Problems of the Fourth International

IN THE PERIOD especially from 1940 onwards, the leadership of the Socialist Labour League learned much from the Socialist Workers' Party in the USA. Our fundamental criticism of the revisionist policy of this organisation today is not intended in any way to denigrate the positive side of that relationship.

The SWP members were especially 1949 in the struggle against the Haston the English Trotskyist organisation, was and Ted Grant. The Hastons deserted right wing of the Labour Party.

Grant, however, did not take this road. Although he had been the political attorney Ior Haston, he could not bring himself to agree with the latter's liquidation into the Labour Party. At the same time, he could not bring himself- aston's desertion from nee desertion Trotskyist movement.

When it was proposed on the Political Bureau early in March 1950 that Haston should be expelled for his renegacy, Grant abstained. The man is an incorrigible opportunist.

It was for this reason that Grant was expelled from the Trotskyist movement at the Third World Congress of the Fourth International in August 1951. Ernest Germain proposed the resolution for his expulsion and it was carried unanimously, on the grounds that Grant was a renegade. Even Pablo, who at that time was already scheming to expel a majority of the French section, supported the expulsion.

The split between the forces of Pablo and the International Committee took place in the winter of 1953 and nothing was heard about Grant until 1957. Pablo was at this time fighting the forces of the International Committee tooth and nail.

When the English organisation during 1956 gained numerically from the crisis in the Communist Party following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Pablo was desperate.

He went to "Tribune', the weekly paper of the fake 'left' inside the Labour Party, and inserted • an advertisement appealing for someone to come forward and support him.

Pablo rescues Grant Grant answered the advertisement and offered the same kind of service to Pablo as he had given Haston in his day— he was prepared to stop at nothing in his efforts to slander the English Trotskyists.

Earlier, in 1954, when a leading Trotskyist, Bill Hunter, was being expelled from a north London Labour Party, Grant, who was a member of the Management Committee, abstained when the right wing proposed Hunter's expulsion.

Afterwards he proposed a vote of thanks to the AssisOUT NOW!

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helpful to us during the period between 1943 and clique. This group, which comprised a majority of essentially by Haston, his wife Mildred Haston in 1950 and moved towards agreement with the tant National Agent of the Labour Party who was present at the meeting and who had instigated the expulsion in the first place.

Naturally, Pablo was delighted with such a recruit. Forgotten was the decision of the Third Congress expelling Grant for covering up for Haston. He was welcomed back as an ally in Pablo's unprincipled revisionist struggle against the English Trotskyists.

Forthwith, he was provided with the label 'official section' in an effort to confuse the situation in England.

The technique employed by Grant and Pablo to disrupt our movement was simple.

Normally the Grant group carries out little or no activity inside the labour movement. It is a thoroughly sectarian group which has opportunistically liquidated itself into the Labour Party.

The tactic of 'deep entry' in fact provided Grant' with a cover to do nothing.

On occasions, however, the Trotskyism Grant group comes to life, but this has nothing to do with the struggle of the working class. Such outbursts are invariably connected with the difficulties of the Socialist Labour League.

When someone leaves our organisation, such as Peter Fryer, Daniels and Cadogan in 1959, they are immediately approached by the Grant group this particular case by Pablo himself), who immediately proceeds to ignore the political reasons why they deserted the Socialist Labour League in order to glean whatever petty gossip they can against the League. Such gossip is then utilised to obscure the real political issues in dispute.

This is the essence of unprincipled factionalism, the method of the petty bourgeois in the struggle against Marxism.

Whereas the Marxist will always try to reveal the class nature of the political differences, the petty-bourgeois revisionist will endeavour to obscure them with subjective gossip and slander.

This was then the method which Grant and Pablo applied against the SLL from 1957 onwards.

Now, we come to another ally of Pablo at that time, the group headed by I. Clift, which claims that the 1917 revolution in the Soviet Union has been completely defeated and that Russia is today a state capitalist country.

Cliff arrived in England from Palestine (Israel) in September 1946.

• He immediately joined forces with the Haston, Grant group and opposed those leaders who were opposing their opportunist role.

After February, 1950, when Haston deserted the Trotskyist movement, Cliff's small group remained inside the Trotskyist organisation, until the Korean war broke out in the summer of 1950.

Delegates from Cliff's group 'The good name of Britain' proposed to our annual conference in August 1950 that we denounce the North Koreans as being just as responsible for the war Korea as the United States imperialists. This position was overwhelmingly rejected by the delegates with one notable exception-Grant.

He attended the conference as a delegate and when the vote was taken against Cliff, he abstained.

After the conference, the Cliff group then proceeded to open disruption of the majority conference decisions. On the Birmingham and St. Pancras Trades Councils they proposed resolutions denouncing the North Koreans as being as equally responsible for the war as the American imperialists.

Naturally we expelled them immediately.

However, much water has flowed under the bridges since that time.

Today the same Cliff group unites with the pro-Stalinists on the Vietnam Solidarity Committee in proposing 'peace' in South Vietnam. They have joined forces in the campaign against the Prices and Incomes Act with the Stalinists in England, who have betrayed and sabotaged this struggle and opposed the campaigns and demonstrations of the Young Socialists.

State capitalists join hands with Stalinists against SLL In other words the state capitalist anti-Stalinists of the Korean war have now found themselves in the same camp as the Stalinists in 1966.

One of their youth members, Mr. Cafoor, openly writes in Communist Party publications whilst, at the same time, he denounces the Young Socialists and the Trotskyists.

So the anti-Stalinists of 1950 become the pro-Stalinists of 1966. Their method is the same.

When the Cliff group refused to defend the Soviet Union and the North Koreans against American imperialism in 1950 they were acting not on the basis of the Marxist method of class analysis, but on the method of petty-bourThe fifth of a series of articles by G. HEALY National Secretary of the Socialist Labour League in geois impressionism. That is why they have wound up supporting the same Stalinism which they opposed in 1950..

Up until the time the SWP refused to discuss with the Sul in 1961, there was no disagreement between us about the revisionist role of the Pablo, Grant and Cliff groups.

Then as soon as Cannon, Hansen and Dobbs made the political shift to Pablo, they also began to fish around in these gossip sewers in order to attack the SLL.

Grant

thinking. The differences between revisionism and revolutionary Marxism today boils itself down to the differences between idealism and dialectical materialism and not what this individual or that individual is supposed to have done.

It is also very easy to exploit those tendencies who slander and gossip.

The police do this constantly. They simply send agents into these groups who will be prepared to join heartily in condemning the SLL. Naturally such leaders as Cliff and Grant, despite their politics, are sincere in their beliefs and have nothing whatsoever to do with the police.

It is simply that the irresponsible anti-SLL factional climate in their groups assists the police.

The SLL leadership has plenty of information at its disposal to prove this and it is the reason why, from time to time, we make it our business to look into the affairs of these relatively tiny organisations.

So tar as we are concerned, dealing with the activities of Hansen (who is not a police agent) in Britain was indeed a very simple job. The man has little knowledge of a mass movement activity and is wide open to the crudest impressionism.

The real political battle in Britain since 1960 between ourselves, the state capitalist Tony Cliff group, and the Pabloite Grant group, was waged inside the Young Socialists where both groups joined hands with the right-wing Labour leaders in fighting our tendency.

We won an outright victory against them all, even under conditions where Grant and Cliff joined hands to found the youth paper 'Young Guard' in opposition to the most suceessful out paper sin the.

the war, "Keep Left'.

Our paper was proscribed in 1962 and theirs was allowed to function with the blessings of the right-wing leaders.

In spite of all this our youth comrades organised around 'Keep Left' won an outright majority at the Young Socialist national conferences in 1963 and again in 1964.

At this latter conference Hansen supported a united opposition of the Wilson right wing, the Grant group and the Cliff outfit against 'Keep Left'.

Here is a classical example of real petty-bourgeois factionalism in practice, at a decisive turning point in the conflict with Wilson and Co.

The Tory agents inside the British labour movement, Hansen, Grant, et al, lined up with Wilson.

Ugly rumours' In a recent pronouncement ansen declared:

'For years rumours have circulated in the British labor movement about Healy's methods. Generally the sources turned out to be dissidents who walked out or were expelled from the Socialist Labour League.

Some of the stories they told sounded to Trotskyists in other countries like gross exaggerations and thus tended to be discounted as due to factionalism. Yet it had to be noted that in the international scene, Healy's organisation was the only one claiming to represent Trotskyism that had such an ugly reputation in the labor movement because of continual tales about gross violations of the democratic rights of its own members.' Everything that is said here a lie from beginning to end.

Mr. Joseph Hansen, exsecretary to Trotsky, and now a renegade from Trotskyism conditionally supports the arch-Stalinist rogue Apthecker (who justified the Moscow Trials and the rape of Hungary on behalf of the Stalinists) in the coming New York elections.

Tell us why is it that you backed the Grant and Cliff groups who supported Wilson, the biggest renegade in the Labour Party since Ramsay MacDonald, when the Young Socialist majority were being expelled in 1964?

You protest, but the facts are clear.

You, Messrs. Hansen, Grant and Cliff did support Wilson against the Young Socialists when they were warning the working class to fight Wilson's betrayal in 1964.

They, the Young Socialists, were right, and you the self-proclaimed 'Marxists' were wrong.

You still protest, Mr. Hansen.

All right then, tell us why your duplicated house magazine 'World Outlook' refused to publish a single protest about Wilson's attack on the 'Young Socialists'? Yet you can support all sorts of renegades who now make 'left' noises to cover up their renegacy.

Mr. Hansen, you have rejected every principle that Comrade Trotsky fought for.

The 'good name' of Trotskyism in Britain today does not reside with your pet renegades, the Midlands group, Grant or Cliff. It lies wth. the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League.

What 'ugly rumours' does Hansen talk about in relation to the SLL.

Let us list our disagreement with various tendencies since 1938, by asking him directly. 1. Were we right to expel Haston and his tendency in 1950 when they denounced the Fourth International by ultimately joining the right wing of the Labour Party?

Were we right in expelling John Lawrence, the disciple of Pablo, in 1953, when he left in 1954 to Communist Party, join the Were we right in expelling Peter Fryer who left us in 1959 when he publicly denounced us to the capitalist press on his way toward writing idealist books on 'sex'?

Were we right in expelling Peter Cadogan in 1959 who insisted that he should have the right to denounce the policies of the League publicly? This man is now a leading pacifist opportunist.

But nobody else has been expelled from the SLL since then ation in Wea other organisation working class movement can claim such a record?

Are we intolerant? Of course not. We try to keep every comrade in our movement, but when they join hands with the capitalists publicly, of course we expel them.

But then, and this is the real De eep to Hensen, how can explain the fact that so many, many comrades who join the SLL remain members?

Inside the Socialist Labour League and the Young Socialists are hundreds and hundreds I young people who are fight ing side-by-side, day-in and day-out with the SLL and the Young Socialists to build a socialist Britain. talk about the good name of Listen Hansen! When Trotskyism in Britain you are using a phrase to cover up your own support for renegades who have long since deserted the movement.

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