In Defence of Trotskyism No. 27 £1 waged, 50p unwaged/low waged, €1.50 2 to ‘No Platform’ fascists but we never call on the Socialist Fight Where We capitalist state to ban fascist marches or parties; these laws would inevitably primarily be used against work- Stand (extracts) ers’ organisations, as history has shown. 1. We stand with Karl Marx: ‘The emancipation of the 14. We oppose all immigration controls. International working classes must be conquered by the working finance capital roams the planet in search of profit and classes themselves. The struggle for the emancipation imperialist governments disrupts the lives of workers of the working class means not a struggle for class and cause the collapse of whole nations with their privileges and monopolies but for equal rights and direct intervention in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghani- duties and the abolition of all class rule’ (The Interna- stan and their proxy wars in Somalia and the Demo- tional Workingmen’s Association 1864, General cratic Republic of the Congo, etc. Workers have the Rules). The working class ‘cannot emancipate itself right to sell their labour internationally wherever they without emancipating itself from all other sphere of get the best price. society and thereby emancipating all other spheres of 19. As socialists living in Britain we take our responsi- society’ (Marx, A Contribution to a Critique of Hegel’s bilities to support the struggle against British imperial- Philosophy of Right, 1843). ism’s occupation of the six north-eastern counties of 9. We are completely opposed to man-made climate Ireland very seriously. For this reason we have assisted change and the degradation of the biosphere which is in founding the Irish Republican Prisoners Support caused by the anarchy of capitalist production for Group and we will campaign for political status these profits of transnational corporations. Ecological catas- Irish prisoners of war and for a 32-county united trophe is not ‘as crucial as imperialism’ but caused by Socialist Ireland. We reject ‘two nations in Ireland’ imperialism so to combat this threat we must redouble theories. our efforts to forward the world revolution. 21. We are for the re-creation of a World Party of 11. We also support the fight of all other specially Socialist Revolution, a revolutionary international, oppressed including lesbians and gay men, bisexuals based on the best traditions of the previous revolu- and transgender people and the disabled against dis- tionary internationals, critically understood, particularly crimination in all its forms and their right to organise the early Third and Fourth Internationals, with their separately in that fight in society as a whole. In particu- determination to combat and overcome both reform- lar we defend their right to caucus inside trade unions ism and centrism. It is by orienting to the ranks of and in working class political parties. While supporting workers in struggle, struggles against imperialism, the latter right, we do not always advocate its exercise struggles of oppressed minorities against varied all as in some forms it can reinforce illusions in identity forms of social oppression, as well as political ferment politics and obscure the need for class unity. among intellectual layers radicalised through these 13. We fight racism and fascism. We support the right struggles, that we will lay the basis for regroupments of people to fight back against racist and fascist attacks with forces internationally breaking with reformism, by any means necessary. Self-defence is no offence. It centrism and various forms of radical populism/ is a legitimate act of self-defence for the working class nationalism, and seeking to build a new revolutionary Marxist international party. In Defence of Trotskyism is produced Socialist Fight is a member of the Liaison Committee for by Socialist Fight. First 5 issues are A4 the Fourth International with: format @£2 and from No. 6 are A5 The Communist Workers Front, Brazil @£1. Add postage £2 and enquire for The Socialist Workers League, USA and Tendencia Militan- te Bolchevique, Argentina larger orders. Cheques and SOs to Contact: Socialist Fight PO Box 59188, London, NW2 9LJ, Socialist Fight Account No. 1, Unity [email protected], https://socialistfight.com/ Trust Bank, Sort Code, 08-60-01, Ac- Communist Workers Front—Brazil count. No. 20227368. http://lcligacomunista.blogspot.co.uk/ Tendencia Militante Bolchevique, Argentina, All issues of In Defence of Trotskyism, http://tmb1917.blogspot.co.uk/ from 1 to 19, are now available at The Socialist Workers League, USA, Housmans Bookshop, 5 Caledonian http:/workerssocialistleague.blogspot.co.uk/ Rd, London N1 9DX, on the Website Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of Socialist Fight. or by post. Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go For- 3 1916: James Connolly and Permanent Revolution By Gerry Downing e have just W celebrated the centenary of the Easter Rising in Dublin and commemorated the executions of the 16 leaders, 14 in Dublin, one in Cork and Rodger Casement in Lon- don in August. Amongst the most fought over ques- tion amongst Marxists is was James Connolly right This question was posed in The Irish to participate in the Rising at the head Opinion—The Irish Labour journal on 15 of the Irish Citizen’s Army? National- December 1917 as a question fre- ists seek to portray him merely as an quently asked “in country districts”. Irish patriot and deny his socialist in- The journal carried a stout defence of ternationalism. Stalinist seek to paint the Bolsheviks on p. 31 and on p. 33 a him as a two-stage revolutionists; he powerful defence of Connolly. He had abandoned the goal of the socialist was, the author D.R says, “the spirit of revolution and now sought only a na- the revolution incarnate” who proudly tionalist victory like they have done proclaimed that “I stand for constitu- since they rejected Leninism in 1924. tional agitation in times of peace and We will seek to show that neither of for revolution in times of war”. these interpretations is correct; Con- Connolly’s last words to his daughter nolly remained true to the cause of Nora before his execution on 12 May international socialism, and, despite 1916 were “The Socialists will never the limitations of his understanding of understand why I am here, they all Marxism, he was striving towards an forget I am an Irishman”. Who were understanding of the essence of those socialists, what they stood for Lenin’s April Theses and Trotsky’s and how they reacted to the 1916 up- Permanent Revolution. rising and the subsequent Tan War from January 1919 to December 1921 Was James Connolly an and the Civil War from February 1922 Irishman or a Socialist first? to May 1923 we might wonder. Geoff Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go 4 Bell reveals the sorry de- tails in his new book Hesitant Com- rade, reviewed on p.17. And alt- hough a hun- dred years of political and theoretical struggle has ensued since then it is certain that his actions are as nable uprising with the representatives little understood or supported by most of the Irish class enemy? of those claiming the mantle of socialism He defended his stance in writings and and Marxism now as they were then. In speeches from his return to Ireland in fact during the great leftist upsurge that 1910. In the course of these he devel- swept Ireland and the world from 1916 oped at least in outline the correct theo- to 1923 we might argue he was better ry of Permanent Revolution, that only understood then than he is now. Of the working class could lead the national course we can expect as little sympathy, struggle to victory and that it needed to understanding or solidarity action now process that struggle through to the as then from the pro imperialist labour Workers Republic for it to survive. It is movement reformists, left and right and true that in identifying capitalism as a those leftist pro-imperialist groupings foreign import into Ireland by Britain, in and their political ancestors whom Geoff not seeing the differences between Bell exposes so well. Trotsky referred to working class and peasants, not seeing them as “British social-imperialists of the emergence of the working class in the Hyndman type – downright blood- Ireland from the late 18th and early 19th thirsty hooligans” in condemning their centuries as a new and therefore revolu- attitude to 1916. But there are others tionary class with its own separate inter- who we might expect to do better. ests quotes like “The cause of labour is So why did Connolly lay emphasis on the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland his Irishness in that terrible circum- is the cause of labour” allowed much stance? Surely a socialist and a revolu- diversity in his interpretations. tionist should have shunned the politics But as far back as 1898 he correctly of bourgeois nationalism and concen- identified the combined tasks of national trated on liberating the working class in liberation and socialism in Ireland: Ireland and Britain against the capitalists “If you remove the English army tomor- and not embark on a foolish and unwin- row and hoist the green flag over Dublin Leon Trotsky: I am confident of the victory of the Fourth International; Go For- 5 Castle, unless you set about the organisa- Curragh Mutiny of February 1914 indi- tion of the socialist Republic your efforts cated that the British state would always would be in vain. England would still rule side with treasonous Orangemen and you. She would rule you through her capi- British Army officers against Ireland’s talists, through her landlords, through her right to self-determination.