RECRUITS

The Tories have an answer to the chronic problem of unemployed youth in Blackpool. They are recruiting them into the army.

Figures just released show that junior enlistments this year are higher than in the two previous years. In 19701971, 34 boys signed up; 1971-1972 there were 35; and in 1972-1973 there are already 66.

Major James Seed, careers information officer for north Lancashire, said the army was so pleased with the results that they opened a new office in Blackpool on March 2.

The intriguing story of the inaugural meeting of the European Trade Union Confederation in Brussels last month— apart from Victor Feather's acceptance of a lucrative Eurojob-was the application by the Soviet Union to join the newly-formed body. When this was reported in the Tory Press in Britain, the Communist Party's 'Morning Star' took a curious line.

Its special correspondent' reported the application, but that it had been 'officially denied'. Denied by whom? All is revealed, however, in the EEC's official publication called 'European Community'. The journal says that the Soviet trade unions and those in the Warsaw Pact countries did apply for membership of the new confederation:

"The request had been made verbally in Moscow ten days before the congress by Soviet Central Trade Union Council president Alexander Shelepin to Herr Vetter [Heinz Oskar Vetter, president of the West German TUC].

'Herr Vetter reported this and it was noted by Congress.' In other words, the application has been formally noted Heinz Oscar Vetter in the minutes of the inaugural meeting. Now it can be explained why the 'Morning Star' was absolutely silent about Feather's disgraceful abandonment of TUC policy and his acceptance of the job of president of the new confederation.

The 'Star' can't attack Feather or transport union secretary Jack Jones for participating in EEC institutions while Stalinist leaders in eastern Europe are seeking an accommodation with the same capitalist-inspired bodies. (New York). Price £4.15 cloth.

paperback.

What a contrast between the casuistry of the sup. ple-spined Palmiro Togliatti, Stalin's menial in Spain, and Trotsky's forthright denunciation of the Popular Front!

Taking up an article in 'La Lutte Ouvrière', which supported the line of the Partido Obrero Unificacion Marxista (POUM) and the entry of Andres Nin as Minister of Justice in the government of Catalonia, he dealt with the role of the bourgeois ministers like Azana.

These politicians, Trotsky pointed out, did not represent the middle class but were the 'political exploiters of the petty bourgeoisie in the interest of the big bourgeoisie. They remain in the camp of the popular masses like scarecrows-and the crows aure the leaders of the Socialists, reformers, and also, alas, the POUMists. They dare not touch private property, and hey stoop even to the role of defender of "justice" based ol private property'.

This was no doubt a reference to Nin Minister of Jusice in a bourgeois governThe class-collaboration policy of the centrist POUM has terribly paralysed the up. surge of the workers and peasants and piled up defeat on defeat'. In fact, it was the government in which Nin occupied the Justice Ministry which dismantled the workers' committees set up in 1936. It was the Stalinists and their allies who insisted that this should be done. The POUM and the Anarchist leaders acquiesced. The powers of the regular police por inter interna para-military force and courts were restored. A security was built up by the Negrin government and armed with Russian weapons, while soldiers at the front fought Franco's legions with World War rifles, if they had arms at all It was in the light of these conditions that Trotsky was bound to draw the necessary conclusions about Nin, 'the Spanish Martov': 'He has impeded the construction of revolutionary party in Spain.

Answering questions put to him by the Dewey Commission, on the Moscow Trials, Trotsky made his position quite clear:

'The victory of Franco is assured by the present policy of the Comintern', the policy as put forward by Stalin's advocate, Togliatti. As he put it in an article written a few days later, even the military victory of the Stalin-Caballero government 'could not be firm or lasting' and would result only in the final subordination ot the working class to the bourgeoisie or the outbreak of civil war in the Republican camp.

The proletariat could only hope emerge victorious from such a conflict if it had at its head a revolutionary party. This consideration necessarily again brought up the role of Nin and the POUM who, after crawling to the Catalan bourgeoisie and the Stalinists, were thrown out of the and still At that time, only weeks the May events in the the road of revoluNin talking about by peaceful while the preparing the king class its last strongholds in Catalonia and finally the supreand police.

leaders.

Nin, and Gorkin a break. "The is in the Trotsky proclaimed.

May POUM leadexpulsion of the POUM. when the Barcelona class revoluseriously the POUM's revolutionary give failure, once again, act decisively. did noT Nin. Arrested by the In Barcemurdered. could tolerate no on the left, as indecisive Nin.

continued to regovernment proclaimed could to arms.

Trotsky the decisive events in May 1937:

proletariat july would have found throughout Spain. The In the territory occupied by turned the Catalan proletariat, have isoated the army and irresistible While not make certain, the Frontthe and which the POUM lead class, outcome of the Civil War. As Trotsky put it:

"The Spanish revolution once again demonstrates that it is impossible to defend democracy against the revolutionary masses otherwise than through the methods of fascist reaction. And, conversely, it is impossible to conduct a genuine struggle against fascism otherwise than through the methods of the proletarian revolution.' That was what the centrists would never admit.

In the 'Lessons of Spain: the Last Warning, written in December 1937 Trotsky drew a balance sheet of the Spanish events, using his experience of the Russian Revolution and characterizing the role of the different tendencies. In it he strips bare the 'theory' of the Popular Front, exposes the betrayals of the Stalinists and explains why the Socialists and the Anarchists capitulated to the demands of the Soviet bureaucracy.

So the Popular Front allies tolerated the crimes of the GPU on the basis of 'saving at any cost private property from the proletariat, and saying as far as possible democracy from Franco'. The Popular Front had promised the bourgeoisie that it would defend bourgeois property. The Anarchists entered the government as Ministers and 'turned out, to the great surprise of the whole world and themselves, to be a fifth wheel in the cart of bourgeois democracy. But not for long; a fifth wheel is superfluous.

It was not surprising that Anarchists in other countries, to distract attention from the disgraceful capitulation of their Spanish friends, began vociferously to raise the bogey of Krondstadt and Makhno.

Despite its adherance to the theory of the permanent revolution, the POUM's record was no better. Instead of mobilizing the masses against the reformist leaders, including the Anarchists, the POUM tried to convince these gentlemen of the superiorities of socialism over capitalism'. And Trotsky spelled out with deliberate emphasis:

'Contrary to its own intentions, the POUM proved to be, in the final analysis, the chief obstacle on the road to the creation of a revolutionary . Trotsky had to strip bare the POUM and expose its role because of the sympathy which it had been accorded by the centrists, both in the London Bureau and among 'platonic or diplomatic partisans of the Fourth International, potential Nins in their own countries. lution in 1931, Trotsky had to reckon with the fact that the leadership cadre for such a was small and weak; he to try shape it into took Nin as the starting point because of undoubted qualities and his experience in the Spanish workers' moveLooking back in 1939, Trotsky wrote: 'We put all our hopes on Nin, and his policy consisted of personal maponsibility. He played with the revolution. He was sincere, ut his whole policy was tha f a Menshevik. It was a tre mendous handicap, and to fight against this handicap only correct formulas falsified by urswn ripresentatives. in. the first period, the Nins, made it very difficult.' centrist formation, the POUM, which put a brake upon the revolution and was destroyed while doing so. It fell victim to the contradictions in its own policy.

It wanted, the one hand, to participate in the Republican government and to enter as a loyal peace-loving opposition into the general bloc of ruling parties; on the other hand to achieve peaceful comradely relations at a time when it was a question of implacable civil war. For this reason the POUM fell victim to the contradictions of its own policy.

The POUM proved to be no match for the Stalinists, who pursued consistent policy the fighting van- guard of the bourgeois-repanlican counter-revolution. They wanted to eliminate the need for fascism by proving to the Spanish and world bourgeoisie that they were themselves capable of strangling the prole. tarian i revolution under the banner of "democracy". This was the gist of their policies.

The apologists for the Popular Front could not unload responsibility onto the GPU which only acted as 'the most resolute detachment the service of the Popular Front'. It did, of course, extend the methods of the Moscow Trials and purges into Spain, aimed at all revolutionaries.

It can be added that when Stalin began to turn towards an alliance with Nazi Germany in 1939 he hastily brought to an end the Soviet commitment in Spain. Togliatti and the other functionaries of the GPU made a hasty and ignominious flight, leaving the Republican fighters to their fate and washing their hands the Spanish working class.

Trotsky's writings on Spain have stood up to the test of events, ( while nothing which the Stalinists and other tendencies produced at the time can be read today without adding to their discredit as the betrayers of the Spanish revolution.

But they do not only provide an incomparable account of the Spanish revolution and the reasons for its tragic failure. They also contain enormous lessons for today and it is for this reason above all that they conserve their freshness and must be studied in all sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International as part of the struggle against Stalinism and centrism.

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