Grovelling before Stalinism

IN EVERY capitalist country, the Stalinist parties ('Communist Parties') are in crisis. Certain leading members in the French Party have resigned, openly opposed the Party line, and there are known divisions at the top of the British and other Parties.

But this is only a pale reflection of the questioning in the ranks: militants walled off from Marxism for many years are trying to find ways of breaking out, in all corners of Western Europe.

There is a reason for this : since the establishment of the temporary victory of Stalinism over Bolshevism in the Soviet State and the Communist International, which began in 1924-1925, and was completed on the world scale in 1933, Stal 1sm has been the principal force for counter-revolution, the main pillar of the continued existence of capitalism.

Now capitalism has entered a period of profound crisis and at the heart of this crisis is a strong and confident working class.

Those bureaucratic forces which dominate the working class - Stalinism, social-democracy, the trade union bureaucracy-rest capitalism's defeats _ot the working class, and so they also must go into crisis.

Within the countries ruled by Stalinist parties, the working class, as in Czechoslovakia, challenges the bureaucracy more powerfully than ever betore.

Opposition Into the opposition bulletins in the USSR comes the voice of those who want to defend the conquests of October from bureaucracy, to overthrow the bureaucracy as part of a world October' Trotskyism has existed, first in the Left Opposition then in national, as the force for destroying, Stalinism and building revolutionary leadership in the working class Present crisis of Stalin sm makes that task one whic can now be completed.

It must be done on the basis of the most principled struggle for Marxism, the firmest opposition to Stalinism in all its The revolutionary intransiSee retired for this task is ism 1914 entered its and his followers when reformwhen the social-democratic leaders supported their 'own' capitalists in the imperialist war.

There appeared then - in order to rescue reformion on a prevent the construction new, . revolutionary international - the centrist trends which worked for some middleof-the-road solution Fond revolutionary phrases, they in fact covered up for the right-wing Social e left, at either orsky, and the Bolsheviks.

There were, of course, at thi same time, ig forces in th working class moving towards revolution and more socialists also moving. from reformism towards revolution.

The role of the middle-ofthe-road people who called themselves 'Marxists' was to head off these left-moving forces and steer them back to reformism.

Now, in 1969, Stalinism is eing offered similar services by people who call themselves Marxists and even some who call themselves Trotskyists.

The 'New Left Review" group of left-talking middle-class intellectuals has welcomed to the fold Monty Johnstone is an ex-official of the Young Communist League and Communist Party. Since 1956 he has advocated the right-wing policies and programes of the Italian Communst Party.

Destroy With talk of 'structural reforms' of capitalism and accepting the framework of a democratic' state with capitalist parties, the Italian CP has taken the idea of 'peaceful, parliamentary roads to social. ism' farther than any other Communist Party helping Johnstone is the British CP along this road.

Like the Italian Stalinists, Johnstone pays a certain amount of attention to Trotsky and Trotskyism-in order o destroy it The technique is to adop an apparently honest and liberal stance, to withdraw the grossest of Stalin's lies about Trotsky and then to use this mask of goodwill to distort and reject the struggle for revolutionary politics which was Trotsky's contribution to the history of Marxism and the working class.

Johnstone and those like him are thus products of the crisis of Stalinism and at the same time conscious agents of Stalinism in turning their fire against the only force which can defeat it and build revo'left' intellectuals and revisionists of all kinds abandon the principled struggle against Stalinism as the historical enemy of Bolshevism.

Instead, they work on impressions of the liberalization' and 'democratization' of Stalinism, its 'left' and 'right' tendencies. its possibility of changing into something better without being defeated.

Within the Trotskyist Fourth International, revisionists have constantly tried to turn the movement away from the The 'Now Loft Revlew' has welcomed Into Its fold Monty Johnstone who projects the line of the Itallan C.P. (above) who have taken Stalin's 'peaceful, parilamentary road to soclalism' policy further than any other Communist Party. providing It with a left cover.

struggle against Stalinism and to provide it with a left cover of the type we have described.

Michel Pablo founded this revisionist tendency and this led to the split in the Fourth International in 1953.

This led to the leader of his me in parm 0000 car A 13S AD C THEI/NASION OF CZECHOSLOVAKA A CRINE SOCI tendency at the time, John Lawrence, eventually joining the Communist Party after Khrushchev's speech.

Now the latest representative of this Pabloite tendency, which has several times tried unsuccessfully to get a footing in this country against the Socialist Labour League, after Lawrence deserted, is the International Marxist Group, publishing a monthly paper, 'International'.

It was among those forming the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and has as one of its members Mr. Tariq Ali.

'International', particularly in the persons of Pat Jordan and Bob Purdie, is now openly turning towards Monty Johnstone and those like him in the Communist Party.

This service to Stalinism is entirely in line with the international perspective adopted by the 'Unified Secretariat' of which International Marxist Group is part.

Purdie's latest article ('International', October 1969: 'For A Debate On Trotskyism and "Revisionism" ') goes even further than before. There is no doubt that the great fighting capacity of the working class in Europe is growing at such a pace that it pushes middle-class 'socialists' frightened to death, into the arms of the bureaucracy and of the bourgeoisie which stand behind it: Purdie presents the miserable spectacle of a so-called Trotskyist' grovelling

Tim Wohlworth in an earlier article in The Newsletter' showed that Purdie and the Pabloites were dropping the term 'Stalinist' in order to get away from Trotskyism and close to the Stalinists, precisely at a time when the Stalinists must attempt their greatest betrayals and when the responsibilities facing Trotskyists for actual leadership are far more urgent than ever before.

Purdie says • It is here that we will admit a deep theoretical gulf between ourselves [the Pabloites] and the Socialist Labour League. ..:

He claims that by omitting the terms 'Stalinist' and 'counter revolutionary' when referring to the Communist Parties and the bureaucracy, his group does not change any of the principles of Trotskyism: condemnation of 'peaceful coexistence', , definition of USSR as a workers' state, programme political revolution in the workers' states, workers' democracy.

Difference crisis the Stalinist raoloite internauond Confercnce, are lour Mal latlors down of economic coupled which the rehad for masses; the workers' and the Communist the bureaucracy's inability to develop ideoline to take the place the Stalinist doctrine impact on the workers' rictorious resistanc masses, and of of agitation and in western Europe.' are of most the relationcracies.' trasts so sharply with the TALI LILo • conmonolithic bloc (sic) which Trotsky fought and analysed during his lifetime, that it would be a betrayal of the Marxist method to coast along with the ideas and attitudes years ago.

"The political questions which Trotskyists have to raise in relation these parties altered, the opportuniues 10.

these parties attitude of the bureaucracies towards the Trotskyists has of necessity altered.

long quotation Purdie's politics are crystalHe echoes the Unified Sec- clear. retariat in ignoring the struggle of the working class and Marxist intellectuals as the principal 'factor' in the crisis of the The 'four factors are all of them seen through the eyes of the bureaucracy itself and its petty-bourgeois horizons: how to regain 'consistency, how to react to imperialism, how to maintain 'economic' growth without disturbing bureaucratic privilege, how to get back to the Stalin's day, homogeneity of All of these are, of course, problems, but they all arise from the pressure of the revolutionary force in Soviet society, the working class.

Elements of the bureaucracy and the Communist Parties, in order to try and stabilize their position in relation the struggle of the masses in East and West alike, adopt 'new' attitudes which they hope will endear them to the middle class, reformist and trade union bureaucratic forces everywhere.

And so Purdie asks that we should all help them. Instead of exposing them with the weapons forged in Trotsky's struggle, Purdie says 'drop the ideas developed by Trotsky' who was writing in a 'contrasting' situation.

The claim to 'new thinking', not coasting along with ideas of 20 years ago', has arisen in all past revisionisms, under slogans like, "junk the old Trotskyism', 'face the new reality'.

According to Purdie, we must interpret the anti-Trotskyism of Johnstone, not as a Stalinist reaction to the pressure of the working class and its demand for revolutionary leadership, but as a symptom of these 'new' opportunities and the 'changing attitudes of the bureaucracies towards Trotskyists.

Despite acknowledging that Johnstone accepts 'socialism in a single country' and 'nowhere goes further than a liberal reaspects sections of the me sister, Purdie accepts Johnstone's re jection of the Moscow Trials as a great opening, because it concerns precisely those aspects which had prevented any real political discussion between partisans of the Communist Parties and of Trotskyism.

We therefore cannot denounce him as an 'apologist for Stalinism'!

We have shown that the apologist for Stalinism today must adopt the 'liberal' stance and further he must devote his attention to a more and more 'presentable' attack on Trotskyism as the main enemy.

Purdie still cannot explain why Johnstone is the chosen advocate of the British Communist Party against Trotsky, along with the old-line servant of the bureaucracy, Betty Reid Broker Even though he claims the Unified Secretariat has not revised the Trotskyist theory of Stalinism, Purdie is fact throwing it overboard and act ting as the 'theoretical' broker for a new middle-of-the-road, pseudo-Communist grouping helping the Stalinists out their crisis.

After saying that Stalinism is "a precise scientific term denoting the political line of the Soviet bureaucracy, Purdie Trotskyist idea of Stalinism reject whole He says in passing that the Communist Parties have not 'as yet' broken from the Stalinist theoretical heritage, thus implying that they are on the road to doing so.

Indeed he says later that:

... the (Communist) Party as a whole could be moved towards co-operating other the Trotskyists tendencies in work of im.

mediate value to the British workers or the world revolution'.

Here is the crux of the matter! Purdie will say: "cooperation on particular issues does not contradict the view that they are tied theoretically to Stalinism'.

But what is this 'theory'? Can it be that without abandoning the Stalinist "theoretical heritage' the Stalinists will carry out actions 'of immediate value to the British workers or the world revoluHere the worst kind of double talk is used to express counter-revolutionary revisionism.

'We are not revising our Trotskyist estimate of Stalinism, you understand • • BUT, Stalinism can be made to carry out 'work of immediate value to ... the ing his days in exile (Picass Picasso must hurl this cynical offer back in the fascist dictatorship's face.

The acceptance such a world revolution'!

Most certainly the split in the Fourth International was absolutely necessary in order to break from the revisionism of Pablo and Germain, who told us that Stalinism would be forced against its nature to carry out the world revolution. Purdie is the latest and rottenest fruit of that revisionism, coming to the aid of Stalinism in its most desperate crisis.

According to Purdie :

'... in order to express the new dominant features of these (Communist) Parties, their organizational fragmentation and political diversification, the term "Stalinist" has lost its usefulness ... • (Our emphasis.)

Because of this 'diversity, he says, •... such terms as "the Khrushchev apparatus" and "the communist movement" are not only legitimate but scientifically necessary' A further, 'secondary' reason for dropping the term 'Stalinist' is that :

' Amongst wide layers of new forces on the left, dissident elements in the CPs, the "New Left" , and other non-Trotskyist Marxists [?], this term has taken on quite a different meaning from that_traditionally • used by the Trotskyists; for them it refers solely to the period in the CPSU from the triumph of Stalin over the opposition, to the 20th Congress.' Purdie gives the game away.

The 'diversification' and 'fragmentation' are now for him 'the new dominant feature' of the Communist Parties.

Stalinism, the characterization of these parties as counterrevolutionary, now recedes into the background or out of existence altogether, and they Tarlq All, another member, with Purdle, of the International Marxist can once again, together with the Stalinist _bureaucracy, be called - in the interests of 'scientific' necessity-'the communist movement'!

Can revisionism of Trotskyism go any further?

The Pabloites, when they erected the theory that Stalinist parties could be forced to take power on behalf of the working class, called in question in effect the whole founding of the Fourth International.

After all, if the Stalinist parties were going to do the Job before a revolutionary leadership, a new International, was built, why was it not correct in the 1930s to abandon the idea of a Fourth International and continue to fight, as the Left Opposition did, for reform of the USSR and Communist International ?

As we have pointed out, or all the other issues Purdie goes much further, Stalinism is not, for him, the essence of the politics of the Soviet bureaucracy and the Communist Parties, but only one phase of their development, to be replaced by another, in which diversification and fragmentation' are the 'dominant' factors.

If this was the case, the whole fight of the Left Oppobribe would be a real stab in the back for the rising wave of workers' and student's struggles now building up against Franco. is not just a question of art. ital political principles are at stake.

sition, let alone of the Fourth International, was abortive.

The defeats for which Stalin and Stalinism were responsible from 1926 onwards were simply the mistakes of a 'communist movement' to be corrected within it, in response to pressure.

We in the Socialist Labour League and the Fourth International know where we are going.

We are building the kind of Party — a Bolshevik-Leninist Party-in all our national sections in order to smash the Stalinists, to counter and to defeat every move by those like Johnstone who cook up a mixture of Stalinism and liberalism in order to confuse and divide the advanced workers.

Continuity We are training young Marxists and revolutionary cadres in the trade unions to start from the continuity of the whole struggle of Trotsky against Stalinism and of Lenin against Menshevism.

We know that Stalinism is in crisis because it is counterrevolutionary and clashes with the resurgent working-class movement all over the world.

We will continue to oppose with all our strength all those, like Purdie and his mentors, Pablo and Mandel, who want to wipe out the past struggles of Trotskyism in order to whitewash the present.

There will be no successful building up of the centrist alternative which Purdie and Johnstone want, in order to tide over Stalinism's crisis.

Our task is not to debate with the revisionists of Purdie's group, but to carry out a consistent political struggle against them, alongside our relentless fight against Stalinism.

When Purdie asks for debate, he fools nobody.

When his group made its so-called 'reunification' with the Socialist Workers' Party (USA) in 1963, they did so by explicitly excluding discussion of all the outstanding political questions.

The SLL and the International Committee asked that all the questions be discussed in writing and in Conference before any organizational steps could be considered.

But the Pabloite revisionists that discussion of hold issues Issue of 1953 would be unnecessarily divisive.

Purdie knows as well as we do that the suppression of that discussion has resulted, six years later, in the degeneration we have analysed in this article.

He knows that the question of the characterization of Stalinism, which split the movement in 1933, has reemerged as a 'split' question once again at the 1969 International Pabloite Conference.

His demagogic requests for a 'debate' are a transparent device to cover up this whole process and to avoid the

PAGE fundamental theoretical discussion.

Ever since 1953, the group which Purdie supports has denounced the International Committee and the SLL for what they called 'boring' and 'repetitive' appeals to build the alternative revolutionary leadership.

We were condemned tarians.

But now Purdie and his friends are faced with a daily Trotskyist paper in Britain, suported by strong forces in the Young Socialists, and the 'trade unions; they see the powerful growth of the forces of the International Committee in France; they see the fruits of the intervention of the sections of the International Committee in Eastern Europe.

As opposed to this, those who denounced us as sectarians have ended up as a tiny group turning all its attention to aiding Stalinism in overcoming its crisis.

We shall deal in a further article with Purdie and the International Marxist Group's capitulation to Stalinism in connection with the Ho Chi Minh memorial meeting in London on September 20.