Problems of the Fourth International

THE HISTORY OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, and before it the Left Opposition inside the Soviet Union, is devoted entirely to a defence and application of revolutionary Marxism. This is not an abstract question. It is one which has required the concrete investigation of all major happenings inside the international labour movement over the past 30 years. But the success of such investigation could not have been achieved, above all by Trotsky, without a continuous study of all the day-to-day happenings in his own organisation, the Fourth International.

The most important Marxist analysis of the origin and role of the Soviet is undoubtedly 'The Revolution Betrayed' which appeared in the late 1930s. when Trotsky was writing this book he was also actively intervening and seek to the hundred and one different problems which affected the various sec movement.

It was a period of entry into the centrist and social-democratic parties, and the difficulties were numerous. But all this was in the political day's work so far as Trotsky was concerned.

It was, in fact, intimately bound up with writing the 'Revolution, Betrayed', as well as the dozens of other articles which appeared in his name during those years.

So far as circumstances would allow, he was an active partıcıpant in the building of revolutionary parties until the day he was assassinated by This was his greatness; and it was the crowning achievement of his political life, because it fused his whole thinkLeninismi. being with • Lenin and No'revolutionary fighter ever got closer to applying the real meaning of Lenin's teachings than Trotsky. He was Lenin's great disciple, because at all stages he fought to fuse theory with practice. To him the theoretical analysis of Stalin's bureaucratic degeneration was inseparable from building the sections of the Fourth International.

Centrists

and Theory As usual, he came under fire from the centrists of the Independent Labour Party and the London Bureau. Since the hallmark of centrism is conon Trotory or they no baded.

Today the ILP has been reduced to the status of a small sect. The London Bureau disappeared long ago and with it any connections it had on the international field. Its old leaders who are still alive, such as Lord Brockway, have for some time come to terms of co-existence with the Establishment.

In comparison to the fate of these anti-theory specialists, the Socialist Labour League goes forward amongst the youth and industrial workers and has established itself a much more influential position than ever the ILP enjoyed, even in its hey-day.

Anti-theory methods. take different forms. There are those who try to place themselves on a moral pedestal playin.

who just want to carry out practical activity, without bothering about reading and thinking.

In countries such as Britain where, in the past, the development of the class struggle has been slow, such people have sown confusion, invariably winding up in the camp of the opportunists around the Labour Party.

Their spokesmen are to be found chiefly in the ranks of the fake Parliamentary 'left' The role of Stalinism The Stalinists in the Communist Party are constantly denouncing the Socialist Labour League as 'sectarian' By using this term, they endeavour to prevent a serious discussion on the political differences.

Close on their heels come the Socialist Workers' Party ot the USA, the Pabloite Unified Secretariat in Paris, the state capitalist group of Tony Cliff in England and the small gang of Pabloites, Messrs. Jordan, Taite, Coates, etc., who worship at the shrine of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.

On every conceivable occasion they take time out to explain the SLL away as 'sectarian' When the SLL and the Young Socialists mobilise 1,500 trade unionists and youth a demonstration, they say it is 'sectarian and unimportant'. When 500 Young Socialists travel to Liege in Belgium, they look the other way and say it doesn't matter-yet they themselves only represent a tiny handful.

However, this does not at all mean that such groups are Stalinist in their complete political outlook.

For the Stalinists, the use of the word 'sectarian' is merely a continuation of their descripof the Trotskyist forces as tascist agents of Wall Street. Between Trotskyism and Stalinism there can be no compromise.

Although Stalin has been dead tor over 13 years, the basic revisionist ideas for which he stood still dominate the thinking of the Communist parties all over the world. Stalin represented the most privileged bureaucratic caste ever to arise in the international workers' movement during the history of capitalism.

This bureaucratic caste turn reflected profound opportunist degeneration in the Soviet Union which is today expressed in the policy of the "peacetul road to socialism'.

This policy emphasises that the bureaucracy wants peace with capitalism at all costs, which means that it is constantly in conflict with working class, whose problems can only be solved by overthrow of capitalism.

So far as the Soviet bureaucracy is concerned, their privileges come first and in order to protect them they are constantly prepared to do a deal with the imperialists at the expense of the working class.

Trotsky fought tor the establishment of international socialism, which was Lenin's policy. In doing so he came into violent conflict with the Stalinists persecuted framed and murdered the majority of Lenin's Central Committee during the 1917 Revolution because they opposed them. They murdered some of the most ! prominent of Trotsky's secretaries, and, in the end, Trotsky himself.

For us today, Stalin is dead, but the ideas of Stalinism live Any revisionist tendencies which in one form or another adapt themselves politically to the Stalinists are, our opinion, mortal enemies. This is the essence of our split from the Pabloites and other revisionists.

Let us start with the Pabloite Unified Secretariat.

They broke from Trotskyism in 1951 b déveloping after Stalin's death meant a theory i that de-Stalinisation decisive change in the Stalinist bureaucracy. Five years Stalinist chieftan, Khrushchev, drowned the Hungarlan Revolution against the. Rakosi-Gero bureaucracy in a NAME COATE AGAINST N.A.TO. A MA 500 Young Socialists march in Liege, Belgium-the tiny revisionist handful say it doesn't matter! bureaucracy At the time ing solutions tions of his Socialist Labour League LAMDETY ADES COUNCIL sea of blood.

At that time the Pabloites formally criticised Khrushchev's intervention, but at the international youth demonstration in Liege, Belgium, on October 15, they called in the police to remove banners from the French and English contingents who advocated support tor the Hungarian Revolution on the occasion of its tenth anniversary.

Herein lies the difference between the Stalinists and the Unified Secretariat-revisionist capitulators to bureaucracy.

During the Hungarian revolution there was a powerful outburst of imperialist propaganda against the Soviet Union which took full advantage of the criminal actions Khrushchev.

The gentlemen supporters. of the Unified Secretariat found little difficulty at that time in condemning these actions. Today, it is different.

Now Johnson needs the Soviet bureaucracy to help to strangle the Vietnamese revolution, as well as the rising YOUNG SO ASS trade unionists and youth march-'sectarian', according to the revisionists!

The last of a series of articles by National Secretary Socialist Labour League The tide of revolutionary opposition from the working class in the metropolitan capitalist countries.

The youth, who perhaps more than any other section of the working-class movement enter politics as a result of a struggle against bureaucracy, are proving a real danger to the Soviet bureaucracy, which is moving steadily towards agreement with the archimperialists.

The Pabloite Unified Secretariat senses this reapproachment, and now emerges as the left cover' for bureaucracy and imperialism, and calls in the police to deal with the Young Socialists who commemorate the Hungarian. Revolution.

The SWP covers up for the Stalinists One of the most spectacular developments in the USA in recent years has been the vast IN YE NAM movement to the left amongst the middle-class intelligentsia and the university youth. Untortunately, this movement still remains isolated from the working class.

The policy of the Communist Party of the United States is to turn it politically towards the capitalist Democratic Party, by taking advantage of this isolation.

However, it faces certain difficulties in the forthcoming Congressional Elections. Because there is widespread opposition to the Democratic Party, the Communist Party, has, especially in New York, to arrange a stepping stone towards it.

That is the reason why Apthecker, a leading : United States Stalinist, is standing fOr office in Brooklyn. He supports to the hilt the Democratic Party orientation of the Communist Party. A vote for Apthecker today is an invitation to be led by the nose to the Democratic Party tomorrow.

At this point the Socialist Workers' Party intervenes and gives critical support to him. Whilst it criticises his attitude towards the Democratic Party, it nevertheless advocates voting for him. The significance of such a decision cannot be estimated solely within the geographical boundaries of New York.

Apthecker is an old Stalinist hack who has toed the Party line at all times, especiaily over Hungary. He is prepared to support not only the Democratic Party but any deal which the Soviet bureaucrats cook up with Johnson to betray the Vietnamese revolution. He is deliberately trying to manoeuvre • United States radicals towards the capitalist Democratic Party.

By exploiting the use of the word 'critical support for Apthecker', the SWP is merely covering up the fact that it is initiating a sly, stage-by-stage orientation towards the Democratic Party itself.

If the SWP was really seriously inclined towards an exposure of Stalinism, and warning those who will be confused by Apthecker, then it should openly expose him and the counter-revolutionary policies of the Communist Party of the United States today.

The SWP will not take long to find out that revisionism must ultimately lead towards political capitulation to the politics of the capitalist parties.

On the experience of Liege, the weekly paper 'Militant', published by the SWP, remains silent, although it had a number of leading members present who were aware that the police were called in to take down the banners of the British and French Young Socialists.

So be it, gentlemen. When you say A. for Apthecker, you will be soon shouting P. for the police.

The state capitalist group of Cliff characterises the Soviet Union as a capitalist count is On the surface this group supposed to be very hostile towards Stalinism, but this is purely superficial.

By designating the Soviet Union as a capitalist country contemptuously dismisses the economic conquests which remain as a result of the 1917 revolution. Over the past few years, this position has enabled it to cuddle up closer to the Labour Party right wing in the struggle against the Young Socialists.

Now that these same Young Socialists have emerged as a powerful: force against tne Prices and Incomes Act, the state capitalists weigh in whatever support they can muster behind the Stalinists.

From serving the social-democratic bureaucracy, they now embrace the agents of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Up until recently this change of ally did not bring them into open alliance with the Pabloites. However, the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation has established the bridge-head.

On that Committee the three open supporters of the Paris Unified Secretariat joined hands with the state capitalists recently in an attempt to prevent speaker from the Socialist Labour League from exposing the counter-revolutionary role of the Soviet bureaucracy in relation to the war in Vietnam.

Thus all of those revisionist forces, no matter what their reservations about the role of Stalinism, inevitably find themselves in the same camp when it comes to providing a left cover for imperialism. Trust Bertrand Russell to thoughtfully provide the plaiform for such united action.

These anti-Marxists reject the principle that the working class can emancipate itself and overthrow capitalism through the building of a revolutionary party. They are turned exclusively towards the politics of the petty-bourgeois revisionists.

As a result, they constantly tend towards liquidation into Labour and social-democratic parties in some countries, and the Stalinist parties in others.

The Socialist Labour League has taken its stand clearly against these parties and their counter-revolutionary role. We politically oppose them and have set our course firmly towards the building of the reframework of are International Committee of the Fourth International.

This does not at all mean that we will not carry out an entry into their ranks in order to do battle against them as we have done in the past. It means that our principled conception of the struggle to develop Marxism against revisionism and its reformist and Stalinist allies. is inseparable from the day-to-day struggles to build the revolutionary party.

The Socialist Labour League follows in the footsteps Lenin and Trotsky in the constant struggle to develop Marxist theory.