Civil War in Russia, David Footman

[p030] Civil War in Russia by David Footman. Faber & Faber, 35s. This is an attempt at an objective history of the Civil War which raged in Soviet Russia from 1918-1920; a Civil War which Germany, Britain, France, the United States, Japan— joined forces with the Russian Whites to destroy the first workers’ state. The author, however, finds it most difficult to conceal his sympathies with the counter-revolution and especially with Nestor Mahkno, the Ukrainian anarchist whom he des- cribes as the ‘revolutionary’ leader in closest touch with the peasant miasses. Two factors emerge clearly from this admittedly incomplete study of the period. Without the speedy building of an efficiently organized, equipped and disciplined Red Army the October Revolution would have been crushed by its internal and external enemies. And it was Leon Trotsky who was the chief architect and creator of the first proletarian army in the world. When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they had given little thought to the military requirements of the new state. The Red Guards had played a decisive role in the seizure of power, but the Red Guards were never more than militia. To meet the threat of the Kornilovs, the Wrangels and the Denikins—the still powerful remnants of the old regime, and especially to combat the growing menace of the Czechoslovak Legion in May 1918, something more was required—a new type of army, a Red Army devoted to the Revolution. The Bolshevik leadership entrusted this all-important task to Trotsky, as Commissar for War. After the fall of Simbirsk, he was sent to the Volga where the greatest danger to the Soviet power threatened. He found there an atmosphere of defeat- ism and panic. ‘The fresh Red detachments,’ he wrote, ‘arriving in vigorous mood, were immediately engulfed by the inertia of defeat .. . Despite all this the Revolution was saved, What was needed for that? Very little ... The first requirement for success was to hide nothing, our weakness least of all, not to trifle with the masses but to call everything by its right name.’ How refreshing it is to recall that the real Bolshevik leadership believed in. telling the masses the truth, to call defeats defeats and retreats retreats. How different from the behaviour of the Stalinist epigones who even in the agony of the Nazi victory of 1933 could only mutter ‘after Hitler —us’, and talked blithely of victories in Spain when Franco’s forces were already battering at the gates of Madrid. Those who still believe that Stalin’s ‘positive contributions’ to the Revolu- tion outweigh his ‘later’ crimes, will find no consolation in this book. His name is mentioned only twice in passing and the legendary epic defence of Tsaritsyn, which in the Stalinist interpretation of history became the very lynch-pin of the whole Civil War, is scarcely referred to. C.V.G.

[p031] WORLD PROSPECT FOR SOCIALISM the revival of European economy, however much desired by the American ruling class, has led to a relative growth in the political bargaining power of the European ruling classes. The greater economic self-dependence of European capitalism has also had a number of new consequences. For one thing American private capital has been attracted into Europe on a greater scale than ever before, taking advantage of a market growing more rapidly than in the US and of the lower labour costs which prevail there. Thus in 1960, while investment at home has been falling off, investment in manufacturing industry overseas, especially in Europe, has grown. More- over, though some American manufacturing plants abroad compete effectively in the US market, there has also been, in 1960, a growth of US exports to Europe and Japan. Indeed, the continued economic boom in these areas has helped to counteract the sagging market at home both for raw materials and capital equipment. The involvement of the US economy with the world capitalist market takes many new forms which have potential consequences unlike those to which we have become accustomed in the past. It is important that America’s growing tendency to export capital will have consequences and contradictions different from that of the older powers. This export is in large measure to the imperialist countries and old capitalist powers them- selves. 4. A sharp reflection of this has been the weakening of the dollar as a result of the large and continuing balance of payments deficits of the past two years. The vulnerability of the dollar reflects, in part, the greater strength of other currencies, especially the mark, as well as the world commitments of American strategy involving high military expenditures and aid to under-developed countries. Higher interest rates in European centres have also led to transfer of funds, and these speculative movements have become frenzied when dollar devaluation has seemed likely ——as happened between July and September 1960— further contributing to the difficulties of the dollar. To meet this situation some cuts have been made in overseas spending and attempts have been made to shift some of the foreign aid responsibilities to other NATO countries. In the meantime, US exports have to be stimulated—which means increased competition for the European and Japanese exporters already faced by declining sales. At the same time, American business becomes increasingly dependent on the state of the economies in which these sales are made. Thus if continued expansion in Western Europe in the future helped to soften the recession in the USA the onset of a recession in Europe could play back on the American economy in a way not previously experienced. It is wrong to think of world capitalist economy as being set in a particular mould once and for all. 109 5. However, it is a big step from underlining these recent difficulties of American capitalism to sug- gesting its imminent decline as a world force. The difficulties of the dollar must be seen against the background of America’s vast productive power and strategic position reinforced by growing capital investment throughout the capitalist world and especially in the advanced countries. They do not threaten the existence of capitalist property relations to the same extent as do the problems of -the old imperialisms, whose economic expansion in recent years is much more superficial. But the inability of the US economy to grow rapidly or to dispense with massive arms spending shows that even the strongest capitalism is in crisis. Each recession leaves a higher irreducible margin of unemployment, each boom narrows the field for new investment. Surplus value is still being extracted and realized at an expanding rate, but the rate of expansion is slowing down, and stagnation, if not deep slump, is the order of the day. The prestige of capitalism tends to shrink even in the USA, then, as it fails to face up to the Soviet challenge and to use rationally the technological possibilities of the century. 6. Meanwhile American capital faces the largest proletariat in the world which it has inevitably called into existence. The American working class has _ built up a high wage level and powerful organizations to bargain to maintain and increase these levels within the limits imposed by capitalism itself. It cannot, however, transcend the bounds fixed by its proletarian status. It has more means of con- sumption available, but it is still wage labour. It has skills, but these are liable to rapid depreciation as a result of technological advance, as a result of the decline of whole industries or in times of recession. Meanwhile the concentration of industrial power in the hands of giant corporations is immense and the objective conditions are being prepared for socialism. 7. The outstanding factor in the American situation is the weakness of the independent political move- ment of the working class and the smallness of the Marxist party. Yet for the world defeat of capitalism a frontal onslaught on its main stronghold in the Western hemisphere is indispensable. There- fore great responsibility devolve upon the American movement, responsibilities which cannot be fulfilled without absolute clarity and a firm political line. The SWP works in an environment which has many features which can debilitate and discourage indi- viduals and movements. The strength of the American ruling class, the high standard of living for those who succeed in the rat race, the corruption of the union bureaucracy, the lack of political traditions of independent struggle among _ the workers, divisions between different layers and groups along lines of racialist ideology and discrimi- - ,

[p032] 110 nation, the pervading influence of the capitalist propaganda machine, the betrayals of the old-line leaderships, the easy slide into pragmatic methods and theoretical accommodation—all these dangers beset those who seriously desire to build a socialist movement in the United States. The revolutionaries in the SWP need periodically to check over their own political work against these dangers. In a position of relative political isolation, of constant battle against the current, a diversion from true course can creep up unsuspectedly. A search for a shorter way, for alliances which may impose accommodation to alien trends, for regroup- ments without solid theoretical bases, for program- matic adaptations to suit what are assumed to be American peculiarities—these have constantly de- railed American socialists in the period since 1917. The attention of the leaders of the SWP must be constantly directed to such dangers, as they may affect their own policy and thinking. 8. Nonetheless, in recent years some advances have been made and there are signs of a break in the American ice-block deep down in several key layers of society. Among the youth there has been growing criticism of the American way of life and an audience for various trends which reflect its cultural barrenness. A school of critical writers has emerged from petty-bourgeois bohemia and has canalized much of the protest into individualist and negative channels. Considerable success has attended critical studies of various aspects of American society which show how it alienates men and dehumanises them, but without pointing, or even desiring to point, any way out. Social pessimism and escapism are rampant, enmeshing the radical youth but at the same time leading the best of them to seek a way forward and a positive political alternative. Socialist ideas have been received more readily in the universities. The threat of nuclear war has stirred an anti-H-bomb movement into being similar to its British counterpart if, as yet, less important. 9. But the most important developments have been among the oppressed groups of American society, especially the Negroes. Breaking through the routinism and accommodation associated with the ‘talented tenth’ who in most areas dominate their big organizations such as the NAACP, new forces and new leaders have come from the ranks of the students, youth and industrial proletariat. By direct action and mass campaigns against segregation and for human dignity a magnificent example has been shown to the American working class in general. Without being carried forward with mass support from the organized workers, white and coloured, the movement could only achieve small and _ partial successes, but it has started something rolling which LABOUR REVIEW—Winter, 1961-62 can have great consequences. It has been shown that it is absolutely vital to strike deep roots into the negro masses from whom come the most exploited sections of industrial and farm proletariat, who suffer all kinds of political and economic discrimination and who can provide fresh forces and an invaluable source of revolutionary energies: The same can be said of a number of other minority groups who form part of the sub-proletariat on North American soil, especially the Puerto Ricans and the Mexicans. Sustained work among these sections is absolutely vital. 10. In various industrial battles, some small and limited, others nation-wide such as the 1960 steel strike, the American working class has itself shown a great fighting spirit and an unexcelled capacity for sacrifice and solidarity. The potential of the American working class remains unlimited. It is therefore a priority task to bring to it the political understanding which can use this potential for a struggle against the wage system which supports the American ruling class, itself the strategic under- pinning of capitalism as a world system. There is no room for politics basea on exceptionalism or exclusiveness. The very international ramifications of American capital—which clearly are designed in part to undercut the wages and conditions of - American labour—impose an international outlook. 11. The electoral campaign in 1960 brought a change of administration with a fairly evenly divided popular vote. Undoubtedly many American workers voted Democrat in the hope of change in American policy both abroad and in respect to anti-Labour legislation at home. The SWP made an important contribution by posing a third choice and attacking those currents in the radical movements which openly or shamefacedly backed the Democratic Party, including the Communist Party. The policy and conduct of the Kennedy admini- stration since it took over confirms the view that the political custodians of American capitalism have little power of choice. Their course of action is determined essentially by the needs of the mono- polies, and the international setting of the conflict between the two incompatible world systems leaves little scope for presidential initiative. The new President took over in a period of growing embar- rassment for American capitalism both at home, where economic stagnation prevailed, and _ inter- nationally. It was soon shown, not only that he had no intention of reducing arms expenditure, but that he was determined to uphold the interests of the US against the threat of revolution. The inter- ventionist policy pursued in Laos and the abortive invasion of Cuba by puppets manipulated by the Central Intelligence Agency left little room for

[p033] WORLD PROSPECT FOR SOCIALISM illusions about Kennedy’s foreign policy. In dealing with the recession, Kennedy showed little desire or ability to take the initiative: more handouts to the jobless, but no major departures in policy. The slow revival that set in, still leaving a high level of unemployment, and the relaxation of pressure on the dollar pushed the economic problem temporarily into the background. Moreover, the worsening international situation, by mid-year as bad as it had been for nearly a decade, by bringing higher arms appropriations, helped the upward swing of economic activity. However, a real and growing problem of stagnation dogs the US economy. While, in an emergency, Kennedy will no doubt more readily increase the Federal budget and use govern- ment supports for the economy more liberally than his predecessor, there are strict limits here, too. Moreover, the Republicans were unable to reverse a trend which issued from the dire straits of the economy back to the ’30s. In fact, outside the arms programme, the Federal budget is relatively small; the bulk of civilian public expenditure is controlled by State and local government not necessarily affected by the change in presidency or by the Keynesian ideas which are current among Kennedy’s advisers. In any case, the international problem of the dollar sets limits to re-flationary policy based on lower interest rates and budget deficits. A further flight from the dollar could make devaluation, or possibly the demonetization of gold, inevitable and strike a blow at American financial standing and international prestige. These dilemmas of American policy reveal great opportunities for exposing the crisis of capitalism, the linking up of separate struggles and the bringing of the growing un- employed army into action together with their employed brothers. 12. In terms of American conditions there is no justification for presenting the struggle for peace as something separate from the struggle of the classes. There is not the faintest prospect of a ‘peace-loving’ section of the American capitalist class appearing. The influence of Stalinism, while now extremely weak as far as the numerical strength of the Com- munist Party USA is concerned, still manifests itself in the radical movement. It shows itself in the acceptance of the ‘peaceful co-existence’ conceptions of Khrushchev, in illusions about disarmament agreements and the United Nations along the lines of the petty-bourgeois and ‘new Left’ currents in Europe. Such trends seek to bypass the class struggle, put their faith in Summit talks and arrange- ments between leaders and hope that the claws of American imperialism will somehow be drawn without a real fight. Phraseology and programmatic statements which compromise with these illusions must be condemned, as much as should be any 111 failure to point out the actual reactionary role of the Soviet bureaucracy at the present stage. Of course, with anti-Communism fostered by the vestiges of the Social Democracy and injected into the trade union movement and intelligentsia via the State Depart- ment, the banner of defence of the Soviet Union against imperialism must at all times be held aloft by the Marxists. But this cannot mean compromise with the Soviet bureaucracy, with its slogans and arguments or with its American stooges. Nor for that matter should the opportunist taking up of Leninist theories by the Chinese lead to sight being lost of the fact that the Chinese leadership is also an historical impediment to the spread of revolution in the Far East at the present time. 13. Further opportunities for building the inter- national revolutionary forces in the United States are Offered by the fact that the world involvement of American imperialism has evoked a widespread popular resistance in many countries. The State Department has tried to find and support docile political leaders overseas with whom it could deal on questions such as the establishment of military bases, missile sites and airfields ringing the Soviet Union. In general, especially in the less developed areas, this has necessitated dependence upon the most reactionary forces in the old feudal classes or the national bourgeoisie. However, such regimes are basically precarious, frequently corrupt and incompe- tent, maintaining themselves by graft, police rule and oppression of political opponents. No wonder, therefore, that one explosion after another has taken place in these adjuncts of the ‘Free World’ from Korea to Cuba. In the past year or two, American- propped regimes have been dislodged in Turkey, Korea and Cuba. Mass demonstrations have occurred in Japan and even in Formosa against American policy. Latin America is seething with resistance to ‘ Yankee’ imperialism. All such signs reveal the revolutionary possibilities in the present world situation. 14. The toppling of unpopular regimes has been largely the result of the leadership of students, youth and some radical sections of the working class. They have not, however, been followed by the installation of revolutionary governments but merely of new teams selected from the petty-bourgeoisie and the military and civil bureaucracy. Consequently the revolutionary drive displayed in the mass upsurge has subsided without concrete results. The whole weakness has been the lack of a revolutionary Marxist leadership in these countries, thus underlin- ing the prime task of creating such a leadership on a firm basis in preparation for the coming struggles. Such struggles, however, must scrupulously avoid a chauvinistic anti-Americanism. The main enemy

[p034] 112 must be clearly indicated as the national bourgeoisie and American imperialism. At the same time the best contribution which the American working class can make to these movements, as well as to prevent iv) The Belgian Strike and 1. In December 1960 and January 1961 the Belgian proletariat fought a bitter general strike against the government. In this struggle the objective necessity, in that period of a Marxist leadership implacably opposed to all opportunism, and with a clear per- spective of working-class power, was strikingly demonstrated. 2. Belgium is one of the old industrial countries. Since the second world war the Belgian economy has enjoyed expansion and relative prosperity. Here, on a small scale, took place a dress rehearsal of the situation likely to confront the working class in the other countries in the coming period. The lessons to be learned from it are of the utmost importance and the most general kind. If those lessons are learned in time, other working classes may avoid having to experience the bitterness of defeat and the sacrifices of the Belgian workers will not have been in vain. 3. The strikes were detonated by the economy law brought before Parliament by the Eyskens Catholic- Liberal coalition government. This law was intended to place on to the shoulders of the Belgian working class—including government employees and white collar workers—the burdens of Belgian capitalism. Belgian capitalism is old, and in some ways inflexible. It has the worst record on the continent for new industrial investment and for the increase in industrial production. It has to cut costs and improve productivity if it is to compete with its rivals both within the Common Market and on the world market. The events in the Congo, while not bringing big immediate losses, aggravated the creeping crisis and determined the capitalist class and its government to take sharp measures to safeguard profits and to demonstrate its mastery of the internal situation. The law was a move in the sharpening class struggle, which it brought to a head. 4. In the working class, especially in the centres of heavy industry in Wallonia, a powerful mass pressure developed for a showdown which the leaders of the Socialist Party and the Confederation of Labour could not resist. Ignoring moderate appeals for token strikes or a postponement until the re- assembling of Parliament on January 3, the pressure LABOUR REVIEW—Winter, 1961-62 them taking an anti-internationalist course, is to sharpen the struggle against their own ruling class and to raise slogans in defence of the revolutions abroad. its Lessons for strike action had by the middle of December become irresistible in many centres and trades. It was not a general strike which was planned and called for from the top; it was spontaneous, in the sense of being forced on leaders from below and developing according to the level of consciousness in the different layers of the working class. 5. The reformist leaders, masters of an organization powerful and close-knit as far as material means are concerned, were suddenly placed in a position which they had not sought. The Socialist Party leaders, who had never led much more than a routine demonstration or a move through the corridors of Parliament, were largely effaced. The trade union leaders, powerfully entrenched in their regional strongholds, came to the fore, Renard* of Liege claiming the most attention. 6. Neither the Social-Democratic parliamentarians, the trade union bureaucrats, nor the Stalinists could provide the necessary leadership, confining them- selves within the limitations of bourgeois institutions. Instead of slogans of struggle there was only a call for the passing of the law to be prevented. There was no policy or programme expressing the will of the working class to do battle. The main object of the leaders, to judge by their actions, was to ride the wave, adapt themselves to the conditions of the moment, respond to the mood of the rank and file and hang on until some formula was found which could bring a way out. 7. In the trade union strongholds of Wallonia, t where the strike was solid and the possibility of establishing workers’ councils existed, the trade union leaders went furthest in the direction of concessions to the pressure from below, but they kept the movement under close control. Here, then, a fighting posture was adopted, but without the essential preliminary of finding a tactic and staking a claim for power. With the masses keyed up and geared to the leadership, nothing happened beyond * Leader of Metal-Workers’ Union: a Left-centrist with syndicalist leanings. } Heavy-industrial, French speaking area of Southern Belgium, with some parts suffering from pit closures and unemployment.

[p035] WORLD PROSPECT FOR SOCIALISM demonstrations and speeches obviously devised as a reflection of day-to-day currents and moods. In fact, the movement, however powerful in appearance, turned round in a closed circle beyond which stood the gendarmerie, the army and a government appa- rently prepared to fight on. 8. Consistent with their reformist nature, then the leaders hesitated, drew back or just waited. Seeking a way out which would save face with their followers and convince themselves of their own self-righteous- ness, the Walloon leaders turned to federalism. The linguistic and religious division presented a ready- made excuse which in the circumstances could be made to appear plausible. In fact, the hold of the Church in the Flemish-speaking North and the inability of the Socialist unions to break away the the relatively low-paid, less class-conscious Flemish workers from the Catholic trade unions follows, in part, from lack of leadership in the past. The same political attitude which relies on spontaneity in the South justified waiting for the same spontaneity in the Catholic North, so that this theory played its classic role of surrendering the workers to bourgeois consciousness. The Flemish workers are written off as backward, as a kind of reactionary mass doomed to remain tame instruments of clerical reaction. In the meantime, surveying their pre- dominance in the South, the leaders fall back on a change in the political structure of the country which would give them a majority on the basis of which they assume they would be able to carry out ‘socialist’ experiments. 9. In the meantime, the position of the Walloon leaders does nothing to break the hold of clericalism, does nothing to build a bridge to the Catholic workers, many of whom, in the early stages, had shown a willingness to strike even at the price of breaking with their own trade unions. Indeed it tends to reinforce the hold of the church and con- tributes to the miseducation of the Flemish workers. 10. This attitude betrayed an empiricist method of adaptation to the circumstances which the centrist trade union leaders like Renard consistently followed. Despite his demonstrations of impatience with Parliamentary limitations, Renard proved incapable of advancing a programme more advanced than that of the Socialist parliamentarians. 11. The solidarity and enthusiasm of the working class was not matched by audacity on the part of the leaders, as could well have been predicted. The energies of the class were dissipated in the listening to speeches, of the kind usually made only on Sundays, marching in processions and chiefly in waiting for something to happen, nobody knew - and could offer, no such alternative. 113 quite what. Instead of waiting to see what the government would do, workplaces should have been occupied, works and strike committees set up, defence guards formed and a basis laid for extending the struggle. Lacking such a lead and seeking their own path forward, the militant sections turned to aimless violence, window-smashing, sabotage and so on. The will to struggle was dissipated, those sections with the least stamina, as in Brussels, soon turning away and going back to work. 12. The leaders, then, hung back. They did not, in fact, accept the responsibility of leadership, and their unwillingness to seek a way out of the impasse played into the hands of the government. Eyskens and his colleagues played a shrewd game and con- served tremendous assets. They had the radio and a large part of the press, which still appeared despite the ‘general’ strike. They had the gendarmerie, as well as the police, and brought back from Germany part of the NATO contingent. Plenty of repressive power was in evidence, or it was common knowledge that it was kept in the background. It was used in such a way as not to exacerbate class feeling and no doubt with a knowledge of the likely reaction of the strike leaders. Hence there was no attack at the heart of the work-class organizations, the leaders were not arrested and their movements do not seem to have been restricted. The government policy was to let the movement burn itself out. 13. That is what happened. The length of time which it took largely depended upon the degree of class consciousness in different regions or layers of the class. Thus it weakened quickly from its peak in the North apart from two or three places. In Brussels it rose to a peak and assumed a mass character but was not sustained owing to the lack of perspective. The South was almost totally strike- bound and the workers remained determined to the very end of four weeks, even though for the last two weeks the strike was collapsing in other parts of the country. 14. Tremendous opportunities clearly existed in Belgium if a leadership had been in existence to counter that of the Socialist Party and trade union apparatus. No such alternative existed or emerged, nor could it have done unless careful and sustained work had been applied to this task over a number of years. 15. The position of the Communist Party offered, Its policy was completely subordinated to the requirements of the ‘parliamentary road to socialism’. Its slogans did not go outside the limits set by the Social Democracy and were well within those of the Left wing. It

[p036] 114 coupled respect for parliamentary forms with a pathological desire to win acceptance on the Common Action committees set up by the Socialist Party and trade unions. Its call to the coalition parties to dissolve parliament and have new elections, in order, amongst other things, to conserve the prestige of ‘our’ parliamentary institutions, was a measure of its degeneration. It operated the policy of putting on pressure and generally acting as a shadow of the reformists. The adoption of such a policy in the situation of a general political strike is a clear indication both of the decline of the Communist Party as a political force and of the opportunist character of Stalinism. 16. On the Left wing of the Socialist Party, especially its youth movement, and to some extent in the trade unions, a Leftward current has been evident for some time but has failed to dislodge the old-line leaders. This section was likewise unable to break out of the impasse, despite the raising of what seemed to be more radical slogans. Its essential weakness lay in the fact that it has not built, and apparently has not sought to build, an alternative leadership, which, however small, could have built up a recognized and authoritative position with the militant workers. Such a revolutionary cadre force could have become of central importance in the strike. Such a cadre was absent because the Left wing’s criticism of centrism was a purely formal criticism. Both before and after the strike the so-called Left wing conducted itself in a way which was itself entirely centrist in character. In practice it was also for putting on pressure, it sought to feed ideas and policy through the rank and file, or directly, to the trade union leaders such as Renard, with whom it had, apparently, established a relation- ship based upon convenience and not upon any real agreement about tactics or policy. In fact, Renard showed up his ‘friends’ by himself being prepared to push only, and that not very effectively, one part of the Left programme—that for ‘structural reforms’ in line with the minimum programme of the Socialist Party. 17. Though the Left wing may have gained some support, and may grow as a result of the experience of the strike, it is clear on analysis that it shared responsibility for the failure of the strike. 18. The experiences of the Left wing, centred on “La Gauche’* is especially instructive in view of the other points made in this resolution. The policy and activity of the group around ‘La Gauche’ is an embodiment of the strategy and tactics of a **La Gauche’: Left-wing newspaper. LABOUR REVIEW—Winter, 1961-62 group of so-called Marxists. In fact this tendency has since 1953 consistently advocated and practised the subordination and even liquidation of the revolutionary cadre in centrist currents of the tradi- tional apparatus (Pabloism). This has obviously resulted in a series of compromises in which, in order to win what can be represented as an ‘influential’ position, clarity on principles and programme has been lost. Becoming prisoners of the centrists, looking more and more like them until the difference was only formal—a matter of vocabulary and a more analytical treatment of problems—was the unhappy but politically inevitable fate of these ‘ Marxists’. More, it meant that they were unable to give a lead in the situation arising from the strikes, both because of their past mis- orientation and of their adoption of a minimum programme while the strike was on. In particular, they lost the opportunity of bringing the working class, by going through experiences with it, to a higher level of consciousness. This could have been through a series of concrete transitional demands which posed the problem of power while corres- ponding to the immediate needs of the strikers. To support instead a ‘minimum programme’ of reformist character, no matter with what reservations, was a betrayal of revolutionary responsibility. This experience confirmed at the same time the basic correctness of transitional demands as _ against reformism on the one hand, and the need for rejection by the Fourth International of those revisions of Trotskyism which led to the split of 1953; they now stand finally revealed as funda- mentally centrist revisions, utterly unsuited politically to this revolutionary period. 19. On the most general level the Belgian events teach that the prime necessity is to build a revolu- tionary cadre. This task cannot be evaded by any consideration of immediate tactical success or to win approval from centrists of other tendencies. It cannot begin if major theoretical questions are not brought forward for discussion or if efforts are made to form combinations in which principled questions are put to one side. It cannot begin by support for centrist ‘personalities’ or the establishment of relationships which involve concessions on principle. It is not too late for the Belgian movement to learn, especially because of the existence of a vigorous socialist youth movement, at present considerably influenced by Pabloism. 20. Internationally the lessons are of even more importance than for the Belgian proletariat alone, and the full discussion of them is part of the theoretical preparation which the Trotskyist move- ment must undertake.

[p037] WORLD PROSPECT FOR SOCIALISM 115 IV The Colonial Revolution i) General Principles 1. The liberation struggle in each backward country must be viewed as part of the general crisis of imperialism. The roles of classes and parties must be assessed against the background of the needs of imperialism in this crisis. The strategy and tactics of working-class revolutionaries must flow from such an all-round appraisal. In every process there are partial exceptions for temporary periods and in special conditions; there are even periods of limited advance in sectors of the imperialist world even though the general tendency is one of decay. It would be a betrayal of Marxism to base the policies of any national section of the Fourth International upon ‘exceptional’ phenomena. The basic general characteristic of the colonial revolution, as part of the world socialist revolution, remains the incapacity of any but the working class to lead the masses out of the morass of imperialism. This fact necessitates a strategy of building revolutionary Marxist parties with a pro- gramme of workers’ power. 2. The revolt of the colonial masses has forced the imperialist governments to hand over political power to representatives of the colonial petty-bourgeoisie who stand in the leadership of the nationalist move- ments. Large sections of bourgeois opinion, particularly the European settlers in African colonies, oppose this strategy of international finance-capital in its immediate aims. In South and Central Africa, the conservatism of these elements inhibits the prospects of installing native bourgeois governments acceptable to the African population. A continental civil war is the result, in which moderate leaderships are very quickly exhausted. Whether native govern- ments have been granted constitutional rights, or whether armed conflict is still in progress against imperialist troops, or the United Nations Organiza- tion and its agencies are ‘ensuring stability’, the Marxists must strive above all to establish the leading role of the proletariat and its party. 3. Despite much talk of economic development, the international monopolies have neither the desire nor the possibility to bring about a balanced industrial advance in the under-developed countries. The advance of the colonial revolution has not prevented them from making temporary deals with the national bourgeoisie which permit continually increasing investment. The governments of the advanced countries, directly or through international organizations, have also provided economic aid as part of the political bargain with the new govern- ments. Uneven development has continued and been intensified as investment has gone on rapidly in areas with valuable raw materials, notably oil and minerals generally, while neglect and stagnation— aggravated by world price movements — severely afflict large populous areas of the ‘third world’. While in a large part of the world there has been no solution to the secular problems of poverty and exploitation, the interests of capitalism promote further accelerated development in the already advanced areas of the world: the disparities of income and levels of development become more sharply accentuated. The very position of the national bourgeoisie, ruling countries crippled by decades or even centuries of imperialist plunder and distortion, unable to break from corrupt and decadent feudal or pre-capitalist elements in the old society—landlords, money-lenders, tribal chiefs, etc.—and tacitly accept- ing or even encouraging the continued presence of the monopolies as decisive factors in the economy, makes it inconceivable that it can carry through economic development in the interests of the masses. 4. In this situation the imperialists see the need for what is called a ‘pre-investment phase’ in the colonial and newly independent states. It is hoped that the basic work can be done, in conditions of relative social peace, for later industrialization to take place. Kennedy advocates the freeing of all

[p038] 116 African trade, the dropping of the old colonial pre- ferences, so that eventually there can be the free movement of capital and the creation of large consumer markets upon which modern industrial capitalism depends. (Another motive here is to make access to European markets easier for Latin American primary products, in order to ease the position of specifically American political and economic interests in the Western hemisphere. Thus the antagonisms between the imperialist powers still militate against any ideal solution for the ‘system.) The instruments for administering this pre-investment phase are the nationalist petty- bourgeoisie who staff the ‘independent’ governments and the international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund, International Labour Office, etc. 5. The political role of the new governments cannot be judged on any formal criteria, or on the basis of their professions of political faith. Nationaliza- tion of basic industries and services is in fact recognized by the imperialists as a necessary pre- requisite for the creation of capitalist conditions. There is conscious encouragement by the imperialists of ‘democratic socialist’ parties and ideologies as the most efficient instrument for this purpose. Here again the role of Social Democracy in the advanced countries aS a support of imperialism is confirmed. Just as Social Democracy finds new bases of support in the bureaucracy of the centralized Western states, so does it adapt itself to the need for just such a bureaucracy in the backward countries. This bureaucracy is largely a state bureaucracy, for it is completely accepted by modern finance-capital that state control of the economy is a necessity in the present stage of development. 6. Just as the Social Democrats of both Right and Left welcome the petty-bourgeois nationalist leaders of this governing caste in the colonies as a progressive force, so do the Stalinists. Faithful to the theory of ‘socialism in one country’, they welcome the ‘pro- gressive role of state capitalism’ in the present situation. Thus they evaluate classes and parties in terms of the supposed natural stages of some inde- pendent, national economic evolution, rather than on the basis of understanding imperialism and the socinlist revolution as an international whole. As always, these theories are not accidental distortions of Marxism, but the ideologies of definite class tendencies in the Labour movement. On the one hand, the labour aristocracy and bureaucracy in the advanced countries empirically adapts itself to changes in the structure of imperialism, and this expresses itself in social democracy. At the same time, the Soviet bureaucracy, whose petty bourgeois interests stand between the Soviet workers and the achievement of the world revolution which can LABOUR REVIEW-—Winter, 1961-62 complete October, develops through the CPSU its programme of the 1920s, suited to the conditions of the bureaucracy of an isolated workers’ state, to the present phase of ‘peaceful competition’. 7. The objective effect of these opportunist trends is to lead the colonial workers and peasants into defeats at the hands of imperialism. While the middle-class leaders make their peace with the monopolies and banks, the Communist Parties disarm the working class politically by accepting the theory that the time for independent working-class politics is not yet ripe. This has in fact led to the strengthening of the new ruling classes in Indonesia, Egypt, India, Iraq and elsewhere, and in many cases to the physical extermination of many advanced workers. The Stalinist and Social Demo- cratic betrayals in the advanced countries also have their effect in preventing the development of just the kind of support there which the colonial workers need. The conduct of the French Communist Party in relation to Algeria is a classic example. 8. The turn of the imperialists to concentrate on investment in the advanced countries, the accelerat- ing development of science and technique, the pro- duction of new synthetic materials which destroy the market for the backward countries’ products, all of these increase the unevenness of capitalist development and ensure an accelerated pace of struggle in the backward as well as the advanced countries. The days of the petty-bourgeois leaders are numbered, and they cannot maintain for long the crisis bonapartist regimes which are the general tendency after a few years of ‘independence’. In these struggles the task of the Marxists is to grasp their opportunities by building independent pro- letarian parties as sections of the Fourth Interna- tional, with a programme of workers’ and peasants’ councils. All theories which ‘discover’ that the petty-bourgeois leaders will themselves carry through this socialist phase of the revolution are not only false and superficial, based on temporary and partial phenomena, but in effect constitute a dangerous revisionist tendency. 9. A correct class estimation of these national governments is also essential to an understanding of their role in world politics. The existence of the powerful Soviet Union enables some of these rulers to achieve a stronger position standing between their own masses and imperialism; they try to balance in a similar way in international diplomacy. The ideology and practice of ‘neutralism’ is only an extension of their class role at home. Thus Soekarno of Indonesia and Nehru of India help to foster the illusion that world peace can be ensured through the goodwill of influential statesmen who

[p039] WORLD PROSPECT FOR SOCIALISM will bring the warmongers to their senses. At the 1961 conference of neutral powers, all questions of the economic and social development of those parts of the world dominated by imperialism were put aside for the ‘main task’ of ‘an initiative for peace’. Naturally the Social Democrats, even of a ‘Left’ variety, as well as the Stalinists, welcome any line of action which prevents the masses themselves from solving the problem of war through the overthrow of imperialism. These ‘neutralists’ will balance between the power blocs so long as their fate is not decisively threatened. But they are essentially part _of the world bourgeoisie, and will take sides with it. 10. It is clear that the policies of support for the nationalist petty-bourgeoisie in the backward countries, ‘peaceful co-existence’ on the international arena, ‘peaceful roads to socialism’ in the advanced countries, and ‘socialism in one country’, in the Soviet bloc, are part of a single whole, a counter- revolutionary political trend which is fully hardened and which must be opposed in the most determined fashion. Here too, any tendency which waits upon the automatic change of this Stalinist course under pressure of some ‘objective forces’ is revisionist and reactionary. The petty-bourgeois nationalists and the Stalinists are obstacles in the road of working-class independence and power, and only the construction of Marxist parties with a revolutionary programme will overcome them. ii) The Cuban Revolution: 1. The revolutionary overthrow of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba has since been followed by the nationalization of American property in the island by the Castro government. The Cuban movement has many specific features which deserve careful study and appraisal. 2. There are three features of the revolution which distinguish it from all previous revolutions in the Latin American continent: (i) The extent of the agrarian reform; (ii) The scope of the nationaliza- tion measures; and (iii) The creation of an armed militia. (ij) The Agrarian Reform The agrarian reform is more extensive than any- thing seen so far in that part of the hemisphere. Neither Bolivia nor Guatemala were able to do what Castro has done. The reform, which has distributed land to more than 100,000 landless labourers (the 117 11. Finally we re-emphasize the importance of seeing the colonial revolution as part of the inter- national revolution of the proletariat, a revolution which cannot be completed without victories in the advanced countries. To see the colonial revolution as automatically extending under its own momentum is to encourage the serious revisions of Marxism already discussed. It is nonsense to speak of the theory of permanent revolution being ‘confirmed’ without the leadership of a Marxist party and without the perspective of a spread to the advanced countries. Without proletarian leadership the economic problems will intensify and the political regimes will become more and more repressive. The economic future of the workers’ dictatorships which revolutionary struggles will bring in the backward countries will only be assured by assistance from the victorious workers’ revolutions in the advanced countries. It is not a question of more and more ‘progressive’ regimes being set up as a result of the colonial revolution, finally bringing about a change in the diplomatic balance of power. This is a petty-bourgeois utopia, acceptable to the nationalist rulers themselves, to the Stalinist bureaucracy and to all centrist opinion. The Fourth International is firmly committed to the programme of the perma- nent revolution. There will be no independence from imperialism, there will be no peace, until the workers of the backward countries take power and are joined by the revolutionary struggle, then the victory, of their brothers in Europe and America. an example guajiros) struck a massive blow against the big American monopolies such as the United Fruit Company who owned vast tracts of land (some over 200,000 acres) and the native absentee landlords who were the principal prop of the Batista regime. Nevertheless, the reform in its content and motiva- tion remains a capitalist reform and does not transcend capitalist property relations in the country- side. Even Castro has admitted that ‘it was not a very radical reform’ because it did not touch those estates and ranches which were under 1,000 acres. Although the Agrarian Reform Law prescribes that the lands belonging to the co-operatives cannot be divided, nevertheless in the event of a serious agricultural recession hitting Cuba there is no guarantee to prevent entire co-operatives either going into liquidation or even being sold to other co- operatives or individual farmers. An agrarian reform of this type which affects

[p040] 118 absolute rent while leaving differential rent intact can not only be contained within the capitalist framework but can also become a stimulant for the growth of the capitalist economy. The absence of land nationalization, the failure to abolish the rural debt and the reluctance to provide cheap credit facilities for the farmers— all these things are creating the conditions for a new differentiation of rural society. The growth of a rural bourgeoisie and a rural proletariat will be inevitable. Fragmentation—the scourge of under- developed agriculture—and alienation of land will continue and in the absence of planned industriali- zation will pave the way for more intense class conflicts in the countryside. Under such conditions the future of the co- operatives would be, to say the least, precarious. (ii) Nationalization The nationalization of US firms, like the agrarian reform, was aimed principally at the imperialist monopolies. However, they were carried out not in accordance with a preconceived and rational plan of economic development, nor as an integral part of a programme of nationalization of all bourgeois property, but only in response to the slashing of the sugar quota by the US government. Like Nasser’s seizure of the Suez Canal they constitute an extreme example of ‘ State-ism’ in the semi-colonial world. As Trotsky remarked in relation to the nationalization of railways and oil- fields in Mexico: ‘It is a measure of state capitalism in a backward country which in this way seeks to defend itself on the one hand against foreign imperialism and on the other against its own proletariat.’ The absence of any legislation relating to workers’ control, the denial of managerial rights to workers in the expropriated enterprises with a few excep- tions, and the bureaucratic administration of the nationalized firms by the state, not to mention the overt and covert manoeuvres of the regime to discipline the trade unions and integrate them through the new labour bureaucracy that replaced the old Mujalist* bureaucracy, point definitely to the capitalist nature of the regime and its social policy. _ For this reason they should not be confused with the expropriations in the workers’ states. The reforms of the revolutionary government are directed towards a more rational utilization of natural resources, a more balanced programme of capital investment, and a modest expansion of the home market, within the framework of the extant capitalist property relations both in industry and in agriculture * The pro-Batista TU leadership. LABOUR REVIEW—Winter, 1961-62 (iii) The Militia The creation of a militia 300,000 strong is one of the most important achievements of the revolution and the firmest guarantee of the regime. Thanks to the vigilance of this militia every attempt at counter- revolution has been suppressed. The future of the militia, however, is by no means assured. As class conflicts grow and contradictions accumulate, differentiations will take place in the militia between the pro-capitalist and anti-capitalist forces. Attempts will be made to disband or disarm the militia—as in Bolivia—or more probably to integrate it in the army and police apparatus as was done in Egypt with the ‘ Fedayeen commando’.* The control of the arms depot by the Rebel Army ensures thereby the control of the militia by the bourgeois state. One of the major tasks of Marxists is to fight for the organizational independence of the militia and its subordination to the trade unions and co-operatives. Failure of a viable revolutionary leadership to influence, organize and lead the militia along class lines will render its disappearance more than probable. 3. The Castro regime is Bonapartist in structure and petty-bourgeois in composition. All major policy decisions are taken by a small group around Fidel Castro while the masses are only consulted when and where the regime requires, e.g., the Havana Declaration. The extreme weakness of the national bourgeoisie, and conversely the relative strength and cohesion of the working class, renders any attempt at stabilizing a popular and genuinely representative capitalist regime based on popular organs of power completely illusory. The absence of a genuine Marxist alternative enables the regime to balance itself between the opposing class forces, utilizing both the Right and the Left in order to secure its own objectives. On all decisive and fundamental questions which impinge upon the power and wealth of the national bourgeoisie as a whole, however, the regime comes down on the side of capital. By attempting to form a ‘single party of the revolution’, by attacking the Left wing of the July 26 Movement, and by its refusal to convene a Constituent Assembly, on the basis of secret and universal suffrage, the Castro regime reveals more and more its class limitations in carrying the democratic revolution to the end. The attacks against the POR? are further evidence of this trend. Thus only two roads are open for the Cuban * Formed to fight the British in the closing stages of their occupation of bases in the Canal Zone. } Partido Obrero Revolucionario: ‘Trotskyist’ party affiliated to the International Secretariat which maintains that Cuba is a ‘workers’ state’.

[p041] WORLD PROSPECT FOR SOCIALISM Revolution: Either forward to the Socialist revolu- tion and the creation of an anti-capitalist workers’ state, or back to military-police dictatorship and a regime of hunger and misery. In any event, the Castro leadership can only be a transitory phenomenon pursuing a thoroughly utopian — and pragmatic — objective of trying to build a national capitalist state in a period when the whole of world capitalist economy and culture is cracking at its foundations. 4. It is of paramount importance to defend the Cuban Revolution—but at the same time to call for its extension, both in depth through the setting up of a regime based upon workers’ and peasants’ councils, and geographically by taking up the same issues in other parts of Latin America, and parti- culary in the Central American states which have similar problems and are openly dominated by the big American monopolies. There is no doubt that the Cuban revolution has already had a considerable influence throughout the hemisphere. It has many lessons to teach in the way of tactics and is proving that America can be opposed. But it is a far cry from this to defining Castro’s Cuba as being already a workers’ state or even in its present form as a regime which is capable of survival. 5. American radicals have been particularly sus- ceptible to the appeals of the Cuban revolution. For the first time they have at hand and available for investigation an anti-imperialist movement with undoubted achievements to its credit. The faith and enthusiasm of the Cuban workers and peasants, the frankness and simplicity of the leaders themselves, the contrast not only between Cuba and every other regime in Latin America, but also with the decadent, cynical and money-ridden climate of the United States itself, accounts for the sometimes over- enthusiastic acceptance of the Cuban revolution in its present form. However, it is necessary to check carefully over the facts and possibilities. 6. The isolation of the Cuban Revolution, and therefore the inevitable dependence of Castro on the USSR, has led to the strengthening of the Stalinist People’s Socialist Party. This party, which played no part in the earliest successes of the July 26 Movement, and was in fact for a time com- promised with the Batista regime, has thus been able to secure positions and influence in the administra- tion. It has not hesitated to use its power to strike at the independent press of other groups, which it fears may set out on a course embarrassing not only Castro but also the Soviet government, The kind of Stalinist methods used in Spain between 1936 and 1939 which ruined the chances of the Spanish revolution, are once again at work. The Soviet 119 bureaucracy much prefers to deal with Castro, ‘pressurized’ by the CP—just as was Negrin in Spain—than with a leadership genuinely representa- tive of and closely dependent upon the working class in its own organizations. 7. The absence of a firm theoretical foundation on the part of the Castro leadership is by no means a virtue. It has led, and will lead, to improvisation and eclecticism in the face of intractable problems. It means that the popular masses are not being educated to a full understanding of the situation internally and in its international implications. Faith in a leader is no substitute for such under- standing, on the contrary, it puts what has so far been achieved at the mercy of an assassin’s bullet. It can lead to deceptions and retreats. But it is no accident that while popular in its basis, the revolu- tion is not popularly controlled or led. The leader- ship is derived from the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. It has proceeded against American imperialism only as a result of immediate necessity, and not with a clear programme of expropriation of capital. The future of the economy remains in question. Marxists campaign for the creation of a revolutionary working-class leadership which will fight on a pro- gramme of workers’ and peasants’ councils to take over the economy, together with a campaign throughout the American continent to defend and spread the Cuban revolution. The defence of that revolution is a prime task of socialists throughout the Americas, but its future lies in the realization of the slogan of a United Socialist States of America. Appearing shortly in John G. Wright’s translation revised by Brian Pearce, the fundamental work on the struggle against colonialism in relation to the socialist revolution Trotsky’s The Permanent Revolution (together with a translation by Brian Pearce of ‘ Results and Prospects’ written by Trotsky after the 1905 Revolution in Russia) from New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Telephone: MAC 7029

[p042] 120 LABOUR REVIEW—Winter, 1961-62 V The USSR Since the 20th Congress 1. Since the October Revolution of 1917, world capitalism has been confronted with a rival system of production which has abolished the private ownership of the means of production and the anarchy of market relations. Since the second world war the economic achievements of the Soviet Union, together with the success of revolutions in new countries, particularly in China, have sharpened the contradictions of capitalism. A large proportion of the world’s population and productive resources are now outside the sphere of capitalist exploitation or expansion. This necessary conflict between capital- ism and the first conquests of the proletarian revolution will not simply fade away in an atmos- phere of ‘peaceful co-existence’. As interpreted by the Soviet bureaucracy, peaceful co-existence is only an ideological cloak for their policy of compromise with imperialism, their opposition to decisive clashes between capitalism and the revolutionary working class. The conflict between the capitalist and socialist systems cannot be solved except on the arena of international class struggle. It is false and contrary to Marxism to pose as the alternatives ‘either peaceful co-existence or a third world war’. Above all, it is a question of the international consciousness, organization and action of the proletariat. Khrushchev envisages instead a growing number of existing states or governments committed to friendly relations with the USSR. Consequently the working-class movements in the capitalist and ex-colonial countries are channelled into ‘pressure’ politics rather than the overthrow of the capitalist state. This is the fundamental meaning of the theories of ‘peaceful roads to socialism’, ‘anti- monopoly coalitions’ and ‘broad peace alliances’. 2. The economic advances of the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe result from nationalized and planned economy. Their more rapid and even growth, compared with the capitalist countries, testifies to the advantages of planned economy over private enterprise. But this does not mean that the claims of Stalin and his successors about the con- struction of socialism or even communism in the USSR can be accepted. Such a claim is dangerous and in contrast to the facts; to accept it would mean accepting all the excesses of Stalinism, its political repressions and social and economic distortions, as inevitable features of a socialist society. Although the repression has become less ruthless and obvious, there remain all the contradictions flowing from the betrayal of the revolution which was cloaked by the theory of ‘socialism in one country’. The inequality of incomes and the social privileges of the bureaucracy, the absence of effective control from below in the formulation and carrying through of the state plans, all result in disharmonies which drag upon the economy and prevent its full development of the productive forces in a planned way. In this way individualist tendencies are encouraged, not only in the bureaucracy but also among the workers and peasants. So long as the working class is rigorously excluded from political power by the bureaucratically controlled state and party machine, this contradiction cannot be resolved. The basis for socialism exists in the form of the nationalized means of production in the USSR and other workers’ states. But this nationalized property does not constitute socialism any more than do the collective farms. A socialist society necessitates full participation in the functions of the state and democratic control of the economy by the working class at all levels through Soviets. Socialism implies also definite tendencies towards equality of income and the decline of the repressive function of the state. Today, on the other hand, the tendency is towards strengthening of the bureaucratic state and continued gross inequalities of income. Even without the usurpation of workers’ power in the USSR by the bureaucracy, there could be no question of the

[p043] WORLD PROSPECT FOR SOCIALISM victory of socialism until imperialism was defeated and a much higher level of material production reached. The USSR, China and the Eastern European countries are workers’ states: i.e., they are based on property forms established by the October Revolution, directly or indirectly, property forms which are the basis for socialist society. However, the working class in these countries does not wield political power, does not control production, and does not decide the policy of these countries to the world outside. The confinement of the first stage of the world revolution to the USSR alone, a backward country, resulted in the victory of a bureaucratic caste in politically expropriating the proletariat. This bureaucracy stands above and outside the working class and is parasitic upon the economic forms created by the October Revolution. This is not an inevitable feature of the transition to socialism, but arises from the special conditions of isolation of the Russian revolution and will be replaced historically by a political revolution by the Soviet working class. The preparation of this revolution depends upon the strategy of the revolutionary working-class forces on a world scale. 3. Thus we see the USSR, China and Eastern Europe as workers’ states which have become deformed or degenerated. Their present form can only be temporary, and it is wrong to interpret these temporary distorted forms as a new or inevitable Stage in the development of society. We stand for the defence of these states as of every conquest of the working class; their return to the sphere of exploitation of imperialism would be a shattering blow to the prospects of socialism, whereas their continued existence constitutes a permanent challenge and threat of instability to imperialism. But our defence of the USSR, Eastern Europe and China does not mean giving up the right of criticism. Revolutionaries have a duty to criticise ruthlessly the counter-revolutionary role of the bureaucracy, which in fact works against the defence of the revolution. Both in the Soviet bloc and in the class struggle all over the world, through the influence of the Communist Parties, the bureaucracy hampers the struggle for socialism. In calling for a political revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy we are not supporting the ‘liberation’ propaganda of the imperialists and their agents in the Labour movement. We advocate such a revolution to preserve and not to overturn the nationalized property relations, to ensure their protection from the restoration of capitalism. The Fourth Inter- national’s call for a political revolution to overthrow the bureaucracy in the workers’ states is part of the strategy of world revolution against imperialism. Especially dangerous is the petty-bourgeois 121 tendency which characterizes the Soviet Union as a system of ‘state capitalism’. By using the method of superficial comparisons, the theories of ‘state capitalism’ claim that the Soviet bureaucracy, through its control of the state apparatus, has become a new capitalist class and has destroyed all the gains of the October Revolution. On this basis all responsibility for the defence of the USSR from imperialist attack is avoided, and the necessity for constructing a Leninist party is denied. Formally embracing Marxism, such tendencies in fact provide a Left cover for the bourgeois theories of ‘totali- tarianism’ and the impossibility of working-class power; in times of political crisis, such as the Korean war, they provide support for the imperial- ists. They are a direct agency through which certain elements in the movement capitulate to petty- bourgeois democratic opinion at a time when sharp class struggle arises and the need for proletarian discipline and principled programme becomes vital. The discussion of the character of the USSR from the point of view of abstract political criteria like ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ rather than from the basis of production relations is clear evidence of the class character of this tendency. In theory as in practice they are a direct line of transmission to Right-wing social democracy. 4. Stalin’s excesses, justified by the theory of ‘socialism in one country’, expressed in the sharpest form the reactionary role of the bureaucracy. In the period following Stalin’s death, the bureaucracy itself was able to curb the power of the security forces in its own interests. In this way the power of the bureaucracy was not ended but placed on a different basis. Khrushchev’s speech to. the closed session of the 20th Congress of the CPSU was an attempt to respond to the growing strength of the Soviet working class and to the questionings following Stalin’s death, by rationalizing the bureaucracy’s internal relations and attempting to give the impres- sion of a clean break with the brutal repressions of the Stalin era. Khrushchev has succeeded in surviv- ing the various crises within the Communist Party leadership and in the Eastern European countries, finally emerging as the undisputed successor to Stalin. Although Khrushchev’s regime appears less rigid and brutal than that of Stalin, still the area of debate and democracy remains severely limited. The promises of collective leadership in state and party, a necessary response to the rise of a mass educated working class with growing consciousness, have not _been fulfilled. The cult of personality remains, even if muted in comparison with Stalin’s day. The rule of the bureaucracy is concentrated in the rule of one man, a supreme arbiter who staffs the top posts with his own nominees and takes all the major decisions both on domestic and foreign affairs. This

[p044] 122 one-man rule befits a bureaucratic type of planning based on commands from the centre rather than democratic decisions and checks. A series of policy changes and ideological modifications, combined in an empiricist way that often amounts to demagogy, have enabled Khrushchev to maintain a certain stability in the relations between the bureaucracy and the people. Concessions have been made to the peasants, and the discontent of the working class has been stemmed by some improvement of living standards and the promise of more to come. By applying his own personal energy to these practical problems and by skilfully routing his own opponents within the bureaucracy, Khrushchev has confirmed his own position as boss. The stability thus brought about is necessarily only temporary, for the personal power involved, centralized in a single personality, is in contradiction with the continued expansion of the economy and the growth of the working class. Thus Khrushchev’s personal rule prepares for even deeper sontradictions in the future. The whole course since the 20th Congress, where Khrushchev made his ‘secret speech’ in emergency conditions, has amounted to a bottling up rather than a solution of the fundamental conflicts. In Hungary and Poland, the risings of 1956 were unable to overthrow the rule of the bureaucracy. Here too, a modification of the old police rule has taken place. But in Hungary, leading workers and intellectuals remain imprisoned, and the workers’ councils set up in 1956 were ruthlessly suppressed. In Poland, Gomulka’s leadership tided the bureau- cracy over the storms arising from Poznan and Warsaw in 1956. Since the Eighth Plenum of that year, however, the legislation on workers’ councils and the suppression of dissident opinions have been used to stifle the initiative of the youth and the working class. Following concessions to the Stalinist or Natolin group in 1958, with the return to office of many of the members of the repressive machine, there came a restriction of the worker’s councils to advisory committees in the factories. This re- imposition of bureaucratic power and the checks on working-class activity have encouraged the open political campaigning of elements like the Roman Catholic Church. 5. Khrushchev now claims that the capitalist en- circlement is ended and that communism is now being constructed in the USSR. Neither assertion describes the objective situation. The continued drain on the economy of a necessarily high arma- ments production and scientific research geared to military requirements, and the continued emphasis on heavy industry rather than consumer goods, due to the fact that the advanced industrial countries remain in the capitalist sphere, all reflect the capitalist encirclement. In many ways, the USSR is far from LABOUR REVIEW—Winter, 1961-62 having the lineaments of an advanced economy, despite the claims that communism is being intro- duced. The relative backwardness of consumer goods production, of housing, roads, and motor transport, are all inevitable disproportions in an economy surrounded by hostile capitalist states and unable to profit from the international division of labour. But they make a mockery of the claims to have reached the threshold of communism. The bureaucracy can neither perceive clearly nor solve the economic problems of the USSR, because its own parasitic existence and opportunist policy are at the root of the difficulty. Khrushchev is inevitably confronted with the same problems which have bedevilled Soviet economy for 30 years; basic to all of these is the emphasis in the planning system on the caste of privileged administrators separated off from the producers and relying on a regime of commands from an uncontrolled centre. This centre and the caste around it are immune to demo- cratic discussion of the economic plans and are independent of any control from below, which is an essential part of socialism. Khbrushchev’s own re- peated complaints make it clear that the system of incentives and individual responsibility for norms encourages systematic dishonesty and cheating of the state and its enterprises. Corruption, inefficiency, plundering of public resources, bribery, ‘fixing’, unfulfilled promises—all these are not the inevitable consequence of economic planning as such or of “human nature’; they derive from the bureaucratic methods of the ruling caste. There must be no one- sided evaluation of the USSR on the basis of these examples, but at the same time such developments must impede the economy, and it is ridiculous to continue to attribute them to ‘survivals of capitalism’. The backward individualistic attitudes to which this latter characterization refers are in fact bred every day by the system of material incentives which continues to dominate the life of the working class itself, despite the official lip-service to ‘workers’ participation’ and non-material incentives. Such attitudes are encouraged by the visible signs of privileged consumption by the members and families of the bureaucracy. 6. Khrushchev has been particularly concerned with the recurrent crises in Soviet agriculture and asso- ciated problems. The main production lags have in fact been in agriculture. Despite the ‘virgin lands’ projects and various agrarian reforms, the peasantry clearly remains little affected by the exhortations of the official spokesmen; the agrarian sector appears to offer particularly wide scope for the corruption and evils of bureaucracy. In industry the problem is less one of continued growth than of harmonious proportions between the different branches of pro- duction. But in agriculture it is not possible in the

[p045] WORLD PROSPECT FOR SOCIALISM same degree to ensure continued growth in output by continuous increase in the amount of capital investment in new means of production. This can only be brought about on the same scale by bringing new lands into cultivation. The other necessary con- ditions are improved livestock husbandry, improved crop yield, the spread of technical knowledge among the peasantry, and their active co-operation in carry- ing through the economic plan. Clearly results in these fields have been very uneven and have required many concessions to the peasants as well as the constant attention of Khrushchev himself. At the same time the system of procuring and distributing agricultural produce has been criticized severely by the bureaucracy itself as a weak link in the economy, allowing as it does enormous opportunities for fraud and speculation. The relation between the workers’ state and the peasantry remains one which is en- dangered by the character of the bureaucracy; the agrarian problem remains unsolved. The future of property forms is no more certain than it was in the 1930s. Measures like the sale of the machine tractor stations to the large collectives leave in serious doubt the relation between collective farms and state farms. 7. The bureaucracy seeks peace and disarmament agreements with the imperialists, not only because it wants to ensure its own continued privileged existence but also because the arms programme is a great drag on the economy. But the existence of great imperialist powers who see the need to oppose any spread of the revolution makes such disarma- ment a dangerous illusion. The theory of peaceful co-existence seeks to get round this basic dilemma. The theory of peaceful co-existence serves to sum up the current ideology of the bureaucracy in the USSR. It rests upon a number of major assumptions concerning the character of the class forces in the modern world. The statements of Soviet statesmen and the writings of Soviet economists reveal an over- simplified conception of the general crisis of capitalism as a steady growth of inevitable con- tradictions, involving growing unemployment and declining living standards. In fact this picture grossly underestimates the recuperative powers of capitalism after the second world war, powers which required direct collaboration from the Social Democratic and Stalinist leadership of the working class in Europe. Thus the Soviet economy suffers from distortions resulting from the political betrayals of the ruling caste internationally; the same bureaucracy now advocates an intensification of the same policy of illusions and betrayal. Similarly in the colonial revolution: it is all very well to talk about the colonial system having come to the end of its history, but this ignores the extent to which the imperialists have been able to come to terms with the national 123 bourgeoisie of these ex-colonial countries, preserving the imperialist stake in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Once again, this has only been possible because of the failure to build alternative revolu- tionary leaderships of the working class in the colonial countries, a failure which can be laid right at the door of the Stalinist bureaucracy, with its uncritical support of national bourgeois leaders in the anti-imperialist movements. The automatic and non-Marxist conception of the nature of capitalism’s decline, in which socialism will gradually ‘prove’ itself superior to capitalism in peaceful competition, as expressed in the Declaration of the 81 Parties in 1960, leads at the same time to an overestimation of the strength and potentialities of the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries. The actual possibilities of independent revolutionary action by the working class are negated by this automatic identification of the working class with the Communist Parties and with the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy itself. Such a conception is geared to alliances with the ‘peaceloving’ sections of the bourgeoisie in the colonial and even in the advanced countries, in order to instal coalition governments friendly to the USSR or regimes dominated by the CP, as in Eastern Europe. The Chinese Communist Party leaders have recently called into question all the basic theoretical pre- suppositions of Khrushchev’s policy of peaceful co- existence. The Chinese saw in peaceful co-existence an implicit willingness to accept the status quo, thus abandoning the struggle against Chiang for the recovery of Formosa, and also to trade support for the colonial revolutions in return for disarmament agreements. The Chinese leadership also arises from a bureaucratic caste, no less wedded to its power and privileges than its Russian counterpart. But, being nearer to the source of revolutionary energies, facing difficult problems at home and resenting the imposition on the world communist movement of policies which were against its own interests, it readily found theoretical ammunition in Leninism with which to oppose the ‘revisionists’. The con- centration of this fire on the Titoists deceived no one as to the real target. The fact that, in the course of this controversy, the Chinese made many correct points, that their estimation of the division of world forces was more realistic and their ideology ‘purer’, should not lead to the acceptance of their case as a whole. It was equally arrived at on an empiricist and not a principled basis and it included some points which were adventurist and dangerous, such as the claim that in an H-bomb war socialism would be victorious. The Chinese position emanating from a powerful powerful member of the bloc with high prestige, especially in the less developed countries, opened up a theoretical discussion inside the Communist Parties,

[p046] 124 which has not yet shown it full results. The declaration of the 81 Communist Parties as well as subsequent Soviet statements show a verbal adapta- tion to some of the objections raised by the Chinese without any major change in tactics or policy. This suggests that, taking advantage of the Chinese domestic embarrassments, the Soviet leaders were mainly interested in preserving their dominance within a unified Communist movement, and they have in fact succeeded in this aim. As a result the declaration, and other statements are even more eclectic than such statements have customarily been: they contain something for all the different trends and made it possible to cover in advance almost any course upon which Khrushchev decides — thus leaving the Communist Parties no choice but to follow. 9. The fundamental causes of the crisis within Stalinism were no more dealt with in 1960-61 than in 1956: once again their solution was put off by methods of equivocation, suppression and the pro- duction of eclectic ‘declarations’ which papered over differences. The crisis is bound to intensify, in the great class struggles which are now beginning. The ‘monolithic unity’ of the Communist Parties, both internally and internationally, is only appearance. The new phase of the world revolution will produce further breaks from the Communist Parties as the dangers of Khrushchev’s opportunist line are revealed and the rank and file comes to seek a policy nearer to the interests of the working class. At first these trends will necessarily be sporadic and unco- ordinated. There is no automatic process by which the bureaucracy will be unseated or the policy of the old leaders in the capitalist countries trans- formed. A_ great responsibility rests upon the Marxist movement to construct new mass revolu- tionary parties and to further this process by winning militants from the Communist Parties and those sections of the working classes under their influence. In the Soviet Union and other workers’ states the Party is first and foremost an instrument of the bureaucracy. It is possible that the movement of 1956 for a return to Lenin may be repeated, either within the framework of the Party or outside it. Whichever is the case, the question is not one of reforming the Communist Parties of these countries, but of building new revolutionary parties as part of the Fourth International with the strategy of political revolution. For this there is necessary a return to the traditions and methods of the Left Opposition and the Bolshevik Party, and it is particularly important to educate the youth in this spirit. No opportunity must be lost, however small and insignificant the beginnings, in the furthering of this task. The 1956 events in Poland and Hungary showed the tragic results of the absence of a revolu- LABOUR REVIEW—Winter, 1961-62 tionary leadership of the working class in the workers’ states; they point to the urgent need to construct such parties if needless sacrifices are to be avoided in the future. Only when confronted by genuine revolutionary forces, organized as a Marxist party with deep roots in the masses, will the bureaucracy face its historic fate of destruction. Such a perspective in the USSR, Eastern Europe and China, together with our unconditional defence of these states against the capitalist countries, along with the building of a new revolutionary Inter- national, constitutes the essence of our policy towards the USSR, China and the countries of Eastern Europe. 10. The present world situation, 36 years after Stalin’s introduction of the theory of ‘socialism in one country’ emphasizes the fact that the future of socialism is a question of world revolution. The second world war and the arming of the great powers with nuclear weapons give the sharpest answer to the theories of an isolated socialist society. Only a new relationship between the working class of the Soviet Union, China and Eastern Europe on the one hand, and the working class of the advanced countries on the other, can guarantee the victory of socialism. Even within the sphere of the workers’ states there has not developed a planned division of labour and resources on the basis of equality. With revolutions in the advanced countries, socialism will be able to develop on its true objective basis, the material . foundation of high productivity and the international division of labour developed by capitalism itself. Trotsky’s classic analysis of the USSR and Stalinism The Revolution Betrayed Paper 10/6 Cloth 15/- THE New Course (1924) 3/6 RapIo, SCIENCE, TECHNIQUE & SOCIETY 1/- STALINISM & BOLSHEVISM 6d. Also: THE 20TH CONGRESS & WORLD TROTSKYISM (Suppressed Bolshevik archives, Lenin’s Testament, Khrushchev’s “secret appeal” of 1956 in full) Price: 1/6 from New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Telephone: MAC 7029

[p047] WORLD PROSPECT FOR SOCIALISM 125 VI The Fourth International 1. The major task of building a revolutionary leadership on a world scale involves the reorganiza- tion of the Fourth International and therefore a consideration of the Pablo group. In its documents and activity the distinguishing features of Pabloism can be summed up as an impressionistic method which tries to assess quantitatively the so-called ‘objective factors’ and in this way minimises the role of the masses under revolutionary leadership. This scraping before ‘objective’ forces leads to talk of ‘irreversible’ and ‘irresistible’ processes. In the case of the Soviet Union it is responsible for extreme conclusions about the ‘pressure’ of the masses which will allegedly force the bureaucracy to ‘liberalize’ itself and restore Soviet democracy. The term ‘political revolution’ when used at all by the Pabloites, is not connected with the construction of the revolutionary leadership. In the capitalist countries it leads to over-estimation of the Stalinist forces and the belief that under certain circumstances mass pressure will similarly operate to bring the Communist Parties to power. Events have already considerably discredited such a prognosis, but it still means a withholding of confidence in the proletariat and a minimising of the task of creating a new revolutionary leadership. At an earlier stage the same impressionism produced the theory of an inevitable, indeed, imminent, world war. The same method is expressed today in formulations such as the following: ‘ Through the fact of the historical lateness of the revolution in the capitalist countries, which is the result of the dialectical interaction between the treason of the leadership and the new economic evolution of capitalism, the colonial revolution is objectively the motive force of the world revolu- tion combined with the growing strength of the workers’ states.’ 2. Our analysis has nothing in common with such abstract and confused verbiage, typical of the com- mentator who stands aside from events and allots the leading and subordinate roles in them to whom- soever he wills. In the present epoch of imperialism the Marxist begins the study of social contradictions with the role of the working class itself; the intention being to establish leadership in the given conditions. For example, stabilization in the metropolitan countries is, as has been shown, strictly relative, dependent upon a series of world forces which are running strongly against capitalism and complicating the underlying contradictions of imperialism. The economic upswing of the 50s was not something in itself. which bore witness to the inherent health of capitalism or the restoration of its vigour on a permanent basis. Moreover this upswing has been the basis for the consolidation of working-class organization, not a weakening of the class. 3. The greatest danger confronting the revolutionary movement is liquidationism, flowing from a capitula- tion either to the strength of imperialism or of the bureaucratic apparatuses in the Labour movement, or both. Pabloism represents, even more clearly now than in 1953, this liquidationist tendency in the international Marxist movement. In Pabloism the advanced working class is no longer the vanguard of history, the centre of ali Marxist theory and strategy in the epoch of imperialism, but the play- thing of ‘world-historical factors’, surveyed and assessed in abstract fashion. The draft resolutions of the Pabloites for their international conference are very explicit on this point. The present stage of the world revolution, according to them, is particu- larly characterized by the growing strength of the workers’ states and the great power generated by the colonial revolution; the struggle in the advanced countries, because of changes in the character of modern capitalism, is relegated to a definitely sub- ordinate position. Here all historical responsibility of the revolutionary movement is denied, all is subordinated to panoramic forces; the questions of the role of the Soviet bureaucracy and of the class forces in the colonial revolution are left unresolved. That is natural, because the key to these problems is the role of the working class in the advanced countries and the crisis of leadership in their Labour movements.

[p048] 126 A correct revolutionary orientation towards these questions is now a vital and urgent necessity, because in Japan and Britain there have begun great struggles which raise directly before the organized working class the issue of class leadership. ln each case these issues are forced by the special manifestations of imperialism’s latest crisis in these particular countries; the struggles around them wiil inevitably intensity and will spread to the other imperialist countries, inciuding the USA. Any retreat trom the strategy of political independence of the working class and the construction of revolutionary parties will take on the significance of a worild-historical blunder on the part of the Lrotskyist movement. 4. The sections of the Fourth International must be supremely conscious of their own historical respon- Sibilities, in that a revolutionary proletarian leader- ship can only be buiit through a constant fight for correct policies and in competition with other tend- dencies, not in an attempt to find a common denominator. Each national group begins with the internationai programme, with the method and basic ideas aS summea up in the Transitional Programme of the Fourth International. ‘hey recognize that there are no separate national roads to socialism, ana that the struggies in the old imperialist countries, in the USA, in tne colonies and former colonies and in tne Soviet sphere are interdependent. ‘Lhe political and industrial situation in each country is over- shadowed by the world tendencies. S$. The building of a revolutionary party in any country starts from an adherence to an international programme and strategy. But the tactics and manner in which we intervene in struggle must result from a concrete discussion beginning with class relations in that country itself and bringing in all the relevant considerations. hus it would be futile to set off with a universally valid tactic derived from a generalization of world tendencies. For example, it is not possible in this way to prescribe an entry tactic in all countries where mass Social Democratic or Communist Parties exist. Each case must be con- sidered in the light of the historical factors in the given country, the stage of the class struggle, the needs of the masses and the state of the movement itself; the entry tactic may well be correct but it has to be based on such a thorough examination of the situation. 6. The revolutionaries must link their activity with the class in its day-to-day struggles, as itself a decisive factor in the situation. Trotskyists do not therefore sit back and examine as impartial observers; they are participants who help to shape the events them- selves. We must recognize, moreover, that all other tendencies in the working class are the result of LABOUR REVIEW—WNinter, 1961-62 based on for tne non-proletarian policies imperialism ana aeteats victories for victories for working class. 7. Our movement in each country must elaborate trom its own experience and study of the struggle ot tne classes a programme of transitional demands waich will proviae a focus for all those sections which are thrown into conflict witb tne bureaucracies of tne political parties and trade unions. A pro- gramme ot unity on class struggics lines must be used to demonstrate to the working class in its own experience that their tight against the class enemy cannot be victorious without throwing off the bureaucratic leaderships. While participating in all movements and struggies which raise the conscious- ness of tne workers, the strictest organizational dis- cipline and ideological unity of the Lrotskyist move- ment must be maitained. The whole purpose of such pariicipation is to construct a Marxist leader- saip, of ana ior the class, which will win acceptance ana jead to the development of a mass party. 8. However small their numbers, Trotskyists strive to intervene in class struggies and participate in the major experiences of tne ciass. his intervention is not undertaken irom the point oi view of being with tne ‘main stream’. It 1s prompted by the aim of assisting the working ciass to an awareness of the need for a revolutionary alternative. Whether or not this involves entry into a mass political party it always involves independent intervention in the struggie. In fact this 1s a prime duty im order to stcengtnen toe work 10 tne traditional parties. 9. Tne idea that Marxists enter Social Democratic or Communist Parties in order to transform them into revolutionary parties must be rooted out. Marxist tactics towards tnese parties have notning in common witn the politics ox tne pressure group or ginger group. Lnis places them in opposition to the raploite teacning that a ‘Government ot workers’ parties, Communist Parties, Social Democratic Parties’ can represent the ‘first steps’ of the dictator- ship of the proletariat or its ‘ante-chamber’, Where sucn parties control the mass ot the working class as in France, Italy or Britain, Marxists have correctly posed ‘ Take the Government’ as a central slogan from time to time. But we believe that it is necessary to put it forward as a stage in the experience of the working people. The call is intended not to prop up the reformist or Stalinist leaders but as a step towards breaking their grip on the mass movement. Such governments, with their inevitable half-measures and betrayals, can be a necessary step in the education of the working class and in leading them towards the revolutionary alternative.

[p049] + WORLD PROSPECT FOR SOCIALISM 10. The Labour bureaucracies—where they have state power as well as where they batten on the working class in the imperialist countries—will not be washed out of the movement by a spontaneous development or by broad propaganda groupings of a centrist type. The experience of the British Labour Party between its 1960 and 1961 conferences has demonstrated this once again. Anxious to preserve their power and privileges, their own narrow interests conflict with those of the masses. Even when forced to lead struggles, or when, in order to defend these privileges, they are forced to uphold working-class conquests, they do so with their own methods. And these methods seek to avoid, at all costs, the mobilization of the class power of the working masses. 11. The 1953 split in the international Trotskyist movement revealed the existence of two irreconcil- able tendencies in relation to the all-important question of world strategy and the construction of revolutionary parties. Pabloism represents a Left- centrist tendency moving away from Trotskyism. Whilst on some questions its line appears similar to that of the orthodox Trotskyist movement, its orientation is in practice entirely different. As a result the basic political differences have tended to increase since the period of the split. There can be no compromise with Pabloism as a political tendency. On the contrary, the education of the international Trotskyist movement, especially the young cadres now joining that movement in various countries, can only be assured as the result of the most thorough- going discussion on what Pabloism represents. 12. The sharpness and suddenness of the 1953 split resulted in considerable confusion in a number of countries. Even now there is evidence that some of this confusion still persists. It must be resolved as soon as possible. Any attempts, however, to reunify the movement by purely organizational means will only result in further splits. The Socialist Labour League is not against unity, but it is against a spurious unity which is not based on fundamental political agreement following a full international discussion. The reorganization of the Trotskyist movement into one single world party can only be accomplished through such discussion. We do not believe, therefore, that the proposal for a Parity Committee as envisaged in 1958 can any longer serve as the main line of our approach to this problem. 13. The Fourth International as a world organiza- tion founded by Trotsky in 1938 no longer exists. It has been destroyed by Pabloite revisionism. The only sections which continue its theoretical tradition are those affiliated to the International Committee. 127 The reorganization of the Fourth International must therefore proceed immediately by the preparation of a thorough-going discussion in which all sections affiliated to the International Committee and to the International Secretariat should submit resolutions and contributions which would be circulated through- out the international movement as widely as possible. This discussion should begin not later than January 1962 and should be organized by the setting-up of a small sub-committee comprising an equal number of people from both tendencies, whose task would be to see that the various material was widely circulated and that the rank and file in all sections were given the opportunity of considering it. At the end of one year, a pre-conference of the international movement should be held in order to ascertain the measure of agreement or otherwise that had arisen as a result of the discussion. New statutes for the international movement could then be put put forward. 14. A feature of this discussion would be a thoroughgoing examination of the tactical question of entry and the experiences of various sections involved in work inside the Social Democratic parties and Stalinist organizations. Such a discussion would have immense educational value for the entire move- ment. 18. The Socialist Labour League submits this resolu- tion for international discussion. We stand for the reorganization of the international Trotskyist move- ment at a time when there are immense opportunities which can be realized through the re-establishment of an authoritative world leadership. We ask all sections to give this their immediate attention. a a Trotsky’s writings on the revolutionary movement DRAFT PROGRAMME OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL (A Criticism of Funda- mentals) 1928 1/- THE FOuRTH INTERNATIONAL AND THE USSR 6d. GERMANY: THE ONLY ROAD 1/6 WHITHER FRANCE ... 5/- THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL AFTER LENIN 28/- from New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Telephone: MAC 7029

[p050] Lasour REvIEW is the theoretical journal of the Socialist Labour League. - LaBour REviEW concludes its 9th year of publication with this issue, the third number of volume 6. Lapour Review continues the work and traditions of Revolutionary Communism since the death of Lenin. LaBouR REVIEW represents the unbroken chain of theoretical journals in the Bolshevik tradition, whose continuators were the Left Opposition led and inspired by Leon Trotsky. Lazour REVIEW follows in the traditions of that Opposition and in the traditions of the Fourth International of Leon Trotsky. LaBouR REVIEW continues the decades of work by Trotskyists in the International Labour movement and here in Britain. LaBouR REVIEW is now the product of a continuous struggle of the Marxists in the British Labour movement against Stalinism and Reformism. LaBouR REVIEW represents the successful fusion of Marxist trends in the British Labour movement, from the Trotskyists, to British Communist, Labour Party and Trade Union movements. Lasour REVIEW, with this issue, concludes a whole period of activity in the inter- national and British Labour movements and simultaneously prepares and equips the Marxist movement for its future intervention in the battles of the working class which promise to eclipse and transcend all previous struggles both in their depth and scope. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High St., London, S.W.4. I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/ draft for £ S. d. to pay for issues. Price 2/- (postage 6d. per issue) Ce ee ee es SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE, 14 Printed by PLOUGH PRESS LT

[p051] LaBouR REVIEW is the theoretical journal of the Socialist Labour League. Lasour REVIEW concludes its 9th year of = publication with this issue, the third number of volume 6. LaBouR REVIEW continues the work and traditions of Revolutionary Communism since the death of Lenin. Lasour REVIEW represents the unbroken chain of theoretical journals in the Bolshevik tradition, whose continuators were the Left Opposition led and inspired by Leon Trotsky. LasBour REVIEW follows in the traditions of, that Opposition and in the traditions of the Fourth International of Leon Trotsky. LaBouR REVIEW continues the decades of work by Trotskyists in the International Labour movement and here in Britain. LaBouR REVIEW is now the product of a continuous struggle of the Marxists in the British Labour movement against Stalinism and Reformism. LABOUR REVIEW represents the successful fusion of Marxist trends in the British Labour movement, from the Trotskyists, to British Communist, Labour Party and Trade Union movements. LaBourR REVIEW, with this issue, concludes a whole period of activity in the inter- national and British Labour movements and simultaneously prepares and equips the Marxist movement for its future intervention in the battles of the working class which promise to eclipse and transcend all previous struggles both in their depth and scope. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High St., London, S.W.4. I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/ draft for £ s. d. to pay for issues. Price 2/- (postage 6d. per issue) BMGT Maecenas Mis 0x ses seseecerese toys s.0<seeseeessuscoeonen DEMAMENOB) te op cu cet oC tas cs dn epvsiccneys«couoatensnsssocuear SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE, 1 Printed by PLOUGH PRESS LT