How the Workers Press got its credentials for the

STALINISM is in deep and downward crisis. This is because the being a parasitic growth on the first workers' state which reflects an accommodation to imperialism, inevitably it bureaucracy in the countries where that bureaucracy rules.

Ho Chi Minh, ever since the rise of Stalin, was always an opponent of such a view.

Stalinism isolated the herioc military struggle of the Vietnamese people from the international class struggle.

In the advanced countries, the Stalinist parties pursued 'peaceful roads' and held back the proletarian revolution, even to the extent of joining the capitalist governments (in France) which suppressed the Vietnamese Revolution.

Ho Chi Minh was one of the supporting pillars of this international Stalinist policy.

He could have fought consistently in the interests of the Vietnamese Revolution only by leading a Marxist (Trotskyist) opposition to this international policy of Stalinism.

He did the exact opposite: the murder of the Vietnamese Trotskyists was part and parcel of this counter-revolutionary Stalinist policy.

For Marxists, these political questions of the revolutionary role of the international working class predominate over all military considerations.

The Vietnamese Revolution has achieved mighty successes against the US military machine, at the cost millions of lives.

Apologist But these successes are imperilled at every moment by the betrayals of world Stalinism, which has already sold the Vietnamese Revolution once—in the 1954 Geneva agreements.

Purdie is a thorough going apologist for these Stalinist He says of Ho Chi Minh:

•.. he kept before the of his people the ends eyes for which they were struggling, and despite the attempts of the world's mightiest powers, he resisted the temptation to compromise that ultimate end.' This is a lie, and Purdie knows it is a lie.

He is cynically using the genuine feelings of those who support the Vietnamese Revolution to wipe out the great political questions.

The 'ultimate aim' without which the Vietnam struggle comes to naught is the world socialist revolution.

That is why the Stalinists so ruthlessly attack Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution-and they are now joined by Purdie.

The struggle against imperialism in colonial countries like Vietnam begins 'bourgeois - democratic' one: its demands are national self-determination, democratic rights, distribution of the land.

But the only class which can lead the mass of the peasantry consistently to conquer power and achieve these aims is the industrial working class.

Because of this, working-class or socialist aims are posed.

But these can only be achieved when the revolution in the colonial country merges with the world proletarian revolution.

Outside this strategy, there is no way forward.

This what Permanent Revolution means: an uninterrupted transition from democratic to socialist revoluEmerging the workers' rule in one country with the world socialist revolution.

Purdie and his friends have now gone over to an entirely revisionist and anti-Marxist conception of the relation between the colonial peoples' struggle and the international class struggle.

It is only a matter, according to him, of fight for national self-determination.

The Vietnamese peoples' struggle is only an inspiration' to socialists in countries like Britain. Pubdie reverent or 7.30 Newsroom, Weather. revolutionar identifying with movement here' the Vietnamese revolution.

That is not at all the question. The actual links between the British (or European, or American) revolution and the revolution in Vietnam are not established through sympathetic feelings, 'inspiration', and 'identification'.

They are created by great objective historical forces, and in the first place by perialism.

The epoch of wars and revolutions initiated by imperialism at the beginning of this century created the modern international Class The political forces and leaderships which have arisen in the course of that struggle are objective realities.

In the course of this development Stalinism came to predominate, and Trotskyism emerged as the continuation of Marx, Engels, Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

The only basis for politically guiding the revolutionary working class and youth • of today is Trotskyism, based on this development of Marxist theory through every great struggle of the working class against imperialism and Stalinism.

Purdie and the revisionists want to liquidate precisely this history and this political continuity.

The revolutionary party is founded on revolutionary theory, and so those who want to liquidate the party and the building of a new leadership find themselves revising every principle of Marxist theory.

It is appropriate that Purdie chooses the most disgusting hypocritical English middle-class language (and he has learned it well, as the Scottish middle class always did). to do the job.

The abandonment of Marxist internationalism is the necessary accompaniment of accommodation to narrow reformist outlook of the Labourites.

When Purdie concludes, It is because it is essentially human that our struggle revolutionary . .:, he speaks in the language of every rotten reformist of 'New Statesman' or New Left vintage.

This way of posing the question enables him to view the Vietnamese Revolution as a separate, 'human' struggle, to be 'identified' with, not analyzed in Marxist terms strengthen the struggle against Stalinism and imperialism.

And so, when Purdie says that his grief will reinforce revolutionary action:** he is our determination take really using revolutionary phrases for anti-revolutionary ends.

The middle-class feeling for 'action', , impelled by feelings 'identification' with the oppressed and with those who fight imperialism, is NOT to be confused with the historical revolutionary role of the working class, which arises from its objective needs and which requires the scientific concentration of the highest theory and worked-over experience.

It is from this, from the implanting of Marxism in a whole generation of young workers, that the leadership the revolution will be built, and not from the middle-class protesters given 'Marxists' coloration by Purdie and his friends.

It is only around such a Marxist, proletarian movement that the students and middle-class youth who come into conflict with imperialism can find their place.

The building of such a movement, against Stalinism and against the revisionists whom Purdie represents, is our contribution to the Vietnamese and the world revolution.

Brando, it exposes one of THE ABJECT climb-down forced on the British Communist Party after their refusal to grant credentials to reporters from Workers Press to cover their Congress last weekend is a further indication of the crisis racking that organization from top to bottom.

The final handing-over of credentials at St Pancras Town Hall on Saturday morning belied all the excuses put out by the Stalinists over the previous three days to explain their refusal.

Having found themselves caught out in a particularly blatant piece of political discrimination, faced with storm of protest from workers all over the country, from intellectuals and from many of their own members, the leadership were forced to give way.

They proved unable to bar the gress. And our paper thus became the first Trotskyist newspaper to be officially accredited to a Stalinist Congress.

The issues posed by the CP's refusal to issue credentials could not be ignored by any principled socialist.

The entire Tory press were invited to cover the Congress, as were a number of weeklies — including "Tribune', 'Socialist Worker' and The New Statesman'.

But the Communist Party bureaucrats were determined that, if they had any say in the matter, Trotskyist reporters would not cross the threshold of the Congress.

12 DAYS BEFORE Our application for credentials was submitted a clear 12 days in advance of the Congress, so that the CP's press office was given ample notice.

But their first intention was clearly to ignore it. It took a further letter and two telephone calls a week later to track down the individual responsible for issuing credentials: CP chairman Dr. T. Chater.

After some initial hesitation, Chater asked whether we had received his letter (no such letter has arrived at our office).

He then informed us that 'reasons of space' would not allow the CP to issue Workers Press with credentials.

Only daily papers could be fitted in, he said.

The Workers Press was not a daily, since it was not published on Mondays and was not in any case a 'major' national paper.

Asked point blank whether our reporter and photographer would be allowed into the Congress, he said 'No'.

Every word of this 'explanation is a pack of nonsense, as is shown by subsequent statements from Chater and other leading Naturally, the Workers Press immediately called in the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and an official of that union contacted Chater that same day.

NO SPACE Chater told him that there was not enough space in St Pancras Town Hall to accommodate all callers.

The CP had had to ration it.

'We sent to national dailies and weeklies like the "Statesman" and some of the news agencies.' adir pasty pied that from Monday to Saturday would be admitted.

There was no objection 'in principle' to Workers Press reporters, but he could not hold out any hope of admission, even were there seats available.

Already, Chater had made it abundantly clear that discrimination was being practised against the Workers Press.

Movie: "The Young Land' starring Pat Wayne, Yvonne Craig. 11.45 Play With For example, an application for credentials from the anti-Soviet 'state capitalist' paper 'Socialist Worker'—a paper not originally invited by the CP to attend-had been granted without question.

"Liberal' weeklies like the 'Statesman', "Tribune' and others were all in on the act from the word go.

No question about admitting them, despite their support for the anti-working-class policies of the Wilson government.

That evening, we rang William Wainwright, assistant editor of the 'Morning Star' and a longstanding member of the NUj, a union which supports the principle of equality of treatment and facilities for journalists.

REAL CHARACTER Wainwright, whose virulent anti-Trotskyism is notorious even among the leaders of the British Communist Party he is the author of 'Clear Out Hitler's Agents' — a pamphlet published in 1942 whch calls on workers to 'treat a Trotskyist as you would an open Nazi') could not refrain from making comments which thoroughly exposed the real character of the ban.

After ridiculing our claim that there was plenty of space at St Pancras Town Hall to accommodate two more people, Wainwright launched off on another tack entirely.

'Any organization,' he said, 'has to allocate seating. accommodation as it thinks fit. . . .If the NUJ were to say anything else, it would be absolutely wrong' Wainwright here makes very clear the real position of Stalinism, which is counter-revolutionary to the core.

The Communist Party has no fear of opening its Congress allegedly its highest decision-making body-to the eyes and ears of the entire Tory press, the liberals and the anti-communists of all persuasions.

That is, of course, why its congress is open to the press in the first place.

But what the Communist Party cannot endure is the scrutiny of revolutionaries. It cannot bear the searchlight of Marxism to be turned on its crisis.

BIGGER PROBLEM lo attempt to prevent this 1s today far more of a problem for Stalinism than in the days when William Wainwright could write:

"Trotsky was a Russian who gathered around him an unscrupulous gang of traitors to organize spying sabotage, wreckand assassination in the Soviet Union. into They wormed their postions, working-class organisations, even government posts. .. They were promised positions in a Nazi puppet government in return for services rendered. .. Trotsky's men are Hitler's men. They must be cleared out of every working-class organization the country' ('Clear Out Hitler's Agents', published by the Communist Party of Great Britain, August 1942.)

This. is how Wainwright saw the leaders of Lenin's Bolshevik Party in 1942.

Together with the rest of the Communist Party leadership, he danced on the graves of Bolsheviks murdered by Stalin. No wonder this man, sought to exclude revolutionary reporters from his Party's Congress.

'LUDICROUS'

But for all his anti-Trotskyist fervour Wainwright was clearly shaken.

Friday's Morning Star headed article • "Frightened" allegations ludicrous' in which Chater was quoted as saying it was ludicrous to accuse the Party of refusing press credentials to the use is Pass Prigspened, bot what would be written about the Congress'.

The article also carried the revealing admission:

'Our congress is a public one, which the Press Association will cover and they [Workers Press] can get their reports from them like many other publications.' Chater was even more explicit in the 'Sun' on Friday.

A number of papers had carried stories on the exclusion the previous evening, but the 'Sun' carried the first public statement by the Communist Party on the Chater told the 'Sun':

'We have invited people from capitalist newspapers. Why should we turn these people away on political grounds? They are the only ones we have refused, but you have to draw the line somewhere.' That statement, though Chater may not have been aware of it, put our entire case in a nutshell.

It is precisely for the same reasons that Communist Party welcomes the capitalist

November ainst the adrance of mone Mma economy which now assert themselves with greater force because of the historical delay THREE have reacted, recently, in the