The Next Steps for the Labour Movement

By G. HEALY THE Summit Talks collapsed before they began. Under the influence of the British Communist Party and its so-called Peace Committee, travel-weary delegates arrived in Paris only to discover that Mr. Khrushchev was insisting on a public apology from the United States over the U-2 spy plane aggression. But the apology was not forthcoming. Eisenhower, as the representative of United States imperialism, remained adamant that such incidents were part of the American way of life.

Countless illusions have been shattered and the big lie that the summit could bring peace has been demonstratively exposed.

The Socialist Labour League and its weekly journal, The working people. Marxists have always pointed out that there Newsletter, consistently warned the Labour movement that cannot be peace between the classes. And it is this fact which such a conference could not resolve the problem of war. Yet explains Khrushchev’s dilemma. Try as he may to reach the leaders of the Aldermaston march joined hands with the agreement with the imperialists, he finds more and more Communist Party in lining up this great popular demonstra- resistance from the working-class movement of China and tion behind the summit talks. Is it not time that the rank the colonial countries. and file of the Labour and trade union movement and of the The summit talks have collapsed not so much because of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament demanded some serious the spy plane, but because of the resistance of China. The rethinking on the part of their leaderships. Chinese leaders have made plain their doubts about the outThe world today stands on the threshold of nuclear destruc- come of the summit. They are convinced of the imperialist tion, but this does not mean to say that such destruction is nature of the American war preparations. They are under unavoidable. Thanks to the resistance of the colonial peoples constant pressure from the revolutionary people in the and the anti-war forces in the metropolitan countries, there colonial world. is today a powerful opposition tc nuclear annihilation. What is lacking is leadership. The official leaderships are con- Soviet people are anti-imperialist stantly looking in the wrong direction for a solution to manIn the Soviet Union itself, despite the picture which the kind’s terrible problem. They look to the capitalist leaders Daily Worker tries to convey, the people are undoubtedly of states, who are engaged in a continuous spate of power inspired by the great technological advances which have only political intrigue.

been made possible by the tremendous economic heritage of the October revolution. There is an interconnection, thereClass struggle is decisive fore, between these successes, the confidence they inspire and Behind the war preparations stands the struggle of class the resistance of the international working class to the threat forces. The resistance of the working class is constantly of imperialist war.

Even in countries of so-called full employment, The Soviet people are not the blind passive specimens that there is a continuing demand for the improvement of con- John Gollan and the others would have us believe. They are ditions. The great Chinese revolution still inspires the people more and more beginning to exert a powerful influence over of Asia and its revolutionary implications act like a tidal the affairs of the Soviet Union and when Khrushchev speaks wave over the continent of Africa. of his difficulties he is merely admitting that within the These are the forces which constantly interfere with the Soviet Union there are important forces with which he has plans of both the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, headed by to reckon.

Khrushchev, and the imperialists, led by Eisenhower. Marxists have always defended the Soviet Union against The Soviet bureaucrats would like to maintain the peace- imperialism. We denounce the spy plan aggression as part ful status quo with imperialism, but the latter, because of of Wall Street’s continuous hostility to the Soviet Union. its inherent economic contradictions, has constantly to engage This cannot be other than it is since the imperialists have in a struggle for new sources of wealth and exploitation of (Continued on page 156)

... and The Newsletter says again: ————4 These Men Cannot Bring Peace

186 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Telephone Macaulay 7029 SATURDAY; May 21, 1960 ALL those who believed that summit talks would bring peace are reeling under the blows of the Paris fiasco. Judging by the dangerous cross-talk between the heads of state it almost seems as if the surest way to war is to have summit talks. The leaders of the capitalist powers and the Soviet bureaucracy almost came to blows.

The only answer the Daily Worker can give to this is to continue the outcry about the spy plane when everyone knows that that is not the real question involved. Spying has gone on continuously on all sides, yet this has not prevented the diplomats discussing possible agreements from time to time. All the Daily © Worker shows is that it is continuing its role as a mouth of Soviet diplomacy. It provides absolutely no answer to the problem before the ordinary person who is greatly perturbed about the threat of nuclear war.

The leaders of the Soviet Union are the representatives of a powerful bureaucratic caste which, above everything else, desires to maintain peace with cavitalism so that it can preserve its privileges inside the This caste is not a class in the same > way as that which exists in the imperialist countries. The bureaucracy in the Soviet Union rests upon nationalized property relations established by the October Revolution. Because of these relations and in spite of the bureaucracy, enormous progress in the development of science and planning has been made. But this progress by itself is not sufficient, it cannot stave off the threat of war. The Soviet Union is above all the child of the October Revolution which, in the words of Lenin, must be regarded as the first victory of the international revolutionary forces.

The real defence of the Soviet Union today lics in the strengthening of the class struggle in the colonial world and the countries of imperialism in such a way that the working class are prepared politically and organizationally to take the power and establish socialism. This task cannot be entrusted to the Soviet bureaucracy and their puppet Communist Parties.

The Stalinists have. constantly declared that such a solution is unrealistic in the world of today. They have posed instead the possibility of agreement between the Soviet bureaucracy and the imperialists, but is it not plain to everyone now from the experiences in Paris this wéek that if peace is left in the hands of these madmen then the world will surely be destroyed in the years to come.

‘Marxists defend the Soviet Union against imperialism. We think there is a Jot of truth in what Khrushchev said about the aggressive aims of the imperialist powers. We think it is particularly right for him to warn the German fascists and at the same time to separate them from what he termed the ‘great German people’. Now that the hue and cry of protest has gone up from the mealy-mouthed liberal press and the Daily Herald, we stand at this time on the side of the Soviet Union and against imperialism.

The trouble with Khrushchev’s speech was that it came like a bolt from the blue under conditions which have actually strengthened the propaganda weapons of imperialism. It has therefore enabled them to confuse the working class at a most critical time.

The defence of the Soviet Union cannot be carried out in this way. The preparation of the working class to take the power outside the Soviet Union requires a continuous propaganda which assists them in fighting the class enemy. It demands that the limitations of summit discussions between the Soviet Union and the capitalist powers should be made very clear. All the illusions that such discussions can bring peace must now be abandoned. That is the real lesson from the Paris gathering.

SUMMIT TALKS COLLAPSE—(Contd. from page 155)

sought to destroy the Soviet Union froin the day that Lenin and Trotsky emerged victorious.

There can be no peace and there will be no peace in a world such as it is at the present time. Even if eventually the summit is held, it will not settle a single problem of real importance. . The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is now facing a definite crisis of policy. It is perfectly true that the leaders of this movement have a much more honest approach to problems than the leaders of the British Communist Party. That organization of political paupers issued a statement on Monday, May 16, through the pen of its general secretary ‘John Gollan, to the effect that it now stands for unilateral abandonment of the manufacture of the Bomb. Just imagine the bankruptcy of a party calling itself Communist which has to admit that all this time its opposition to unilateralism was completely incorrect!

During the past year the Socialist Labour League has constantly endeavoured to forge a unity with the CND ranks on this important question. The Communist Party has been in opposition. If the CND is to go forward in the struggle against. the H-bomb it cannot get any advice from the Communist Party.

For a socialist peace policy The Socialist Labour League will endeavour to forge the widest possible agreement between all those who want to fight the threatened world war and ask only that they give serious consideration to our policies.

After the collapse of the summit the basis of a real peace policy must be full support for the working class in the colonies and in the imperialist countriés in every struggle they wage against the capitalists who exploit them. Full support must be given to all struggles, even if they are not immediately tied to the fight ‘against the H-bomb. What is needed to fight the H-bomb is a solid united class front which uses every type of struggle against the employers in order to weaken them and thereby take a step forward towards We do not say that only socialism can bring peace. It is perfectly true that this is the only final solution to the problem of war,’ but it is equally true that every effort that is made today to fight the imperialists, whether it is on living conditions, defence of democratic rights, or support for the colonial people, makes it much more difficult for the imperialists to launch a war. This is particularly true since the Chinese people, as well as powerful forces in the Soviet Union, seem more and more determined to take a stand against the warmakers.

The Leninist opposition to imperialist war is as true today as it was in the period of the first world war. The main enemy is at home. For us, that is Macmillan and: his Tory friends. The forces of peace in Britain will only be successful when they join the ranks of the Left-wing of the Labour and trade union movement, of which the Socialist Labour League is an integral part, and mobilize their great forces to defeat this class enemy.

May~21, 1960