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Fourth International a JOURNAL of INTERNATIONAL MARXISM PUBLISHED by the INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE of the FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Volume 13 No Fourth International A JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MARXISM PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Volume 13 No. 1 Price: $4.00 Summer 1986 HOW THE WORKERS REVOLUTIONARY PARTY BETRAYED TROTSKYISM 1973 -1985 Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International Fourth A JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MARXISM VOLUME 13 NUMBER 1 SUMMER 1986 International EDITORIAL BOARD: David North, editor Peter Schwarz Chris Talbot Nick Beams Keerthi Balasuriya Editorial 3 HOW THE WORKERS REVOLUTIONARY PARTY BETRAYED TROTSKYISM 1973- 1985 Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International PART ONE From Trotskyism to Opportunism 1. Why the WRP Collapsed 7 2. Internationalism and the Fight for Trotskyism in Britain 10 3. Conflict with the OCI 16 4. The Founding of the Workers Revolutionary Party 19 5. The Expulsion of Alan Thornett 21 6.1975: The Year of the Great Shift 26 7. The Labour Government in Crisis 30 8. The Trial of the "Observer" Lawsuit 33 9. The Fourth Congress of March 1979 34 10. The Election Campaign 35 11. The Degeneration of the Party Regime 37 12. The Right-Centrist Leaven of Ultra-Left Downsliding 38 13. 1981: The WRP Embraces the Popular Front 39 14. All Power to the GLC! 41 15. The WRP Attacks the Trade Unions 42 16. Towards the Party of Law and Order 43 PART TWO The Permanent Revolution Betrayed 17. The WRP Abandons the Proletariat of the Backward Countries 45 18. The Evolution of WRP Policy in the Middle East 46 19. Perspectives of the Fourth Congress of the WRP (March 1979) 47 20. The WRP Betrays the Zimbabwean Revolution 49 21. The WRP Betrays the Arab Masses 51 22. Libya: How the Bloc Looked in Practice 55 24. How Healy Courted the Ba'athists 56 25. The Outbreak of the Iraq-Iran War 57 26. A Mission for Michael 62 27. The Malvinas War: How Healy Worked as an Imperialist Stooge 64 28. How Healy "Defended" the PLO 69 29. The WRP and the Irish Struggle: A Case of Chauvinist Hypocrisy 70 PART THREE The Collapse of the WRP 30. The WRP in Crisis 73 31. The Idealist Distortion of Dialectical Materialism 73 32. Opposition Inside the International Committee 76 33. Youth Training: A Fabian Escapade 78 34. The WRP Defends Stalinism 80 35. Strange Interlude: The 1983 Elections 83 36. "Dizzy with Success"—The Sixth Congress of the WRP 84 37. The Beginning of the End: The WRP and the NGA Strike 90 38. Conflict within the International Committee 93 39. The WRP Betrays the Miners Strike 97 40. The 10th Congress of the International Commitee 109 41. The 10 Stupidities of C. Slaughter 111 42. The WRP Breaks with Trotskyism 114 43. Conclusion 118 PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL ©June 1986 P.O.Box 33023 Detroit, Ml 48216 USA Editorial With this issue, the regular quarterly publication of the the chauvinist and opportunist scoundrels of the Workers Fourth International as the theoretical journal of the Inter­ Revolutionary Party who had over the course of the past national Committee of the Fourth International is being decade betrayed every fundamental principle of Trotskyism. resumed after an interruption of more than a decade. The In 1953 the International Committee had been founded to publication of the Fourth International, for which the oppose the liquidation of the Fourth International into Workers Revolutionary Party had central responsibility, was all but abandoned in 1975. After that year, only two more is­ Stalinist, social democratic and bourgeois nationalist sues appeared — one in 1979 and the last in 1982. organizations which then dominated the working class and anti-imperialist movements all over the world. That struggle The fate of the Fourth International magazine was a con­ to defend Trotskyism was further developed in the fight bet­ centrated expression of the political degeneration of the ween 1961-64 against the unprincipled reunification of the Workers Revolutionary Party and the resulting crisis within American Socialist Workers Party with the Pabloite the ICFI. As the International Committee has established revisionists and the historic betrayal of the LSSP in Sri during the past year, the collapse of the WRP in 1985-86 Lanka. was the outcome of the protracted nationalist and oppor­ tunist degeneration of the Healy-Banda-Slaughter leader­ But from the mid-1970s on, the WRP systematically rejec­ ship. From the early 1970s on, the building of the Fourth In­ ted all the lessons of the long struggle against Pabloism. ternational as the World Party of Socialist Revolution was With ever-increasing cynicism, Healy mocked the political increasingly subordinated to the narrow practical needs of heritage of Trotskyism and became the most unrestrained the British organization, which systematically abused its practitioner of opportunism. political authority within the ICFI to advance its nationalist The restoration of the Fourth International as the genuine interests. theoretical organ of the ICFI is the result of the victorious Despite the critical role that had been played by the struggle that has been waged against all the liquidationist Fourth International throughout the 1960s in the struggle factions that have emerged out of the collapse and decom­ against Pabloite revisionism and in the political education of position of the Workers Revolutionary Party. the cadre of the ICFI, the WRP leadership lost all interest in This first issue is devoted to the publication of an sustaining the publication. Healy came to the conclusion exhaustive analysis of the betrayal of Trotskyism by the that the needs of the WRP could be better served by Workers Revolutionary Party. It was written between May publishing a monthly "theoretical organ" of the British sec­ 18 and June 9, 1986, during the first plenum of the ICFI to tion, which was entitled Labour Review. be held after the split with the WRP (Slaughter-Banda fac­ Although it had far greater technical facilities at its tion) in February 1986. With this document the ICFI has ac­ disposal, the WRP insisted in 1979 that the printing of the complished what not one of the factions claiming to Fourth International should be assigned to the Workers represent the WRP has even attempted — an objective League, which — though barred from direct membership in Marxist analysis of the historical, political and theoretical the ICFI due to the reactionary US Voorhis Act — accepted origins, development and outcome of the Workers this task. However, the WRP assumed no responsibility Revolutionary Party's break with Trotskyism. whatsoever for any aspect of the publication, financing and The International Committee is confident that this distribution of the magazine. document will play a decisive role in clarifying revolutionists The refusal of the WRP to support in any way the all over the world as to the significance of the collapse of the publication of the Fourth International was bound up with WRP, contribute to the education of an entirely new Healy's repudiation of the programmatic foundations of the generation of Trotskyists among workers and youth, and ICFI. Before the Fourth International could see the light of provide a powerful foundation for the expansion of the ICFI day, the International Committee had to liberate itself from as the World Party of Socialist Revolution. Editorial 3 How the Workers Revolutionary Party Betrayed Trotskyism 1973—1985 Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International PART ONE From Trotskyism to Opportunism 1. Why the WRP Collapsed International Committee of the Fourth International. In one way or another, they claim that the degeneration of the WRP (in so far as they admit that any degeneration took The political crisis which suddenly erupted inside the place) was the inevitable product of the struggle for Trot­ Workers Revolutionary Party in the summer of 1985 and skyist principles. which rapidly developed into a devastating split within its central leadership is an event of extraordinary significance However different the surface form of their attack, all the for the Fourth International. Within a matter of weeks, the tendencies hostile to the ICFI agree on one central point: oldest and founding section of the International Committee Trotskyism has been historically incapable of rooting itself of the Fourth International virtually disintegrated. The in the working class and its resultant isolation is the cause of three principal leaders of the WRP — Gerry Healy, Michael all political degeneration and splits within the Fourth Inter­ Banda and Cliff Slaughter — who represented collectively national. nearly 140 years of experience within the socialist In defending himself against the International Committee, movement were thrown, almost overnight, into the most Healy alleges that his Trotskyist opponents believe in vicious factional conflict the Trotskyist movement has ever "whiter than white socialism of the purest water and the seen. Despite a period of intimate political collaboration smallest number..." (WRP Political Committee Statement, which spanned three decades, Slaughter and Banda were to May 30, 1986). His ally, the petty-bourgeois Greek be found on one side of the factional barricades and Healy nationalist S. Michael, denounces the ICFI for putting for­ on the other. And it was not long before the unstable ward "the reactionary return to the practices of the period of coalition between Banda and Slaughter broke up and they defeats and isolation of Trotskyism ... "("A New Era for the were engaged in a war to the death no less frenzied than that Fourth International," January 21, 1986) As the principal which they had previously waged against Healy. leader of the Fourth International during "the period of defeats and isolation" was Leon Trotsky, the practices which And yet, the collapse of the Workers Revolutionary Party Michael is fighting against are those associated with the between July and October 1985 came as a complete surprise founding and building of the World Party of Socialist only to those who had not taken notice of the protracted Revolution, i.e., the struggle against Stalinism and centrism.
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