Dave Ashby

INHE fight in the Young • Socialists would nave been impossible without Trotsky.

Now, on the 25th anniversary of Trotsky's death, I can say to all those on the rightwing of the Labour Party who accused myself and others of being Trotskyists whenever we expressed ourselves in favour of socialist policies — yes, l was always a Trotskyist.

How did the position stand? Between the old right-wing reformist politics and the fake left on the one hand, and Trotskyism on the other there can be no compromise. Only the most irreconcilable struggle.

We went into the Young Socialists deliberately to wage that struggle; not to argue with the right-wing, but to build a movement that would defeat and reject them and their policies. We had no other purpose.

MARXISM

The theory that guided our work inside the Young Socialists was the theory of Marxism-the mobilisation of the working class for the overthrow of capitalism, the destruction of its state machine, the taking of power by the working class, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the reconstruction of society on socialist foundations, the freeing of mankind from all evil, violence and aggression, the opening up of a new chapter in human history in which all will be free to develop the rich human potential which capitalism suppresses and degrades.

Trotsky taught that this task was impossible today without a struggle to defeat those bureaucracies which dominated over the working class.

NOT A DEBATE If we did not openly announce ourselves as Trotskyists when the Young Socialists was part of the Labour Party, that was because we saw Trotskyism not as debate but as a struggle to build a movement.

In point of fact we hid nothing. We fought for a Trotskyist policy, never toned down our policy, and we continuously turned outwards to attract fresh forces for this policy.

The outcome of this struggle was the Morecambe conference this year, which was the most democratic Y.S. conference ever, with delegates from every branch, resolutions and full discussion.

The rump conference of the Labour Party Young Socialists has no political resolutions, and no nominations for national committee. Delegates are not elected by their Young Socialist branches. The rightwing is hostile to the youth, who know that reformism is bankrupt. Transport House tries to exclude young people Fourth International Volume Two Numbers One and Two ements of the International Committee of the International on Algeria and Vietnam Fourth International and the Socialist Worker:

Documents covering the period 1953-1963 Resolution of the International Committee Cuba: Marxism and the Revolution Struggle for Marxism in the Ill American Trotskyism with A discussion with Trotsky - Stenogra report dated 12-15 June, 1940 Price: Three shillings each. Obtainable from: NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD., "The theory that guided our work inside the Young Socialists was the theory of Marxism-the mobilization of the working class or the overthrow of capitalism? from politics.

It was, in fact, Trotsky who persuaded me to join the Young Socialists. I went to University from a working-class background and was drawn towards socialism.

For three years I was considering the different theories of socialism. This was at a time when, in 1960, Gaitskell was defeated at the Scarborough conference of the Labour Party on the question of the H-bomb, and the group around 'Tribune' climbed down and made a compromise with the right-wing.

CONTRADICTIONS

I considered the Young Communist League. But here the contradictions were even greater. Every effort was spent by these people to win the support of the liberal riff-raff.

I read Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution' and the writings of Karl Marx. Trotsky's greatness did not lie in the fact that he was an individual with brilliant ideas. He began with the working class as a revolutionary class. As joint leader, with Lenin, of the revolution, and orga"ROTSKY's work proAugust 1965 28, 28, Gerry Healy

(National Secretary, Socialist since Comrade Trotdialectical materialist, consequenty. an Irreco clable atheist My Three