's errors from a revolutio nary standpoint, With the destruction of the KPD, the Comintern's biggest section outside the USSR, the Cl was un-regenerable from within. From July 1933 Trotsky argued for the creation of a new International,

It is important to understand here that Trotsky" ‘'s break with the CI did not come at the point it became centrist; neither did he declare for a new Inter-

national because the CI had “crossed class lines" in the manner of the

2nd Ltaternational in 1914, the break occured because the Comintern had preved

itself incapable of being reformed from within, It was unredeemably centrist,

this fact has important implications when we come to look at the FI after the

Ware

1933-1938 Trotskyism vs Centrism

The task of building the Fourth ITaternational was made especially defficult by the need to combat the various shades of centvism which now existed. On the

one hand there remained the Comintern, on the other the e were elements af the “right opposition" who had been expelled frou the CI in the "Third Period" and who had - because they too were centrists - made some correct criticisms of the CotiLatern, As well after 19434 there occured yet another mass movement cf the Sovial Democratic worke+s towards the left, under the threat of fascism and during severe economic depression, This in turn created centrist formations with in amd ou the fringes of the end International: the followers of Pivert ia the French SFIO, a section of the British ILP, Muste in the USA etc.

Faced with such a panoply of centrism, Trotsky was driven to write in 1944: "For a revolutionary Marxist tne struggle against reformism is now almost fully replaced by the strugs se against centiisa,"

In the struggle against centvism of the mid 1930s lrotsky further..coneretised and developed the Marxist understanding of centrism, This mature conception, outlined in the writings of the period as well ag in the day to day tactital relationship of the MFI (Movement for the Fourth International) to various centrist groups, is extremely useful to us today,

In his article "Centrism and the Fourth Taternational", Trotsky outlined the general features of centrism as it existedaq in 1944, Despite the difficulties outlined before of precisely defining centrism, it is worth quoting this passage in full, It will strike a chord imuediately with any critical observer of the British left, and of the SLL/WRP tradition in particular:

Centrism 7

"ag, Theoretically ,centrism is amorphous and eclectic: so far as possible it evades theoretial obligations and inclines (in words) to give preference to "revolutionary practice" over theory, without understanding that only “arxist theory can impart revolutionary direction to practice,

b, In the sphere of ideology centrism leads a parasitic existence, It repeats against the revolutionary “arxists the old Menshevik argu ments (Martov, Axelrod, Plekhanov), usually without suspecting this, On the other hand, its main arguments against the right it borrows from the Marxists, that is first of all from the Bolshevik -beninists. dulling however, the sherp edge of criticism and avoiding practical conclusions, thoreby rendering ~ . . thelr criticism meaningles

c, A centrist readil y proclaims his hostility to reformism, but

he does not mention centrism. Morcover he considers the very definition of centrism as "unclear", ite aa? etc; Lnother words centrism does not li:e to be called by its name

a A contrist, always unce tain of his position and his methods, vicws with habred the revolutionary principle: state what is. He is inclined to substitutes for a principled policy “personal mancuvring and petty organisational diplomacy.

e, A centrist always remains in spiritusl dependence on rightist groupings and is inclined to cringe before those who are more moderate, to remain siilcnt on their opportunist sins and to cover up their actions before the workers

£, The centrist rrequently covers up his dawdling by refering to the danger of sectarienism, by which he understands not abstract propagan-~- dist passivity (of tho Bordigist type) but the active concern for purity of principles, clarity of position, political consistency and erganisational completeness,

g, A centrist occupies a position between an opportunist and a Marxist some what analogous to that which a petty bourgeois occupies between a ‘capitalist and a proletarian; he kow tows before the first and has contompt for the second,

hs On the intevnational arona, the centrist distinguishes himself

if not by blindness then by shortsightednoss, He docs not understand that in the present epoch a national revolutionary party wan be built only as part of an intcrnatioial party. In the choice of his inter national allies, the centrist is evom less discriminating than in his Own country.

1. A contrist secs in the policy or the Comintern only "ultra left" deviations, adventurism and putschism , lgnoring completcly the right opportunist zie-za,s (Kuomintang, Anglo-Russian Comuittec, pacifist foreign policy,, antifascist bloc etc)

je A centrist swears reacily by the policy of the united front, emptying it of its revoluticnary content and transforming it from a tactical method into a supreme principle,

k, A centrist readily resorts to pathetic moralising to c over up his idcological cmptiness; he does not tnderstand that revolutionary morality can be formed only on the basis of revolutionary doctrine and rewolutionary policy

Under the pressure of circumstance, the eclectic centrist may accept even the most extreme conclusions only to retreat from them after wards in practicc,...?

Trotsky Writings 33/34 p235-236

Notwithstanding its latter-day period of sectarian isolation, who can fail to sco in these lines the SLL/VRP? Who cither can fail to distinguish the character traits of the Thornctt Group, the SLG, the Sprtacists in Trotsky's pen-portrait of contrism?

Contrisn 8

In addition to this gencral dortinition of contrism we also find Trotsky ‘ exploring , in the 305, » some of the "further subdicvisions" of centrism which arc also important for an .undcuwst andi ng of today's centrism:

a, Lert and ad righ. centrism

nder the pressur. of the masses some of the Socirl Democratic leaders wore prepared to step out of their reformist garb. and put on tne clothes of centrisa. In nis 1934 Manifesto "Jar and tho FI" Trotsky drew a distinction between 'maskcd reformist or right contrists" end the "loft centrists who are distinguished in turn by a. great number of shadings",

lrotsky coxposed the right centrists (Such as De Men) as wanting to drag in the defonee of the fatherland "under the cover of s socialist plan", Whereas the left centrists "arrive in wots at the denunciastio: of the defence of the fatherland, But frow tais bare denunciation they do not draw tke neccessary practical conclusivuas." (Writings 33/34 p 311)

ica the direction c of centrist formations On top of the characteriration ‘lcft" and ‘right", Trotsky also carefully distinguished between leftward and rightward moving centrism, This is crucial, since a concept which encompasses transition would be uselese if it didnt have 2 sub-categiry which told us the direction of transition, As Trotsky wrote: "Tn front of cach contrist group it is necessary to plac. an arrow indicating th direction of its development from right to left or from left to right," Trotsky Writings

In turn the ability to distinguish betwoon leftward and rightward moving centrdiem dictated the tactics the FI adopted towards the various groupings, For example Trotsky bitterly criticised the POUM of Spain which was the result of Min and Andrade's evolution away from Trotskyi sm. He dbd not flinch from 2 split with Nin, and advocated the formationa of an independent nucleus in . Spain, Towards the American Workers Party of A J Muste however - a leftward mOoVing organisation - the Trotskyists carried through o tactic of fusion,

We took a liberal “ and conciliatory attitude on the organisation questions, reserviiag our iatransigence for che question of programme", wrote Gannon of the CLA's fusion with Mustc,. (History of American Tr otskyism plg1)

c, the centrism of the masses and "ossified! centrism Trotsky often contrasted the spontaneous and temporary contrism of the working class with the systupatic contrism of the leacers and of small groups, He wrote , in the war manifesto: for example: "For the masses contrism is always only a short transition strget, The consciousness of the working class evelves rapidly and under fire; its centrism, its uncertmtics are

very quickly put to the test.

On the othe. hand , despite the fact that centrism is essentbhnlly a transitional phenomenon; it is possible for centrist tendencics to cxlst fo prolonged periods, provided the class stiug.le doesn't confront them with a decisive cYoice between revolution and counterrevoiution; defcentisn or chauvinism etc,

ds carly es 1925 Trotsky had described this type of centrism , with regard to the British ILP: oe "The main feature of socialist centrism is its reticence, its mediocre half-and-half nature, It keeps going as long as it does not draw the ultimate conclusions and is not compelicd to answer the basic , questions set bi fore it point blank,......as 2 rule contrism is most typicnl of small organisations which precisely through their lack of influence absolve themselves from the necd to provide a clear answer to all questions of politics and bear practicel respneibility for this answer. Just such is the, contrism of the Tnudependent Lvbour Party. Trotsky where is Britain Going? pile New Park

He returned to the subject of “ossified!" centrism agein in 1945 ln more general

Ventrisn 9 ‘ » terms: "Tn cur epoch there are to be found a good many circles Yn various countries that have aquired a Marxist programec, most often by borrowing it

from the Bolsheviks, and w..o0 then turned their _ ideological baggage into tgreater or lesser degree of ossification,"

Trotsky Writings 35/36 pl5

The concept of "“ogsificd "centrism is important in our snaelysis of post war trotskyism., It is an apparent contradiction ii terms: a transitory phenomenon frozen by objective circumstances in its process Of transition, However, neither for ts nor for Trotsky does this centradict the essential feature of contrism - ic that it is a process of change from Beform to revolution OH vico versa, Neivher is such a phenomenon unknown elsewhere ia Marxist theory: ono immediately callsto mind the dictatorship of the proletariat as Lt exists today ia the USSR: frozen, blocked in its transition to socialism,

Trotsky wrote of the ILP, which had assumed office in the Labour government of 1924, "From the very moment that cuntrism became a political force it had to pass beyond the bounds of coutrism, that is cither draw revolution ary conclusions f om its opposition to the Imperinlist state or openly

enter its service, The lattes cf ceurse is wht happened, "

Trotsky Where is Sritain Going?

In this instance the ILP's prolonged centrist existence came to a close when it assumed power,

However, returning to the ILP which by 1932 had become again a distinctly centrist current (it hed split with the Labour Party) , Trotsky wrote:

"The bureau suffers the fate of all centrist organisations in times of acute class struggle; it is destroyed by the release of contri fugal forces within itsclf,...,H#istory could not arrange a better demonstratiou of the correctness of our undurstanding of ccntrisn," Trotsky Writings 35/36 p207

Unlike the masses! ccontrism, which is always transitory, it is possible for ‘small organisations to exist as centrist curronts relatively "ossified", stabilised by their isolation from the class struggle. Howcver when decisive questions are posed in action such forces must complete their cvolution cither in the manner of 1923 (by crossing class lines) or in the manner of the 1930's (when the ILP's centrifugal forces propelled a section towards the FI),

The concept of contrism

We have revicwed at length the history of the concept ccntrism, So much has becn lost or given away by the post war cpigknes of Trotsky that such a revicw is absolutely necessary before we attempt to enploy"ccntrism" as a tool to understand the degeneration of the Fourth International, Inthis way we can make analogies and comparisons , but avoid the dangers of tcomplacent" and Yfaciie" comparison referred to by M. Banda.

Let us sum up what we mean by centrism:

1) Centrism is a political current in transition betwcen rceformism and revolutionary communism,

2) It can emerge from cither Marxism or reformism and travel in cither direction,

%) Insofar as it exists seperately from these two currents, contrism borrows from and vacillates aa between both, always blinding and obstructing the pliitienL devclopment of the working class.

4) Centrism cannot exist forever in this state, however wh ire material circum stances absolve it from practical responsibility for igs politics , centrisnm can exist in a prolonged "ossificd" state,

5) Centrism has no historic roots in citho: the bourgeois or prolctatian classcse

@) It is necessary to understand the diffcrent phases, types , and directions of centrism in order to operate Marxist tactics townrds it,

Centrism 19

Now let us turn to the FI after Trotsky's death: the subject of many words . from both Banda and Hunter, but not a great deal of "dialectical thinking",

The FL, from Trotskyism to Centrism

Mike Banda was correct to warn against facile analogies in his article "27 Reasons....", How oftom have we heard the Mandslites Winge, during yet an-. other "unity" drive: "when did we commit our August 1914?" But we cannot abandon analogies and comparisons; only compla LCcEency.

The problem with Pand's document, to date the most criticnl account of the post-war BT to emerge frou the wre is that is fails to distinguish betwecn the various 5 Stages of the FLlis degsneration, It is not much mor. than a list of crimes committcd not only by the IC and IS, but «also the post war FI,

the FI after 1940, and in the case of Cannon, apparcntly as carlyu.as

1934/5, What is missing is precisely the concept centrism and an understand - ing of its different sub-svecies and phases,

We believe that the FI in 1938 was the one and only revolutionary party, Whatever the mistakes mad: by the constituent groups of the MFI, whatever mistekes made after 1938 - and there were some during trotsky! S “Lifetime - the FI was a revolutionary orgar nisatiou precisely in the sane way as the early Comintern: by virtue of its programuc ond the: existence of a leadorship which embodied that programse, put it into practice, checked the crrors

and vacillations of its members agnimst this programmatic criterion,

The outbreak of war disoricntca tne FI as did the murder of Protsky and

some Of his most capable followcrs by Stalinism and "ascism Eygmuon comni ted contrist crrors on the prolctarian milite rx policy, and thé/7French and British sections mirrored each other in opoowPunis and sectrriLan application of the programmc of rovolutionary de foatis Le

By 1944 however, at the Tntornatlonai Confcrene., the FI was able to reoricn tate itself on a evolutionary basis, It set about reconstructing an interNational leadership and iatervening in the post war upsurge, In the maclstrom from 1938 to 1948 the FIs rovolutionary programme was a beacon to the workers of the world, whatever ad st-kus it wade in this poriod it was fundamentally revolutionary,

After 1948 however, the FI again became disoricnted, It had failed to revise its perspectives to take account of the post-war political stabilisation of stalinism and imperialism, As - rusult it saw ia the TitoeStaelin split and the Cold war only a confirmation of the old perspective of imminent collapse, imminent revolution ~ correct in 1938, but no longer accurate ten years, anda A world war , later.

Based on a perspective that saw first Tito and then Mao ag "no longer

Stalinist", that saw the Yugoslav events as a slightly imperfect proletarian

eebmennte and that predicted the imsinent War. / Revolution, the Pablo adership of the FI revised the Merxist programe, The lack of time to

but la real Trotskyist parties, the necessity of long torm dcep entry into

Stalinist and potty bourgcois movements, the possibility of an cpoch

of ‘worke:s governments of workers parties" lec Tite style social overturns,

all were cnshrincd in the Yugoslavie resolution of the FI's 1951 Congress,

Unlike the Comintern the FI had never been in reality 2 mass organisation. Its strength lay in its progranmc alone. The utter negation of Trotskyign which it adopted in ly5. , and the fact that no tendency or section correctly criticised the Yugosiav Resolution, signal the passing of the

FI decisively into its centrist phrese, From then on it would have becn nece~ ssary to form a factlLon, conduct an open fight for leadership and not to flinch from a split and the formation of a new international organisation,

. : centrism 11

It is undoubtedly correct to label Pabloism centrism, Whilst proclaiming allegiance to Bolshevik-lLeninism it accomodated voraciously , first to otalinism ana then to petty bourgeois nationalism, “Whilst in posession of the panner of the Fourth International it also projected long term entry into the parties of the dissolved Comintern, It was, in conformity with Trotsky's definition, "Amorphous and eclectic", it "substitutcd for a principled policy, personal maneuvring and petty organisational diplomacy", It "romained silent on the opportunist sins" of Tito and Mao, and "covered up Bheir actions before the workers", In transforming the entry tactic and the workers government demand into strategic alns, Pabloism cmbodiedc to the letter Trotsky's dictum: ‘ WA contrist re.dily swears by the policy of the united front,

cmptying it of its revo utionary content end transforming it «

froma tactical method into 2 supreme principle,"

Trotsky see above p77.

If it is correct tuo call Pabloism centrism however, is it not truc that the

IC split with that contrism in 1953? fos it split with 'Pabloism" but mot with centrism, The IC never criticised tne 1951 Congress resolutions which were

the programmatic basis of "Pabloisn", Ef Pabloism wns ‘irovisionist" then the Northodoxy" of the "Open Letter" and "Undiur a stolen flag" was: the orthodoxy of a’ Kautsky, a Zinoviev, It covered up rank adeptation to Bevanism in Britain and to Social Democracy in France, The insult "ligquidationist" aimed at Pablo disguised the liquidation by Healy of British trotskyism into the Lebour Icft. And by 1964 the SLL was working with a perspective overy bit as catastrophist as that of Pablo's 1951 prognosis.

The 1953 split, as we have said before, occured simultancously too early and too late, It occured witnout a principled fight within the International, and was largely prompted by the breakup of the international non-aggression pact that substituted for democbatie ccntralism ta the FI. On the other hand it occured long after ‘the critical resolution on Yugoslavia was passed at the '51 Coneress,.

One objection to this analysis which oftem arises is the following: "if you are quick to abandon the FI, to call for the formation of a new International aftor 1951, how do yeu explain its existence ag a centrist current for 35 years. Is not csntrism anly a transitory phenomenon?"

The answer to this has two sides, both completely in accord with lrotsky's definition of centrism,

We describe the fragments sad splinters of the FI as "ossified’ or "petrificd" centrism, Le centrism which by virtue of its isolation fron the masses

can remain in limbo between reformism and communism, The possibility and precedent for such 1 cevelopment is outlined in Trotsky's writings on the ILP, i4 both carly 1920s and mid 20s, reviewed above. Lo tthe question, how can centrism become "stable" in such a way, we answer; in thc samc way as reformism and stilinism after the war: on the basis of the most gigani c economic growth in werld history under capitalism , and on the basis of

the defeat of the revolutionary upsurge after 1944,

On‘the other hand, such centrism cannot romain stable forever, After two decades of relative stagnation the splits and disintegration suffercd by

the centrist currents in Britain in the heat of a new period of erisis testify to this. Under the pressure of key events it is possible for "ossificd" centrism to dissolve in cither direcvion, The example of the LSSP in Sri Lanka whose historic "August 1914" occured in 1964 whan they entcred the SandaParas he, Soverament proves this. So, converscly,may the WRP, in its future

The SLL/WRP as contri sin

Wo have outlined elscwhere our criticisms of the SLL/WRP. That it "made mistakes" is , fortunately not in dispute, the guestion still at issue however is: what was the character of those mistxrkes, The answer to this question

is linked fundamentally with thé question of the WRP's future,

Contrism 12 ; By trying to prove the SLL/WRP was centrist we are not implying that the whole hls tory of the organisatian must be written off; we are not attenpting to eliver the WRP the ultimate insult; neither are we simply trying to "stick a label" |. on the WRP, Lenin and Trotsky s understanding of contrism was able to encompass its positive 25 well as its negative chk ments,

vhen the SLL/WRP criticiscd Pabloism, built strikes and shop stewards organisations, defondec Trotskyism agaisnt "state capitalist" theories etc they

were fighting a necessary fight ; they were on the bight side of the battle lines, but fighting with inadequate political wonmp ons, That is why the fight

agaist "Pabloism" evelved into a criminsl slender campaign, that is why the fight against "liquidation" ended up with the ee ean ae that no revolution ary party was ne vded in Libya etc,; that is why the ATUA became a sterile and

sectarian shell; that is why the jSLL itelf ended up with - form of state capitalist analysis of Cuba,

The alternatives ° .to understanding centrism as the root of the WRPts political crisis - still not resolved decisively six months aftcr the expulsion of Healy - were cemonstrated graphically in the original Banda/Hunter exchange, For Banda the FE's demise was the product of totally subjective factors; the inadequacy of the cadre etc, Hunter wa s right to label this a Mbhad men" theory of history, For this , however, Hunter ‘subs tituted a "bad circumstances" thoory, The FI's degeneration was secn as the inevit-ble result of adverse objective conditions, The boom, the isolation from the masses, the strength of stalinism anc

reformism mean for Hunter thet "we made mistakes but wo could have done it

no other way". Both positions are fundamentally one sided and un-dialectical, Both are fatalistic.

The concept centrism on the other hand is profoundly dialectical, It allows

us to see the materisl roots of the past mistakes without ondowing them with Nobjective’ inevitobility, It also allows us to characterise the stages of

the FI's ccgencoration in a way not attempted by Banda, It allows us to understand wh en ond how quantitative mistakes become qualitative centrisn

and how centrism itself, posed in practiuc with vital questio ns, must make another leap -cither back into the camp @f the proletarian revolution or into the camp of its enemics,

The WRP, posed with such vital questions during the miners strike, entered into a period of political crisis still not ondec. The key to projecting

a revolutionary future for the WRP , for resolving positively its centrist period, lies in the ro-elaborxtion of a transitional programme for today's class struggle, One of the most vital pre-requisites for this is a scicntific undurstandidng of the WRPts past as c€ntrism,

Cuntrism is th concept which ¢evel oped in the cpoch of revolution, in the epoch of transitional progvamies, It ceveloped to cope with the reality that

a correct understanding of Marxist "orthodoxy", of cconomic theory, even of

the materialist dialectic was no guarantee of programnetic correctness, As

a concept it devclopecd historically, as we have outlined, It developed, like

all human thought "post festum" ~ aftcr the cvent., This incidentally explains why the charge. that we call Lenin or Trotsky "centrist" before 1914 is complctely unfounded. To mensure the leavers of the past agninst/programiatic yardstick which could only exist ilu the present would be completely anti-Marxist,

However with the post-war FI it is a differcnt mattor, In the tase of Pablo;

in the case of Cliff and Grant, Mandcl and Gannon,in the case too of Healy, Banda, Hunter and co. the "yardstick" already cxisted, It was the Transitional Programme and the whole history of lrotsky's fight with Stelinism and Refurmisn. the task we face is to rue-erect it, re-elaborate it for today. We cannot do

this unless we understand how it was possible for thesc Loacers to proclaim allegiance go that programe in words and systematically negate . it in ceeds, In this lics the burning importance ofthe concept centrism" and its

"fu rther subdivishons' for the current dcbatcs in the WRP,

THE POLITICS OF SOCIALIST VIEWPOINT.

The Healy leadership of the WRP left a trail of individuals and groups wha were bullied, _-beaten and. eventually bureaucratically excluded from the “INP for the ‘crime’ of raising political differences, Political argument with oppositions was cut short by denouncing them as agents of another group, the police, or of both.

The most siynificant ogposition dealt with in this way was thot araund Alan Thornett, expelled in December 1974. It is to be welcomed that the bureaucratic method of dealing with Thornett and supporters is being ropudiated by tho post-Healy WNP. The way is cleared to WRE members making a political estinate of Thurnett's politics as part of the spon discussion.

Host WNP meabers will not have followed the political evolution of this tendency since 1974. We think it worth while studying the Thornett group's critique of the International Comaittae as ‘well as its method of work in the Sritish labour wovement. We do so not because ue recommend it to WAP members but because at the moment a political vaccuum exists in the fragiented URP. A process of rethinking issues and re-education is in process. During it real dangers exist for the YAP. In essence the danger is that a partial critique of the JRP/IC tradition will lead the WRP into a repetition of earlier mistakes. Rejection of Healy's latter-day suctarianism could lead ta an embrace with opportunism. THe history of Thornett's yroup is a graphic illustration of this danger becoming a reality. Socialist Viewpoint, the Thornett oroup's wagazine, is permeated with opportunist politics. ;

After the expulsion from the WR the majority of the tuo hundred comraces hounded, by Healy

_fored the Norkers Socialist League (WSL). Eleven years leter Thornett's group is considerably

_simaller. Six years of publishiny Socialist Press (1975-61) followed by three years af cohabiting with Matganna (1981-64) have witnessed this groupin, - garticularly from the late 1970's - lurch from crisis to crisis.

After the split with “otganna the group re-emerged in late 1934 as the Socialist Group. It has subsequently published 12 issucs of the journal Socialist Viewpoint.

THE FI AND THE TRANSITIONAL PROGRAMME

in the period 1974-75 the main plank of Thornett'’s opposition in the AP was the claim that in the late 1960's and early 1979s the SLL/WRP abandoned the use of the Transitional Programme in the class struggle. From first hand experience of the UL plant at Cowley > Thurnett realised the utter bankruptcy of the SLL's imaximalist demands baszd an rempant ‘economic catastrophisin’ and scenarios of imminent military coups. a. Yet within Thornett's call for a ‘return to the Transitional Prograame' there were tuo major flows. First, the idea that Trotsky's 1933 vrogramme wos a self-sufficient yuide to the interventions of a group in tacay's class struggle. The new problass posed since the programme was written received scant attention from the 1.5L. Secondly, the idea that the SLL had applied this programe ‘correctly before the sectarian deyeneration. In 19793 these errors were amplified and their consequence made clear when the WSL wrote the Poisoned Well - their contribution to the history of the Fourth International. oe This document correctly recognised that the 1553 split in the FI was primarily an oryanisational one, not based un clear political differences. Yet its grave weakness was to associate the political problems of the FI with the triumph of ‘Pabluisu’. While not the product of one jan, Pabloism was "a method . . . which has . . . an objective material source”. In particulor "it reflects the ideological approach of the petty-bourgesis’. This simplistic view, of course, fails te examine scientifically the stayes and forms in which the Trotskyist programe was distorted and revised. Crucially the WSL abandoned the use of the warxist concept of centrism and, by stages, replaced it with the idea of a ‘world family of Trotskyisn”. It was argued that Pabloism - marginelised from the class anc cazzled by Stalinism'’s expansion ~ misled the FI into abandoning the 1938 programme. However, the various fragments of the FI that “emerged from the 1953 split - includiny so called Pabloites like the Mandelite International group _in Britain today - continued to ‘oscillate’ around the Transitional Programme. The task the WSL therefore set itself was not to combat centrism, but to win the oscillating fragments back te the 1938 principles that they formally, adhered ta. This could Se achieved through continuing the international Committee's supposed tradition of ‘orienting to the working class'; that is repeatedly stressing the importance of the social composition of the party and counterposing it to programmatic correctness. Thus, in their dealings with the “oreno/Lambert unity circus in 1900/31, they soft-pedalled their criticisms of these charlatans because, after all, their organisations contained

quite a few workers, and it ‘oscillated’ around the TP.

Against this we repeat Trotsky's maxim - programme first! After all, the Cochranite faction in the 39P(U5) uss proletarian and Liquicationist. The L55® in Sri Lanka was a wnass workers! organisation and entered a gopular front. Lora's Pon (Golivia) had the backing of many Jolivian miners, but that organisation still managed to cagitulate to the netionalist NNR in 1952. The HSL were ‘true heirs to the IC's use of workerism.to cover: for bankrupt politics.

The WSL’s analysis led them to create a false dividing line to be set up betucen *Pabloisn’ ans anti-Pabloism. This was enshrined in the founding docunent of the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee (TILC) in 1979, the WSL's attemt to reconstruct o Trotskyist International. This document statad:- ,

“We critically defend those furces - initially in the International Committee - that took,

however partially anc inadequately, a stand in defence of the task of constructing independent

Trotskyist parties..."

Sut as we have shoun elsewhere (See Death Agony of the F.I., Workers Power “%o. G0 and 01.) This was alainly net. 2 feature of the International Committee. Healy's gross opportunism in Socialist Qutlook and after that. around Tribune gives lic ta this.

In turn, the reueneration of the Fourth International and revolutionary regrougwent could thus teke place simaly on the basis cf a conmon affirmation that the Transitional Programme is correct, a snared commitaant to apply it and a daclaoration in favour of ‘independent Trotskyist partics'. Tho staging er, or intervening in ‘open conforencest of the oscillating fragments was the TILC's method of rebuilding a ravolutionery international. It failed because it did not fate up to the fact that open conferences with the centrist frayaents of the FI are no substitute for the difficult but necessary task of programmatic re-olavoration. This alame can cut through the web of centrist confusion. It will expose the mollowness of centrism's oft-repeated clains to ‘stand-by’ (‘trample on,’ they should say) the principles of the Transitional Progranme.

With the WRP Central Committee now committed to holding a similar ‘open’ pre-conference later in 1906, there is a danger that this approach will be repeated. UMP mombers need to ve rewinded of the catastroghic consequences that this apyroach his ‘nad for Thornett'’s group, before they contenglste a ro-run.

THE SPLIT BETWEEN PRINCIPLES AND TACTICS

Workers Power criticised the founding document of the TILC, The Transitional Programme in Today's Class Struggle, because it confined itself to ‘rovolutionary principles’ and was cuntant to leave to the future their 'tactical' implementation. This was fatal.

A programme anc its ‘principles’ are tustud in struggle. Major tactics cannat %e@ saarated from orinciples, perspectives and strategy. It is one ‘thing ta sgree on what the Yorkers Gevernnent tactic means, fin general’. ‘But how should it have becn applied in Portugal (1975), Chile (1973). Reformism can be cursed by all manner af centrists in the abstract - but what about the contrete application of. the ruovolutisnary critique with regards to the British Ladour Party and its left-wing. .

It is one thing to auree on the nature of trade unions under capitalism and the need for ‘comTMunist leadership within: thea. Gut what lessons are to be draun frum the experience of the SLL's ATUA or the 6P's Rank and File Movement. What form dags the united front take in the unions? Haziness on such a question can - and has cone - lead to uncritical susaort for left oureaucrats, Differences of ‘tactical application’ in key uyuestions reveal differences of Solitical method. Systematic differences over key tactics oxpose differences of programme. They expase the dividing line between cantrism and revolutionary warxism. .

Having rejected tlealy's slavish acagtation to Gaddafi, do the WRP iembers now envisage inviting Ernest Manel ta an Open Conference to hear him agree with Cliff Slaughter to 'stand by! the First Four Congresses of the Comintern, the Transitional Programae and the theory of Porinanent Ravolution? How ludicrous this would be given that in South Africa, and to name but the must recent example, Micaragua, tandel has shamelessly abandoned in oractice the programme of Permanent Revolution. :

The formation of the TILC on this profoundly mistaken method was to be Followed by the fusion of Matyamnats International: Communist League (I-CL) andthe ‘ISL in 1951. Thornett broke of f discussion with Workers Power in favour of agreeing to ‘abanclon sectarianism’. That is, he was as mesmerised as Matgaina by ‘the Bennite movement in the Labour Party and wanted a piece of the action, Thus he was prepared to agree to differ over the application of principles to such issues cs Afghan+ istan, Poland and Ireland. We predicted that such differences could not be buried and that the class

1S)

struggle would split the misbegotten new USL apart.

The Alvinas wer erupted in 1962. Simall matters such as the nature of imperialism, the characterisation of Argentina as a semi-colony (er nut) - the ‘general yrinciples' - that had been left on the table at tha time of the fusion started ta blow the TILC (1883) and the new HSL (1954) agart. The failure to put politics First. led to an egisede that has demoralised cadre who wanted: to be revolutionaries, and left the Thornett grou» much weaxer than it was in 1574. Unfortunately, to-date Thornett and bis co-leader John Lister, have leurned very little From this cpaisode. They subsequently insisted that:

"St was a principled fusion between tuo groups . . » between which there were no programmatic

and theoretical differences which could net be contained in a single organisation, providing

a healthy democratic regime could be: established." (SV 1)

The failure of the fusion is gut down entirely to Matganna's "bod Faith’, his ‘cynical maneouvring! ang abuse of their democratic rights. All this was perfectly true - what is more having exporienced it first band in the ICL. Hurkers Power warned tho ‘ISL of what was likely to happen. Sut it is a statenent af vankruptcy to admit that if they hac been in a minority in a healthy organisation they would loyally write for and sell a paper (Socialist Organiser - sponsored by the WSL) which openly esuoused social-pacifism in the Galvinas war, capitulated ta Sritish inpericlis m, and declared itself on one occasion ta be a Bennite paver!

THE POST-SPLIT PERIOD

Socialist Viewpoint was launched six months into the Ufi's Great Strike. How did Thornett and ca. measure up to the challonge it provided for a revolutionury bryanisation? | How well dic Socialist Viewpoint apply its yrasp of the rele of Trotskyists in «= momentous trade union struggle which constantly threw up urgent political tasks? ,

At first glance there were many apsects of their analysis and goerspective which Workers Power shared; the criticisas of the war of. attrition approach of the UH leadership (i.e. ‘General Winter will come to the rescue’), the role of the TUC in helping isolate the 7 from the rest of the labour movement, the suport for wives supuort yrougs, the call for a Genoral Strike ayainst soquetration and the arrti-union laws. .

doverthaless, the key strategic problem facing the WU and those who supsorted them was this. Given the need for industrial. solidarity action as the ksy to victory for the UM and giver the TUC's treacherous role, how could the necessary solidarity action have been generalised and pgustained. Yorkers Powor had a consistunt apgroach to this problem from day one of the strike. Despite Arthur Scargill’s intransigence, his refusal to concede to the HCI's demands, his refusal (for the first six months) to yive the TUC any control over the strike + Scargill remeined essentially a left trade union official with all that that entailed.

His chosen weapons of struggle were to urge, cajole and browbeat ather trade union officials into delivering support. By diplomatic deals and backstair maneouvres he attempted to get around the roecblock of the TUC. Ho Failed.

Ho did so because he refused to break the rules of the game governing relations betwoen trace unison officials. He refused to yo over the heads of the other unien leaders by orysnising and appealing to their rank and file membership directly. At best he gave an occasional nod and a wink.

ore importantly, we did net need ta waik for the miners' strike to be defeated ta realise Seargill’s limitations. History provided us with a very Similar one with regard to Arthur Cooke in the strike in 1926. Moreover, on a host of occasions, Scargill had demonstrated his political

_character in previous struyyles while Yorkshire Presirlent. He was a militant, perhaps the most wili-

tant left reformist. Hence, the essential zriority of revolutionary communists was to build a militant minority wovement. That is an oryanisation of rank and file miners rootes in each vit and connected up across the coalfields with the riecessary authority and political programme to go beyond Seargill's leadership when necessary, to take the contral of the strike out of the hands of any section of the NUM bureaucracy -that backslided, The absence of such a movement left the best militants fatally reliant on Scargill. . .

The existing aus laft was not such an arganigation. As we said in our pamphlet Where Next For The NUM? .

"Since the formation of the NUM the left has generally organised itself as an electoral

machine gearing to securing posts for left officials. We must break with that tradition. We

need a movement that mabilises the rank and file as more than electoral fodder. It must be able to hold all officials to account and act independtly to initiate struggle and change." Thornatt’s group renounced this perspective. While they meade sound criticisms of Scargill they

refused to intervene to orqanise the rank and file to go beyond him. They confined thanselves to urging a change of course upon hims "The NUM leadership remains determined . . . but needs to rise to the new situation.” (SV 2)

Thornett at the flineworker Defence Conference in February 1965 voted against resolutions which out~ lined a rank and file narspective and then blocked with the SUM bureaucracy in a floundering situation where elenents of a rank and file opposition existed, out needed organising.

Against this perspective ‘Secialist Viewpoint fetishised the call for a Recalled TUC Congress after October 1904 as a way of breaking the loyjan. Appeals to the General Cuncil were scorned as useless, but in its place they wrongly believed thot the pressure of the rank and file syinpathy for the strike could make the Congress dominated) by trade union officials, the same men who had ensured that no real solidarity was declared :ta the Mi after September 1604, would as if by magic, respond ta the MUia's call for action. . *

Socialist Viewpoint believed that the main task in the strike was to shift the TUC in the belief that if the TUC were forced to call action in support of the SUA the rank and file trade unionists would be more than willing to follow that lead. The poor response to the TUC's ODay of Action in 1981 indicates howu false a view this is. Only the activity of the rank and file on the yround, pitting its weight against TUC reluctance and media hostility, could have made sure that a General Council call was responded ta.

Secondly, Thornatt's group failed to realise that the chance of pushing o re-called TIC to the left - given the make up of the cealegates - precisely depended on a rank and file network in place and applying the necessary pressures on the delegates.

The real solution - that of organising the MUS members to act as an army of propagandists and agitatars in the workplaces of other trades unionists across the country to win them to direct action, was lost on Socialist Viewpoint. They refused to advocate this road because it would have meant incurring the wrath of the HUN leadershig and make them break with their role as left advisors/critics of Scargill.

The Great Strike at least proved the hollovness of Socialist Viewpoint's claim in its first issue thats ;

“We see the fight for Trotskyist politics taking shape . . . (not) simply tailing behind this

or that "left' talking trade union or LP dignitary ... " (f.1)

This quote together with the experience of the 1934/5 strike indicated that the political method of Thornett's grouy bas not chanced since the varly years of the WSL. At that time their strategic slogan was (inheritud in part from the SLL) "Nake the lefts fight'. We criticised this slogan because it falsely difforuntiated between demands on the left leaders and the right to whom they are ticd. It implies a necessary stage of left leadership. ‘tlorse, when the ‘lefts’ do fight, the WSL trailed along behind them, happy to accept the reformist limits of that struggle even if heroically pursued, as in Seargill's case.

Since the end of the strik: Socialist Viewpoint has uncritically followed behind Scargill in his attonot to ward off the attack from within and outside the HUA from the right. In the Fobruary issue Thornett now contends that Scargill “represents the best class struggle traditions of the strike" and that “Grouping like the Yorkshire [liners Campaign Group need to be built and extended". Given that all evidence suggests that this grows is precisely the exclusive broad left type of electoral machins that brougit Seargill to gvrominence in the HUM and not a genuine rank and file group; given moreover, that genuine groups of rank and file miners have existed (“ational Rank and File Siners jiovement) but which Socialist Viewpoint nave not built or even supported, the | implications are clear. Socialist Viewpoint prefers to continue ta adopt the role they chose during the strike. ,

Other indications of Seacialist Viewpoint's w2ssentially rightist course have been plentifully

supplied by various contributers to the magazine. Mor can these contributions be excused as indivi-” |

dual viewpoints. The First issue of the journal declared: “Secialist Viewpoint is the shopwindow for our politics’. One exhibit in this window wos a piece on Greenham Commons

"In September Greenham asked ten million to make a miracle happen. Weird language, but if

that's what it takes to break us out of our stupor, so what?" (Mo. 2) So what? Marxists don't believe in miracles, that's so whet. We profor the plain language of revolution to the weird languaye of muystics and peaceniks. We say only revolution can put an end to imperialist war. Socialist Viewpoint has carried over the pacifist politics that it learnt insida Socialist Organiser. : : .

The once proud domination by the Thurnett group of the unions at Cowley has ended. Socialist Viewpoint bave explainad this in terms of the yveneral shift to the right and the oetrayals of the” bureaucracy. Both have curtainly played their part, and nobody would bolittle the impact of these

factors. But the Thornett group's trade union policy has also played its part. The Thornettite policy in Cowley nas cluays boon based on snering leadership at « steaward's level with "friendly lefts’. For years the key ‘friend’ was Sob Fryer. He wes implicated in a number of scll-outs out was axenpted.from sharp criticisms by the Thornett areup becausu ef their alliance with him. Eventually, however y they did nove against hit. Instuad of politically criticising his increasing occonmodation with the TGMU bureaucracy, Socialist Viewpoint werely reported hin “as running out of steam’. (ilo. 11) Hot surprisinoly they chose to support Iver Oragqins as his replacemant. Here was aman with plenty of. steam, After all be was “part of the far-left".

However, olliances concluded on the basis of someone’s general vieus, rather than on a hard and fast comitinunt to a common pregranre of action ere dangerous indeod. And so it proved. After 2 years as corvenor Mraggins went over ta the right. Socialist Wiewpoint do not see thenselvos as. . being in anyway responsible for this. In fact their manner of supporting Lefts’ - i.o. of acing alliances of convenience rather than of specific action with them.- paves the way for convaenurs to java right unhindcred. In fact Socialist Viewpoint espirically recoynise this problem but do not see any need ta change their oolicys ,

"The emphasis had to be in strengthening the trade union structures in the plant and rebuild-

ing the shop stewerd's moveinent. Agreement at that level, however, meant very little in

practice since it could Le interpreted as meaning almost anything’. (Jo. 11 - our emphasis} Procisely because this emphasis could mean anything rovolutionarics did not have to agree with ite They needad ta give it a contant. That content should hove included measures to ensure total. rank and File control over stowords sod convenors via ass meetings (a form of organisation that the Thornett grou have aluays boe siicoicious of simaly because on certain oceesions bureaucrats have nanipulated mass migetinus). It should have included precise policies on gay and conditions.

Instead af ‘advancing such a Fighting prourstuae the Thornettites merely rapeat a faw transitjonal slogans (particularly ‘open the books’) but do not advance a form of rank ond file organ~ isation, a form of leaderenip accuuntable toa the rank and file, capable of carrying such slogans into life. Instead they conclude self-defeating pacts with the likes of Braggins.

The miners’ strike, the peacw-maverant and omck im Cowley all reveal the opportunist strand that has, since the cariy 199us, become cdminant in the Thornett group. It is en opportunism that blinds them to the rotten volitics of others. It led thas to characterise the clearly rightist Socialist Oroaniser at the tine of fusions

"as a political arc! orqanisetlonal focal point of the mast determined fighters in the Labour

Party." (SV flo 1}

Tt has now led thea to grest the Mandolite split froin Socialist Action naucly International as "a break from opportunism’, TL will actually iead them into an abandonment of their increasingly formal Tanti-Pabloisia’.

The Internstional Committee nevar broke from the Licuicationism espoused by Pabla. This fact led Healy - duspite denouncing the revisionists as agents of iiperislisin - to make repeated overtures to Mandel and the USFI. As late as the winter of 1970/71, Healy wrate a document called The Need for joint discussion between the IC end the US. He insisted that the differences with these agents of imperialisw (as they ware orcn callad):

"are by no menns as sharp as they were uith Shachtman in 1948." (Fourth International Vol.

4 No. 7)

He aroposed an open conference and declared:

“We are more firmly canviaced than ever that there is a basis for such an approach.” (ibid) The manocuvre - for thet is what if was - never came ta anything and before long Hansen was being called an FUT agent. However, Healy was right about the narrowness of the differences and Thornett took hin at his word. Ho omulated the USFI’s panchant for the role of left critics - to Seen in the Labour party during tiie marriage with Metoamna, to Scargill in the unions fallowiny the divorce. Moreover, desgite authorising during a lefu phasu, the description of the USFI, as a ‘poisoned well! Thornett has, on several occassions, ceme close to jumping coun it.

Rumoured fusion discussiows witi: the mandelite Interrational yroup suggest that ha is hankering to take thet plunge once egain, perhaps via s joint takeover of Labour Sriefing.

Ta Socialist Wiewgsoint wembers and supoorters who do nct wish to end up in the USFI and to the YRP, wo would argue that the possibility of revolutionary regroupment does exist. Tut it must be on a clear programmatic basis. They must reject tha idea that all we need to develen on the left is a politice] culture chat sllews a unified organisation to tolerate differences of enormous scope. This is an insult to tho working cl: it needs oc combat party, one steeled in struggle, clear wbare it is Joing. Sociaiise Jieurs: sentrist sulf-coubt iwrely indicates they havea no cunfidence in their own right to exist as « distinct political tendency. We would urge cuarades disturbad oy this to assist in establisning, as a priority, honest discussiuns, with the objective of real regrougnont, with Yorkers Power.

it

ro

INTRODUCTION TC FIGHTING PROPAGANDA GROUP DOCUMENT. .

This document vas written in the spring of 1993. A that time there aS 2 Severo crisis in the Workers Socialist League (JSL). The. SL was ai oproduct of ai Fusion between Sean tiatgawna's International Communist League (ICL) and Alan Thornett's WSL. tHorkers Power criticised tha unprincipled basis af this fusion (see article in this bulletin on Thormett and YO 214 und 25). We predicted its failure. .

The Malvinas war caused 4a severe crisis in the WSL. The Matgamnn section - citing the '‘'selfdeteraination' of the Falkland islanders, vefused to defend Argentina against Sritish Imperialism. In addition they maintained that Argentina was not a semi-colonial country. Thornett went along with the dual defeatist line up till the point that Sritain' war Fleet sailed for the South Atlantic. A small group of Thornett’s “Si mteabership led by Peter Flack adosted the same position as Workers Power and effectively forced Thornatt into opposition ta Matgamna.

From the outside tlarkers Power tried to assist in the theoratical and programmatic clarification of this yroup's fight against iatgamna and to settle with Thornettism. This document was part of a discussion gulletin we praducad ained a

The political traditio Q Thornett and the USL since their expulsion from the WAP had been marred not least ty its shallow attachment to building thea ‘wini-mass party’: that is, the beliof that a small groups of revolutionaries with little base in the wurking class can equip itself with ali the organisational and political paraphenalia of a revolutionary party (ueekly paper, women's and youth papers, inclination for agitation to outweigh propaze onda).

In-addition, a damaging split in the old WSL in 1978 which he iped | form the British section of the iSt (Spartacists) left a deep psycho-. logical phobia of the rotion of a ‘fighting propaganda group! in the winds of many USL comrades who reaained behind after that split. Indeed, in the short, fruitless discussion betucen YP and USL in 1990, Thornett, Lister and Richardson wsecd every opportunity (as they have since) to caricature YP's view of the tasks of party builcing in the present periad,. as no different to that of the iSt. Ye wrote this document toe overcome these political prejudices.

It goes without saying that many URP comrades too have a one-sided view of:-the tasks of party-building. Before the split with Healy the YRP was almost an apparatus without « moambership, a financial empire without a cadre. The party was a shell. Today wart of the perspectives discussion in the URP inevitably hinges around what kind of organisation

s the post-Hlealy WRP. A conscious understanding of the place the WEHP

upies within a Fregmented revolutionary, left and within the seganis ations of the working class is a pre-requisite fur any pusitive regroupment on the left taday.

MAY 1986

,PARTY BUILDING IN THE PRESENT PERIOD: THE TASKS OF A FIGHTING PROPAGANDA GROUP.

Im numerous discussions with WIL comrades it has been made clear that many of you oppose the notion of a ‘fighting propaganda group’, a term we in Workers Power use to describe our organisation. There are two reasons why this hostility to a name is not altogether surprising in the WIL. First, there is the fact that the iSt have for a long time used this term themselves. Recently, John Lister has put this fact to quite definite factional use against us in his pamphlet on the iSt. In that document the term ‘fighting propaganda group! is made synonomous with the ist brand of crazed sectarianism. We also know that having suffered two damaging splits as a result of iSt activity the old WSL leaders have constantly avoided confronting Workers Power's political criticisms by lumping us with the iSt because of the use of the same label.

Secondly, gut reaction against the term's implications flows from the practical political experience of a majority of WIL comrades. You come from a tradition which has always been complacent about the degree of ideological degeneration within international Trotskyisim.e Fromm Thornett's 1874 split with the WRP, the old WSL has leaned on a series of programmatic positions inherited from pre-war Trotskyism - insufficient themselves to chart a course through to-day's class struggle. This led to an emphasis upon a crude and mainly organisational approach (‘build the party’) to revolutionary politics. A weekly ‘mass paper’, youth and women's paper, supposed ‘mass work! in the unions; these were all props for Thornett in his ill-fated venture to rebuild a "healthy’ SLL. The WSL neglected or even refused to recognise the need for programaatic re-elaboration and cadreisation. The result was programmatic and practical bankruptcy, the loss of members and the fusion with flatgamna. Thornett is now reduced to a ‘faction! in the WSL of around 50 strong. By any standards the loss.of at least two-thirds of its members suggests that the WSL's history is mo success story.

Your hositility to the term ‘fighting propaganda group’, however, still leaves us far from a solution to the real points at issue; namely, what is the content of this term? What does it imply for the practice, tasks and priorities of a revolutionary organisation that considers itself to be Trotskyist? when you were a faction in the WSL and shortly afterwards we had reason to hope that many of you rejected a return to the old mini-tass party approach and had recognised its bank~ ruptcy. Indeed, it was this rejection, together with agreement with large parts of your split platform, that led us to propose fusion discussions with you. You have subsequently rejected this offer wore than once, but this does not allow you to escape the dilemma that confronts you. Since the split your artificial distancing of yourselves from Workers Power, your Lack of publications and activity indicates that you want to postpone a choice for as long as possible. Gut the problem will not go away. Comrades, which political positions do you stand by, which do you reject? What tasks do you identify as urgent? Which priorities will you set? How will you justify your separate existence on the international left? You cannot let superficial hostility to a name ~ ‘fighting propaganda group’ - get in. the. way. If you finally agree to set out with us, or alongside us, to achieve similar goals and can cowe up with a better short-hand term for your ogranisation then

we would be glad to adopt it. At the moment we are afraid that you have retreated, that you are ™

less convinced than ever on the tasks that lie behind the names It is for that reason that we set out here a short exposition of our understanding of party building in the present period.

This issue is by no means an atacemic one. It is now a burning political question for your immediate future. You are a tiny grouping. Why should any worker, youth, student or any black or gay activist join you rather than the SUP, WARP, Militant, SL, WSL, RCP etc? “Secause of our politics - because we are better than all the rest", you will reply. True as that may be, you will have a hard job proving it to them. You will need more than you own individual excellence as militants in youth or trade union work, more than a few leaflets to convince them. The more you pursue campaign work and strike tactical agreements for united action at the expense of political demarcation, the more will militants. feel that there is no real justification for the variety of organisations that exist and no principled reason for your own existence as a separate group. If this is not to happen then it is clear that you will need good and plentiful supolies of printed material explaining your politics and attacking those of your rivals. You will need to make sure that every comrade is well able to explain your politics, carefully and patiently, especially since most people will not even listen to you at. first, let alone be convinced by what you have to say . . » They” will argues "You are too small, not a national organisation, or not a serious ‘alternative!”. You will be getting somewhere when they ask you to explain your political differences with other groups. This painfully slow process cannot be skipped over. Indeed, both Sean Matgamna and Alan Thornett shared a belief that it could. In Matgamna's case it was by liquidationist manoeuvres in the Labour Party. In Thornett's case, blinded by the fact that a group of his followers held leading stewards‘

se2ooe

positions in Cowley, the old USL imagined that this represented the USL's mass leadership and all. that was needed was to extend it throughout the country. ,

Both these views in their own way were different sorts of Ligquidationism. Impatience is the mother -and father of opportunism. To adopt ‘mass party*® methods of recruitment and norms of activity when you are only a small group is self-defeating. The members live on false hoves and false perspectives in the constant state of excitement necessary to keep them ferociously active for 24 hours a day. Constant, that is, until their morale, their health or their will to go on collapses. They do-not have the time to politically develop themselves inte goad propagandists and critical and alert. members of their own. group. Cadre-training is neglected. A real mass communist party can recruit workers in large numbers because they had a varied and frequent party press that thes workers had read over a long period, and knew the party's policies from. Such a party has a cadre (an officer corps), a hierarchy of leaders from Granch and workplace up to national level that provide a framework for this recruitment. Any revolutionary party, net least the RSDLP/Scalsheviks , and for example, the SWP(US) in the 1920s and 1930s, has to go through distinct stages of growth. from an ideological current, to a propaganda group, to a cadre party, to a mass party of the proletarian vanguard. ijarx, Lenin and Trotsky all participated. in and led grouping in these stages - in Trotsky's case twice over?

Of course, the dividing lines between these different forms of organisation (or different stages in the same organisation's growth) are not fixed absolutes. There are obviously transitional stages which comuine features or tasks of different types of organisation. Yet distinctions do exist. For example, if Workers Power were only a group of, say four or five people ‘who could not operate in a larger organisation it would be inevitable that we would be no more than an ideological current. Opportunities to intervene in the class struggle, as a group rather than as indiviuals, would be extremely rare. Fashioning out a distinct range of positions on programmatic and theoretical questions that had caused this acute isolation would be an obvious first priority. Indeed although we have accomplished much in this regard {eg The Degenerated Revolution; The Death Agony of the Fourth International; Permanent Revolution No 1.) we still have auch to accomplish. For example, a re-elaboration of our understanding of the imperialist epoch and its political consequences. ideological currents, in essence, strive to rekindle or keep alive an essential body of politics which has been almost completely marginalised. Historically, one could say that. inside the USSR in the 1930s Trotskyism was reduced to this status as a result of persecutions and physical annihilation. . | a

We believe we have passed bayond this stage. Our faction struggles in the IS and the I-CL ensured that we emerged as a propaganda grouping. Such a step at least pressupposes a nationally - organised nucleas of cadre, capable of organising systematic work within the working class, A programme, a perspective and a body of tactics are required for this. Theoretical and programmatic re-elaboration continues but each successive gain is concretely applied and tested in the class struggle by a core of trained propagandists and agitators.

Through this work it is possible to assemble the basic nucleus of the cadre party. By this we mean an arganisation which includes in its ranks an important fraction of leading rank and file militants in the workers movement. Size alone is not enough to mark the transition fram one stage to another. Let us remember that Trotsky ‘called the CPGB in October 1922 a "successfully functioning aducational and propaganda society, but not a party, capable of directly leading the masses" when it was over 2,000 strong. Clearly, what counts is the representative character of the party. How embedded in the heart of the rank and file of the working class is it? How authoratative is it, measured in terms of positions held in the key unions and workplaces? Considered in. this _way we would certainly be correct toe call the Cliffites to-day (3-4,000 strong?) a ‘propaganda society! and a bad one at that! It would be wore accurate perhaps to call the early CPGS a cadre party since its. social composition and the number of proletarian leaders in its ranks far exceeded that of to-- day's SwP(GE).

Finally, the transformation of the ‘cadre party into a mass revolutionary party must come only with the rising revolutionary situation itself (as with, the Bolsheviks in 1914-17). Its continued existence, as a real mass formation is incompatible with a stable capitalist state and its existence as. a party, with a large minority of the working class active in its ranks must rise and fall with the success or otherwise of the revolution itself. The fate of the mass CP's in the Comintern after the defeats in the wake of the First World War is a clear example of this. Workers Power aims to become a mass revolutionary party but it would be a foolish mistake to start acting like one now. Rather, we recognise reality. We are at the stage of being a propaganda grouping - a fighting propaganda group.

sodoo

when we say, we arc a fighting. propaganda group, we mean that we have to combine propaganda circle work with polemical interventions (uhat one of you once: Scornfully called ‘going to other graup’s mee atings'). You will discover athat once the novelty of a new split has worn off, few will cone te your oun. ie etings. If there ate more at other groups’ mectings, then only a real sectarian will not intervene there. You may daydream about addressing not “a few left-group members in a pub room, but the masses”. Try it. there? How? In which organisations? And with what politics? If they "are mass organisatigns and. not pretences (Like the vast majority of LPYS and LP branches or many non-vorkplace TU branches; for example), then only in periods of intense struggle will a revolutionary militant .get a.serious hearing for his/her distinctive politics, and even then often only on the matter in hand. Your own isolation ond smallness.is a function of the disintegration and confusion that exists on the left to-day, unless you happen te think the collapse of the WSL was an accident or a product of wilfull people. You cannot ignore it. You must address it. The chief weapon that you will have to de this will be your paper. From various discussions it appears that you are aiming for a larue circulation, agitational (yet infrequent) saper. Whatever vlse it is, we are assured it will be very ‘different' from Workers Power. Some in the WIL have seotned our gaper for its polemical and "heavy! content. But comrades, polemic is importont when revulutionists are faced with compatition frosx centrists and reformists. It is one method of cometting these inis-leacers. It is the tried and trusted method of raising the revolutionary Bonner. The cmphasis we give to polemics, as we have often repeated, is a function of the stage we are at. Ye do not claim originality on this score. When Lenin and Trotsky led organisations thot wore in a similar gosition to the one we face they too laid great strass on the polemical and programmatic content of their papers.

Take a lsok at Lenin's Iskra, for examples This was not aimed at the whole Russian working class, or the fansses in general. For this eurpose, lanflets were usec in their thousands by the various circles, just as ue usc Red Pulse and our Longbridge bulletin. father, Iskra was aimed at the soveral thousand aSDLe meabars and sympathisers; the class conscious vanyuard and the ‘mast advanced workers, in a situation where itzological confusion was ranyant. Economisin was gaininy ground everywhere. Gernstein's ideas were finding roots in Social-Democracy via the "Legal Marxists’. Lenin was thus determined to forge programmatic unity throuch polemic in his paper, im front of the working class. fis Lenin said (Cu4 p32 ,

" . . . we wish particularly to emphasise our opposition to the view that a workers' newspaper

should devote its pages exclusively to matters that immediately and directly concern the spon-

taneous working-class movement, and leave everything pertaining to the theory of socialism, science, politics, questions of party orgdnisation, ett, to the periodical for the intelligensia." Lenin had toa wage a fierce fight ayainst Plekhanov over the question of having polemics in a workers vanguard newspaper. This is how Lenin posed ite (Cll 4 9.236)

"We do not reject polemics between camradés, but, on the contraty, are prepared to give them

considerable space in our columns. Open polemics, conducted in full view of all Russian Social

democrats and class-conscious workers, are necessary and desirable in otder to clatify the

depth of existing differences,: in order to afford discussion of disputed questions from all

angles, in order to combat the extremes into which representatives of varicus views, various

localities, or various -'specialities' of the revolutionary movement inevitably fall. Indeed,

we regard one of the drawbacks of the present day movement to be the absence of open polemics

between avowedly differing views, the effort to conceal differences on fundamental questions." We da not think that this period belongs to the meacry of archivists, toe a period in which oll the tasks were accomplished with no need fur us to return to them. The revolutionary movemant is a living, developing movement. It leaps forward and suffers reverses, makimy it necessary to yo over certain tasks ayoain. The dolsheviles Final victory was followed by defects, fasciss) in ouch of Europe. By the 1930's Lenin’ s "Iskra geriod” was posed anew for Trotsky anc his followers. Cannon, for example, explicitly drow analogies with tho tasks of the Trotskyists in 1931 and those of Lenin in 1800. They were even more acutely posed then, accordiny to Cannons

"The American, communist movement, including all of its factions, represents far less a poli-

tical force than did the Social Democratic movement of Russia during the early Iskra period.

And in view of the disintegration into factions it cannot justly be said that it is more

united. If the Social Democrats of Russia at the time constituted a disunited propayanda body,

no more can be said for our present movement." (The Left Opposition in the US 1928-31. 4.531)

codes Now Cannon can hardly be called a 'possive propagandist’. He was a vital link between the small group of American Trotskyists amc the jmarican working class. He also understood stages of party-- building. When he launched the Militant in 1929 (with more supporters than the WIL has and better working class implantation) he did not call it an ‘ayitational' paper and scorn the need for a focused propaganda paper. His method was far nearer to ours. As he was to recall in 1350s

"We did not pretend, when we started "The Militant’, that we were producing a great mass

paper, simplifying everything to the lowest common denominator. On the contrary, our paper

was devoted to the education and re-education of the vanguard militants of the Cmmunist movement. It was primarily a cadre paper, the educator and guide of cadres. The people who hold

‘the party together and keep it going in all kinds of weather. The people who never quit, who

never float down the stream like dead fish, but swim against the current no matter how rough

it may be. That is the meaning of ‘militant’, and that was the meaning of the paper we started

to represent such people.” (Speeches for Socialism 9237-65)

Tt may not be very pleasant to nave to face up to it but the situation tacay is analogous. The defeats of the working class in and after the Second World War, the disintegration of the tiny Trotskyist vanguard - organisationally amd politically - demand of us to-day the fulfillment of the same type of tasks that Cannon faced in the ‘coy days’ of the Left Oposition, and that Lenin faced in the Iskra period. Of course, we will not have to ga aver exactly the same ground, or over the same debates necessarily. Lenin's Iskra carried all the debates in the Second Internationals; on crisis theory, the mass strike versus constitutionalism, etc. Some of these questions will not be

disputed to-day. On the other hand, Cannon’s Militant hac to defend ‘Permanent Revolution’ against

the ‘democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants’. The SYP(US)'s degeneration requires us to

go over this ground once more, as Doug Jenness' latest outburst shows. On a vast array of prograi-

matic positions the ‘Trotskyist’ movement has splintered and in doing so has falsified the revo-

lutionary programme. This movement differs wildly in its respective interpretations of Stalinism, Permanent Revolution, Reforinisi etc. Ye believe we have tc forge unity in open debate. Again, Lening

(CW4 p.354)

"Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite, we must first of all draw firm and

_ definite lines of demarcation. Otherwise our unity will be purely fictitious, it will conceal

“the prevailing confusion and hinder its radical elimination." . The only alternative to this path comrades, is pretending that the other groups don't exist, yet denigrating and slandering them behind their backs. Thus the road of avoiding ‘sectabianisia®-(i.e. polemics) leads straight back to real sectarianism.- lies and malicious gossip (i.e. “they're all middle-class, they don't do any work"). Comrades -who -have been around for any. Length of time! will have experienced this in the Cliffite, Healyite or Grantite sects. They get away with it for years because of their size and sealing off their members from the groups they slender. With a tiny group of a couple of dozen this can't work for longer than a few months.

We have argued, then, that polemical and educational debate over disputed questians in the Paper is fundamental to our present situation and to the life of a propaganda group. Dues this mean that a small group cannot relate actively to the working class and its struggles? Not at all. Yet it has to relate as it can and to whom it .can.;, A. fighting propaganda group is not a grouping of abstract or passive “propagandists. These typas (like the historic Bordigists or today's iSt) do not determine their -propaganda Priorities froin the questions posed objectively by the class struggle. They abstain. from. activity for fear of the, compromises and concessions they believe that Teal life will demand from their fossilised and, in fact, dead principles. A” 'revolutionary* iho renounces tactics in the name of abstract principles, is as useless as’ the opportunist who sees principles as so much baggage obstructing nimble tactics.

We are guilty of ne@ither error. Je conduct. ourselves.as both propagandists and fighters in the workers movement. lie have often repeated examples of the: work to yous the Steel strike, the © Peoples marches, the strikes at Ansells and Plansees, tie health strike, the recent steel strike in Sheffield, etc, etc, etc. In all. of these cases and more besides, we have worked hard to win the struggles and win adherents to communism. In each case we aim to work in the same manner. We begin from the workers’ actual struggle itself. This means that we do not counterpose a sectarian fetish (i.e. the ‘Russian Question’ a la iSt, or the RCP‘s crude front. campaigns) to the struggles as they arise. Wo, all our efforts are bent towards winning the particular struggle.

Yet we do not leave the struggle as we found it. First, in discussion with leading militants we outline a strategy to win the particular struggle. This. we do by active involvement; propaganda and agitation. Our bulletins have taken up not only the tasks of the day (e.g. the organisation of a picket) but also the broader class-wide questions (e.g. the nature of trade unionism or the trade union bureaucracy).

oedec Through a process of intervention - in which we not only ‘teach’ ourselves, but listen, learn

and correct our errors - we aim to discover the best militants and to try our best to win them to revolutionary communism. Concretely, this may be dome, as at the Plansee occupation in 1981, by raising Ireland through active solidarity with’ the hunger strikers. Self-selection and rejection takes place this way. Recruiting and training communist. cadre out.of workers means fashioning a Trotskyist response to all aspects of oppression and exploitation, It does not mean recruiting (like

the WSL or the SUP) narrow, ‘specialist’ activists and leaving them at that. This reduces a revo-

lutionary oryanisation to an unstable coalition of syndicalists, gay activists, black activists, feminists etc. All of this at the present tine inevitably means the selection of the few. Ue do not hand out Party cards because someone ‘is kind enough te buy our paper twice running or attend a public meeting. Mor, however, de we abandon people who will not.-.or cannot - make the leap imne~ diately or directly. Rather, we aim to build a periphery of supporters and contacts who can take our propaganda into wider layers, confident that renewed struggles will drau in more cantacts and allow for the old ones to make the transition to membership.

What is distinct about the work we do in the working class is that it is focused communist work ained at achieving definite goals. Thus our work in the Health strike (1932)was aimed at winn-

ing the strike by organisiny the rank and file (through a stewards’ movement), to challenge the

Bureaucracy. We were modestly successful in this because we had done years of work preparing for it. We produce a bulletin, Red Pulse, which makes communist propaganda in the hospitals. le built a city-wide stewards organisation in Sheffield. Ne helo produce a stewards’ bulletin in one of the hospitals. We carryout this type of work in or around other workplaces as well - car plants, steel plants, mines and so on. Our propaganda is aimed at the best militants.

The class struggle work of a fighting propaganda group has to be exemplary. This is for two reasons. First, a propaganda group does not have the forces or the resources to intervene in all class struggles. In his pamphlet against the iSt, Lister once again polemicises dishonestly, suggesting that exemplary work equals sectarian intervention in selected struggles rather than integration into the 'mass struggle’. However, the WSL could never carry on real mass work. It could never integrate itself into the mass movement everywhere and all. at once. It tried desperately and has collapsed. We, on the other hand, are realists. We cannot do everything. So we select vital areas

of the class struggle and intervene in them to show an example of what we would do in more cases”

if we had the forces. The second reason why our work hds to be exemplary is because it has to demonstrate to militants how communist activity in the class struggle differs from and is superior to the activity of the céntrists and reformists.

Once again, we make no claim to originality here. Do you think that when the American Trotskyists in the mid-1930s intervened in the class struggle they did so in anything but an exemplary fashion. They could not, and did not, want to do otherwise. Take the Minneapolis strikes of 1934, for example. This was not simple ‘mass work’. It was a planned intervention, consciously seeking to set an example. In 1934 Gannon made this point forcefully by comparing the Minneapolis strikes of a few thousands with a textile workers' strike of 4 million. The Trotskyists could not intervene effectively in the textile strike. Yet they used their work in the [inneapolis strike to show what was needed in the textile strike. Cannon concludeds

What miracles will the workers in the great industries be capable of when they forge a

leadership of the Minneapolis calibre." (New International September/October, 1934)

This method of work. bears little ot no resemblence to Lister's slanders or the expressed prejudices of some WIL members. It is a method that will, without a doubt, bring advanced workers into our ranks. Indeed, it is already doing so. At the same time, the fake mass work of Thornett and company will, if you try and reproduce it, lose you members while not gaining you any mass influence.

Apart from work in and around individual disputes we work within any existing rank and file or Cemocracy grouping where these are not merely fronts for ather organisations. Jur goal here is to create a real organisation of rank and file militants in those workplaces and unions where we are placed. Of course, we would neither exclude those ‘left' officials who declared for a fight against the right, nor would we base our strategy on building around them. The SuP(GB) and the SL commit one or the other of these errors. The old WSL had a strong inclination (gained from Healy's ATUA) to turn such organisations into occasional rallies that rubber stamp the party line. The Matgamna line is now clearly set towards the 'new broad lefts' (i.e. centred upon left labourite officials). Both Thornett and i‘atgamna, however, are limited not least by their Stalinophobia - a differential hostility to Stalinist officials as opposed to social-democrats - quite unjustified politically, despite the greater bureaucratic thuggishness of the former.

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In the Latour Party we are in favour of, and have participated in the struggles over, democratic rights. We are for ‘left’ united fronts on specific issues. But we are absolutely opposed to the attempt to build a political tendency bridging communisin, centrism and reformism. We ate far building a revolutionary tendency in the Labour Party without any hope (and therefore not fooling workers with this false perspective) of a step-by-step transformation. of the LP. This is not primarily because we will artificially split from the LP (though we don't give any oaths to the LP members until the sociali st millenium, either.) It is because a revolutionary communist current is only tolerable within a reformist organisation when either, (a) it is so insignificant that the bureaucrats can ignore it, or (b) the mass base of the party is so radicalised that the bureaucrats dare not expel it. Jetween these tyo situations lies the norm of struggle: i.e. witchunt, expulsionSs, consolidation of an independent revolutionary organisation, re-entry of a new fraction, and so on. The work is, and must be clearly subordinate to work in the unions, which ara the bedrock fighting organisations of the working class (however bursaucratised) and are schools for socialisin uncer capitalism.

This is our actual record comrades. Examine it closely. Decide whether or not you agree with it. Do not get hung up on the objection to the phrase we use to describe this stage of our vork - the fighting propaganda group. If you do not agree with it, then we would like to discuss with you your alternative for a group cf 30 or so comrades, and your recipe for building yourself into a sizable organisation. Look as well at the record of our propaganda, our paper, books, journals and painphlets. If you disagree then tell us and others in writing were you disagree. what alternative programmatic positions would you prioritise over the ones we have chosen?

We explain our record to you to dispel prejudices in your ranks and to relate the positive contributions we have made. This is not to say that in our years of yrowth and consolidation from a faction to a group we have not made mistakes. You will find us the most honest group on the left in Ortain when it comes to admiting and correcting errors. for are we saying that we know it all and have nothing to learn. Comrades from other spheres of activity and from different political traditions have much to offer us. We can expand and develop our resources and improve our propaganda and agitation through such contributions. Our own develpment is far from complete. However, we are firm in the belief that we have a head start on every other group in Britain because we are an the right road. We understand the tasks that other groups consciously turn their backs on. We are confident that we will grow at their expense accordingly.

By recognising the fact that your development, if it is to be in a communist direction, must follow the same road, you would be taking a major step forward. Gy fusing with us on a principled basis you could help speed up cur progress along this road. The alternative you have to this course is not good. Frenzied activism with an infrequent agitational pager (a contradiction in terms) without a clearly defined body of politics will destroy you. Twenty to thirty people cannot sustain that type of intervention. You may end up with a group, but it will be a clique, held together by personal loyalties and serhaps by a particular sectarian fetish that serves as a cranky hall-mark. But it will not be loyalty to a political programme. The consequences of all this is a membership pitifully trained and even scornful of education. Finally, this inevitable consequence in its turn . becomes a necessity as the leadership requires ignorant members to swallow a succession of shallow and contradictory perspectives. ,

Alternatively you may end up back in the arms of Thornett. This would be a pity, but as we have. pointed out to you before, it would be the logical consequence of your refusal to break with

him politically. A final, sad option for all of you might be to simply drop out of political life. ' This, too, would be a pity. To lose comrades who once prowised a break with centrism is not some_ thing we relish. For all these reasons, comrades, we say to you, change course. Turn to Workers Power. Open discussions with us and prepare the way for a principled fusion before the other grim alternatives engulf yous