Hands off Spanish workers! Open Letter to the British Communist Party

[p042] the Spanish workers! AN OPEN LETTER TO THE BRITISH COMMUNIST PARTY DURING the strike of Spanish miners in Asturias, which took place in January and February of this year, the Polish government sold coal to Spain. The fascist dictator Franco was thus helped to break the strike, and to continue the jailing and torture of Spanish workers, by the action of the supposedly ‘socialist’ government of Poland. Gollan Palme Dutt What is the attitude of the leaders of the British Communist Party to this anti-working-class, anti-revolu- tionary action? In the ‘Morning Star’ of February 5, 1970, it was reported, without comment, that the Spanish Com- munist Party, in its paper ‘Mundo Obrero’ (which has to be published clandestinely), had called upon the Polish United Workers’ Party (Communist Party) to deny the reports of Polish coal supplies. Why did the ‘Morning Star’ make no comment? Its editor, Mr George Matthews, challenged at the Party’s November Congress on the Party leadership’s years of silence on Stalin’s crimes against the Bolshevik Party in the 1930s, explained that they had ‘suspended their critical faculties’. °22 We ask George Matthews and the whole Executive Committee of the Communist Party and the Editorial Board of the ‘Morning Star’: Are your critical faculties still suspended? Why do you not speak against the strike- breaking action of the Polish Stalinists? Why do you not campaign in the labour movement for support for the Spanish workers and condemnation of those who betray them? If you do not answer, then the phrase ‘we suspended our critical faculties’ can only be interpreted as the cynical gesture of someone who ‘explains’ with every intention of continuing in exactly the same way. Further: the Spanish Communist Party also ‘expressed its surprise at the news of the conversation that took place between General Franco’s Foreign Minister, Senor Lopez Bravo and a representative of the Soviet government in Moscow’. (‘Morning Star’, February 5, 1970.) Messrs Matthews, Gollan and the Communist Party Executive Committee! Where do you stand on this latest betrayal by the Moscow leaders? Is this proletarian inter- nationalism? Was it for this that you sent devoted Com- Ramelson Matthews Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p043] Hands off the Spanish workers! AN OPEN LETTER TO THE BRITISH COMMUNIST PARTY DURING the strike of Spanish miners in Asturias, which took place in January and February of this year, the Polish government sold coal to Spain. The fascist dictator Franco was thus helped to break the strike, and to continue the jailing and torture of Spanish workers, by the action of the supposedly ‘socialist’ government of Poland. Gollan Palme Dutt What is the attitude of the leaders of the British Communist Party to this anti-working-class, anti-revolu- tionary action? In the ‘Morning Star’ of February 5, 1970, it was reported, without comment, that the Spanish Com- munist Party, in its paper ‘Mundo Obrero’ (which has to be published clandestinely), had called upon the Polish United Workers’ Party (Communist Party) to deny the reports of Polish coal supplies. Why did the ‘Morning Star’ make no comment? Its editor, Mr George Matthews, challenged at the Party’s November Congress on the Party leadership’s years of silence on Stalin’s crimes against the Bolshevik Party in the 1930s, explained that they had ‘suspended their critical faculties’. 22 We ask George Matthews and the whole Executive Committee of the Communist Party and the Editorial Board of the ‘Morning Star’: Are your critical faculties still suspended? Why do you not speak against the strike- breaking action of the Polish Stalinists? Why do you not campaign in the labour movement for support for the Spanish workers and condemnation of those who betray them? If you do not answer, then the phrase ‘we suspended our critical faculties’ can only be interpreted as the cynical gesture of someone who ‘explains’ with every intention of continuing in exactly the same way. Further : the Spanish Communist Party also ‘expressed its surprise at the news of the conversation that took place between General Franco’s Foreign Minister, Senor Lopez Bravo and a representative of the Soviet government in Moscow’. (‘Morning Star’, February 5, 1970.) Messrs Matthews, Gollan and the Communist Party Executive Committee! Where do you stand on this latest betrayal by the Moscow leaders? Is this proletarian inter- nationalism? Was it for this that you sent devoted Com- Ramelson Matthews Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p044] munist Party workers to die in Spain in the International Brigade? The lessons of the Stalinist betrayal of the Spanish Revolution are some of the things which Matthews and Co. helped to conceal by ‘suspending their critical faculties’. But now the crime is repeated in the open, for everyone to see. A strike is broken; a fascist government’s senior minister is received in Moscow. And the British Com- munist Party is shamefully silent. Members of the XV International Brigade in Spain. This then is the meaning of ‘peaceful co-existence’! In order to prove the ‘sincerity’ of their peaceful and co- operative gestures towards the imperialist powers, the Stalinist governments of Poland and the USSR carry out sabotage of the struggles of workers against fascist dic- tatorship. Similarly, the Soviet government is contracting to build power stations for the military dictatorship in Greece. The Communist Party Congress last November was deeply divided over the Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia. Many delegates, because of the material published by the Workers Press and through their own experiences, sought an understanding of the crisis caused by Czechoslovakia in terms of the whole historical record of Stalinism, its basic nature. That historical accounting was not given. The opposi- tion led by Palme Dutt was just as opposed to such a historical reckoning as was the Gollan-Matthews-Ramelson leadership. But Spain raises the question anew. Surely the Party Congress must be recalled! The same Stalinist leaders in Moscow and Warsaw who ‘pacified’ Czechoslovakia are practising counter-revolutionary class-collaboration in Spain. This only proves, in the space of less than three months, that if the basic historical questions are not Hands off Spanish workers tackled, the same bitter experiences of defeat and betrayal will inevitably be repeated. The whole future of the working class of Europe, East and West, is involved. A vast strike wave has affected every part of the capitalist countries and now world re- cession looms. Either the working class will successfully battle for power, or the capitalists will resort more to repressive and fascist methods. What role will the Soviet Union, Poland, and the East European countries play in these struggles? The same role they play in Spain? This is the question for the followers of Stalin’s ‘British Road to Socialism’. If the British Communist Party leaders mean what they say about their ability to openly criticize the Russian Stalinist leaders on Czechoslovakia, let them speak out on Spain. Is there any possible excuse for the actions of the Soviet and Polish governments? Will such relations with the Spanish and Greek governments help to keep the Soviet Union out of wars with the imperialists? On the contrary, the more the capitalist governments, including the Franco fascist regime, inflict defeats on the working class, the greater the threat of eventual imperialist intervention against the USSR. The Czechoslovak situation has deteriorated since the British Communist Party Congress. All the leaders of the Czech Party at the time of the intervention are sacked and expelled from Party positions. Censorship and repres- sion are the rule. If the British and other Party leaders who criticized the intervention are sincere, will they agree to an inter- national commission of inquiry, representing the trade Solidarity with the Spanish workers Long live the Spanish Revolution 23

[p045] Prague, August 1968. unions of every European country, to investigate the socialist legality and justice of these trials and purges in Czechoslovakia? If not, just how do they propose to follow up and fight on their stand against the invasion? By their actions in Spain, the Kremlin bureaucracy and their agents have shown that their role remains a counter- revolutionary one. They have not changed in Czechoslo- vakia or inside the USSR either. It is just as true for workers’ states as for capitalist countries that foreign policy is a continuation of class policies on the ‘home front’. This is why we say: the legality of the Czech purges and the breaking of the Spanish miners’ strike are part of the same question, that of the revolutionary struggle for the United Socialist States of Europe, against US imperial- ism, against the capitalist European Common Market, and for the overthrow of the Stalinist bureaucracy in East Europe and the USSR by a working class that will defend the gains of the October Revolution and assist the workers of western Europe and Britain in extending those gains. That is the real Communist path. @ Solidarity with the miners of Spain! @ Long live the Spanish Revolution! @ Down with the Polish and Soviet governments’ strike- breaking! @ Recall the Communist Party Congress! @ For a_ workers’ repressions! inquiry into the Czechoslovak @ For the United Socialist States of Europe! Down with the Common Market! Socialist Labour League, British section of the Fourth International. Two pamphlets by Leon Trotsky Through what stage are we passing? Through ih This is the text of a speeca made whut By by L. D. Trotsky to the 5th stage ‘ All-Union Congress of Medical + and Veterinary Workers in the (|GPé summer of 1924. Of particular interest to our readers in view of We the specific references to Britain passing and metropolitan Europe. Price: Two shillings f # raorass “ NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. A review written for the St. Petersburg review Sovremenny Mir in 1910, of Der Sozialismus und die Intellektuellen, by Max Adler The Intelligentsia. |; wy] and Socialism = Teity 2 lhe Intelligentsia and published in Vienna in the Socialism same year. Price: One shilling 186a CLAPHAM HIGH STREET, LONDON SW4 24 Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p046] Prague, August 1968. unions of every European country, to investigate the socialist legality and justice of these trials and purges in Czechoslovakia? If not, just how do they propose to follow up and fight on their stand against the invasion? By their actions in Spain, the Kremlin bureaucracy and their agents have shown that their role remains a counter- revolutionary one. They have not changed in Czechoslo- vakia or inside the USSR either. It is just as true for workers’ states as for capitalist countries that foreign policy is a continuation of class policies on the ‘home front’. 24 This is why we say: the legality of the Czech purges and the breaking of the Spanish miners’ strike are part of the same question, that of the revolutionary struggle for the United Socialist States of Europe, against US imperial- ism, against the capitalist European Common Market, and for the overthrow of the Stalinist bureaucracy in East Europe and the USSR by a working class that will defend the gains of the October Revolution and assist the workers of western Europe and Britain in extending those gains. That is the real Communist path. @ Solidarity with the miners of Spain! @ Long live the Spanish Revolution! @ Down with the Polish and Soviet governments’ strike- breaking! @ Recall the Communist Party Congress! @ For a workers’ inquiry into the Czechoslovak repressions! @ For the United Socialist States of Europe! Down with the Common Market! Socialist Labour League, British section of the Fourth International. Two pamphlets by Leon Trotsky Through what stage are we passing? This is the text of a speeca made by L. D. Trotsky to the 5th All-Union Congress of Medical and Veterinary Workers 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. 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 Intelhgentsia and published in Vienna in the Socialism same year. Vee ee Price: One shilling Se 186a CLAPHAM HIGH STREET, LONDON SW4 (rr Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p047] Students occupy Lima university in 1969. PERU has evoked considerable interest in the working-class movement because of the emergence of a so-called ‘pro- gressive’ military junta which is receiving uncritical and enthusiastic support from world Stalinism, including the British Communist Party, as well as Fidel Castro. This unprincipled support for the military regime, which continues to suppress ruthlessly the struggles of peas- ants and workers alike, is a clear indictment of the treachery and political bankruptcy of Stalinism and Castroism. This interview with a Peruvian Trotskyist shows with great clarity and cogency the reactionary anti-working class, anti-democratic features of the junta and the inevitability, despite Stalinism and Castroism, of a revolutionary overturn in Peru as well as the favourabie prospects for a Trotskyist party in Peru today. OVER TWO-THIRDS of Latin Americans live under a military dictator- ship like the ones in Brazil, Argentine, Bolivia, Panama, and Peru. But the bourgeois and Stalin- ist press have consist- ently tried to present the Peruvian case as ‘unique’, as a ‘demo- cratic’, ‘anti - imperialist’, ‘radical’ government. Would you agree with this? Stalinism and impertalism in Peru PERU Certainly not. It is true that the Stalinists are quite pleased with the situation, and have gone so far as to say that ‘The Peru- vian Revolution has __ started’, ‘nothing will stop it’, ‘one can only be for or against The Revo- lution’, etc. So far as I am concerned there has been only one Revolution with capital letters in Peru —a defeated workers’ revolution in the 1930s that ended in the mass execution of over 6,000 workers, executions that were carried through by the mentors of the present government. But what the Stalinists say about the Peruvian military should not surprise anybody. I’m quite sure it has not surprised you. But after Mariategui’s death, when the Socialist Party became the Communist Party, a fully Stalinist party, its leaders aban- doned this and many other prin- cipled and_ scientifically based policies. Stalinists have never hesitated to support ‘progressive’ govern- ments. Today they even accuse those who oppose the govern- ment as ‘counter-revolutionaries’! Over 40 years ago, a Peruvian Marxist, José Carlos Mariategui, founder of the Socialist Party, clearly said that there was no possibility of being anti- imperialist without being social- ist, and that there was no other anti-imperialist state but the workers’ state. STALINISM AND IMPERIALISM IN Blindness To say that the Peruvian gov- ernment is anti-imperialist be- cause it has nationalized one oil firm, and because it has bought land and sheep from a _ huge copper mining concern, and be- cause it has limited foreign ownership of banks, is, to say the least, blindness and ignorance. Mariategui said it was impos- sible to be anti-imperialist with- out being socialist because the historic conditions did not allow it: the national capitalist class was too weak and dependent, imperialism was too strong, and the world market established a rigid division of labour where there was space only for a few powers. 25

[p048] Students occupy Lima university in 1969. PERU has evoked considerable interest in the working-class movement because of the emergence of a so-called ‘pro- gressive’ military junta which is receiving uncritical and enthusiastic support from world Stalinism, including the British Communist Party, as well as Fidel Castro. This unprincipled support for the military regime, which continues to suppress ruthlessly the struggles of peas- ants and workers alike, is a clear indictment of the treachery and political bankruptcy of Stalinism and Castroism. This interview with a Peruvian Trotskyist shows with great clarity and cogency the reactionary anti-working class, anti-democratic features of the junta and the inevitability, despite Stalinism and Castroism, of a revolutionary overturn in Peru as well as the favourabie prospects for a Trotskyist party in Peru today.