Reform or Revolution — a reply by Cliff Slaughter to T. Whelan's booklet 'The Credibility Gap—the politics of the SLL' (Part Two)

4 Socialist policy for the crisis

AT THE Socialist Labour League's 1969 annual congress, before the retreat by Wilson on the legislation, we concentrated all attention on the elaboration of a 'socialist policy for the crisis'.

We warned against the dangers inherent in a purely 'economist' conception of the fight against the anti-union laws, even where it involved a fight against the government.

It was therefore absolutely correct and principled to carry on the electoral fight that had been begun in the Swindon by-election campaign, after the withdrawal of the legislation, and to place socialist policies at the centre of the campaign.

The fact that the changed emphasis, after the disappearance of Wilson's proposed laws, meant less votes, was in no way a consideration.

It was necessary to fight against the idea in the working class that the defeat of the anti-union laws could lead to relaxation in the political struggle.

The opposite is the case.

The defeat of the anti-union laws opened the flood-gates for workers' action on wage demands on the biggest scale for a whole generation. And the wages offensive naturally only intensified the drive of the employers to hit back with plans for a Tory government.

The Socialist Labour League's 'Political Challenge' of October 1969, against which Whelan directed so much wrath, was precisely focussed on this political preparation.

Whelan, on the other hand, was expressing his confidence that Wilson would bide his time and create a 'pre-election boom'. Since he parades himself as a scientist, perhaps he would care to say which of these 'hypotheses' has been validated?

What is the essence of Whelan's conclusions from the Swindon by-election?

It is the same as his general political perspective of confidence in capitalism and reformism:

'. . . the British working class is not, yet, moving in a revolutionary direction or even, in its masses accessible to revolutionary socialist propaganda: the situation is neither pre-revolutionary nor rapidly developing into a pre-revolutionary situation, and, rather than being absolutely correct [a reference to our assessment], it is most probably incorrect and a waste of time to engage in such candidatures'.

'. . . A waste of time . . .'

Because Whelan is not a member of a revolutionary party, because he has never participated in the consistent struggle to unite all the different aspects of party work in the working class, to test out every development of class consciousness, to educate the party and the youth through an all-sided experience, he is incapable of any other conclusion.

Everything proceeds from external impressions like the number of votes.

From the sidelines Whelan tells us

'. . . the main damage—and it is very great—done by Wilson is the spread of demoralization and confusion through the ranks of the Labour movement'; and concludes with a yawn: 'it's a waste of time to engage in such candidatures . . .'

The SLL is naturally anathema to such demoralized petty bourgeois (and it is they, not the working class, who are demoralized).

The Young Socialists and the SLL understand very well that the by-election candidature was, like everything else we undertake, a struggle, combined with all other aspects of our work, against the predominant political tendencies in the working class.

The many months of political campaigning in the town, and the insistence on principled politics throughout the election campaign, played a very big role in the development of political consciousness among the most advanced workers in a vital industrial centre. It provided a new basis for political work in the trade unions, and this has created a new situation in the local labour movement.

Not only the building of the Young Socialist branches, the Socialist Labour League, and the circulation of the Workers Press, but also in the impact of this campaign on the political level of the struggle in the trade unions and the factories, the by-election campaign played a very important role.

Whelan knows nothing of such problems; he thinks that being a Marxist consists of observing from the study signs of politicization of the working class and adjusting one's campaigns and propaganda accordingly.

What he cannot understand is that the Young Socialists actually set about changing the political face of Swindon by confronting every type of manifestation of reformism and 'trade union consciousness'. This is the only way to prepare the defeat of the Stalinists and reformists.

In addition, it was an essential part of the training of the Young Socialists for all future struggles of the British working class that they gain a thorough experience and training in electoral work, not in order to be like the other Party machines, but precisely in order to develop revolutionary methods of participating in parliamentary elections. Whelan may rest assured that this experience will be put to good use in the future.

5 The record on Vietnam

What was the principal work of the Pabloite International Marxist Group during the last two years of the Labour government?

Having opposed the fight of the Socialist Labour League against government policies since 1964, they joined with the 'state capitalists' and others to form the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign.

According to the IMG (see below), this campaign was the real location of all radicalization and the source of cadres for the revolutionary movement. They were turned completely away from the working class, just as later they hailed the 'revolutionary' student movement.

Whelan's 'explanation' of the outcome of this tactic is an unequalled demonstration of the impressionistic rubbish which he and his friends dish up as 'Marxism'.

Remember, 'the IMG is extremely pleased to publish Cde. TW's study of the SLL . . .'

What happened after the Grosvenor Square demonstration of October 27, 1968? Whelan deserves quoting at length:

'Since then, of course, the youth movement has waned rapidly throughout Europe. The reasons for this are unclear: one can seek them in the turn, by most left organizations, away from the defence of the Vietnamese revolution, and in the various peace manoeuvres, but one cannot be sure one has found them; moreover, even if one had, it would not give one a magic key to solving the problem of how to reactivate it. (We suspect that the course of the Vietnamese revolution, through new NLF victories, may do so.) But the time is appropriate for drawing a genuine, although tentative balance-sheet.' (p. 19.)

It is not, of course, 'the youth movement' that has waned. All over Europe, and particularly in France and Britain, the Trotskyist youth organizations have seen considerable growth.

What has happened is that the predominantly student organizations, turned away from the working class, which were encouraged by revisionists like the IMG and the 'state capitalists', began to disintegrate.

The student protest movement certainly had its importance, but Marxists from the beginning stressed that such movements among students are always only the harbinger of more basic developments in the working class. In such circumstances we must concentrate on directing student militants in the direction of the working class, through a study of Marxist theory and the building of the revolutionary party and youth movement.

Whelan mistakes the collapse of the German SDS, the various anarchist and other 'revolutionary' groups in France, and the 'Revolutionary Socialist Student Federation' in Britain, for the decline of the youth movement.

It was in fact the ebb of the temporary middle-class protest and the open bankruptcy of the revisionists' orientation. But Whelan goes on:

'The first, and most important lesson is that every left-wing organization, with the exception of the CP and the SLL, has experienced a considerable growth in its forces, and these can if necessary [?], be turned to work in other fields; thus the participation in the movement is justified.'

The word 'thus' is not as innocent as it looks! Do Marxists test the correctness of their tactics and perspectives by asking if they made temporary numerical gains?

Opportunist adaptation to the twists and turns of the middle class may well persuade some of that middle class to look upon the revisionists more favourably. That is another question, however. These forces will certainly leave the revisionists in almost the same numbers in which they arrived (many of them have already done so), and they may even take a few of the 'originals' with them.

The balance sheet

Let Whelan resume his 'genuine, although tentative, balance sheet':

'The second lesson is that, although considerable moral support has been given to the Vietnamese, the material impact of the movement has (except in the US) been extremely limited; outside Australia, we know of no cases where it has been possible to organize workers to black goods, carry out sabotage, etc.'

This passage completely ignores the fact that the whole 'Vietnam Solidarity Campaign' was organized in such a way as to turn young militants away from the labour movement, and above all to turn them away from the building of Trotskyist parties, the only road to the working class being able to carry out solidarity actions.

Indeed the first prerequisite for being able to fight for such actions is to oppose the Stalinists who stand in their way—and this is what the revisionists in VSC refused to do.

It is exactly this point which is avoided by the first part of Whelan's 'balance sheet'.

When he talks about 'the various left organizations' turning away from the defence of the Vietnam revolution, he thereby obscures the fact that it is precisely Stalinism, and the revisionists' adaptation to it, which prepared this turn.

Was it not Tariq Ali who shared his platform with 'Comrade' Barney Davis of the Young Communist League and delivered to 10, Downing St his message, 'Dear Harold . . .'?

And now we come to the pièce de résistance of Whelan's conclusions from the VSC campaign, in which he tells us: what next?

'The third lesson is that the 75,000 (who marched on October 27, 1968) must still be around somewhere, probably with much the same sentiments, and that it ought to be possible, perhaps on a local rather than a national level, to find a road to them. The fourth is—and it must be admitted—that the number of young people of middle and lower proletarian origin involved in the movement has been strictly limited, and a road to them must be found in the future; those who have been mobilized are, all too often, hostile to or suspicious of the workers' movement.

'Most probably, in our opinion, one important way in which a road to the proletarian youth will (TW's emphasis) be opened will be by contracting them as they are involved in the growing number of industrial struggles and movements which we confidently expect. Let us also not forget the need to link up with working-class women, particularly through the movement for women's equal rights.' (My emphasis. CS.)

It is only human to be tempted to dismiss this rubbish with a contemptuous laugh, but that would certainly be a mistake.

What Whelan is showing us here is precisely the middle-class, flippant outlook which lies behind his whole attack on the revolutionary party. Having never built anything himself, he is of course unable to make a 'balance sheet' of any political experience. He does not and cannot start from the problem of how to orientate himself and the cadres of the party into the changed situation, having checked his perspectives, because he has no party, he is responsible to no one.

And this, and this alone, is the entire content of his attack on the Socialist Labour League. It is this content which has determined that he end up (for the time being) in the camp of the Pabloite liquidationists, whose 20 years of revisionism have been concentrated in attack on the independent revolutionary party.

The strange case of Mr Webster

Now it must be added that Vietnam is a singularly unfortunate choice for Whelan personally. In an article of this sort, we do not want to describe the details of Whelan's positively dangerous political instability in earlier years.

However, Vietnam is a question on which he expressed himself publicly some years ago, and the record must be quoted, since Whelan himself, characteristically, makes no attempt to account for his right-about turn on this question.

We turn to 'The Newsletter' (forerunner of Workers Press) of April 3, 1965, in which the following lines appear:

'Dear Comrade Editor,

'Comrade Robert James' otherwise excellent articles on the fake fight of the "lefts" over Vietnam . . . omitted to mention one group whose pretentions to "Marxism" and "Trotskyism" make their outpourings even more despicable. I refer, of course, to the fissiparous "Unified Secretariat of the Fourth International".

'Their new English journal "World Politics" included, in its edition of 8/3/65, a statement by the United Secretariat under the heading "Hands off the Democratic Republic of Vietnam!" in which it is difficult to find a trace of Marxism.'

The writer of this letter, who signed himself 'E. Webster', concluded that the Pabloite article gave us: 'The same old Pabloite theory! — "irresistible forces" prevent the bureaucracies from betraying the revolution.'

Further, said 'Webster':

'Were there space enough to waste on this gibberish in "The Newsletter" and had we a strong enough digestive system for this mushy diet, we could deal in detail with several more points . . . The whole method is clearly wrong.

'The petty-bourgeois "revolutionary" philistine, buffeted by powerful forces he does not understand and therefore cannot resist, isolated from and unable to build a movement of the working class, seeks fixed points of support in a rapidly changing world. Unable to base himself on the working class and its struggle for socialism, he adapts himself to certain apparently powerful social groupings.'

The same 'Webster', following up with another letter on April 24, refers to the 'utter bankruptcy' of the Unified Secretariat, revealed by its policy on Vietnam. He fulminates:

'What hypocritical liars these people are!' and 'What treacherous drivel this is!'

He then makes a long quotation from one of their documents, which, he says '. . . demonstrates the complete capitulation of the Unified Secretariat to imperialism'.

And further, according to Webster, the Unified Secretariat 'stabs the Vietnamese people in the back'.

'There can, in the fight to build the Fourth International throughout the world, be no accommodation with these traitors.'

We must break the news to our readers that the signature 'E. Webster' on these letters was a pen-name for . . . Tony Whelan!

Vietnam & Pabloites

Now we can do nothing about Whelan's changing his mind. Such things have been known before. But we do demand the credentials of a man who launches an 80-page book against Trotskyism that he explains his political relationship with those who publish his work, and whom he denounced as having 'capitulated to imperialism' and 'stabbed the Vietnamese people in the back'.

In view of Whelan's perplexity over the subsequent fate of those who were got together for the Grosvenor Square demonstration, we will quote, by way of contrast, a leaflet of the International Marxist Group, published in 1968, before the demonstration, and entitled 'The International Marxist Group replies to "The Newsletter's" Slanders'.

In this leaflet they maintain the SLL had a 'basically mistaken attitude . . . towards the massive radicalization of youth over the Vietnam question'.

The leaflet objects particularly to 'The Newsletter's' statement:

'The Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and its hangers-on are enemies of Marxist principles. Their October campaign will be directed not towards aiding the defeat of US imperialism, but towards confusing and misleading those who are seeking a road to revolutionary principles and revolutionary leadership.'

Now we are convinced—and Whelan's bankruptcy in face of the facts today bears it out—that this assessment was absolutely correct.

But see how the IMG answered our charge: after deluding themselves that the Young Socialists and 'Keep Left' were on their last legs, they say:

'But to their horror the struggle in solidarity with the Vietnamese Revolution has drawn into activity, particularly around VSC, thousands of youth, both students and young workers, who despite many elements of mistaken ideas, adventurist tendencies, etc., are eager for a showdown with capitalism. And not only can the SLL not reach them, but they are by-passing the SLL on the left. It is from these youth that the core of the new revolutionary party will be built; therefore for Trotskyists to be unable to influence them is a very serious matter . . . we are eager to prove the superiority of our theories in action.'

They add:

'The lesson of the last two years is, that once the factional wrangling between the various Marxist and left tendencies is broken through, and joint action carried out on vital issues, real progress can be made, and the differences can be fruitfully discussed in the light of experience.'

It is now common knowledge that after the 'October mobilization' the 'Marxist and left tendencies' in VSC immediately exploded in all directions, producing the situation of decline described by Whelan himself, and beginning the interminable inquest: 'Where did they all go? . . .'

As for the revolutionary party that was being built by young people by-passing the SLL, where is it?

If it did exist, would not its destiny now be, to quote a speaker at the IMG's so-called Trotsky Memorial Meeting on August 21: 'to liquidate itself into a mass revolutionary movement'?!

This is only a crude expression of the same liquidationism which we pointed out was being practised by the Pabloite revisionists of the IMG already in their October VSC campaign of 1968.

If Whelan will not explain his present position in terms of the real history of the tendencies involved, we are obliged to do it for him.

The divisions between these tendencies is fundamental. Whelan has found his place with the remnants of those revisionists who, ever since the Second World War, capitulated theoretically and politically to the apparent stability achieved by capitalist society through the inflationary boom.

The Socialist Labour League and the Trotskyists whose work preceded it and laid the basis for it, always based themselves, in the fight against revisionism, on the fundamental contradictions within capitalism in its final imperialist stage.

The inflationary measures of the capitalist powers amounted in reality to a series of concessions to the strength of the working class, and they could be implemented only through the counter-revolutionary agency of the Stalinist bureaucracy and the Social Democracy.

From Haston, through Cliff, Pablo and Lawrence, the revisionists in the Trotskyist movement capitulated one by one, either directly to the reformist agents of national and US capital, or to the Stalinist bureaucracy.

The Pabloites' search for non-proletarian 'revolutionary' elements like the student protesters, supposedly born out of capitalism's 'new industrial revolution', was the logical outcome of this theoretical disorientation and political capitulation.

Whelan, running from the emergence of the working class on to the political scene and from the demands placed on Marxists by the development of the Socialist Labour League, met them at this point, on the question of Vietnam.

So urgent was the consummation of this new-found affinity that, as we have seen, it required that Whelan's past on the question of Vietnam and revisionism be quietly turned inside out.

Our struggle to build the independent revolutionary party on the basis of the maturing economic crisis and the revolutionary role of the working class has not only been thoroughly vindicated by the development of the capitalist crisis, and particularly by the great wave of workers' struggles since May-June 1968, but it has enabled us to build a movement prepared to intervene in that situation on a scale never before envisaged since the foundation of the Fourth International, by contrast with the disintegration of the forces of the revisionists.

All the revisionist tendencies breaking from Trotskyism, seeking something in the so-called 'objective' development of capitalism to justify their running away, have sought to create some haven of rest for refugees from the class struggle.

Whelan's own experience, his own theoretical limitations, his inability to break from a petty-bourgeois outlook, sent him in their direction.

Just as they needed assistance in the way of his empiricist logic-chopping and doctoring of evidence, so he needed their sophisticated ability to twist Marxist phrases about 'programme' to every opportunist turn.

Continued tomorrow