How the IMG supports Stalinism. Part two

The revisionists of the Group play a role which can be clearly defined. They use radical phrases and Marxist jargon in order to cover up for the crimes of the trade union bureaucracy and the Like all followers of Mandel's 'United Secretariat' they object fiercely to our calling them 'Pabloites'. the logic of Michel Pable, sero But They follow precisely tried in the early 1950s make the Fourth International into the running dog of the Kremlin bureaucracy and the communist parties.

Tonv Hodges, speaking for the IMG in his article on the upper Clyde shipyards crisis 'International socialist Ke view, talks about the need He a new tin rider the He goes on criticize TaPi Labour and trade union leaders and the Labour 'lefts', but is silent on the Stalinists, who are actively carrying out the policies of the social democrats for them in every strike trom the Post Office to the building workers.

So when Hodges mentions the 'construction of the left wing', what does he mean? He means crawling behind the Stalinists and their fake Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions and 'Action Committees', giving them every assistance in keeping militants away from the struggle force the Tory government to resign.

This is why nowhere in his article does Hodges raise the question ot a political programme make the Tories resign and return a Labour government. Everything focused forcing 'retreats' on the Tory government.

Now this fits in exactly with what the Stalinists have done on the Clyde. As the occupation of the yards began, they announced that it would be a 'work-in'! Hodges dresses up this reformist claptrap as follows: "The trade unions reorganized production under their own control!' period there were 32,000 dundancies on Clydeside!

This growth of mass unemployment could only have been fought by the Clyde shipyard workers being mobilized with the whole working class to bring down the government.

Stalinist UCS leaders James Reid and James Airlie, directed oy Bert Ramelson, industria organizer of the Communis Party, covered up by the revisionists of the IMG and the International Socialists, aimed to isolate the UCS workers. They bitterly opposed the anti-Tory slogans of the 200,000 who struck in support on August 18, 1972.

At the peak of the work-in, only 390 workers were at work, and it slumped to 177, even though redundancies were increasing all the time.

In the Govan yard, when the boilermakers rejected the terms agreed by their leaders and decided to fight on for their differential, it was once again Reid and the Stalinists who condemned them.

Reid brought into the middle of the fight all the corporatist ideas he has been developing in the last two years. The boilermakers, by pressing their 'sectional demands' were bringing the inevitability of 'the rat race' into the yards, said Reid. This is open collaboration in all the preparations for disciplining trade unions behind the emblem of 'national interest'.

Like Reid, representatives of the Stalinist bureaucracy everywhere will carry out this role in order to prevent the development of the revolutionary political independence of the working class.

It is little wonder that what Hodges calls the 'victory of the Clydesiders' was summed up by the Tory liquidator as follows:

'It is greatly to the credit of the leadership of the shop stewards' co-ordinating committee that, one or two shortlived and regretted incidents apart, they have exercized the potential for negative control with considerable restraint and have been ready to see that the practical needs of the situation demanded the COoperation of all the interested parties.' That is the employers' verXPI Stalinist James Reid the summer of 1971)

'The Tories decided to slash taxes in the March budget in order to encourage investment and spur industrial recovery. The ensuing rise in employment will no doubt further encourage the unions' How wrong is it possible to be on economic and political perspectives? By September, unemployment was creeping up to the million mark! "The unions' are running , to the government, to collaborate against a rank and file radicalized by unemployment and the attacks on basic rights!

It is this faith in capitalism which paves the way for the petty-bourgeois IMG group to work with the Stalinists and their "peaceful co-existence'.

With such a view, then of course it is easy to see political work in the workers' movement as encouraging the unions "Ton: Voting start the fight to break the working class from reformism.

Hodges, for example, can now write: 'The return ef the Conservative Party to power in June 1970 was itself a decisive part of the capitalist counter-offensive?

A decisive part? Yes, but the IMG fell in with Robin Blackburn in advocating that at Govan one who will listen away the fight against the enemy.

As the strugglę grows more and more acute and the question of working-class state power comes to the forefront for millions of workers, the IMG, based as it is on thoroughly rotten revisionist foundations, Will go even

What the shop stewards, under Stalinist leadership did, was to keep men working for the liquidator, tiding production over until new investment was attracted by government grants and no-strike pledges. At no time was the question of ownership of the yards— a blatant case for nationalization-ever raised!

The Stalinists argue that this was the only way to save jobs. Of a labour force of 8,500, 2,000 left before the end of the work-in. In the same dict on the Stalinists!

The IMG has perverted and revised Marxism in 'order to justify its treacherous support of these Stalinist policies. Hodges article is called "The Crisis of British Capitalism', but he cannot explain one single word about the world crisis of capitalism behind the special problems of British capitalism.

For him, the crisis is only a temporary downturn in an expanding 'neo-capitalist' economy. (As his mentor Mandel told us, Nixon's August 1971 measures would lead only to 'a cycle of slower growth'.)

Hodges write (early —without a struggle for independent Marxist leadershipto fight for concessions from the Tories.

These middle-class radicals, selected and put into motion by the renegades from Marxism like Mandel, Maitan and Frank, are responsible to nobody in the working class. They simply mouth left phrases workers did not vote in 1970! They proposed to break up Labour Party meetings as well as lory meetings. Blackburn called his article, referring to the Labour Party, 'Let it Bleed'! further in its service to Stalinism and to the trade union and Labour bureaucracy.

This question of leadership is exercizing the minds of thousands and thousands of workers betrayed in their struggles against the Tory government.

The Socialist Labour League, through the All Trades Unions

while refusing to fight against the reactionary bureaucracy which holds back the working class.

Their opposition to the election of a Labour government sounds left, but it is really a refusal to take up the political nght against the Labour leaders, a refusal lo Having 'corrected' this line —by a few words saying it was one-sided-Blackburn has now joined tae IMG. The basic line is the same: to lead anyAlliance conference (October 22) and the transformation of the League into a revolutionary party, will never rest in exposing the role vi those like the IMG, wliose only role is to cover up for Stalinism and bureaucracy in turning workers away from this central question of Marxist leadership.

Saturday September 30, 1972 PAGE