P the Party 1

40. THE DEEPENING FACTION FIGHT IN THE INTERNATIONAL The ultraleftism exhibited by the Weather Underground and other factions of SDS was not a trend confined to the United States. The turn towards the strategy of guerrilla war on a continental scale in Latin America made by the 1969 World Congress of the Fourth International reflected a related current in Europe. Like ourselves in the US, the parties of the FI in Europe and elsewhere had made gains in recruiting youth. By the end of the 1960s, strong ultraleft and adventurist currents had appeared in the worldwide youth radicalization. This pressure took its toll on the parties of the FI. Why were we, the YSA and the SWP youth, able to avoid, by and large, the pitfalls of ultraleftism? How did we become educated in political positions that armed us against adventurism and sectarianism, the two manifestations of ultraleftism? I believe it was the influence of the older comrades, the working-class leaders of the party who had had real experiences leading workers in struggle. The prestige of the SWP with comrades in Canada, as well as the influence of their older leaders, had a similar result among the younger Canadian comrades. Until the 1969 World Congress, the SWP and the Canadian League for Socialist Action had excellent relations with the International Marxist Group, the fledgling FI group in Britain. For language reasons, it had fallen to the American and Canadian organizations to help build the FI in Britain after Healy’s Socialist Labour League broke with the movement. The Canadians had sent Ernie Tate, originally from Ireland, and Scottish- born Jess Mackenzie, to London to work with the British comrades.When Tate and Mackenzie made plans to move back to Canada following the 1969 World Congress, Connie and Alan Harris, who were English and had been recruited in Canada, returned to Britain and replaced Ernie and Jess in helping build the IMG. They built up a literature service that relied heavily upon books and pamphlets we published through Pathfinder Press. Eventually, this would become the British outlet for Pathfinder. 262 THE PARTY A Political Memoir After the 1969 World Congress, with the sharp division between the majority and minority, this political cleavage extended into the IMG. The Canadian LSA, along with the SWP, supported the minority position. Connie and Allen, members of the British section, also decided for the minority. So Caroline and I, and Connie and Allen, became pariahs to some extent among the majority of IMG comrades. This got worse as time passed. In the fall of 1969 and the early part of 1970, relations with the comrades of the majority became more strained. In Britain, we worked mainly with Connie and Allen, and a few people they had attracted around them. We usually stayed at their apartment when we were in England, in the Brixton area of London, and we became close friends. Shortly after I arrived in Europe at the end of 1968, I happened upon a discussion between Ernest Mandel and a member of the German Socialist Students (SDS) in Ernest’s apartment (I was early for a meeting with Ernest). They were speaking English, and the German student was belittling the huge October 1968 march in London against the war in Vietnam. I was somewhat taken aback — since the IMG had spearheaded the action — when Ernest seemed to agree with the student’s criticism that the march should have included violence. Later in 1969, after the World Congress, I was witness to an abject capitulation by the majority of the IMG that turned my stomach. Gerry Healy, who had become a bitter enemy of the Fourth International, was denouncing the London march as “petty bourgeois.” So he put on a “proletarian” march and meeting, to show how it should be done. I went over to London to observe the action. A few thousand took part. The march was led by a contingent of youth carrying red flags, which were very colorful. Connie, Alan and I marched along with the crowd and attended the meeting of about 1,000. Healy asserted the October 1968 march of 100,000 was meaningless since it consisted mainly of students, while the march of a few thousand that day struck a real blow to the warmakers because it was allegedly working class in composition. Actually, there were many young workers on the October march, and there were many students on Healy’s march. The huge crowd of 100,000 very likely included many more workers than Healy’s march. I had expected such crude “workerism” from Healy, but not what came next. Tariq Ali, a leader of the majority of the IMG, was also scheduled to speak. Instead of defending the October march, he agreed with Healy! Naturally, the crowd of Healy supporters were elated. The only other thing I remember about the meeting was the actress Vanessa Redgrave giving the fund appeal, a breathy proposal “to give our all for Gerry!” The Deepening Faction Fight in the International 263 Healy was emerging as a cult figure in the SLL. I was a member of the Bureau of the United Secretariat, and that became important in helping to keep the factional struggle in bounds, since we could help set the agendas for meetings of the United Secretariat and the International Executive Committee. We found Ernest to be an ally in keeping the FI together. While disagreeing politically, we would work together with him on agendas and on the minutes of the meetings, making sure that neither side was misrepresented. For important meetings of the United Secretariat and of the International Executive Committee, other leaders of the SWP on the IEC would come over. In this first year, these were mainly Jack Barnes and Joe Hansen. After one of these meetings during the 1969-70 winter, Jack, Joe and I went to London. There, among other things, we visited the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, where some supporters of the FI worked. I was so cold on that trip that Jack and Joe insisted I get some warm woolen British clothes, including heavy pants, a jacket and an overcoat, paid for with party funds. The delegates of the majority left the April 1969 World Congress full of enthusiasm for the projected launching of rural guerrilla warfare in Bolivia. In their view, any kind of a democratic opening, any kind of retreat, even temporary, by the native ruling class and the army in the face of mass struggles was excluded. Any mass actions would be ruthlessly suppressed. The only way out was rural guerilla warfare. This would turn into a civil war and lead on to victory. Within a few months of the close of the World Congress events shifted sharply in a direction opposite to the one predicted. Actually, the first manifestation of this new mass upsurge began on May Day 1968, a year before the World Congress, when there were militant mass demonstrations and meetings against the military dictatorship in cities across Bolivia. The dictatorship mobilized the armed forces and police, but the power of the mass mobilization forced them to back down and allow the demonstrations to continue. The name of the martyred Che Guevara, who had been murdered the year before, and references to the guerrilla force he led, were prominent in these actions. The comrades of the Bolivian POR (Revolutionary Workers Party) mistook this sentiment as a call for immediate rural guerrilla warfare. These actions opened a new phase of advance by the mass movement and a retreat by the military. Bolivia has had many military coups, but the one that took place in September 1969 led to a military government which recognized the necessity of making concessions to the masses. The trade unions began to function openly once again, and 264 THE PARTY A Political Memoir the workers’ movement emerged from the underground. The Bolivian Workers Center (COB by its initials in Spanish), the union coordinating group, rebuilt its strength. From April to June 1970, workers took advantage of this opening to stage another wave of mass mobilizations. Students, teachers, part of the urban middle class, and some peasant groups joined. The ruling class split. One sector was for a bloody crackdown and closer ties to Washington. The other sought to utilize the mass mobilizations to gain some independence in relation to the imperialist behemoth to the north. Within the military, General Rogelio Miranda favored a crackdown, and General Juan Torres sought to win the confidence of the mass movement. The mass actions deepened, and the military regime was badly shaken. In October, the military ruler stepped down, turning the government over to the rightist Miranda. Masses of students and workers exploded into the streets to block the rightist takeover. Torres declared his opposition to the new junta. Students began to build barricades in the streets to stop forces loyal to Miranda, and the COB ordered its members to block the streets and prevent troop movements in the capital, La Paz. “Armed detachments of peasants joined the action. Armed civilians freed political prisoners. The homes of ultrarightist military men and civilians were assaulted. The buildings of three leading newspapers were occupied. Jubilant tin miners seized the police stations.” The mass uprising enabled Torres to take power, reflecting “a situation in which neither the proletariat nor the bourgeoisie could gain the upper hand for the time being.”1 Torres made concessions to the masses, while blocking attacks on the ultrarightist forces — attempting to keep both the working people and the right in check. The ultraright attempted another coup in January, 1971, but was beaten back by another mass mobilization.

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