Trotskyist policy and the General Election: A reply to the 'Morning Star'

[p029] and the General Election a REPLY to the ‘MORNING STAR’ THE ATTITUDE of the _ Socialist Labour League to the Labour Party in Britain is as explicit as it is un- equivocally Leninist. The Labour Party is a bourgeois-reformist party which, because of the peculiarities of British imperialist development (and decline), and also largely because of the opportunist treachery of British Stalinism, still commands the allegiance of the majority of the British workers. Its capacity to woo the workers in Britain is conditioned by its unique relationship to the trade unions defined by the political levy. Therefore it is impossible to discuss the Labour Party without, at the same time, raising the question of the trade unions. Those who, like the ultra-lefts, completely write off the Labour Party as a political factor or, like the Stalinist reformists, underestimate its political relevance and its credibility within the working class, only serve to strengthen Labourite re- formism and the grip of the trade union bureaucracy. Lenin campaigned relentlessly against this tendency which was very pronounced in the early British Communist Party. While fighting for the political independence and integrity of the revolutionary party, Lenin also (and _ prophetically), insisted that Communists should conduct them- selves as a Party of a class and, for that reason, should never ‘regard what is obsolete to us as something obsolete to Trotskyist policy and the General Election a class, to the masses’. Lenin never tired of repeating that a Com- munist ‘must soberly follow the actual state of the class-consciousness and pre- paredness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of all the working people (not only of their advanced elements).’ (Left-Wing Communism, p. 58. Works’, vol. 31.) Lenin in urging the British Communists to participate in parliamentary elections did so on the explicit understanding that the sole purpose of such participation was to permit, nay facilitate, the return of a government composed of ‘British Keren- skys’—‘an experience which was necessary in Russia and Germany so as to secure the mass transition of the workers to communism’. Therefore the task of British Communists, in Lenin’s unerring opinion, was to ‘help the masses of the workers see the results of a Henderson and Snowden government in practice, and that they should help the ‘Collected Hendersons and Snowdens defeat the united forces of Lloyd George and Churchill. ‘To act otherwise would mean hampering the cause of the revolution, since revolution is impossible without a change in the views of the majority of the working class, a change brought about by the political experience of the masses, never by pro- paganda alone.’ (Our emphasis — Lenin, ‘Collected Works’, vol. 31, p. 84.) Lenin also believed that a return of a majority Labour government would enable the Communists to exacerbate the political crisis and bring the revolutionary uprising nearer. Of course, contrary to Lenin’s expectations, it has taken not one but six Labour governments to. shake, seriously, the credibility of the Labour leaders. The primary reason for this is the indubitable fact that the British CP, under the blight of Stalinist mis-leadership and bureau- cratization, completely abandoned its revolutionary outlook and programme and, worse still, apotheosized all its sectarian vices. If, in the early 1920s the CP was sectarian, but instinctively revolutionary, today it is still sectarian and thoroughly reformist. For all these reasons the Workers Press roundly condemned the CP’s intervention and policy in the General Election and for this we were maligned by the editor of the ‘Morning Star’ in an editorial last Friday. Before proceeding to deal with editor Mr Matthews'’s distortions, let us comment on. the appropriateness of his sally. Readers will know that for many months the Workers Press has tried, and failed, to elicit so much as an intelligible grunt from the ‘Morning Star’ on many extremely important questions: @ The Moscow Trials. @ The arrest of Grigorenko and other Soviet writers. @ The breaking of the Spanish miners’ strike with Polish coal. @ The technical and economic assistance to and diplomatic recognition of the Greek dictatorship. @ The refusal of the Soviet government— and the ‘Star’—to support the recognition of Sihanouk’s government. 15

[p030] Trotskyist policy and the General Election a REPLY to the ‘MORNING STAR’ THE ATTITUDE of the Socialist Labour League to the Labour Party in Britain is as explicit as it is un- equivocally Leninist. The Labour Party is a bourgeois-reformist party which, because of the peculiarities of British imperialist development (and decline), and also largely because of the opportunist treachery of British Stalinism, still commands the allegiance of the majority of the British workers. Its capacity to woo the workers in Britain is conditioned by its unique relationship to the trade unions defined by the political levy. Therefore it is impossible to discuss the Labour Party without, at the same time, raising the question of the trade unions. Those who, like the ultra-lefts, completely write off the Labour Party as a political factor or, like the Stalinist reformists, underestimate its political relevance and its credibility within the working class, only serve to strengthen Labourite re- formism and the grip of the trade union bureaucracy. Lenin campaigned relentlessly against this tendency which was very pronounced in the early British Communist--Party. While fighting for the political independence and integrity of the revolutionary party, Lenin also (and _ prophetically), insisted that Communists should conduct them- selves as a Party of a class and, for that reason, should never ‘regard what is obsolete to us as something obsolete to Trotskyist policy and the General Election a class, to the masses’. Lenin never tired of repeating that a Com- munist ‘must soberly follow the actual State of the class-consciousness and pre- paredness of the entire class (not only of its communist vanguard), and of alli the working people (not only of their advanced elements).’ (Left-Wing Communism, p. 58. Works’, vol. 31.) Lenin in urging the British Communists to participate in parliamentary elections did so on the explicit understanding that the sole purpose of such participation was to permit, nay facilitate, the return of a government composed of ‘British Keren- skys’—‘an experience which was necessary in Russia and Germany so as to secure the mass transition of the workers to communism’. Therefore the task of British Communists, in Lenin’s unerring opinion, was to ‘help the masses of the workers see the results of a Henderson and Snowden government in practice, and that they should help the ‘Collected Hendersons and Snowdens defeat the united forces of Lloyd George and Churchill. ‘To act otherwise would mean hampering the cause of the revolution, since revolution is impossible without a change in the views of the majority of the working class, a change brought about by the political experience of the masses, never by pro- paganda alone.’ (Our emphasis — Lenin, ‘Collected Works’, vol. 31, p. 84.) Lenin also believed that a return of a majority Labour government would enable the Communists to exacerbate the political crisis and bring the revolutionary uprising nearer. Of course, contrary to Lenin’s expectations, it has taken not one but six Labour governments to. shake, seriously, the credibility of the Labour leaders. The primary reason for this is the indubitable fact that the British CP, under the blight of Stalinist mis-leadership and bureau- cratization, completely abandoned its revolutionary outlook and programme and, worse still, apotheosized all its sectarian vices. If, in the early 1920s the CP was sectarian, but instinctively revolutionary, today it is still sectarian and thoroughly reformist. For all these reasons the Workers Press roundly condemned the CP’s intervention and policy in the General Election and for this we were maligned by the editor of the ‘Morning Star’ in an editorial last Friday. Before proceeding to deal with editor Mr Matthews’s distortions, let us comment on. the appropriateness of his sally. Readers will know that for many months the Workers Press has tried, and failed, to elicit so much as an intelligible grunt from the ‘Morning Star’ on many extremely important questions: @ The Moscow Trials. @ The arrest of Grigorenko and other Soviet writers. @ The breaking of the Spanish miners’ strike with Polish coal. @ The technical and economic assistance to and diplomatic recognition of the Greek dictatorship. @ The refusal of the Soviet government— and the ‘Star’—to support the recognition of Sihanouk’s government. 15

[p031] @ The open support of Wilson’s visit to Nixon. @ The failure of King Street to collaborate in a campaign of industrial action against the Vietnam war and—most foul; @ The silence of the ‘Star’ on the frame-up of Dubcek by the French Stalinist leaders. None of these things moved Mr Matthews. Now, how- ever, he devotes half the editorial column to attack the SLL. The question is why? In our opinion the reason is quite obvious. It is not only because the SLL and its paper are growing con- stantly, but also because the political campaigns as we saw on the Wilson visit, in Liverpool on May I and now in the general election, are beginning to have an impact on the CP member- ship which is _ seriously taxing the credibility of its leaders. Having published an_ entire booklet by the old Stalinist die-hard Betty Reid to prove that the SLL was ‘sectarian’ and ‘ultra-left’ and hopelessly isolated, the CP leaders are hard put to square this ‘theory’ with the manifest development and robust vitality of Trotskyism in Britain. In contrast to this surging movement, the Stalinist Party and press is in great difficulties which stem from the rotten opportunist line of Matthews and Gollan. The ‘Star’ gets more and more turgid as its circula- tion declines and its finan- cial difficulties, according to its own _ information, increase. Similar problems afflict the Party and the Young Communist League (YCL), which is virtually non-existent as a_ national force. Hence the cantankerous, and nervous, outburst from Mr Matthews who tries, clum- sily, to discredit Trotsky- ism. Let us look at it as closely as we can. The SLL, he states, is a ‘sect’. Indeed! Is it not a fact— even admitted by hardened Stalinists —that all the public meetings and de- monstrations of the SLL and YS have dwarfed all the CP’s public activities in 1970? May Day, the Lenin centenarv meeting and the public lectures on Lenin have shown unmis- takably the superiority of the Trotskyist programme and policy and leadership over Stalinism. How does’ Matthews explain the paradox of a ‘sect’ which publishes a_ daily paper financed by its sales and through the donations 16 of its readers? Mr Matthews complains bit- terly that we advise ‘workers to vote against the only Party which is con- testing the election precisely on this [socialist] pro- gramme’. We see no reason for Mr Matthews’ confusion and anger on this question. We made a_e clear” and uncompromising statement which showed beyond a shadow of doubt that the CP election programme was reformist and Utopian and, therefore, could not assist the development of revolu- tionary consciousness in the working class or expose and undermine the _ right- wing traitors. To avoid any confusion we reproduce some _ of the salient criticisms made by John Spencer in his review called ‘A _ reformist pipe- dream’. (Workers Press, June 4, 1970.) Referring to the motives for intervening in the general election, particularly the claim ‘to strengthen’ the movement fighting for a change to the left in the Labour government’s policy,’ our correspondent com- mented correctly: ‘Having totally failed through- out the six years of Wilson’s government to achieve the slightest movement by their brand of “pressure politics”, the CP serves up this threadbare reformist objec- tive once again in an at- tempt to head off any development of a _ revolu- tionary alternative.’ In dissecting the programme for the economic crisis Comrade Spencer pointed out the hopelessly unten- able nature of Stalinist economic ‘theory’ which has more in common with Keynes than with Marx: ‘Its [the policy document] perspective is of an _ ex- panding high-wage economy, through the “curbing of monopoly rule’’. . . it implies that, suitably reformed by the application of ‘pressure’, capitalism will be able to satisfy workers’ needs. ‘According to this Fabian tract, if the imperialists would only stop being im- perialists and listen to the CP's expert advice, capital- ism could _ satisfy every- body’s needs.’ On the arms bill our analyst stated: ‘And what does the CP pro- pose to do with, for exam- ple, military spending? Why cut the arms bill... by half! ‘The other half, according to Gollan at his press confer- ence introducing the mani- festo, is to be applied to “maintaining our [sic] com- mitments to the United Nations etc. ... ‘Not a word about the role of this “den of imperialist thieves’ in Korea, the Congo or Suez! ‘“Our’’ commitments to world im- perialism must be main- tained!’ Again on the CP proposal in the CP document for a new security alliance in Europe, Spencer wrote: ‘In essence this is a proposal for joint policing of the _ European working class by imperialism and the Kremlin bureaucracy.’ We could not agree more with John Spencer’s main criticism of the CP docu- ment that ‘not a single one of these demands can be achieved without revolution- ary struggle to prepare. the overthrow of capitalism, and yet the CP is careful not to point this out’. And we heartily concur with his conclusion: ‘At a time when workers are turning towards a_ class vote for Labour in order to Gollan keep the Tories out, the CP’s intervention can only introduce confusion and side-track sections of wor- kers. ‘Its programme is a fraudulent reformist sham. ‘Workers must vote Labour against the candidates of this Party and participate in the real movement of their class to keep the Tories éut.’ What is splenetic about this very sober and _ concrete analysis of CP policy, Mr Matthews? And why do you fulminate against Trotsky- ism at a time when the Polish Stalinists openly collaborate with Franco? We also pointed out the con- sequences of trving to build a reformist substitute to the Labour Party in the GLC elections and of ignor- ing the real feelings of the masses against the Tories. How does Matthews ex- plain the massive drop in CP voting strength in London? Mr Matthews lyingly accuses us of gloating over their difficulties with the elec- toral laws and the £150 deposit system. This is a kind of demagogy which cuts no ice with us—or with his own Party members. We confidently predict that the CP candidates will lose their deposits because of the false policy and tactic of Matthews and Gollan. This is not a sneer—it is a prediction which will soon be a regrettable fact, for those CP members who are working hard in _ the election. Mr Matthews sneers at the fact that the SLL candidate lost his deposit in the Swin- don by-election and claims that the SLL now contra- dicts its past policy and is giving the opportunists ‘aid and comfort’. Coming from a person who supported Wilson’s visit to Nixon and unashamedly defended the great oppor- tunist Stalin, this is grotes- que. What was important about Swindon was the fact that it was held against the back- drop of a sinister threat against the unions by Wilson and Castle. In order to frustrate the anti- union manoeuvres of the right wing and in order to make our policy in relation to the Stalinists and cen- trists unmistakably clear, we stood Frank Willis. Although our candidate lost his deposit, he got only 50 votes less than his Stalinist rival, whose Party had campaigned in the Swindon parliamentary arena for many vears. We think that Swindon was a worthwhile political ex- perience and retract nothing that we said then or since. Let it also be understood by Mr Matthews that this tac- tical sortie did not, in any way, compromise or invali- date our general strategy which was, and is, critical support of the Labour Party against the Tories in the General Election. At the risk of appearing too schematic, let it be stressed that the conceptual frame- work provided by Lenin. from which our tactics to- wards the Labour Party is derived, is resilient enough to admit of a_ situation where the left parties will be free to openly compete with the Labour Party in elections. Fourth International. Winter 1970/71

[p032] Matthews ‘Tactics must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of all class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it and of all states the world over) as well as of the ex- perience of revolutionary movement.’ (‘Left - Wing Communism’. Collected Works Vol. 3, p. 63.) Anyone who, as Lenin used to say, is not the inmate of a lunatic asylum must surely know that, from a ‘sober and strictly objective ap- praisal’, it is ridiculous at present to contest the Labour Party for seats in parliament and hope _ to make political capital out of it. Alas for the King St Stalinists, having lost their political reason, they are now on the verge of losing their deposits, for the dubious compensation of seeing themselves for a few minutes on a TV screen. The upshot of Gollan’s bur- eaucratic folly is that when there is a sharp shift in class forces and a_ dramatic change in the political sit- uation—as is bound to hap- pen—many CP members will oppese a parliamentary in- tervention for fear of re- peating the debacle of June 1970. We say vote Labour and de- feat the Tories today so that we can organize the Struggle against Wilson on an ever broader basis to- morrow. We try to combine the anti- capitalist mood of the workers with their instinc- tive distrust of the leaders in a revolutionary way by fighting for an alternative leadership and _ policy. The CP, however, by its opportunist intervention and its reactionary programme aimed against a Socialist United States of Europe tries to short-circuit this contradiction and direct the feelings of the workers in a reformist channel. Thus, when Matthews accuses us of ‘venting their anti- Communist spleen’ he lies. We are not anti-communists, we are in fact, revolutionary communists and anti- Stalinists. . Only case-hardened __ Stalin- ists and hatchet men for the Kremlin cannot dis- tinguish between commun- ism and Stalinism which is the bureaucratic ‘negation of everything that com- munism stands for. Mr Matthews may never live long enough to learn this but many members of _ his Party are beginning to see and learn through experience and contact that Trotsky- ism is synonymous’ with communism and that Stal- inism, as Trotsky pointed out, is the political syphilis of the labour movement. Mr Matthews can fume as much as he likes and throw as many editorial bolts as he can, but the events of 1970 have shown, and will continue to show, that it is the CP that is rapidly dwindling into a reactionary dogmatic sect and that it is Trotskyism that is assuredly becoming a mass movement and ful- filling Lenin’s prophecy in Britain. ANTHOL GY Available from NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS, 186a Clapham High Street, Price 12s. 6d. Trotskyist policy and the General Election 17

[p033] Matthews ‘Tactics must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of all class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it and of all states the world over) as well as of the ex- perience of revolutionary movement.’ (‘Left - Wing Communism’. Collected Works Vol. 3, p. 63.) Anyone who, as Lenin used to say, is not the inmate of a lunatic asylum must surely know that, from a ‘sober and strictly objective ap- praisal’, it is ridiculous at present to contest the Labour Party for seats in parliament and hope to make political capital out of it. Alas for the King St Stalinists, having lost their political reason, they are now on the verge of losing their deposits, for the dubious compensation of seeing themselves for a_ few minutes on a TV screen. The upshot of Gollan’s bur- eaucratic folly is that when there is a sharp shift in class forces and a _ dramatic change in the political sit- uation—as is bound to hap- pen—many CP members will oppose a parliamentary in- tervention for fear of re- peating the debacle of June 1970. We say vote Labour and de- feat the Tories today so that we can organize the struggle against Wilson on an ever broader basis to- morrow. We try to combine the anti- capitalist mood of the workers with their instinc- tive distrust of the leaders in a revolutionary way by fighting for an alternative leadership and _ policy. The CP, however, by its opportunist intervention and its reactionary programme aimed against a Socialist United States of Europe tries to short-circuit this contradiction and direct the feelings of the workers in a reformist channel. Thus, when Matthews accuses us of ‘venting their anti- Communist spleen’ he lies. We are not anti-communists, we are in fact, revolutionary communists and anti- Stalinists. Only case-hardened _ Stalin- ists and hatchet men for the Kremlin cannot dis- tinguish between commun- ism and Stalinism which is the bureaucratic ‘negation of everything that com- munism stands for. Mr Matthews may never live long enough to learn this but many members of his Party are beginning to see and learn through experience and contact that Trotsky- ism is synonymous’ with communism and that Stal- inism, as Trotsky pointed out, is the political syphilis of the labour movement. Mr Matthews can fume as much as he likes and throw as many editorial bolts as he can, but the events of 1970 have shown, and will continue to show, that it is the CP that is rapidly dwindling into a reactionary dogmatic sect and that it is Trotskyism that is assuredly becoming a mass movement and ful- filling Lenin’s prophecy in Britain. ANTHOLOGY Available from NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS, 186a Clapham High Street, Price 12s. 6d. Trotskyist policy and the General Election 17