Editorial: 1970 Year of Lenin and Trotsky

[p005] YEAR OF LENIN AND TROTSKY EDITORIAL THE EXTENSION of US imperialism’s South- East Asia war into Cambodia is undoubtedly a step towards nuclear war on the Chinese People’s Republic. Such is the depth of the crisis of capitalism that an irresistible pressure mounts up for the reconquest of the Chinese mainland, to open it up once more to imperialist investment. It is this objective development of the economic crisis which in the last analysis lies behind the military plans of the US imperialists. The speculation about ‘ill-advised’ Presidents and ‘discredited’ military advisers are only the product of impressions. It is not a matter of the intentions of America’s leaders, but of the economic crisis and the strength of the workers’ movement all over the world, particularly in Vietnam in this case. Nixon hoped to forestall military disaster in Vietnam by march- ing into Cambodia. The CIA, by deposing Sihanouk, prepared the way. The Kremlin bureaucracy, by accepting the CIA coup, and then by its political attack on the Chinese and North Vietnamese Communist Parties, played its counter-revolution- ary part in assisting the imperialists. By suppress- ing the steps being taken by the Czechoslovak working class towards political revolution in 1968, and betraying the May-June 1968 general strike in France, they hoped to have created conditions in which the Vietnamese revolution could be kept isolated from the international revolutionary struggle of the working class. The military strength of US imperialism and its agencies, the ability of the Kremlin bureaucracy to betray revolutions—these factors have been the immediate pressures sustaining revisionism in the years since the Second World War. The struggle for Marxism, carried out by the sections of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national, has always based itself not on the pres- sure of bureaucracy and the apparent strength of Editorial imperialism, but on the contradictions fundamental to imperialism and also to the Stalinist bureau- cracy. These contradictions are organically linked, because the bureaucracy is essentially an agency of imperialist pressure on the workers’ state in the USSR, and through that on the workers’ movement internationally. The rapid maturing of the capitalist crisis, with the economic strength of the working class at its very centre, is forcing the ruling class into a situation where in one country after another political force is required to change the relation- ship of class forces. The strength and combativity of the working class demands this. Yet this same strength presents an awesome prospect for any national capitalist class which actually decides to take the bit between its teeth. The US capitalists have only begun tentatively to discuss ‘incomes policy’, i.e., a concerted attack on organized labour, and yet they are already faced with a social and political crisis described by their own states- men as the worst since 1929. The extension of the war in Vietnam turned out to be impossible without shooting to kill in Kent State and half a dozen other places in the United States itself. Far from having averted military disaster, Nixon has found himself confronted with the prospect of military defeat in Cambodia and political collapse at home. For the first time the anti-war demon- straticns have left behind the almost purely student character which they once had, and sections of the labour movement have rallied in hundreds of thousands against Nixon’s policy. Behind these developments, the economic crisis not only creates panic on Wall Street but now reflects immediately in increasing unemployment every month since January 1970. The military and political conditions do not exist in South-East Asia for US imperialism to win the war; and the political conditions in the United States itself have now developed to a point where the prosecution of the war threatens break- down. But the working class which now casts its +

[p006] 100 years since Lenin’s birth 30 years since Trotsky’s death YEAR OF LENIN AND TROTSKY EDITORIAL THE EXTENSION of US imperialism’s South- East Asia war into Cambodia is undoubtedly a step towards nuclear war on the Chinese People’s Republic. Such is the depth of the crisis of capitalism that an irresistible pressure mounts up for the reconquest of the Chinese mainland, to open it up once more to imperialist investment. It is this objective development of the economic crisis which in the last analysis lies behind the military plans of the US imperialists. The speculation about ‘ill-advised’ Presidents and ‘discredited’ military advisers are only the product of impressions. It is not a matter of the intentions of America’s leaders, but of the economic crisis and the strength of the workers’ movement all over the world, particularly in Vietnam in this case. Nixon hoped to forestall military disaster in Vietnam by march- ing into Cambodia. The CIA, by deposing Sihanouk, prepared the way. The Kremlin bureaucracy, by accepting the CIA coup, and then by its political attack on the Chinese and North Vietnamese Communist Parties, played its counter-revolution- ary part in assisting the imperialists. By suppress- ing the steps being taken by the Czechoslovak working class towards political revolution in 1968, and betraying the May-June 1968 general strike in France, they hoped to have created conditions in which the Vietnamese revolution could be kept isolated from the international revolutionary struggle of the working class. The military strength of US imperialism and its agencies, the ability of the Kremlin bureaucracy to betray revolutions—these factors have been the immediate pressures sustaining revisionism in the years since the Second World War. The struggle for Marxism, carried out by the sections of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national, has always based itself not on the pres- sure of bureaucracy and the apparent strength of Editorial imperialism, but on the contradictions fundamental to imperialism and also to the Stalinist bureau- cracy. These contradictions are organically linked, because the bureaucracy is essentially an agency of imperialist pressure on the workers’ state in. the USSR, and through that on the workers’ movement internationally. The rapid maturing of the capitalist crisis, with the economic strength of the working class at its very centre, is forcing the ruling class into a situation where in one country after another political force is required to change the relation- ship of class forces. The strength and combativity of the working class demands this. Yet this same strength presents an awesome prospect for any national capitalist class which actually decides to take the bit between its teeth. The US capitalists have only begun tentatively to discuss ‘incomes policy’, i.e., a concerted attack on organized labour, and yet they are already faced with a social and political crisis described by their own states- men as the worst since 1929. The extension of the war in Vietnam turned out to be impossible without shooting to kill in Kent State and half a dozen other places in the United States itself. Far from having averted military disaster, Nixon has found himself confronted with the prospect of military defeat in Cambodia and political collapse at home. For the first time the anti-war demon- straticns have left behind the almost purely student character which they once had, and sections of the labour movement have rallied in hundreds of thcusands against Nixon’s policy. Behind these developments, the economic crisis not only creates panic on Wall Street but now reflects immediately in increasing unemployment every month since January 1970. The military and political conditions do not exist in South-East Asia for US imperialism to win the war; and the political conditions in ‘the United States itself have now developed to a point where the prosecution of the war threatens break- down. But the working class which now casts its 1

[p007] gigantic shadow over the war plans of the US imperialists has become all over the world a nightmare for the capitalist class. In Europe the crisis is most concentrated, in the sense of revolu- tionary development of the working class. Neither in Europe nor America has unemployment had the effect of weakening and reducing the combativity of the working class. On the contrary; in a work- ing class whose organizations and fighting capacity are unimpaired, it raises questions which go beyond wages to the question of who holds the property and the power. That is why in every advanced country it is not just a question of great strike waves, even general strikes as in France and Italy. Everywhere, in the forms historically deter- mined in each case, the working class seeks a solution at the level of government. Everywhere in the workers’ movement, the revolutionaries fight in the mass movement to bring to a head the contradiction between the working class and its leadership. More and more the workers are com- pelled to say to the reformists and Stalinists: if you are going to be able to do anything even to preserve our most elementary rights, it is necessary to take the power and break from the bourgeoisie. This on the one hand, and on the other the more craven and determined commit- ment of the Stalinists to ‘advanced democracy’ and ‘parliamentary roads’, of the reformists to direct service to US imperialism, of the revisionists to ‘structural reforms’ plus middle-class adven- tures. In its fight to unite the working class round demands which pose the question of power, the International Committee in its various sections brings into the centre of working-class politics all the gains of the struggle of the first four Con- gresses of the Third International of the Left Opposition of Trotsky, and of the fight against revisionism since Trotsky’s death. It is 33 years since Trotsky’s summary of the two decades since the October Revolution: the crisis of humanity is concentrated in the crisis of revolutionary leadership. We have now arrived at a decisive stage of the process expressed by this dramatic formulation. Trotsky’s statement has often been taken as if it meant that the objective conditions did not change and develop but simply stagnated, and that all development was now purely in the subjective aspect of the party. That is an undialectical view opening the door to ideal- ism. The productive forces stagnate: techniques of production develop, but only to deepen the crisis, to turn against the working class which is the principal productive force. What appears to be just a build-up of wages struggles in all the advanced countries, producing the enormous and paramount problem of inflation, is in fact the manifestation of this revolt of the productive forces. The working class demands that the pro- ductive forces expand to the level of ‘socialized humanity’, as Marx put it. The preservation of capitalist relations of production demands on the contrary that the productive forces, and above all the working class, are reined in. Through the depression of the 1930s, the war, the defeats consequent on Stalinist leadership, US imperialism was certainly able to become by far the dominant capitalist power, but by this very 2 \ fact US imperialism has inherited and combined more explosively all the conflicts and contradic- tions of the capitalist world. The working class does not forever remain broken by defeats! It cannot be permanently controlled by the parasitic police bureaucracy of the Kremlin. These are the ‘laws of history’ which, as Trotsky said in the Transitional Programme, are ‘stronger than the bureaucratic apparatus’. The accumulation of economic crisis within decaying capitalism has once again forced the classes into fighting posi- tions where the revolutionary consciousness will receive mighty impulses, and where the building of revolutionary parties is taking place under radically changed conditions compared with any- thing since the early 1920s. The proletariat is not simply the plaything of the development of capital and its needs. The struggle of the working class even at the element- ary defensive level starts to change history. In the imperialist stage of capitalism, the strength of the working class, even when expressed for the most part in economic struggles, has grave political implications: these are conceived of by the capital- ist class as, ‘How do we get over the political risks of dealing with inflation?’. But there is more — than this: a fundamental historical struggle goes on in the political and theoretical fronts, for the victory of revolutionary consciousness in the work- ing class. This is the meaning of Bolshevism, and of its development in Trotskyism. The essential meaning of the period of ‘imminence of the revolution’ which we have entered is that we are now working in conditions where the creation of this consciousness, through intervention in the working class on all the major questions, is being engaged by the sections of the International Com- mittee. The advanced stage of disintegration of the Stalinist parties is a concrete historical develop- ment which promotes the material conditions for this process of building revolutionary conscious- ness, but it is not the process itself. The task is the task of the Trotskyists and there is not the slightest possibility of transferring the responsi- bility to other social forces. That is precisely the abandonment of dialectical materialism of which the Pabloite revisionists of the spurious ‘Unified Secretariat of the Fourth International’ have been guilty. Joseph Hansen told us in 1962, when he led the US Socialist Workers’ Party back to Pablo’s ci p, that Castro, for example, had developed from a middle-class liberal to a ‘natural Marxist’? the implication being that Marxist leadership did not need to be consciously created by the Trotskyist movement but would arise out of the spontaneous revolts issuing from the break- down of imperialism. Another of the leaders of the Pabloite revisionists, Pierre Frank, has recently written in identical terms of Castro as a ‘natural Marxist’. This ‘natural Marxist’ supported the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia and de- nounced his critics as ‘left scribblers’ who ignored a ‘counter-revolutionary process’ which had upset: the Stalinist bureaucracy in Czechoslovakia. Since then Castro has made open overtures to the bourgeois regimes of Latin America, even giving them a revolutionary blessing when they are imprisoning his own erstwhile followers in guerrilla ‘Fourth International, Summer 1970

[p008] struggles. He took the opportunity to defend these policies at length in his speech on the centenary of Lenin, sullying the occasion with repetitions of the worst abominations of Stalin’s ‘socialism in a single country’. But the construction of revolutionary parties has gone a stage beyond the point at which the revisionists carried out their unprincipled ‘re- unification’ in 1963. The Fourth Conference of the International Committee, the discussion for which has now begun, will play a large part in clearing up the confusion which revisionism has in a number of countries succeeded in creating. It is becoming clear in political practice to thousands of workers that Trotskyism is represented by the forces of the International Committee and in no way by the revisionists. We can take as the two landmarks of. this development, without falling into any complacency, the 10,000-strong rally of Trotskyist youth at Le Bourget (Paris) on February 1, 1970, and the publication on September 21, 1969 of the first Trotskyist daily paper the ‘Workers Press’, organ of the Central Committee of the Socialist Labour League. This issue of Fourth International consists in large part of theoretical and political articles from ‘Workers Press’ which are useful for further study. This daily paper takes into the working class every day the conquests of the Marxist move- ment in the past, and organizes the forces of the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists in their campaigns in the working-class movement. It is a weapon of great force against the reformist and Stalinist bureaucracies. The question of the notorious ‘English dislike of theory’ is no longer one just for discussion, but of a daily struggle to carry the most advanced conquests of theory, science, philosophy and the arts into the working-class movement and against every kind of backwardness perpetrated by the bourgeoisie. In France, the Trotskyist organization was able to conduct in Paris on May 30-31 a two- day public study session on the history of French Trotskyism which was attended by 2,500 workers and youth. These are living proof of the develop- ment of a revolutionary consciousness being created in struggle on the basis of the long fight for the continuity of Marxism. 1970 is the centenary of Lenin’s birth and the thirtieth anniversary of Trotsky’s assassination by a Stalinist agent. To celebrate Lenin’s centenary has meaning only for those who can at the same time show that they carry forward the struggle which was taken up by Trotsky both during Lenin’s lifetime and after his death, against Stalin- ism and for the proletarian revolution. It is in this line of march that we prepare the Fourth Conference of the International Committee of the Fourth International, and give every support to our young cadres in organizing the International Conference of Revolutionary Youth in December 1970. The death agony of capitalism ss.z= and the tasks of the This is the basic programmatic document of the world movement founded by Leon Trotsky and his comrades: By 1938 the revolutionary Marxists had found it necessary to lay the foundations of the Fourth International in order to restore working-class leadership after the defeats prepared by the Stalinist bureaucracy in control of the Third (Communist) International. The defeat of the German Revolution in 1923, of the British General Strike in 1926, and of the Chinese Revolution in 1927, followed by Hitler’s victory over the German working class in 1933, finally ruled out the perspective of transforming the Communist International by internal opposition. 60 pages, 1/- NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD., 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST., LONDON, S.W.4 Ceeeeeeeereeeeeee erent Two pamphlets by Leon Trotsky Through what stage are we passing? This is the text of a speeca made The Intelligentsia and Socialism A review written for by L. D. Trotsky to the 5th All-Union Congress of Medical and Veterinary Workezs in the summer of 1924. Of particular interest to our readers in view of the specific references to Britain and metropolitan Europe. Price: Two shillings NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. &. 8. TSEPSyy Editorial 186a CLAPHAM HIGH STREET, the St. Petersburg review Phe . Sovremenny Mir in 1910, of Intellgentsia Der Sozialismus und die and Intellektuellen, by Max Adler me ge published in Vienna in the Socialism same year. Price: One shilling LONDON SW4

[p009] struggles. He took the opportunity to defend these policies at length in his speech on the centenary of Lenin, sullying the occasion with repetitions of the worst abominations of Stalin’s ‘socialism in a single country’. But the construction of revolutionary parties has gone a stage beyond the point at which the revisionists carried out their unprincipled ‘re- unification’ in 1963. The Fourth Conference of the International Committee, the discussion for which has now begun, will play a large part in clearing up the confusion which revisionism has in a number of countries succeeded in creating. It is becoming clear in political practice to thousands of workers that Trotskyism is represented by the forces of the International Committee and in no way by the revisionists. We can take as the two landmarks of this development, without falling into any complacency, the 10,000-strong rally of Trotskyist youth at Le Bourget (Paris) on February 1, 1970, and the publication on September 21, 1969 of the first Trotskyist daily paper the ‘Workers Press’, organ of the Central Committee of the Socialist Labour League. This issue of Fourth International consists in large part of theoretical and political articles from ‘Workers Press’ which are useful for further study. This daily paper takes into the working class every day the conquests of the Marxist move- ment in the past, and organizes the forces of the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists in their campaigns in the working-class movement. It is a weapon of great force against the reformist and Stalinist bureaucracies. The question of the notorious ‘English dislike of theory’ is no longer one just for discussion, but of a daily struggle to carry the most advanced conquests of theory, science, philosophy and the arts into the working-class movement and against every kind of backwardness perpetrated by the bcurgeoisie. In France, the Trotskyist organization was able to conduct in Paris on May 30-31 a two- day public study session on the history of French Trotskyism which was attended by 2,500 workers and youth. These are living proof of the develop- ment of a revolutionary consciousness being created in struggle on the basis of the long fight for the continuity of Marxism. 1970 is the centenary of Lenin's birth and the thirtieth anniversary of Trotsky’s assassination by a Stalinist agent. To celebrate Lenin’s centenary has meaning only for those who can at the same time show that they carry forward the struggle which was taken up by Trotsky both during Lenin’s lifetime and after his death, against Stalin- ism and for the proletarian revolution. It is in this line of march that we prepare the Fourth Conference of the International Committee of the Fourth International, and give every support to our young cadres in organizing the International Conference of Revolutionary Youth in December 1970. This is the basic programmatic document of the world movement founded by Leon Trotsky and his comrades: By The death agony of 1938 the revolutionary Marxists had found it necessary to capitalism and the = tasks of the lay the foundations of the Fourth International in order to restore working-class leadership after the defeats prepared by the Stalinist bureaucracy in control of the Third (Communist) International. The defeat of the German Revolution in 1923, of the British General Strike in 1926, and of the Chinese Revolution in 1927, followed by Hitler’s victory over Grins the German working class in 1933, finally ruled out the Perspective of transforming the Communist International by internal opposition. 60 pages, 1/- NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD., 186A CLAPHAM HIGH ST., LONDON, $.W.4 Two pamphlets by Leon Trotsky Through what stage are we passing? This is the text of a speeca made what : by L. D. Trotsky to the 5th stage All-Union Congress of Medical and Veterinary Workers in the &f@ summer of 1924. Of particular interes fo on Sores in bt of We the specific references to Britain i and metropolitan Europe. passing? Le ‘. 0 TRerssy wares ae Price: Two shillings NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. 186a Editorial CLAPHAM HIGH STREET, The Intelligentsia and Socialism A review written for the St. Petersburg review Sovremenny Mir in 1910, of Der Sozialismus und die Intellektuellen, by Max Adler published in Vienna in the same year. Price: One shilling The Intelligentsia and Socialism LONDON SW4

[p010] workers press KEEP LEFT NEWSPAPER Price 6d OFFICIAL MONTHLY ‘abe PAPER OF THE Full subscsintion: YOUNG SOCIALISTS £10 a year (posted daily) £2 10s for three months PRICE 6d. OR , £4 a eae Et for three monthly copy of Keep Left months by sending us a subscrip- ; ; tion of 9s 2d for 11 issues. would like to subscribe to Workers Press. No. of copies of KEEP LEFT required regularly..................... Post to: Se Soeten Fill in this form and send to 186a Clapham High Street, A. Jennings, London, SW4. 186a Clapham High Street, (Tel. 01-720-2000) London, SW4. For a comprehensive list of literature WRITE TO: NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. JOIN THE would like information about the YOUNG Socialist SOCIALISTS! Labour League REVOLUTIONARY BRITISH SECTION OF THE YOUTH MOVEMENT FOURTH INTERNATIONAL wish to join the Young Socialists. Fill in the form below and Please send me details of my send to: nearest branch. National Secretary, Socialist Labour League O15 STE oeeo coco ee Ube ee 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. Fill in the above form and sendto =§- F_ NAITO eee eee eee e resect ceer seer secereces S. Torrance, YS National Secretary, BOGIGES. ..n. nin coe code dact ce incase s casa 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. 4 Fourth International, Summer 1970

[p011] workers press WEED [FFT NEWSPAPER Price 6d OFFICIAL MONTHLY _— PAPER OF THE £10 a year (posted daily) £2 10s for three :months PRICE 6d. OR . was , Two editions (for ay two Make sure of your regular f4 a year £1 ect) three monthly copy of Keep Left months by sending us a subscrip- would like to subscribe to tion of 9s 2d for 11 issues. Workers Press. No. of copies of KEEP LEFT Post to: required regularly..................06 ib er hain ll Fill in this form and send to 186a Clapham High Street, A. Jennings, London, SW4. 186a Clapham High Street, (Tel. 01-720-2000) London, SW4. For a comprehensive list of literature WRITE TO: NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. JOIN THE would like information about the YOUNG Socialist SOCIALISTS! Labour League REVOLUTIONARY BRITISH SECTION OF THE YOUTH MOVEMENT FOURTH INTERNATIONAL wish to join the Young Socialists. Fill in the form below and Please send me details of my send to: nearest branch. Name ................-- eae cece ce eee eee National Secretary, Socialist Labour League ACGIeSS ...... 000s 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. Fill in the above form and sendto § Qf N@AMG.............. cece ieee eee eee tees S. Torrance, YS National Secretary, ACGreSs ........... ccc cc cece ee eee eeeeees 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. 4 Fourth International, Summer 1970 —