4BritishTrotskyism today: Stalinism and the Revisionists

The basis of the split between the Socialist Labour League and the tendency now calling itself the 'International Marxist Group' explains these variations in her attitude.

We separated from the tendency headed by Pablo because of absolutely fundamental differences over the nature and role of Stalinism.

The 1953 split in the Fourth International hinged on the Pabloites' insistence that under mass pressure the western Stalinist parties could be forced to take power and that in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, similar pressure from below would force the Stalinist bureaucracies to 'deStalinize' themselves by a series of internal reforms.

Basing itself on this revision of Trotskyism, which has always held that Stalinism, both within the workers' states and in the capitalist countries, is an anti-working-class, counter-revolutionary force, Pablo's faction in the Fourth International called for its liquidation into the ranks of the Stalinist parties.

Impressionistic The first impulse for this attack on Trotskyist theory and programme was Pablo's impressionistic analysis of the relationship between the Soviet Union and imperialism.

Seeing only the drive towards the third world war, and pessimistically writing off the ability of the working class to overthrow imperialism and so avert nuclear catastrophe, Pablo argued that an imperialist attack on the Soviet Union would drive the Stalinist parties to the left in the capitalist states.

Later the theory of the third world war was dropped, but the core of Pabloism, that the bureaucracy had changed since Trotsky wrote the "Transitional Programme of the Fourth International' in 1938, remained.

Where social democracy was the main tendency in the working class, supporters of Pablo were expected to dissolve their forces into its ranks, there to await the upsurge that was to force the Stalinist and reformist bureaucracies towards power.

Reid, as is to be expected, does not present the split in the Fourth International in this way.

She obscures its principled nature by reducing it to a prevent further criticism of Stalinism. war was inevitable and would be between the forces of imperialism and the Soviet Union.' (p. 18.)

Distorted Reid then gives a distorted outline of the development of the organization that is now the Socialist Labour League, contrasting us with the „revisionists, who were anxious to develop a new image, more subtle and flexible, and less sectarian. ... (p. 18.)

But just a little further on, Reid is forced to admit that despite our lack of a 'new image', despite our less 'subtle' and more 'sectarian' approach; 'Healy supporters were able successfully to work inside the Labour Party youth organization, the Young Socialists, and to take a majority into a new, specifically • Trotskyist organization called Young Socialists around the journal "Keep Left"! (p. 18)

What Reid condemns as sectarianism is in fact firm adherence to Marxist principles. Our break from Pablo's capitulation to bureaucracy in 1953, and the theoretical fight we waged against those who drifted back to his policies over the next ten years, were the basis for this historic defeat that Trotskyists were able to inflict on British social democracy in 1964.

Reid cannot hide her hatred for this intransigence of the Socialist Labour League. In attacking us, she repeats all the abuse hurled at the Bolshevik Party by its opportunist enemies in the Russian workers' movement before the Revolution of 1917 :

'In examining the policies of the Suh, we must remember that their efforts are directed entirely to one objective, the establishment of a clear, separate identity and organization which will set out to win adherents who ultimately will be led into battle when the big day comes.' (p. 19.)

Apart from the routine cynical references to revolution as 'the big day', this is a reasonable, if hostile, description of some of the main features of Leninism, a political tendency which Reid clearly loathes.

Opportunist Reid cannot conceal her feelings for the SLL. She hates it :

'It faithfully maintains the atmosphere of conspiracy, feuding, public attacks upon individuals, and blow-by-blow accounts of controversies with rival groupings? (p. 22.)

Here Reid echoes the slanders hurled against Lenin in his fight for Bolshevism in the Russian working class. The Mensheviks, like Reid, constantly charged revolutionaries with concentrating on dividual' attacks, with 'hair splitting' and obsession with theoretical differences. Reid's pamphlet here follows in a long opportunist tradition. 3,000 Young Socialists rallied in Trafalgar Square on September 21, 1964 for a Labour government with socialist policies. The demonstration followed mass expulsions of Trotskyist youth from the Labour Party and inaugurated the Young Socialists' independence from Transport House.

Plain truth too vulgar in this no-man's ANYONE expecting a 'THE EXPLOSION: MARXISM AND THE But the working class pa Marxist analvsis of the FRENCH REVOLUTION' hardly appears. (i. May-June events in France from this book will be sadly disillusioned after reading two or three chapters.

True is refers to Marx and it is a condemnation of Lefebvre's style and manner to say that the quotations from Marx are the clearest passages in the book.

Lefebvre is capable of acute observation and is obviously very, very clever.

But he is writing for a particular sort of reader belonging to an intellectual circle for whom the plain truths of Marxism would be too vulgar.

To put it bluntly, Lefebvre is an intellectual snob who swings with fashions in the small world of the French intelligentsia.

For over 20 years Lerebvre was a "leading philisopher' of the French Communist In this guise he wrote well and prolifically on dialectical materialism and did a useful book on the thought of Lenin.

After 1956 he broke with the Party and later wrote over 770 pages to try to explain what had been happening to him in that time. The effect was a failure.

He never understood Stalinism or settled accounts with it.

On the other hand, and this stands to his credit, he did not break with Marxism either, at least in a formal sense.

But he wandered in a political no-man's land, a fashionable writer TOT successiul interpreted' Marxism by a return to Hegelian idealism.

Lefebvre thus rejected emotionally political organization, discipline and partisanship. This was equated with 'dogmatism,' with Stalinism.

When we come to the International Marxist Group, we find Reid using a different tone and political approach. Firstly, the origins of the group itself are carefully obscured.

As we have already seen, Reid ignores the pro-Stalinist tendencies that have always Translated from the French by Alfred Ehrenfeld Monthly Review Press New York and London

BOURGEOIS

JARGON At the same time he took up with the ideas fashionable in intellectual circles and incorporated the jargon of bourgeois sociology into his style.

Even more prolific than becorasingly dificult, with his books became inflashes of genuine insight concealed in masses of obscurity.

This kind of writing has an audience: people who do not like to have a spade called a spade, or pride themselves on being able to understand pages of obscure text which, if put into plain language, would readily fit into a couple of sentences.

As a professor at Nanterre, scene of the first skirmishes which escalated into the May-June revolution, Lebvre might have produced a good analysis of what occured.

Evidently his French publishers though that this book fit the bill, and their view was obviously shared by 'Monthly Review Press' who, of all the scores of books on the subject which have appeared in France, chose this one for translation into English. then in the Sorbonnes tnen were very distinctly to Lefebvre's liking "dogmatism' here-and he is able to make amends for his Stalinist past by grovelling before the 'spontaneity' of the students.

By dealing sympathetically with the students' revolt he fails to rise above it. Stalinism.

Careful Reid, as we have already pointed out, is careful to make a distinction between the SLL and the IMG. Indeed, so great is the contrast between the two that Reid, for her own very good reasons, has to insist that despite all appearances to the contrary, the IMG are still "Trotskyists' :

'Because of the profound contrast in methods of work, arguments and approach between this group [IMG] and the SLL there are those who have the illusion [!] that the former is not really Trotskyist, but is something quite new and different.' (p. 24.)

Those labouring under this "illusion' are, of course, right inasmuch as the IMG are not Trotskyists, but they would be wrong to see them as anything new. They are as old as opportunism itself.

But this flagrantly revisionnature of the IMG poses 1969 by Tom Kemp Lefebvre does not pay much attention to the events of May-June: it is the impression they made on his sophisticated mind, choked with philosophical concepts and the idiom of contemporary bourgeois sociology which comes over in his bok.

WORKING CLASS ABSENT Of course, he makes many points about the causes of the outbreak amongst students and intellectuals which are correct.

Lefebvre is hostile to the the black Anarchist flag. part justified.' (pp. 24-25.)

'Left unity' Thus far, Reid is saying, the IMG is doing very well. It wants 'left unity', which the Pabloites prefer to dress up with the more Leninist-sounding term 'united front' (Reid will not quibble over what are to her small differences.)

The IMG is also prepared to put aside 'past controversies, however bitter', meaning the Moscow Trials, the purges and the betrayals of Stalinism, eft order to achieve this unity'.

But lest the Stalinist embrace smothers Purdie, Ali and Jordan and strips them bare all their 'anti-Stalinism', Reid reminds her readers that 'in spite of many differences, more unites than divides those Trotskyist groups whose allegiance is to the 1938 founding programme of the Fourth International.' (p. 25.)

At all costs, the "Trotskyist' credentials of the revisionists must be preserved.

Herein lies precisely their usefulness to the Stalinists.

Reid's treatment of the activities of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign proves that she is only too well aware of the principled differences between the SLL and the various revisionist groups. This is what she says of the inaugural meeting of the VSC, held in August 1966:

'The Socialist Labour League departed in disgust at not being allowed to attack "Stalinism" ... This left an amalgam of Fourth International [IMG] and International Socialism, and these organizations mained the dominant forces.' (pp. 50-51.)

Firstly it is highly significant that Reid chooses to call the IMG the 'Fourth International', a decision completely consistent with her aim of presenting this revisionist group genuine Trotskyists.

no-man' But the working class hardly appears.

An analysis of the role of the labour bureaucracy and especially the Communist Party was not worth making: one suspects that Lefebvre would be congenitally incapable of making it.

There are passages in which he follows a Marxist or Leninist analysis, but we are soon back in the morass of idealist abstraction and jargon.

Lefebvre, after all, is hostile to the formation of a revolutionary party to take power. He can criticise capitalism, or as he sometimes calls it 'neo-capitalism', and apparently wants to see it replaced.

By whom?

To answer these questions would, presumably, be to tall back into the old 'dogmatism'.

Better to stand back in uncritical admiration at students Secondly, her statement that the revisionists were left in control of the VSC after the departure of the SLL is only half the story.

Having compromised with Stalinism at its founding conference by refusing to allow any criticism of the role of the Soviet bureaucracy in the Vietland parading behind Black (i.e. anarchist) flag.

Lefebvre is in favour of doit-yourself revolution through what he calls 'self-manageOr he makes general statements, at a high level of abstraction, which do not commit him to do anything in particular.

CRITIQUE'

The following passage, which it is fair to quote as one of the more lucid attempts to present his alternative, is good example:

'A new rationality is emerging : within the framework of a higher unity characterized essentially by increasing, political awareness and understanding.

This requires and implies 'a critique-and at best a selfcritique-of absolute poliprefers to stand FHIAGI namese war (it was for this reason that we walked out) the way was now clear for the entry of the Stalinists into the alliance.

It is now clear that the barring of criticism of the Stalinist bureaucracy was based on the revisionists' intention to turn towards the Communtics and all the ideologies that support and justify absolute politics. Political awareness and understanding alone can unify the dimensions and levels of reality and knowledge.

These become reintegrated or integrated by a rationality which condenses everything man has learned out history, including the history of philosophy, knowledge, ideologies, and the state. Such a task can be undertaken, only by a collective theoretical and practical effort.' (p. 141.)

This book casts some light on the limitations and weaknesses of the kind of people whose hopes and enthusiasms inspired the 'happenings' in Nanterre and the Sorbonne in May, 1968.

For the most part, however, anyone wishing to understand what really happened in France at this time may be excused from reading it.

line on the war and her de- tion on Vietnam, against the fence of the 'Popular Front' government's anti-trade union and the Nazi-Soviet Pact— policies and other questions. none is so much as mentioned 'Whatever the views of the in the review. leaders of the Communist *Stalinism The energed in Stain in 195 duang the Korean tar (above), EXPOSED! when they refused to support the North Koreans against American 'bury's new modernization, with the new and cheape Lefebvre is hostile to the formation of a revolutionary party; he prefers to stand back in uncritical admiration at students parading behind levelopments taking place all the time, will before long be completel: PRESS been at work inside the camp of the revisionists, and which today come to the surface with a vengeance.

Reid does not tell her readers that one of the founding members of the British Pabloites was John Lawrence, who broke from Trotskyism in 1953 to join the ranks of the Stalinists, on the basis of Pablo's theory that mass pressure would force the bureaucracies to take power.

Remaining a member of the British Pabloite organization, Lawrence worked inside the Communist Party as an important industrial member, and was prominent in the Communist Party's group in the Ford factory at Dagenham.

This is known to Reid, who mentions Lawrence in her 1964 *Marxism Today' article on This time she is silent on the subject of Lawrence. Why?

She knows that despite the IMG's verbal adherence to Trotskyism it is a political breeding ground for more John Lawrences, that is, for elements who can pass over to Stalinism.

Careful Reid, as we have already pointed out, is careful to make a distinction between the SLI and the IMG. Indeed, so great is the contrast between the two that Reid, for her own very good reasons, has to insist that despite all appearances to the contrary, the IMG are still "Trotskyists' :

'Because of the profound contrast in methods of work, arguments and approach between this group [IMG] and the SLL there are those who have the illusion [!] that the former is not really Trotskyist, but is something quite new and different.' (p. 24.)

Those labouring under this "illusion' are, of course, right inasmuch as the IMG are not Trotskyists, but they would be wrong to see them as anything new. They are as old as opportunism itself.

But this flagrantly revisionnature of the IMG poses 1964 for a Labour government f Trotskyist youth from the from Transport House.

ilgar in th : MARXISM AND REVOLUTION' enri Lefebvre French by Alfred Ehrenfeld New York and London 1969 by Tom Kemp Lefebvre does not pay much attention to the events of May-June: it is the impression they made on his sophisticated mind, choked with philosophical concepts and the idiom of contemporary bourgeois sociology which comes over in his bok.

WORKING CLASS ABSENT Of course, he makes many outbre about the causes de the vurDrear and intellectuals which are correct. the black Anarchist flag. problems for the Stalinists, for the usefulness of such a group is precisely its claim to being The IMG must therefore be presented as a genuine Trotskyist group, and 'attacked' as such, but at the same time, built up as a more reasonable', less 'sectarian' alternative to the SLL :

'Certainly history would not excuse those who allowed past controversies, however bitter, to impede united efforts to deal with the terribly urgent life-and-death problems that confront us. Our attention must be turned, however, not to generalizations but to policies.

'Here, isofar as this group [IMG] developed capitalist propaganda an d attacked right-wing policies in the Labour Party, it is perfectly true that it has the Left in the Labour Party; tributed to the development of when "International says in its first issue, May "We have always stood is making a part justified.' (pp. 24-25.)

'Left unity' Thus far, Reid is saying, the IMG is doing very well. It wants 'left unity', which the Pabloites prefer to Jess u vith the more Leninist-sound ing term 'united front' (Reid will not quibble over what are to her small differences.)

The IMG is also prepared to put aside 'past controversies, however bitter', meaning the the betrayals of Stalinism, left Moscow Trials, the purges and order achieve this unity.

lest the Stalinist brace smothers Purdie, Ali and Jordan and strips them bare their "anti-Stalinism', Reid reminds her readers 'in spite of many differences, more unites than divides those Trotskyist groups whose allegiance is to the 1938 founding programme Fourth At all costs, the "Trotskyist' credentials of the revisionists must be preserved Herein precisely their usefulness to the Stalinists.

Reid's treatment of the activities of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign proves that she is only well aware of the principled differences between the SLL and the various revisionist groups. This is what she says of the inaugural meeting of the VSC, held in August 1966:

'The Socialist Labour League departed in disgust at not being allowed to attack "Stalinisn" ... This left an amalgam of Fourth International [IMG] and International Socialism, and these organizations remained the dominant forces (pp. 50-51.)

Firstly it is highly significant that Reid chooses to call the IMG the Fourth International', a decision completely consistent with her aim of presenting this revisionist group as genuine Trotskyists.

no-man' But the working class hardly appears.

An analysis of the role of the labour bureaucracy and especially the Communist Party was not worth making: one suspects that Lefebvre would be congenitally incapable of making it.

There are passages in which he follows a Marxist or Leninist analysis, but we are soon back in the morass of idealist abstraction and jargon.

Lefebvre, after all, is hostile to the formation of a revolutionary party to take power. He can criticise capitalism, or as he sometimes calls it 'neo-capitalism', and apparently wants to see it replaced.

By whom?

To answer these questions would, presumably, be to tall back into the old 'dogmatism'.

Better to stand back in uncritical admiration at students Secondly, her statement that the revisionists were left in control of the VSC after the departure of the SLL is only half the story.

Having compromised with Stalinism at its founding conference by refusing to allow any criticism of the role of the Soviet bureaucracy in the Vietland parading behind Black (i.e. anarchist) flag.

Lefebvre is in favour of doit-yourself revolution through what he calls 'self-manageOr he makes general statements, at a high level of abstraction, which do not commit him to do anything in particular.

CRITIQUE'

The following passage, which it is fair to quote as one of the more lucid attempts to present his alternative, is good example:

'A new rationality is emerging within the framework of a higher unity characterized essentially by increasing political awareness and understanding.

This requires and implies a critique--and at best a selfcritique-of absolute poliNovember7, British namese war (it was for this reason that we walked out) the way was now clear for the entry of the Stalinists into the alliance.

It is now clear that the barring of criticism of the Stalinist bureaucracy was based on the revisionists' intention to turn towards the Communtics and all the ideologies that , support and justify absolute politics. Political awareness and understanding alone can unify the dimensions and levels of reality and knowledge.

These become reintegrated or integrated by a rationality which condenses everything man has learned out history, including the history of philosophy, knowledge, ideologies, and the state. Such a task can be undertaken, only by a collective theoretical and practical effort.' (p. 141.)

This book casts some light on the limitations and weaknesses of the kind of people whose hopes and enthusiasms inspired the 'happenings' in Nanterre and the Sorbonne in May, 1968.

For the most part, however, anyone wishing to understand what really happened in France at this time may be excused from reading it. Friday, November7, Slatay ,090 and Ribbentret j oni co : SHT.

ist Party once the campaign had acquired a 'left' enough image.

This is just what happened. Reid describes the last stages of the Stalinist 'kill' on page 56:

'In March 1968 an Ad Hoc Committee initiated by the VSC held a demonstration in which Communists and members of the Young Communist League took part as a conscious and organized action.

'Other activities initiated by the Ad Hoc Committee culminated in the very big and successful October 27 demonstration in 1968, in which an estimated 100,000 filled the streets.' (p. 56.)

This last 'successful' demonstration, : well known, ended with a letter passed into 10 Downing Street to 'Dear Harold', asking Wilson to support the NLF. The revisionists mobilized most of the forces, the Stalinists provided the policy — a division of labour that suited each side admirably.

Reid describes how collaboration with the Communist Party gradually 'tamed' the wild men of the 'Black Dwarf':

'The character of the leadership and material produced, and the co-operation of the non-socialist forces, was a very great advance on the previous demonstrations they had organized.

'In spite of a tew initial frivolities in the "Black Dwarf" ... promising a possible insurrection, the tone and handling of the unprecedented campaign of vilification was positive, and resulted in a high degree of unity of all forces excluding the small lunatic fringe? (p. 56.)

The IMG are really coming along, Reid is saying here.

They are even learning to work fruitfully with 'non-socialist forces' (i.e., Liberals and Christians)—a precondition for any prolonged collaboration with the Stalinists.

Singled out Mr E. Tate is singled out special praise in this respect:

'Even Ernie Tate of the International Marxist Group wrote an article on the lessons of this demonstration which was a far cry from the days when he launched into a similar article in "World Outlook" ... describing a previous demonstration and gleefully retailing the number of police casualties as the first positive results to record!' (p. 56.)

The Stalinist take-over and winding-up of the VSC was only made possible policies of the IMG.

They, from the hirst meeting in 1966, made it very clear that the campaign was at all costs to be liquidated into the Communist Party, and from there into social democracy.

That was the essence of Pabloism in 1953, and it revealed itself for all to see on October 27, 1968, when Ali and company marched with the Stalinist youth leader Barney Davis to 10 Downing Street, where they delivered their appeal to Wilson to support the NLF.

This 'left cover' must have been greatly appreciated by the leadership of the Communist Party, because Reid cannot resist praising the IMG for sticking to this line even after it had become unpopular in other revisionist circles :

'Whatever our disagreements with the International Marxist Group they have at least not accepted this line of International Socialism on Vietnam.' (p. 57.)

'This line' turns out to be also 'the line of the SLL ... that what is needed is to get immersed in the economic and domestic struggles, and that this is the way to help Vietnam.' (p. 57.)

Reid rejects here the principle that concrete, posed to platonic internationalism, is expressed by stepping up the struggle against one's own ruling class.

But it is strange that she should charge the SLL with 'immersion in the economic and domestic struggle' when on page 20 she accuses the same movement of being 'content to remain on the touch line shouting abuse at those who do not want to move so far ahead of the mass movement as to become isolated and impotent.

It seems that when it suits Reid, the Socialist Labour League can be either 'ultraleft' or bogged down in parochial, run-of-the-mill routine issues. Either way, she prefers Other So much for Reid on the merits of the IMG. How does the other half of the equation, the IMG, react to the overtures of Reid?:

'Costing 5s and with an attractive cover the pamphlet appears to be a serious and objective attempt to come to terms with other [!] left tendencies..

In fact in stating her case she is forced to pay us some compliments in a back-handed manner. This will no doubt be used by the SLL to "prove" that there is an alliance between the CP and the IMG to divert people away from the "true believers"' ('International', September, 1969, admission helps compliments' This rather self-conscious why Reid's have to be 'back-handed'.

Open praise for the IMG by the Stalinists would compromise it all too easily, and prevent it rendering the type of service Reid describes her section on the VSC.

'International' quotes with obvious pride all those sections of Reid's pamphlet that contain these "backhanded compliments' Reid's repetition of the old slanders against Trotskyism, her support for the Stalinist iSits fi minat out-dated. imperialism.

Jordan and Purdie are too busy frantically scanning Reid's booklet for favourable references to themselves to notice that the vast bulk of the pamphlet contains all the old slanders against Trotskyism and takes back virtually nothing that was said in the days of Stalin.

This indicates the depth to which revisionism has sunk.

'International', rather than denounce Reid as an unrepentant apologist for Stalinism, prefers to boost her, like Johnstone, as an "objective' and 'serious' student of Trotskyism. Acknowledge The IMG review of Reid's work concludes with an acknowledgement from the revisionists that they have sensed the way the wind is blowing from King Street:

'Near the end of the pamphlet, she says that the CP imposes no bans and proscriptions and it will "work with anyone who will cooperate on an agreed basis for specific aims".

'This is an important statement and will be of use in trying to develop unity of ac9.10 10.00 10.30 11.05 SAA!

For PARIS TALKS to TELL JOHNSON to STOP BO.

SIGi Television Brain of Britain. The Virginian.

Not In Front Of The Children.

Golden Silents.

8.50 The Main News and 'he Main News Veather.

The Survivors.

Dance Date With Star Close-Up:

Rooney, talk and tracts. 11.40 Weather.

Re the aollowing me:s BBC.1 except Mip.m. idlands tongliaoo.00-6.25 to face c DR VAN DEN BURG'S book, by making thorough technical study of the container method of transportation, exposes some of the basic contradictions that face the shippers and port employers of the world.

On the one hand, large cuts in freight rates based on modernization and reduced manning can ensure a sharp rise in profits for those 'first in' with the new methods.

On the other hand, as more and more firms struggle to survive by similar modernization, over-production of port facilities and ship - carrying capacity rapidly occurs.

For example, the announcement on October 27 of the formation of a Consortium of British, European and Australian Shipping lines to 'corner' all the EuropeanAustralian shipping trade reflects the level of technical and scientific development in that the 13 lines involved have come together to control just 14 ships that can carry this entire trade.

However, not to be outdone, the Scandinavian lines announced on October 29 that they were ordering five modern container roll-on/roll-off ships

Revisionist Pat Jordan of the International Marxist Group addresses demonstrators on October 27, 1968 (left). Also on the Ad Hoc Committee platform, Tariq Ali. The demonstration was joined by a large contingent of Stalinists, whose slogans dominated the march (right). At the end of the demonstration, Ali delivered a letter to Wilson beginning 'Dear Harold', petitioning him not to support Johnson and support the NLF instead. when they refused to support the North Koreans against American Friday, November7, нkcAL1 10ItTe пісобаніа -TMB1tatdiin Nazi-Sovic' AgquAtd00Bas Ribe KQ0 ) постас-сінтарі Chai:imauc •- Ganeall mipar i stitt. • TUMURO. SNGC• tahn GiclianList Party once the campaign had acquired a 'left' enough image.

This is just what happened.

Reid describes the last stages of the Stalinist 'kill' on page 56: 'In March 1968 an Ad Hoc Committee initiated by the VSC held a demonstration in which Communists and members of the Young Communist League took part as a conscious and organized action. 'Other activities initiated by the Ad Hoc Committee culminated in the very big and successful October 27 demonstration in 1968, in which an estimated 100,000 filled the streets.' (p. 56.)

This last 'successful' demonstration, is well known, ended with a letter passed into 10 Downing Street to 'Dear Harold', asking Wilson to support the NLF. The revisionists The Stalinist take-over and winding-up of the VSC was only made possible by policies of the IMG.

They, trom the hirst meeting in 1966, made it very clear that the campaign was at all costs to be liquidated into the Communist Party, and from there into social democracy.

That was the essence of Pabloism in 1953, and it revealed itself for all to see on October 27, 1968, when Ali and company marched with the Stalinist youth leader Barney Davis to 10 Downing Street, where they delivered their appeal to Wilson to support the NLF.

This 'left cover' must have been greatly appreciated by the leadership of the Communist Party, because Reid cannot resist praising the IMG for sticking to this line even after it had become unpopular in other revisionist circles:

'Whatever our disagreements with the International Marxist Group they have at least not accepted this line of International Socialism on Vietnam.' (p. 57.)

'This line' turns out to be also 'the line of the SLL ... that what is needed is to get immersed in the economic and domestic struggles, and that this is the way to help Vietnam.' (p. 57.)

Reid rejects here the principle that concrete, as opposed to platonic internationalism, is expressed by stepping up the struggle against one's own ruling class.

But it is strange that she should charge the SLL with *immersion in the economic and domestic struggle' when on page 20 she accuses the same movement of being 'content to remain on the touch line shouting abuse at those who do not want to move so far ahead of the mass movement as to become isolated and impotent.

It seems that when it suits Reid, the Socialist Labour League can be either 'ultraleft' or bogged down in parochial, run-of-the-mill routine issues. Either way, she prefers Other So much for Reid on the merits of the IMG. How does the other half of the equation, the IMG, react to the overtures of Reid?:

'Costing 5s and with an attractive cover the pamphlet appears to be a serious and objective attempt to come to terms with other [!] left tendencies...

'In fact in stating her case she is forced to pay us some compliments in a back-handed manner. This will no doubt be used by the SLL to "prove" that there is an alliance between the CP and the IMG to divert people away from the "true believers"' ('International', September, 1969, This rather self-conscious admission helps to explain why Reid's 'compliments' have to be 'back-handed'.

Open praise for the IMG by the Stalinists would compromise it all too easily, and prevent it rendering the type of service Reid describes in her section on the VSC.

'International' quotes with obvious pride all those sections of Reid's pamphlet that contain these 'backhanded compliments' Reid's repetition of the old slanders against Trotskyism, her support for the Stalinist line on the war and her defence of the 'Popular Front' and the Nazi-Soviet Pact— none is so much as mentioned in the review. imperialism.

Jordan and Purdie are too busy frantically scanning Reid's booklet for favourable references to themselves to notice that the vast bulk of the pamphlet contains all the old slanders against Trotskyism and takes back virtually nothing that was said in the days of Stalin.

This indicates the depth to which revisionism has sunk.

'International', rather than denounce Reid as an unrepentant apologist for Stalinism, prefers to boost her, like Johnstone, as an 'objective' and 'serious' student of Trotskyism. Acknowledge The IMG review of Reid's work concludes with an acknowledgement from the revisionists that they have sensed the way the wind is blowing from King Street :

'Near the end of the pamphlet, she says that the CP imposes no bans and proscriptions and it will "work with anyone who will cooperate on an agreed basis for specific aims".

"This is an important statement and will be of use in trying to develop unity of acWIEN For PARIS TALKS to SUCCEED TELL JOHNSON to STOP BOMBING!

tion on Vietnam, against the government's anti-trade union policies and other questions.

Whatever the views of the leaders of the Communist som, Party they realize they can no longer ignore other tendencies in unity of action. However, it will also mean that the exchange of ideas and debate will be facilitated.' (Our emphasis.)

Reid's anti-Trotskyist diatribe serves for the IMG as an opportunity to 'exchange ideas' with the Stalinists!

Yet the IMG is perfectly serious. Such an 'exchange' is already taking place, as Reid's analysis of the developments within the VSC shows.

The Stalinists provide the programme and the apparatus, revisionists the left phrases and the new faces.

The whole hotch-potch is then turned into a weapon to obscure principled Marxist politics and the role of the working class in fighting for international solidarity with the Vietnamese workers and peasants.

Brush aside Of the anti-Soviet group 'International Socialism', Reid says the following:

•.. alone of all Trotskyist organizations, except the tiny fundamentalist Socialist Party of Great Britain, International Socialism with extraordinary frivolity brushes aside the conquests of the October Revolution and characterizes the system of society in the socialist countries as "state capitalism". (р. 32.)

Neither of those two groups named by Reid can remotely be described as Trotskyist.

The SPGB was formed before the First World War, is explicitly hostile to Leninism and for good measure shares with the British Communist Party its belief in the peaceful, parliamentary road to socialism.

'International Socialism' originated in the period of the Korean War. A small middle-class group led by T. Cliff, it broke from the British Trotskyist movement under the pressure of the anti-Soviet, and anti - Chinese hysteria of the period, and declared that both these countries were just as imperialist USA.

In declaring itself to be 'neutral' in the struggle between the workers' states and imperialism, the Cliff group at once placed itself outside the ranks of Trotskyism, which has always stood for the unconditional defence of the Soviet Union and the other workers' states against attacks from imperialism.

Cliff's group was and remains anti-Trotskyist and anti-Leninist.

It believes that Stalin only continued the work done by Lenin, that in fact Bolshevism was the precursor of Stalinism. This view is also upheld, ironically enough, by all orthodox Stalinists.

Silent Reid is as silent on the beginnings of the Cliff group as she is on the origins of the IMG.

In both cases, the principled basis of our separation from PAGE THREE these two revisionist tendencies is obscured.

The Stalinists have always tried to present the Trotskyist movement as plagued with internal feuds and splits of a purely personal or organizational nature. The revisionist opponents of Bolshevism used the same opportunist tactics to attack Lenin before the Russian Revolution.

Like our opposition to Stalinism, our hostility to the various groups that Reid valiantly tries to present as 'Trotskyist', is based purely on grounds of Marxist principles. Personalities and individuals do not enter into it.

Members and supporters of the Communist Party breaking from the counterrevolutionary policies Stalinism are not going to be taken in by Reid's boost for When the time comes break with Stalinism, the break will be clean and furever. The line of the IMG leads right back into the camp of Stalinism, as their response to Reid's booklet proves.

Neither will Communist Party workers fall for the cheap anti-Soviet propaganda of the 'International Socialism' Cliff and his friends were very vocal in their opposition to what they called 'Soviet imperialism' at the time of the Kremlin invasion of Czechoslovakia, but when the time came to denounce genuine imperialist invasion of Ulster by British troops they supported it!

Cliff's is middle-class group that will repel class-conscious workers who want to defend the gains of the Russian Revolution.

As the last section of this article will show, the Socialist Labour League stands on its record of struggle for Marxist principles and leadership inside the workers' movement, and against the Labour government and all those who protect it or seek to minimize its treacherous role.

We think that is the criterion the working class will respect the most.