Some important lessons

Then there is the history of Malenkov: Gave rise te revisionist Musions by his poet• 'liberiatlea'.

the British working to consider.

Without a deep understanding of this force, with all its weaknesses and strengths combined, it is impossible to even begin a campaign inside the British labour movement for solidarity with the Vietnamese people.

British imperialısm and the reformist-Stalinist domination of the working class are closely interrelated.

Out of the super-profits of the empire, the British ruling class was able to create a privileged layer within the working class, which, when deeply influenced and corrupted by the political theories of social democracy and Fabianism, became à solid foundation for the building of a reformist labour and trade union bureaucracy.

After its carly years of struggle against this tradition, the British Communist Party. under the leadership of the Stalinized Soviet Communist Party, rapidly capitulated to this powerful bureaucracy and proceeded to dress up in Marxist phrases all the old reformist ideas of the Fabians and the labour leaders.

This was set out systematically in the 'British Road to Socialism' of 1951.

Reformism is therefore

Action in solidarity with those fighting imperialism can therefore only be effective if it wages war politically on the reformist agencies of imperialism within the working class itself: social democracy and Stalinism.

We shall sce how decisive this is when wecome to examine the record of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign.

Once this point is understood, it becomes obvious that all protest movements and demonstrations based purely on the middle class are doomed to failure.

Stalinism

and reformism Stalinism and reformism can only be fought by mobilizing the working class On basic class questions which bring it into conflict with the counterrevolutionary policies and aspirations of the Stalinists and the social democrats.

Middle-class protest, because it is based on an unstable class force that can play no role independent of the two main classes, makes no lasting impact on the burcaucracies in the workers' movement.

That is not to no place for the in the struggle perialism.

They have an important contribution to make, but the lesson of VSC is that this contribution cannot be made without a serious turn towards the working class and its problems.

The Vietnam Campaign rejected tation and led thousands of supporters away from the working class, towards political isolation and certain defeat.

So despite its imperialist history and tradition of reformist leadership, the working class remains the only force able to challenge the Wilson government and its support for Nixon's war. say there is middle class against imSolidarity this orienits many A SERIES OF THREE ARTICLES Everything therefore bound up with the political development of this working class, with its education in the treachery of the Labour leaders and the Stalinists and the eventual realization that its problems of wages and union rights demand political solutions.

We have always insisted against the impatient protes• Gerry Healy. national secretary of the Socialist Labour League speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in August 1966.

The SLI was condemned by the revisionist• for attacking Stalinism.

Seated (left to right) are Lawrence Daly (now NUM M. Banda (nov editor), Ralph Schoenman (late of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation), Tariq Ali (IMG), John Palmer (International Socialists).

ters and adventurists that this stage of working-class development cannot be skipped over or artificially accelerated by deeds of heroism in futile conflicts with police.

The development of consciousness in the working class is above all an objective process determined first of all by the international crisis of capitalism and then its relationship with the special features of British imperialism and the British labour moveSo we part company with the protesters' firstly on philosophical questions, which at their roots are determined by class forces.

The protester, beginning (as he imagines), as an individual, allempts to substitute himself for the working class.

Illusion of a powerful movement When many such protesters are brought together--and the VSC was for a time able to do this on a large scale-the illusion is easily created that a big and powerful movement is being built; that the working class and its movement has been successfully by-passed.

As we shall see, this was the essence of the political thinking behind the VSC.

The question which next has to be asked is: Which political group was mainly responsible for the political line and development of the VSC?

To answer that question. It is necessary to go back to 1953. the year of the great split within the ranks of the Trotskyist Fourth international.

A group headed by Pablo, the then secretary of the Fourth International, argued that the sharpening of the cold war was driving imperialism towards a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.

In the course of such attack, they claimed, Kremlin would be against all its incli past history, to ul lutionary struggles perialist states.

Under pressure from the working classes of these countries, the Stalinist parties would then be forced to actually take power in order to defend the Soviet bureaucracy from nuclear attack.

With the easing of war, the emphasis of changednti-Trotskyist changed.

But its essentials Under pressure from ing class, Stalinism forced to take power.

The post-Stalin 'liberalizPolice charge marchers at the Grosvenor Square demonstration organized by the VSC.

Adventurist conflicts with the police do not in any way substitute for the building of a revolutionary party for the working class. compelled, nations and leash revoin the imthe cold this new theory remained:

the workcould be The fate of confirms this.

and' mass pressure The crisis of Stalinism as it came under attack from the working class, first in East Germany, then Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union itself, was interpreted as part of a long drawn-out process of 'self-reform' in which, again under mass pressure from the working class, the ruling Stalinist bureaucracies would yield power to the masses step by step.

The political pioneers of this anti-Trotskyist, pro-Stalinist theory and programme in Britain were the embers of the group which broke from our movement in 1953.

They were led by John Lawrence, who took Pablo's theory to the logical conclusion of joining the British Communist Party, serving it as a full-time functionary of the then Stalinist-dominated shop stewards' committee at Fords.

The ideas and work of Lawrence, who has now moved even further away from Marxism by becoming an anarchist, are continued by the 'International Marxist Group', which publishes the monthly journal International'.

It is therefore no accident that the British Pabloites ended up with the Young Communist League as the mainstays of the VSC.

We always insisted that Pablo's first attacks on Trotsky's perspective of building independent Marxist parties of the Fourth International in all the major countries would lead to capitulation to either social democracy or Stalinism - or. as in the case of the IMG, to both.

VSC only Shortly after the launching of 'International' (the successor to the Pabloite weekly 'The Week') another journal was founded: 'The Black Dwarf', which, in June 1968, came under the full-time editorship of Tariq Ali, a leading IMG member.

Tariq Ali was also a leading 'Black Dwarf' edited by Tariq Ali (IMC member rejects the role of the working class and turns to 'student power. ing under either the control or discipline of the IMG (several members of the editorial board are members or supporters of other organizations), 'Black Dwarf' was certainly influenced by the politics of Pabloism.

With Tariq Ali as its editor, could hardly be otherwise.

Now we must see how the political theories of Pabloism, which in their essence boil down to a rejection of the revolutionary role of the working class and its substitution by some other agency (black power, student power, bureaucracies 'under pressure' etc., etc.), worked out in the case of the VSC.

The capitulation to Stalinism began at its inaugural meeting in August 1966.

A speaker from the Socialist Labour League (which supported and was represented on the campaign committee) was barred from speaking on the grounds that his opening remarks had been critical of Stalinism.

We withdrew from the campaign at once, knowing full well that our accepting political gags would involve us in a betrayal of the Vietnamese people.

in point.' And in case anyone missed : point, it was made again er in the same article :

'It is vitally necessary to fight factionalism in the interests of building the united front.' So the VSC is, according to 'International, one of the best Logue / Steadman / Connolly / Another Vietnam McCarthy / Poverty / Capitalism Kills / The Queen Paris / Hull / RSSF / Tariq Ali expressions front.

Here the IMG revise Leninism just as they revise For the united front cannot, under any circumstances, be applied to the type of alliance that has evolved around the VSC.

For communists, the united front has certain historical origins and traditions, and arises only under very precise tactical and strategic situations.

As we shall prove, the Pabloites not only distort all the lessons of the Leninist period of the Communist International in developing the tactic of the united front, they use its outward forms to protect the political tendencies that the united front was intended to destroy.

Part two will appear in tomorrow's Workers Press.

January 1970 PAGE