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Spartacist No. 60 Autum 2007 SPARTAC) T NUMBER 60 ENGLISH EDITION AUTUMN 2007 Fifth International Conference of the ICL Maintaining a Revolutionary Program in the Post-Soviet Period PAGE 6 Excerpts from the ICL Fifth Conference Main Document: Down With Executive Offices!. .................................. 20 China and the Russian Question ............................... 22 A Review Bryan Palmer's James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left, 1890-1928 A Biography of James P. Cannon PAGE 24 1922 Speech by James P. Cannon: "We Want the Comintern to Give Us Assistance".......... 44 Spartacist Group of Poland Refounded ................ 2 Diana Kartsen, 1948-2007. .................................... 4 From the Archives of Marxism: 1924 Speech by Leon Trotsky Communism and Women of the East PAGE 56 AUSTRALlA ... A$2 BRITAIN ... £1 CANADA ... CDN$2 IRELAND ... €1.50 SOUTH AFRICA ... R3 USA ... US$1.50 2 SPARTACIST Spartacist Group of Spartakusowska Grupa Polski Poland Refounded odbudowana For New October Revolutions! Reforge the Fourth International! The following is translated and adapted from the Sparta­ were capable of selling out the Polish workers state to capi­ cist Group of Pol all d's Platfonna Spartakusowc6w (PS) No. talism, which they eventually did in 1989-90. The iSt's posi­ 23 (May 2007), which was distrihuted at May Day demon­ tion was a direct application of the Trotskyist program of strations in Warsaw A complete vcr.'lio/l of the English trans­ unconditional military defense of the bureaucratically lation appears in Workers Vanguard No. 892 ( II May 2007). deformed workers states against internal and external coun­ We are proud to announce the refounding of the Spartacist terrevolution and for proletarian political revolution to oust Group of Poland as a sympathizing section of the Interna­ the parasitic Stalinist bureaucratic castes and replace their tional Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). The rule with that of democratically elected workers councils SGP will be part of our disciplined democratic-centralist based on the defense of collectivized properly forms, the international. We are committcd to the fight for new October planned economy and an internationalist perspective. Revolutions worldwide, the fight for an international social­ The RML started to break from Stalinism under the impact ist society that will put the entire world's wealth at the dis­ of the events in Poland. They rediscovered and upheld a fine posal of humanity. The decision to refound the SGP was tradition of the early Communist International that had made earlier this year by the delegates of the Fifth Interna­ almost been forgotten in Poland by the late 1980s: to honor tional Conference of the ICL. in the month of January the 'Three L's," Vladimir I1yich The SGP was first founded in October 1990 as a result Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, outstanding of the fusion between the Young Left Movement (RML) leaders of Russian, Polish and German communism. In hon­ of Poland and the ICL, following on the heels of the capital·· oring the Three L's, the RML effectively broke from the ist reunification of Germany and the ICL's fight against Polish nationalism promoted by the Stalinist bureaucracy and counterrevolution. set itself apart from other left organizations which at the time When in December 1981 General Wojciech Jaruzelski actively promoted Solidarnosc counterrevolution. suppressed SolidarnosC's bid for power, the iSt [interna­ What particularly attracted the RML to the TCL was the tional Spartacist tendency, the ICL's predecessor1 supported ICL's fight for a red Germany of workers councils in a this measure. At the same time, it warned that the Stalinists socialist Europe in the unfolding proletarian political revolu­ tion in the German Democratic Republic lEast Germany] in 1989-90. The ICL was the only organization internationally English Edition that fought against the capitalist reunification of Germany. A May 1990 "Letter to Polish Workers" issued by the Spar­ takist Workers Party of Germany (SpAD), German section SPARTACJST ~ of the ICL, made clear the ICL's unflinching opposition to Solidarnosc counterrevolution. The RML shared this under­ An Organ of Revolutionary Marxism standing and embraced the ICL's Trotskyist program. Published by the International Executive Committee of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) In 200 I, the International Executive Committee of the ICL EDITORIAL BOARD: Len Meyers (editor), James Robertson and decided to dissolve the SGP. The objective political situation Emily Tanner (associate editors), Helene Brosius (managing editor), in Poland was mistakenly viewed as bleak for the ICL in con­ Jon Brule, George Foster, Walter Franceschi, Victor Gibbons, trast to workers' and other social struggles occurring in West Elizabeth Gordon, Jane Kerrigan, Doris Kohn, Eibhlin McDonald, John Masters, Amy Rath (Women and Revolution pages), Europe at the time. However, the Fourth ICL Conference in Reuben Samuels, Herminio Sanchez, Joseph Seymour, 2003 undertook a critical review of internal problems stem­ Alison Spencer. Sacramento Talavera ming from the impact of capitalist counterrevolution on our PRODUCTION MANAGER: Fran<;ois Donau organization. Following our 2003 conference we undertook CIRCULATION MANAGER: Barry James a further re-examination of past practices and political ques­ SPARTACIST PUBLISHING COMPANY tions [see "';partacist No. 58, Spring 2004]. Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116, USA Phone: (212) 732·7862 One of the questions that came under review was our Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. propaganda on Solidarnosc in the 1990s. After the destruc­ tion of the Polish deformed workers state in 1989-90, Soll­ Number 60 ®~"59-C Autumn 2007 darnosc had served its purpose as the spearhead for capitalist counterrevolution. Its peasant sector and many intellectuals AUTUMN 2007 3 decamped and founded their own bourgeois parties. Thus, took no side in the war between the imperialist Axis powers Solidarnosc (and its offshoots like Solidarnosc 80 and Sier­ of Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan and the Allied imperial­ pien 80) became more akin to a trade union in social com­ ists of Britain, France and the U.S., who disguised their position. During the first tenure of the [ex-Stalinist social­ desires for world hegemony and unbridled imperialist democratic I SLD-Ied government in post-counterrevolution exploitation of colonies with "democratic" rhetoric. During Poland we observed that the "official Solidarnosc union now the Second World War, the Polish bourgeoisie was a lackey poses as a champion of working-class interests while rev­ of French and British imperialism. It is for this reason that ving up its anti-Communist demagogy and making overtures the Trotskyists did not take a side in the 1939 war between to openly fascistic forces" (WV No. 614,13 January 1995; imperialist Germany and Poland, which was merely, to use PS No.5, Spring 1995). Trotsky's words, a '''crippled' gangster of imperialism." In However, taking into account only the latter, we argued clarifying this question, we referred back to Trotsky'S power­ one-sidedly in a 1998 article in PS that "the function of ful 1938 article "A Fresh Lesson," written at the time of the Solidarnosc has nothing to do with ·trade unionism' of any Munich accords upon which Hitler's troops dismembered kind, 'militant" or otherwise." Following internal discussion and annexed the Czech parts of Czechoslovakia: within the ICL, we corrected this formulation in our 2005 "Even irrespective of its international ties, Czechoslovakia is article "Right Wing Wins Polish Elections" (WV No. 857, an ab~olutely imperialist state .... A war, even on the part of iso­ lated Czechoslovakia, would thus have been waged not for 28 October 2005 and PS No. 13, December 20(5), noting national independence but for the preservation and, if possible, that it wrongly denied the fact that Solidarnosc is both a the extension of the borders of imperialist exploitation .... trade union and a reactionary clericalist organization: "It "An imperialist war, no matter in what corner it begins, will organizes workers at the point of production, sometimes be waged not for 'national independence' but for a redivision leading defensive economic struggles; at the same time it of the world in the interests of separate cliques of finance capital." functions as a political movement closely allied to the Cath­ olic hierarchy and explicitly right-wing nationalist parties." In the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, This article, which summarized the ICt's proud record of we did have a side. We stand in the tradition' of the brave fighting against counterrevolution against the backdrop of Trotskyists in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw, who declared, the obscene 25th anniversary festivities for Sol idarnosc, was "We defend the workers state, notwithstanding the Stalinist written in close collaboration between the ICL and its sym­ regime, like we defend every workers organization from pathizers and supporters in Poland. blows of the ctas!> enemy, notwithstanding the reformist Despite the SGP's dissolution, the ICL, especially through regime ruling it .... LONG LIVE THE RED ARMY! LONG the SpAD, continued to intervene in leftist events and class LIVE THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION! LONG LIVE THE INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTION!" (CzerwollY Sztandar struggles in Poland, and pursucd discu~sions with militants who were interested in our program and repelled by the Polish [Red Flag] No.6, July 1941). left's embrace of anti-Communism and Polish nationalism. By re-establishing the SGP, the ICL is provided with an This work was facilitated in large part by a founding cadre of important window into East Europe. This is an important the SGP who continued to closely collaborate with the ICL. step toward reforging the Fourth International as the world Our new members were recruited mainly on the proud party of socialist revolution. Workers of the world unite! record of the ICL's fight against capitalist counterrevolution For new October Revolutions! Join us!.
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