To all delegates - Communist Party November Congress

Engineering Union which met last April, your member delegates on that body joined hands with the right wing in congratulating the Gollan: tied to Stalinism, now cuddling up to the Labour 'lefts'.

right-wing Wilson government-the same government which is now preparing legislation against the trade unions.

Your leaders cuddle up closer to the Labour 'lefts' precisely at a time when these gentlemen are providing more and more a left cover for Wilson, Callaghan and Brown. This is particularly so around the burning issue of the war in Vietnam.

Your Party does not call for the military victory of the National Liberation Front in South Vietnam. Instead, it crawls in behind that old pacifist, Brockdisposal of U.S. banks and corporations is the main reason for its dominant position in the capitalist world.

These institutions have conway, sinking its identity in a movement that calls not for the overthrow of the U.S. armed forces but peace with Johnson and the White House gang. This is nothing more than a betrayal of the heroic Vietnamese people.

The Communist Party does not lead as a party, it is constantly on the lookout for 'fronts', such as in Vietnam, behind which it can sink its identity-no wonder it is losing support.

No longer is the Party capable of organising mass demonstrations, it has practically no young cadres, its leadership is old and out of touch with the real happenings inside the working class. It is completely tied to the past Stalinist heritage of the party.

At the end of this Congress you will have the same leadership-here and there perhaps a few changes but nothing decisive-Gollan & Co. will remain. ^* Gollan is tied to Stalinism. He has never broken from his past tutelage by the late Harry Pollitt.

Although a history of the Party was promised in 1956, it has never been produced. To tell the story of the past of the British Communist Party is to tell the story of Stalin.

Your Party had no independence from Stalin, and what he did inside the Soviet 1965 from the Socialist leaders of a movement claiming to be communist. No, they knew what was going on but they kept their mouths shut.

Now they are compromised and, since they are opportunists, they cannot admit their errors before their Party and the working class.

Trotsky and all those who supported him were framed up by Stalin. This has now been admitted by leading Soviet historians.

A new history is now being produced which will at least go a small part of the way in clearing up what happened to Trotsky. Gollan knows this and remains silent.

The history of a movement claiming to be revolutionary is its most priceless capital. How can the youth take the Party forward to socialism unless it has access to this history? • Gollan, furthermore, knows that Stalinism was not a system of terror only. The terror had a political meaning for the Communist Parties outside the Soviet Union.

It brought them closer to a policy of 'peaceful coexistence' with the imperialist states.

Stalin agreed to and endorsed the 'British Road to Socialism', your Party policy, in 1952. It was written Kosygin: frightened bureaucrat obliging Soviet people with clarification of Trotskyism.

under his guidance and struction.

This is the policy which today places you in the position of tail-ending the Labour 'lefts'. By all means let the Communist Party fight as far as it can on the basis of Marxist principles in unity with the Labour left', but it does not do that.

It sinks, we repeat, its identity behind them. Stalinist history is responsible for the present opportunist course of the Party. Without correcting that history, there is no way forward.

This is also the problem behind the conflict with the Chinese Communist Party. There has never been a really organised and open discussion about these differences inside your Party.

As Trotskyists we do munist Party. We think they are right about their opposition to peaceful coexistence', but this is only one side of the issues raised by Stalinism.

Because the Chinese CP supports Stalin they have absolutely no support from the working people of the USSR.

The working people and the youth of the USSR are absolutely opposed to Stalinism, consequently they see no reason for supporting the Chinese CP.

The people of the USSR are our real allies in the fight against Stalinist opportunism. They do not support your Party nor the Chinese CP. They press more and more for the issue of Trotskyism to be clarified and, because Kosygin and Co. are timid frightened bureaucrats, they are forced to oblige in a bits and pieces way.

Hence the inadequate 'histories' produced in the USSR since 1956.

We call upon you as delegates to instruct Gollan to produce a real history and admit his mistakes.

We are confident that a real communist movement can be built in Britain.

The Young Socialists, who have since your last Congress broken decisively on the basis of Marxist principles from the right-wing Wilson leadership are also confident that this is so.

That is why they collaborate so closely with the Socialist Labour League.

The Young Communist League, under Gollan's leadership, continues to stagnate. At the same time as the Young Socialists lead tens of thousands of youth, your youth organisation is, like your Party, subordinate to the pacifists.

The time has come to call a halt. Force your Party to break from the opportunist heritage of Stalinism.

Yours fraternally, Soc alist Labour League.