Problems of the Fourth International

WORLD IMPERIALISM is drifting rapidly towards its most severe economic crisis since the end of the second world war. Foremost, amongst those countries on the downward plunge is Great Britain. As the unemployment figures commence to climb, hundreds of previously well established businesses are threatened with bankruptcy during the coming months. The Prices and Incomes Bill, which seeks to tie the trade unions firmly to the capitalist state machine, will introduce an era of political strikes which will continously before the working class the problem of power.

The lessons from the seamen's strike confirm this perspective. When the ctriko honan it was looked upon by rank-and-file seamen as an industrial dispute. Yet when the Labour government and the state showed their hands in support of the shipowners, it immediately became clear to these same seamen within a matter of days that their's was a political struggle against the Wilson government. A rapid political development had taken place in a union which had not engaged in a strike for 50 years.

This experience is an indication that a similar politicalisation of the British working class is on the way. A powerful new force is entering the arena of class struggle and that force is the working class, which is now embarking on the road of class struggle in one of the most powerful countries in the world.

For over 25 years it has held back, so long as it could improve its wages and working conditions in a period of capitalist inflationary boom. But this is now a thing of the past.

What the Labour government, the monopolists and the state machine propose to do today is to attempt in the course of the coming year by means of unemployment and legislation against the trade unions to take away these gains and reduce the standard of living to what it was before the second world war.

A period of unparalleled revolutionary conflict lies ahead.

The Socialist Labour League now shoulders an enormous responsibility-that of structing the mass revolutionary party which will lead the working class to power. By doing so it will inspire revolutionists countries build similar parties to do the same.

We follow in the traditions of the Bolshevik Party which so far remains the only party in the world, guided by Marxists, consciously lead successful socialist revolution.

Because of these aims, our organisation and members have to face a constant barrage of lies and hostility from the right-wing traitors the Labour Party, the fake 'lefts' around "Tribune', who cover up for them, and the Stalinists, as well as a variety of revisionist groups, such the Pabloites Paris 'United Secretariat' who masquerade under the name of Trotskyism, and who have long ago liquidated themselves into the camps of Stalinism and social democracy, depending upon the countries they are operating in.

This is as it should be. The Socialist Labour League is engaged in a fight to a finish against these betrayals of the working class and we won't yield an inch: We didn't in the pre-war days when the might of Stalinism, through its propaganda machine of lies and falsifications, was turned tul blast against the international Trotskyist movement, denouncing us as fascists and agents imperialism in order to coinst the against the working class. cover Stalin's foul deeds Trotskyism, which is the fight for the development of revolutionary Marxism in the post-Lenin era, can be best described by paraphrasing Trotsky's own description of Leninism—it is warlike from head to foot. In the struggle against its enemies, the Socialist Labour League follows in the foosteps of this tradition.

Revisionist

Islanders Our revisionist opponents such as Hansen of the American Socialist Workers' Partythe Party which sent the telegram of condolences to the arch imperialist Mrs. Kennedy when her husband, the President, was assassinated in 1963, are fond slandering the Socialist Labour League on the grounds that it is insular to world problems, because it is working in Britain, which as every content of trope.

Undoubtedly, the Socialist Labour League reflects the strength and weaknesses of the the working class movement, but merely to say that is not enough. We are obliged to examine the history of the working class and the Socialist Labour League in a more serious way.

Behind Hansen's slander there is also a snigger of contempt for the British working class, who: having been the first to arrive on the historical scene, reflect in their thinking the trial and error, improvised empirical methods of thinking which characterise the methods of the industrial capitalists who were forced to develop their industrial machines by 'trial and error'.

Amongst other things, this industrial machine built a huge empire, which in turn supplied vast sources of income, part of which was used by the British capitalist class to orrupt th leaders of the English abou and trade union movement. as well as enabling the working class to enjoy standards of living even in the darkest days of slump and trade recession, in excess their colonial brothers in the Empire.

Thus the working class suffers from two serious handicaps.

The petty-bourgeois leaders and university-trained radicals of the labour movement constantly inject idealist and empirically-formed ideology into their ranks through all manner propaganda techniques, thus taking advantage of its peculiar national historical origin. In this way, the struggle against Marxism is maintained by the Fabian Society.

The working class have up to now been prevented from relating the theories of Marxsm, which supply a consciou: understanding it the history of the class struggle, to the historical tasks which face them in Britain. This is the task which must be undertaken by the Socialist Labour League.

Secondly, the crumbs from the table of the Empire which provided them with reforms in the past also tended to make them insular and divide them off from the struggles of the dania rese in the Today this growth and dangers of racialism and forms a stubborn barrier which is exploited to the full by the Tory and Labour leaders as well as miscellaneous groups of fascists in preventing the working class from attaining class consciousness.

But these obstacles, although extremely powerful, must not be taken out of historical context.

We are obliged to take note of a further characteristic of the working class, which it has inherited from the ruling class and which today conceals highly revolutionary content. We are speaking about the tendency towards compromise.

Again the resources of the empire enabled such tendency to develop as a dominant method of capitalist rule, under conditions where our rulers rule almost exclusively through the Labour and trade union bureaucracy.

But this was also a characteristic of the period before the seventeenth century Cromwellian Revolution. Trotsky in quoting the French historian Guizot in Where is Britain Going?' warmly applauds his comment on this period 'when the time came for drawing the sword', wrote Guizot, 'all were astonished and deeply moved'.

For impressionist demagogues such as Hansen, this 'compromise' is deceptive. To him it appears to bolster up his cliché about insularity' but in reality it simply acts as the thinnest of covers for a molecular revolutionary process going on today beneath the surface of class politics.

All appears well in the field of compromise on the top, until suddenly this period is over and there rushes now to the surface a revolutionary era of proportions.

That is the meaning of the present stage in British politics, a stage in which the working class is about to join the great colonial revolutions of Asia and Africa in struggle against the common imperialist enemy, world imperialism.

The seamen's strike supplied us with a small glimpse of what is on the way. It is this new wave of class struggle that will destroy for ever the historical obstacles which hold the British working class back and enable the revolutionary party Hansen in his ignorance of the history of the British working class tries to create an amalgam between its historical difficulties and the Socialist Labour League. This is something which will call forth titters of laughter amongst the anti-theoretical ignoramuses around "Tribune', The Week", and similar centrist publications, but it is nonsense so far as a Marxist interpretation goes.

To take a fixed impression like 'insular' and then relate it in a mechanical way to the revolutionary experiences of the working class now on the order of the day in Britain, is 77,000 municipal busmen are going to have to fight to get the increase awarded two hours before the freeze came into force. Over 500 other wage claims are in the pipeline.

In the car factories and throughout the engineering industry, thousands of piecework revisions will be pushed aside by the employers with the help of the government's policy, and meanwhile they will proceed with their plans for speed up and redundancy.

Hundreds of strikes are inevitable under these circumstances. Everyone of these struggles will find the government on the side of the employers.

At the same time the government's own measures force up the cost of living.

The duties on petrol, HP restrictions etc., announced by the Chancellor, not to mention all the consequences of the increased Bank Rate, have already begun to take money out of the pockets of working-class families.

Official Receiver When workers on holiday from Blyth dry dock, on the North-East coast, received a letter from the employers, they discovered that their firm was in the hands of the official recoing in to work they should report 'to the nearest employment exchange' Now they do not know if they will receive the week's wage owed to them by the company. They must queue up with the other creditors.

In Rochdale and other areas, local councils are fighting hard to put up rents, despite the 'freeze' in order to balance the corporation books.

The number of The first of a series of articles by Secretary to confuse form with content. To take this fixed impression further and attach it to the SLL and its struggles to build the party is to reveal oneself as a complete bankrupt in the field of Marxism, as a brief analysis of the history of our movement goes to show A consistent defence of th Fourth International against national insularity Of course the history of the Trotskyist movement in Britain is cradled within the working class and must directly or indirectly reflect its problems. In fact it has grown up in a struggle against these problems -that is a constant defence of the international teachings of Marxism and the Fourth International.

Shortly before the founding conference of the Fourth International in 1938 the Workers' International League opposed the unification of British Trotskyists on the tactical grounds that it was necessary to discuss our attitude towards entry into the Labour Party before unification could be achieved. This was a serious CRISIS DEEPENS councils doing this is an indication of how much can be expected in the way of leadership from the constituency Labour Parties in these areas.

Where Lansbury went to jail rather than put up rents, they defy the Minister for the right to put them up!

The Monopolies Commission, meanwhile, supposedly there to protect the public from 'unfair trading practices', has achieved the astounding victory of cutting the price. of Kodak colour films. This will be a great relief to the family budgets of millions of workers during the coming difficult months!

While he takes powers to 'get tough' • with the trade unions, like his fellow capitalist rulers in the Us and Germany Wilson has merely requested the building societies not to increase their mortgage rates.

These increases, like wage freezing and rent increases, like the cuts in HP, and like the 10 per cent cuts in the Health Service, are class questions: they affect the working class and not the ruling class. The only answer of the working class must be a counter-attack against the capitalists.

The British working class is regarded by the capitalists of the whole world as a grave threat. This is why Johnson lectured the American trade unions on the situation in Britain.

He warned that the unions had taken too much in wage increases, and that if the American trade unions did not behave more soberly, then US "prosperity" could not last.

Within a few days the reamistake which certainly had at its roots a rejection of international responsibilities in favour of a nationalist approach.

But it was corrected in 1943 when some of the present leaders of the Socialist Labour League re-analysed their mistakes and explained its origin within the movement.

The correction was made at the second National Congress of the Workers' International League in September 1943 and it was bitterly opposed by the overwhelming majority of those present, led by Jock Haston, now educational director for the right-wing Electrical Trades Union.

Despite this it brought the movement back to a political understanding of internationalism so much so that by March 1944 reunification had been achieved and the Revolutionary Communist Party was founded.

Haston and his majority continued to oppose the policies of the Fourth International, especially towards work inside the Labour Party. During this period, from 1943 onwards, we collaborated closely with the international movement and its various bodies. We fought the opportunist and sectarian effects of Haston's anti-internationalism right up until February 1950 when he deserted the Trotskyist movement and applied to join the Labour Party.

Haston undoubtedly reflected the insular nationalism of the working class. He openly advocated and defended empirical thinking as a means for building the revolutionary party.

In the end he went to the right wing and broke for all time from Marxism.

It was a fitting end, but it may well not have happened in this way had it not been for the struggle which the present leadership of the SLL carried out against him in defence of the programme and policies ot the Fourth International.

Having corrected the mistake made in 1938 we have always insisted and defended the principle that it is impossible to build a revolutionary party in Britain except through the clearest understanding of the role of the Fourth Internasons for his concern became apparent, with news of increased balance of payments difficulties tor the Us economy, anq widespread falls on Wall Street.

Press agencies attributed these falls to the Vietnam war and the economic prospects in Britain, i.e., whether the trade unions in Britain would accept the wage freeze.

Similarly, General de Gaulle was one of those who helped the recent rescue operation for the pound sterling, because he was disturbed by the example for his own working class of the seamen's strike.

Contradictions

But his own capitalist interests still bring out the enormous contradictions in international problems that there is no quick solution for the British employers.

For example, the French balance of payments and currency reserve figures, announced this week, show that 86 per cent of French reserves, now at an all-time high, are held in gold, since the adoption of the policy of converting dollar credits into gold.

There are serious implications here for the British capitalists. As junior partner to the dollar, since 1944 the basis of the international monetary system, the pound sterling has retained an anachronistic strength. Since 1949, the dollar itself has been losing the basis of its strength, as is shown by the loss since then of one half of US gold holdings, now standing at 13 billion dollars.

Many ministers in the French government are driving at a tional. We subordinate always building of this party to our international obligations. Any other course would be a return to the barren nationalist course of Haston and company.

The Pablo experience Then, in 1951, came Pablo, at that time Secretary of the international, with his theory that because of the imminence of the third world war, the Stalinist parties could, under the impact of this war, transform themselves into revolutionary parties.

His entry policy into the Communist and social-democratic parties now became the vehicle of liquidationist policies. Only the majority of the French section of the Fourth International opposed him at first.

The Socialist Workers' Party supported Pablo against the French section and we made at this point our second most serious mistake in the international movement, because we also supported the decision to expel the French comrades.

We didn't have long to wait to see the bitter fruits of that one. Barely over a year later Pablo had started his groups hell-bent on a liquidationist course inside our organisation in Britain and the SWP in the USA.

In Britain he gave full powers to the Lawrence minority to ignore the decisions of our majority. This encouraged them to publicly violate the discipline of … our organisation. Naturally we expelled them immediately. Later Lawrence and his friends joined the Communist Party.

The SWP meanwhile publicly broke from Pablo's international leadership and issued the 'Open Letter to all Trotskyist Organisativno lu forember 1953. This letter spoke about the struggle of the French comrades against Pabloism as follows:

6 By fiat of the International Secretariat, the elected majority of the French section was forbidden to exercise its rights to lead the political and propaganda work of the party. Instead the political bureau and the press were put under the control of a "parity commission"!

At the time we deeply disapproved this action by which a minority was used to arbitrarily overturn a majority. As soon as we heard about it, we comdevaluation of the pound, taking advantage of the incurable historic crisis of British capitalism because they know this would be inevitably followed by devaluation of the dollar and the consequent strengthening of French capitalism.

The British working class is therefore in the cockpit of a great international crisis.

The intensity of the struggle will reflect the enormity of this crisis. The situation has now developed where the steps taken by the capitalists of any particular capitalist country endangers the interests of the system as a whole.

For example, in Japan there was a 50 million dollar loss in exchange reserves during July because of the increases in US and British money rates. The Japanese had held down their own rates to encourage industrial expansion.

Such a situation has great dangers for the working class. World war and repression against the workers are the only paths open to the capitalists.

Favourable

But the situation is at the same time favourable. This international intensification of the crisis means that the ruling class in each country lacks the security of stable international capitalist conditions and support against its own working class.

The workers in the advanced countries are highly organised and undefeated for for many years. They are the key to the international situation. The joint crisis of the British, US and West German economies gives municated protest Pablo.

However, we must admit that we made an error in not taking more vigorous action.

This error was due to insufficient appreciation on our part of the real issues involved. We thought the differences between Pablo and the French section were tactical and this led us to side with Pablo, despite our misgivings about his organisational procedure, when, after months of disruptive factional struggle, the majority was expelled.

But at the bottom the differences were programmatical in character. The fact is that the French comrades of the majority saw What was happening more clearly than we did. The Eighth Congress of their party declared that:

"A grave danger menaces the future and even the existence of the Fourth International. .. • Revisionist conceptions, born of cowardice and petty-bourgeois impressionism have appeared within its leadership.

still great weakness of the International, cut off from the life of the sections, has momentarily facilitated the installation of a system of personal rule, basing itself and anti-democratic methods on revisionism of the Trotskyist programme and abandonment of the Marxist method." 9 How easy it is today for Hansen, Cannon and Dobbs to forget What they wrote in 1953. the time we heartily endorsed the contents of this 'Open Letter' and we have never changed our minds.

All these important historical experiences establish one thing very clearly. In sharp contrast to the nationalist insular tendency of the British working class, the education of the pre» sent leadership of the SLL and through them the rank-and-file members is internationalist to the core. All our political successes in Britain are due in the main to this basic factor.

For further information concerning the split with Pablo in 1953, see Fourth International, Vol. 2, No. 1, July 1965, price 3s., available from New Park Publications, 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.

great opportunities for the building of new revolutionary leaderships through the struggle of the working class.

Strong sections of the capitalist class would like to take the path of war against China and eventually against the USSR and Eastern Europe. They are behind the imminent decision to invade North Vietnam.

But the US government held back by two forces.

Five Years A US Defence Department study released this week estimates that it would take 750,000 US troops five years to win the Vietnam war; such is the fighting power of the Vietnamese people, even assuming the US could win.

But the report is more concerned about another obstacle to 'winning the war'-this is within the US itself.

Even the Korean war brought political issues into the Presidential campaign in 1951. But now the issue is brought into the middle of the Negro struggle and the growing militancy of the American labour movement.

This is a remarkable confirmation of the strategy of working class internationalism.

Every blow struck by the working class and socialist movement in the advanced countries helps in the struggle against US imperialism in Vietnam.

Every battle won by the National Liberation Front is a blow against the ruling class in the US and Britain.

The weight of these blows can bring the downfall of capitalism if we accept the challenge of building a Marxist leadership equal to the task of leading the struggle for working class power.

CHUNNON SAHN CNNA SIX months before the fourth Indian general election, the political and economic crisis of Mrs.

Gandhi's government threatens to flare up into As the desperate food shortage leads to riots into which the army has to be called, the possibilities of a military coup August 13, violent class struggles.

is openly talked about. THE EWSLETTER Crawfor