A comparison between Trotskyist and Communist Party policies Building the Revolutionary Party in Britain

deny the tragic consequences of Stalinism by either skating over the history of the working class since the First World War, or consciously falsifying this history. Stalinist historians have done both and Mrs. Reid is merely the most recent example of a skater.

Yet it is posible for a serious member of the Communist Party to recognise the crimes of Stalinism, and yet be worried and confused by Mrs. Reid's gibes at the efforts of the Trotskyists to build a revolutionary party.

It is the question of the problems of building the revolutionary party that we intend to take up in this last article.

Powerful organisations In the advanced metropolitan countries of the West, where capitalism has existed for a century or more, the working class has built large and powerful organisations in its fight with the capitalist class.

The creation of these working class organisations is an inevitable product of the struggle between the workers and the employers.

They arise from the awareness of the working class that nothing whatever can be gained in this struggle without organisation. The creation of these mass organisations reflects the strength of the working class in these countries.

The strength of the capitalist class, on the other hand, is reflected in the way in which they have been able to control these organisations, through the representatives of privileged strata of the working class.

The role of the Marxist Party is to transform this balance of class forces, to replace the reformist leaders of the working class.

These leaders accept the system of capitalism and confine themselves merely to obtaining concessions for the working class from the employers, to defending those that the working class has gained in the past, or even, in periods in which the capitalist class is very hard pressed, to aiding the capitalists in whittling away these concessions.

Conflict

In its fight against capitalism, therefore, the Marxist Party will come head-on in conflict with the reformist leaders. If it is to defeat capitalism, the working class must defeat these leaders, who are the representatives of capitalism in the labour movement.

As these reformist leaders represent the power of the capitalist class in the working class organisations, the Marxist Party is obliged from time to time to fight this leadership from within these organisations.

There can be no question of 'underhand' methods, as Mrs. Reid implies, in this fight. Working-class organisations are not the property of the right wing. On the contrary, the grip of the right wing, the rules and the restrictions, the compromises and sell-outs that they impose upon these organisations are nothing else but the grip of the ruling class upon the working class.

CP evasions

Not to recognise this, to state that the Marxist Party should accept the bans of the right wing, should refrain from attacking the right wing, is to state that the Marxist Party and Marxism are alien to the working class, whereas the representatives of capitalism somehow have a right to be present in working class organisations and to impose the wishes of the ruling class upon them.

Its failure to understand the role of the right-wing leadership of the Labour Party and the trade unions, or, indeed, to understand the importance of the Labour Party and the trade unions has led the Communist Party consistently to evade the fight with the ruling class for the leadership of the working class. ment for fighting the right wing in the Labour movement, means that they, in practice, accept the right of the capitalists to control the working-class organisations.

It is only by examining these movements in this way, seeing their present leaders and policies reflecting the differing strengths of the two classes in struggle, that policies can be formulated for the working class.

Trotskyist assessment In all its struggles in the Labour movement, the Trotskyist movement assesses its actions in the light of what will strengthen and what will weaken the working-class movement. This was the theoretical and practical contribution of the Transitional Programme, adopted at the founding Congress of the Fourth International, in 1938.

The Trotskyists, therefore, defended the Communist leadership of the Electrical Trades Union against the attacks of the right wing.

It was not that we believed that Haxell and Foulkes were champions of the working class. On the contrary, we had consistently pointed out in our press that the activities of these Stalinist 'leaders' would lead to strengthening of the right wing.

We defended Foulkes and Haxell because we recognised that the right wing were merely using the rottenness and corruption of a section of the labour movement in order to A reply to Betty Reid the grip of the capitalist class in that movement.

The Newsletter said on ecember 14, 1957:

"The capitalist press attack on the Electrical Trades Union is part of the general offensive by the employing class and its Tory government against the workers' living standards, conditions and organisations.

•... But the defence of the ETU as a trade union by no means implies the defence of its present leaders or of their corrupt Stalinist policies and practices.

•... In their fight against Cannon, the ETU leaders have abandoned socialist principles. There was never any attempt to conduct a political struggle against him, to combat his ideas or answer his arguments.

'... Speedy action is imperative. If Frank Haxell and Frank Foulkes go on "defending" the union in the way they are doing, and the rank and file do not intervene, then the ETU will fall like a ripe plum into the hands of the right wing.' Sharp differentiation The Newsletter called for three acts: 1. The election of a Committee of Enquiry from the rank and file of the union to investigate the charges. 2. Paid officials of the union to out their salaries to that of a skilled electrician, plus reasonable expenses. 3. Hold the election between Cannon and Fraser again.

Why did the Stalinist leadership ignore this call?

The ETU case sharply differentiates the political methods of the Trotskyists and the Stalinists in this country. We attacked the corruption in the leadership, the vote fiddling and the embezzlement, together with the istifling of democracy in the union.

The Stalinists defended all these practices by denying their existence in the face of all evidence and by branding those who pointed them out as 'capitalist agents'.

On the other hand, once the Stalinist leadership of the union was under attack from the right wing, and through this attack the entire membership of the union was laid open to further incursions by the bosses, the Trotskyists threw open the columns of their press to the Stalinist leaders' to defend themselves.

They had been denied this privilege even by their own press, the Daily Worker'. Foulkes' statement appeared in The Newsletter, not in the 'Daily Worker' ETU leaders defended Instead of standing up for the electricians under attack, the Communist Party expelled Haxell and Foulkes and crawled under a stone, leaving the rank and file to the mercies of the right wing.

The Newsletter defended these men although it was this very leadership that had broken the South Bank strike, which had been influenced by the Trotskyists, at Shell Mex, by refusing to call out the electricians working on the site.

These two positions on the ETU follow from the positions taken up by the two movements throughout their history.

For the Communist Party, strengthening the working-class organisations means strengthening the bureaucracy.

(part III)

For the Trotskyist movement, it means fighting the bureaucracy.

Hence the Communist Party's slogans: from its support of the TUC at the time of the General Strike in 1926, to its support for • 'progressive' government in 1945 (Pollitt in 'How to Win the Peace' calls for a united front of 'all progressive forces of the country, whatever their party, class or social connections'. p. 73).

Hence the Communist Party's support for the Transport and General Workers' Union bureaucracy against the dockers who had left that union to join the National Association of Stevedores and Dackers in 1954.

Other sell-outs Hence Berridge's failure to support the Ford workers in struggle in 1962, and Paynter's collaboration with the National Coal Board against the miners in 1964.

Hence too, the Communist Party giving Ron Smith a full page in the 'Daily Worker' to put forward his views just a few days before the Mount Pleasant postal workers showed how little he represented them— the same Ron Smith who has just expelled seven leading militants, including two Communist Party members, from the Union of Postal Workers.

All these actions consolidate the bureaucracy in the Labour movement, thus weakening the working class and strengthening the employers.

Compare this with the Trotskyist movement's record:

Proud record The imprisonment of six of its leading members in 1945 under the infamous Trades Disputes Act for defending trade union rights (whereas the capitalists saw fit to throw the support of their press behind Pollitt and the Communist Party in their attack on the imprisoned men because of the great work the Communist Party was doing for the war effort!); from the struggle in the Labour Party for socialist policies after the war to the present fight against Wilson and his like in the Young Socialists; from the fight for the recognition of the 'Blue' union in 1954 to the present fight against the 'new deal' in the docks.

Where has 'the workers' movement been weakened and where strengthened, in Ford's and the ETU or in the docks and the Young Socialists? Where has the struggle been based on the workers' aspirations?

False charges -Is Brother Haxell's right to build himself a garage and install central heating at the expense of the rank and file of his union a working-class demand (all of which escaped the notice of Mrs. Reid who was too busy spying on militants), or is f15 a week fall-back pay for the dockers and an end to the dole queues and police violence against the youth?

And who are the leftsectarians and wreckers? Those (Stalinist-led) apprentices who call for a national strike, completely unprepared, for October 2 because their leadership has been rejected by the apprentices committee, or those apprentices who are to meet on October 8 to prepare for a national apprentice strike?

How well all your charges against the Trotskyists apply to the Stalinist movement, Mrs. Reid.

Yet, there is more involved here than a series of claims and counter-claims. What is really at stake is the development of Marxist theory, the indispensible weapon of the working class.

Marxist theory is not and cannot be a series of fixed and sterile formulae, once learned never forgotten. It must constantly be developed and "be enriched as the experience of the working class is enriched at every development of the class struggle, and as man's consciousness is developed with the development of the means of production.

As Marxist theory is the conscious reflection of the unconscious process of struggle between the classes as man struggles to conquer nature, it follows that the development of this consciousness must itself come through struggle.

Theory

To develop the theory, without which it cannot overthrow capitalism, the Marxist Party must contain within it a theoretical struggle. Without the development of theory, the party merely adapts itself to bourgeois thought-and becomes as much an adjunct of the ruling class as the labour bureaucrats.

But Marxism cannot be developed and revisionism cannot be fought by organisational methods, by the banning of 'revisionist factions' or by the executioners' bullets. It is necessary fully to understand and to fight revisionism theoreJUST OUT: A SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE CEYLON: The great betrayal Containing:

Two reports from Ceylon by G. Healy dealing with the background and developments behind the Lanka Sama Samaja Party Coalition and the role that the United Secretariat in Europe played in this betrayal.

A reply by the SLL to an attack made on it by the magazine 'World Outlook'.

A statement by the International Committee of the Fourth International. • Complete resolutions submitted by the three tendencies represented by the LSSP Congress of June 1964.

Correspondence from Secretariat to the LSSP. Price 1/-. Obtainable from tically. Our fight against the Pabloites, at which Mrs.

Reid sneers, is just such a theoretical fight.

This theoretical fight inside a party requires factions from time to time. This is why Lenin and Trotsky and why the Trotskyists today insist on the need for factions inside the Marxist Party.

Mrs. Reid and her friends should remember that the Bolshevik Party began as the Bolshevik faction inside the Rusisan Social-Democratic Workers' Party and that the fight against the Mensheviks, Narodniks and Bundists was an indispensible part of the preparation of that party for the revolution.

Even at the time of the 10th Congress, when the Bolshevik Party banned factions temporarily because of the exceptional circumstances following Kronstadt, Lenin defended this right in the party generally and opposed Riazanov's amendment condemning factionalism.

Factionalism

Lenin banned them under extreme circumstances, but would not condemn them. In fact his writing abounds with discussion on the need for them. What else are 'What is to be Done', "The April Theses' and Lenin's Testament, but factional documents, Mrs. Reid?

But the Communist Party does not tolerate any such discussion, any examination of past experiences, any opinions that differ from those of the leadership, and consequently from the leadership in the Kremlin.

And in case this was not abundantly clear to all, Mrs. Reid reiterates the point:

'Our rules guarantee the right to raise differences and to reserve opinion,' she states.

What could be more democratic than that? Yet the sting comes in the very next sentence:

'Membership of our Party is not open to those who do not agree with our programme, our rules, our present policy?

- Stalinist betrayals The only right, therefore, seems to be the right to be expelled-as the members of the Young Communist League and the Communist students discovered.

In the Stalinist movement, the subservience to Stalin and his successors replaces the fight for Marxist theory and the fight to build a movement based upon the aspirations of the working class. Hence the biggest betrayals of Haxell and Paynter, and of countless others like them, are tolerated and even justified, so long as the betrayers continue to praise Stalin, or whichever bureaucrat currently holds his position.

The education of cadres, the development of layers of the working class through conscious struggle are both abandoned for the slavish praise for a group of parasites.

Underlying all the Stalinist crimes and betrayals is this contempt for the working class and the abandonment of the task of. .. building the working class party.

How strange that these should be the very charges that they level at the Trotskyists.

CEYLON The great betrayal Two reports froar Coyian by G, Healy the International 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.