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League of Socialist Workers A JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL MARXISM VOLUME 13 NUMBER 2 AUTUMN 1986 Fourth EDITORIAL BOARD: David North, editor Peter Schwarz Chris Talbot Nick Beams International Keerthi Balasuriya Editorial 5 A Contribution to a Critique of G. Healy's "Studies in Dialectical Materialism" by David North October 7 - November 7, 1982 13 Letter from Cliff Slaughter to David North December, 1983 26 Letter from David North to Cliff Slaughter December 27, 1983 29 Letter from David North to Mike Banda January 23, 1984 34 Political Report by David North to the International Committee of the Fourth International February 11, 1984 39 Letter from Aileen Jennings to the Workers Revolutionary Party Political Committee June 30, 1985 47 Letter from Cliff Slaughter to Sections of the ICFI October 5, 1985 48 Joint Communique from the Greek and Spanish Sections of the ICFI October 21, 1985 49 Resolution of the International Committee of the Fourth International on the Crisis of the British Section October 25, 1985 50 Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International on the Expulsion of G. Healy October 25, 1985 52 Special Congress Resolution of the Workers Revolutionary Party (Healyite) October 26, 1985 53 "Split Exposes Right-Wing Conspiracy Against Party" Statement by the Central Committee of the Workers Revolutionary Party (Healyite) October 30, 1985 54 "Morality and the Revolutionary Party" News Line article by Michael Banda November 2, 1985 55 Letter from the International Committee to the Central Committee of the Workers Internationalist League, Greek Section of the ICFI November 9, 1985 57 Letter from the Workers League Central Committee to the Workers Revolutionary Party Central Committee November 21, 1985 59 Letter from Cliff Slaughter to David North November 26, 1985 63 "Revolutionary Morality and the Split in the WRP" News Line Report on November 26 London Public Meeting November 29, 1985 70 Letter from Peter Schwarz to the Central Committee of the Workers Revolutionary Party December 2, 1985 73 "Nothing to hide... or fear" News Line Comment by Geoff Pilling December 6, 1985 75 Letter from the Workers League Political Committee to the Workers Revolutionary Party Central Committee December 11, 1985 77 Resolution of the International Committe of the Fourth International on the Suspension of the Workers Revolutionary Party December 16, 1985 101 Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International December 17, 1985 102 Resolution of the Workers League Central Committee December 22, 1985 103 Letter from David North to the Glasgow North-East Branch of the WRP December 23, 1985 105 Letter from the ICFI to the Workers Revolutionary Party Central Committee December 27, 1985 107 Resolution of the Workers Revolutionary Party Central Committee December 29, 1985 110 Document of the Workers Revolutionary Party 8th National Congress January 1986 112 Letter from Tony Banda to the Workers League Central Committee January 23, 1986 116 Resolution 1 of the WRP Central Committee January 26, 1986 118 Resolution 2 of the WRP Central Committee January 26, 1986 119 A Letter to All Sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International and to the Members of the Workers Revolutionary Party Resolution of the Workers League Central Committee January 27, 1986 120 Letter from Cliff Slaughter to Peter Schwarz January 30, 1986 129 Resolution of the Central Committee of the Socialist Labour League (Australia) February 1-2, 1986 131 League of Socialist Workers (BSA) Affirms Principles of Trotskyism Statement of the Central Committee of the German Section of the ICFI February 2, 1986 132 "In Defense of Security and the Fourth International" by David North February 2, 1986 139 Statement of the National Committee of the Young Socialists (Britain) February 3, 1986 144 "For a Public Discussion on Healy's IС" Workers Press article by Dave Good February 7, 1986 145 Resolutions of the 8th Congress of the Workers Revolutionary Party (Internationalist) February 8-9, 1986 149 Resolution of the 8th Congress of the Workers Revolutionary Party (Slaughter-Banda) February 8, 1986 150 "British Trotskyists Defend Internationalism, Reject Banda-Slaughter Splitters" Bulletin Editorial Board Statement February 11, 1986 151 "Behind the Split in the Workers Revolutionary Party" Bulletin article by David North February 21, 1986 ..153 Statement of the National Committee of the Young Socialists (Britain) February 21, 1986 158 Dissolve the International Committee Resolution of the Workers Revolutionary Party (Slaughter-Banda) March 1986 160 Anti-Trotskyists Split from SLL Statement of the Political Committee of the Socialist Labour League (Australia) March 4, 1986 163 "Michael Banda, A Renegade from Trotskyism" by K. Balasuriya, National Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist League (Sri Lanka) March 5, 1986 166 "Michael Banda: A Political Obituary" Bulletin article by David North March 7, 1986 169 "The Case Against the SWP - What the Facts Show" Bulletin articles by David North March 11,14,18, 1986 172 Resolution of the Revolutionary Communist League Central Committee on the Resolution of the Liga Comunista Central Committee March 28, 1986 190 Liga Comunista (Peru) Breaks with Trotskyism Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International June 1, 1986 192 PUBLISHED BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL ©September 1986 P.O.Box 33023 Detroit. Ml 48216 USA Editorial In this issue of Fourth International, we reprint the major source of the political crisis. Prior to September 1985, documents of the struggle within the International Commit­ Banda and Slaughter collaborated with Healy to impose a tee which culminated in February 1986 with the desertion of right-wing opportunist line upon the International Commit­ the Workers Revolutionary Party. These documents were tee and to bureaucratically suppress and destroy all those originally published in the internal bulletins of those sec­ who sought to defend Trotskyism. From the moment Banda tions representing the majority of the International Commit­ and Slaughter realized that a decisive majority on the Inter­ tee, and were thoroughly discussed among the entire mem­ national Committee would not accept a phony bureaucratic bership. settlement of the crisis inside the WRP and was determined In our previous issue, we published the International to restore the program and principles of Trotskyism within Committee's exhaustive analysis of the degeneration of the the British section, they worked feverishly to split the WRP Healy-Banda-Slaughter leadership of the Workers from the ICFI. Revolutionary Party. This statement, "How the WRP The documents reprinted in this issue comprise a com­ Betrayed Trotskyism: 1973-1985," established that the col­ prehensive record of the struggle waged by the International lapse of the Workers Revolutionary Party in the autumn of Committee and its sympathizing section in the United last year was the product of opportunism. Based on a States, the Workers League, against the political betrayals of meticulous analysis of the political line of the WRP over the WRP. It demonstrates irrefutably that this struggle has more than a decade, the International Committee proved been based on a defense of Trotskyist principles and that Healy, Banda and Slaughter had, from the early 1970s, program. On the other hand, the position of the WRP, abandoned the struggle against Pabloite revisionism, rejec­ before and after 1985, has been characterized by a virulent ted proletarian internationalism, and repudiated the theory hostility to these same principles. Despite what appears at of Permanent Revolution. On this basis, the statement first glance to be a massive upheaval in the WRP, its established, the WRP had systematically betrayed the political trajectory today is not substantially different from working class internationally and in Britain, and worked what it was prior to the split. For years the WRP leadership consciously to destroy the International Committee. sought to conceal its abandonment of Trotskyism by It has come as no surprise to the International Committee bolstering the prestige of Healy, which had been originally that this document has been greeted by all factions of the based on his identification with the revolutionary principles renegades with a stony silence. Neither the two competing he had defended against the Pabloite-SWP reunification of factions of the WRP led by Healy and Slaughter, nor the so- 1963. On the eve of the explosion inside the WRP, there called Communist Forum of Michael Banda, have existed no fundamental difference between its line and that acknowledged its existence. Their mutual silence is just one of the Pabloites. The collapse of the Healy regime broke up expression of their own inability to provide any Marxist the old ruling clique of Healy, Banda and Slaughter; but it analysis of the fate of the organization over which they did not produce a change in the revisionist orientation of presided jointly for so many years. Even more damning, any of its constituent elements. neither Healy, Slaughter nor Banda have yet produced a Among the most outrageous lies circulated by Banda and coherent explanation of their supposed differences on Slaughter to justify their decision to split from the Inter­ questions of program and perspectives. This is one case national Committee was that the ICFI did not really want to where sound and fury have, indeed, signified nothing. For all fight Healy and was only reluctantly drawn into the battle af­ the organizational bloodletting, none of them have ex­ ter it had been initiated by a group of conspirators from plained, from the standpoint of the strategy and tactics of within Healy's apparatus. This myth became the basis for the the world socialist revolution, why they split. The reason for Banda-Slaughter line that the ICFI sections and the Workers this is that their essential differences are not with each other, League did not want to break from their own "Healyism." but with the International Committee. These slanders are refuted by the historical record represen­ When the old clique leadership was confronted with a ted by the documents in this volume.
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