Pre-congress discussion reveals Stalinist crisis

PAGE THE British Communist Party goes into Novemt BY

its 31st Congress on November 15 • more divided and in deeper crisis than at any previous time in its For many Party members, the issue which has provoked the greatest controversy is the continued Kremlin occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Numerous letters for and against the invasion have appeared in the various Party periodicals.

A roll-call at the last District Congresses of the Party registered 40 per cent of the local leaderships as being in opposition to the present central Party leadership on the Czech question.

But like the invasion itself, the crisis has a long history which present events and conflicts are dredging slowly to the surface.

Despite the intentions of the Stalinist leadership of the British Communist Party, these developments cannot be walled off from an inquiry into the great historical and. international questions, issues that reach back to Lenin's death and the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party and the Communist International under Stalin's leadership.

And just as it would be wrong to see the crisis of British Stalinism in national terms, so would it also be a mistake to see the present stage of the conflict within its ranks as a power struggle between two leadership factions.

At the Party's working-class base the membership is being affected in different ways by the radicalization of the working class, as we have seen it expressed in the movement of the dustmen, motor workers and miners.

Some workers in the Communist Party are drawn towards this movement and struggle to give it leadership.

Others, steeped in years of opportunist collaboration with the trade union 'left' bureaucrats and their shop-floor supporters, stick to the Stalinist Party line of 'left unity', leading, as we saw in the recent miners' strike, to a situation where CP miners stood on opposite sides of the picket line.

We have to place the CP controversy and possible split in this living context of the developing class struggle. It is this international movement of the class against capitalism that brings CP workers all over western Europe face to to face with the treachery of Stalinist policies:

Italy, France - and noW Britain.

And when we turn to examine the political content of the current discussion, we see that this conflict with Stalinism does not take a pure form.

Far from the most militant rank-and-file workers moving in a straight line to Trotskyism, which is, of course, the only Marxist solution to all the questions which they are now raising, many appear to move towards the most hardened and unrepentent spokesmen for Stalinism within the British Communist Party; the group supported, if not led, by R. Palme Dutt, who has from the beginning once is the conscious indentification by the Gollan leadership of 'Dubcekism' with the Party's reformist_programme "The British Road Socialism'.

upheld the Kremlin's invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia.

This development within Stalinism is not new.

Maoism, which has defended all Stalin's crimes and purges, still attracts many militant workers all over the world because of the Peking regime's attacks on the Moscow line of 'peaceful-coexistence'.

What such workers support in the Chinese line is not its defence of Stalin, but its rejection of the peaceful road to socialism.

And this, we shall see, is also the case with the current split in the British Communist clear Tom and Jerry.

Supporters of the present Party policy make the connection explicit:

'Recent discussion ... regarding the invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia has left me wondering if the majority of Communist Party members understand the meaning of socialism and democracy, sovereignty of socialist states, or come to that, the "British Road to Socialism"

Or is the Party split 50-50 on these issues as the ratio of letters published would indicate?' (J. Bridges, 'Comment', October 4, 1969.)

In this, as in most other anti - invasion contributions, the class aspect of the question is played down or even ignored altogether.

The issue of national independence, Party sovereignty and parliamentary immunity, all of which were indeed violated by the Soviet invasion, are given precedence over the anti-working-class role of the Kremlin occupation.

This, of course, plays into the hands of the pro-Moscow faction, organized it seems by Sid French of the Surrey District Committee, and politically inspired by the veteran Stalinist R. Palme Dutt.

Thoroughly in his element when morally protected by full weight of Soviet armour, Dutt has thrown down the gauntlet to Gollan and company on the issue of Czechoslovakia :

... I think it is unwise to ask the Congress to endorse today on Czechoslovakia resolutions which were adopted prior to the fuller knowledge now available. ...There is a deep division in our Party on this matter, with opposing views sincerely and strongly held on both sides.

'The votes at the District Congresses last year showed this when 40 per cent of the delegates either voted against or abstained from supporting the viewpoint put forward with all the prestige [!] and ability [!] of spokesmen of our Executive.

This is a situation without precedent in the Party?

('Comment, October 11, 1969.-Our emphasis.)

The irony of the present conflict is that both sides are scoring freely off each other because they both defend false positions.

The Dutts and the Rothsteins are able to argue, quite correctly, that the Gollan faction's support for Dubcek puts them in the camp of liberal-bourgeois opinion in Britain, and wins them applause from anti-communist and anti-Soviet elements.

All this is true.

But in rejecting Gollan's adaption to the pressure of his own ruling class, Dutt treads instead the well-worn path of servility to the Soviet bureaucracy• The 'old guard' leadership, trained directly by Moscow in the early Stalin era, now openly clashes with the current Party leadership under Gollan, which came into its ranks during the long period opportunist, right-wing policies that began with the Popular Front, and with a short break during the Stalin-Hitler Pact, reached right through to the present.

Both Dutt and Gollan remain 100 per cent Stalinists.

Let there be no confusion on that score.

Dutt is very careful to separate himself from other critics of the present Party leadership when he makes it clear that he is not making an attack on the 'British Road' by opposing Gollan over Czechoslovakia:

•.. I believe that our Executive Committee and the Editorial Board of 'Morning Star' are doing an outstanding job over so many issues, especially in promoting left unity? ('Comment', October I1, 1969.

Our emphasis.)

Rank-and-file members, who for the moment have not been able to separate themselves from Dutt's reactionary position on Czechoslovakia, have voiced criticisms of the 'British Road' and 'left unity' :

"The present "British Road to Socialism" has not been arrived at over years of discussion, but is a qualitatively revised programme determined at one Congress after a discussion that never even got off the ground. Smug references to it getting an overwhelming majority at Congress cannot detract from the fact that it lacks any real support evidenced by the continuing decline in our work and the voting on the : Czechoslovak issue. 'Comment', September 27, 1969.)

This is an idea expressed over and over again in letters attacking the leadership of the Party: Gollan equals Dubcek.

Therefore to hit back at Gollan and the ultra-reformist policies he personifies, workers either vote against or abstain on the official Czechoslovak policy.

Of course, many such votes were cast because of explicit agreement with the Soviet invasion, though even here the motive was with many a perverted desire to defend the gains of 1948, which they wrongly saw as being underof Czechoslovakia last year mined by the break-up of the Novotny leadership.

Other sections have their doubts on the invasion, yet cannot bring themselves to vote for the openly opportunist line put forward by Gollan.

Here are the seeds of big future conflicts and splits within the Communist Party. Their future impulse will not only come from eastern Europe, but from the class struggle in Britain.

It is at such times as these that the greatest Clarity 1s called for in our analysis of the Stalinist crisis.

We must be particularly severe in our condemnation of any tendency which seeks to 10.20 Know Your Onions. 10.40 Doubts and Uncertainties. 11.05 News Summary, Weather. build up one or other of the factions in the leadership as some sort of alternative to Stalinism, as being a development towards revolutionary Marxism.

As we have shown, the two groups feed on each others' opportunism. This is best exemplified in the case of the ex - Y CL leader, Monty In their recent overtures towards the 'liberal' wing of the Stalinists (See 'Grovelling before Stalinism' by Cliff Slaughter. Workers Press No. 22. October 28, 1969), the revisionist 'International Marxist Group' has upheld Johnstone as an 'intellectual' seeking a genuine debate with Trotskyism, as a man trying to break with his Stalinist past.

For renegades from these Fourth Stalinism is not first of all the theory of 'socialism in one country, which Johnstone consistently upholds, but the Moscow Trials and the purges.

How does the 'anti-Stalinist' Johnstone intervene in the present discussion?

For him, the Kremlin invasion of Czechoslovakia serves above all as a peg on which to hang a special plea for the 'British Road to Socialism'.

The core of this CP programme-the section dealing with the peaceful, parliamentary transition to socialismwas drafted by none other than J. V. Stalin.

"The debate now going on in our Party on CzechosWestward lovakia is far from being a diversion from the vital need to consider how we can build our Party here in Britain. On the contrary it concerns the crucial question I whether we really mear what we say in the "Britist Road to Socialism" about extending democratic rights and freedoms under socialism' ('Comment", October 11, 1969.)

Who are to be the benefactors of these 'extended democratic rights'?

This is where the real anti-working class essence of Johnstone's brand of Stalinism comes out into the open.

He is for the 'democratic rights' of all classes:

In advocating in the "British Road" freedom for all democratically organized parties, including those hostile to socialism, we go British Communist Party leadership.

further than the Czechoslovaks ever did in Spring 1968. If we were to sanction the right of a group of socialist states to take it upon themselves to intervene against the allegedly dangerous consequences of Dubcek's "revisionism", then we should be conceding in principle their right some time in the future to invade a Britain building socialism according to our "model"

which is even less acceptable to them.' (Emphasis added.)

This is Johnstone the internationalist speaking: Defend Dubcek now, because one day, we might require similar assistance if our support 'parties hostile to" socialism' makes us unpopular in other countries. Tyne Tees Remember, this is the same Johnstone boosted by Purdie and the other leaders of the IMG as typical of the new, 'anti-Stalinist' wing within the British Communist Party.

Purdie embraces Johnstone at the same time as Johnstone comes forward as the defender of the rights of the Tory Party under the dictatorship of the working class.

What better proof of revisionism's utterly counterrevolutionary role could there be than this ?

Johnstone's 'support' for Dubcek plays directly into the hands of Dutt and the Soviet bureaucracy.

Any class-conscious worker must reject his defence of the Tories with contempt.

Within the CP, such hostility to Johnstone's pro-capitalist programme at the moment drives workers to reject the whole case against the Soviet intervention, which they wrongly identify with a firm class line against the type of revisionism personified by The discussion is still in early stages.

It cannot, except in a few cases, flow through any other channels than those carefully rovided for it by Dutt and ohnstone.

But with the sharpening of the national and international class struggle, the conflict will burst through the Stalinist framework imposed on it by the leadership.

Beneath the exchanges on Czechoslovakia there is a profound unease about the steady decline in CP membership, activity and literature sales:

[It] will require a dramatic and inspirational upsurge of our activities on all fighting fronts, to build the party, YCL and "Morning Star"

'But judging from the kind of inspiration of the last two years this is unlikely to happen.' (Charlie Doyle, 'Comment, October 11, 1969.)

"The decline of the Party, the YCL and in sales of the "Morning Star" is so serious for the British people that many comrades feel we should make a fresh appraisal of both our international and domestic policy (Doris Tuchfeld, "Comment', October 11, 1969)

This pessimism has taken old of entire districts, as is roved by the letter from the lants & Dorset District Comlittee:

'We in the Hants and Dorset, believe the decisive issue facing our Party at this Congress is the decline of the Party over a whole range of work, membership 6 per cent down, and the low average dues-paying membership, "Morning Star" sales declining, despite considerable rund-raisins efforts, nuch less direct Party pub.

lic activity and the steady decline in the number of full-time workers' ('Comment', October 8, 1969.)

The same letter draws attenin to what might on the rface appear a contradictory velopment:

'This trend includes drop in sales of "Comment"

and other Party literature to our members, contrary to the trend outside the Party of a broadening interest in Marxist works. The decline in our public work ... is again in contradiction to the rise of militancy in the organized labour movement. The continued failure to establish our position amongst the young as the only genuine Marxist revolutionary party in this country would seriously inhibit our future growth.' Numerous other letters relate the same story-wonderful opportunities, but instead of expansion, a decline in membership, sales, funds, activity and enthusiasm.

This contradiction lies at the core of the relationship between Stalinism and the working class.

Just as it grew strong in periods of defeat, now it goes into crisis and decline when the working class begins to fight politically.

After nearly two decades of foot-slogging along Stalin's parliamentary road to socialism, the leaders of the British

Communist Party have to their credit the loss of the only two seats they held in 1945: West Fife and Mile End.

Each new swing towards reformism and vote-chasing has led to a further decline in votes, both at local and national elections.

The absymal performance in the Gorbals, and the resignation of J. Reid as the Party organizer for Scotland, may not be unconnected events.

Even more alarming for the Stalinists was the performance of the Young Socialist first-ever candidate, Frank Willis, in the Swindon by-election.

At their first attempt, the Young Socialists came within 64 votes of the CP candidate in a constituency which has been contested many times before by the Party.

Today, more than ever betore, voting is a class question and for that very reason the Stalinists now lose heavily at the polls.

Votes are certainly there to be won, but only in the course of the overall struggle to build the revolutionary party.on a principled Marxist foundation.

This is a different working class to the one that, full of social - democratic voted for Wilson in 1964 and again in 1966.

Since then big sections of the class have clashed head-on with the government on wages and unemployment. They are beginning to learn instinctively about the reactionary nature of the 'parliamentary road to socialism'.

When the Stalinists come along and cynically offer the working class the same mixture as before, only dressed up with a few left phrases, they get the treatment they deserve.

The worker votes Labour with clenched teeth, but he votes Labour as the only way he knows to fight the Tory in an election.

The Stalinists provide no answer to that problem.

Indeed, in the factories they collaborate with the staunchest supporters of Wilson in smoothing the way for speedup and sackings.

Unlike the revisionists, and the vultures of the capitalist press (eager as ever to seize on any scandal that can be used to discredit Marxism), we are not speculating ona 'Moscow takeover' at next week's CP Congress.

We are intervening in this crisis of Stalinism to fight for the principles of Trotskyism, which alone can point out the road ahead for those Dutt: Upholds Kremlin invasion.

workers and intellectuals struggling to break from the opportunist policies enshrined in Stalin's 'British Road'.

Neither Dutt, Gollan nor Johnstone represent anything but Stalinism in crisis.

It is the crisis that now hurls them at each others' throats, but it remains a struggle between counter-revolutionaries.

Marxist principles and quotations are invoked to defend one opportunist line against another.

Here, as in all its other aspects, Stalinism remains as cynical as ever in its prostitution of Marxist theory and method.

Despite the completely unprincipled nature of the split in the Party leadership, rank-and-file members will take sides on the basis of their own problems and differences with the Party leadership.

Here we must be patient, and always prepared to open a discussion on the historical origins of the present crisis and the necessity for a break with Stalinism.

The 31st Congress of the British Communist Party will undoubtedly be a landmark in the decline of British Stalinism.

We shall do everything in our power to make that decline as rapid and as complete as possible.