No. 3 July-August 1978 lOp BRITAIN Northern Ireland p-risoners revolt ri ain's orlure camos!
Armed imperialist terror continues to stalk the streets and prisons of Northern Ireland. Over the past three months the paid thugs of British imperialism have heightened their cam paigns of intimidation, torture and murder aimed at bringing 'peace' to the Six Counties by terrorising the oppressed Catholic community into submission. While the British occupation forces patrol the streets, gunning down unarmed citizens on the flimsiest of pretexts, their colleagues in the Royal Ulster Constabulary beat, maim and -- in at least one reported case -- kill detained Republican militants in Provisional Sein Fein demonstration in Dublin this May protesting torture in H-Block. _ C_~tl.eJ:§agb. Barraclt.s.._ A recent Amnest.y Int"ernational report pro vided clear proof of the widespread use of tor deprived of visits by relatives and refused any the Crumlin Road gaol in Belfast by Tory Sec ture by the army and RUC at Castlereagh. reading material except the Bible. retary of State for Northern Ireland, William Although restricted to cases occurring in the The men and women 'on the blanket' have Whitelaw, following a campaign which included a last three months and examining only 78 alle stepped up their campaign over the past three prolonged hunger strike. Whitelaw granted this gations of brutality (a tiny fraction of the months by refusing to wash themselves or slop status as part of an attempt to come to an total), the Amnesty findings established con out their cells, leaving ~he floors covered in agreement with th~ Provisional IRA leadership clusively that beatings, psychological terror excrement. These appalling conditions have ag on the establishment of a permanent ceasefire and systematic humiliation are regularly used gravated already grave health risks, and re in the Six Counties. However, even though the against arrested Republican militants. ports have emerged that scabies and hepatitis institution of 'special category' status was The most common purpose of this torture is (both highly infectious diseases) have broken part of an attempt to b~y off the Provisionals' to extract 'statements' during the seven-day out. Prison authorities have responded to the leadership, it was a gain for Republican pris period allowed for detention before specific protest by hosing the prisoners with disinfec oners, allowing them greater commuuication with charges are laid. 'Statements' are accepted as tant, causing violent sickness and, in some the outside world, relieving them of prison proof of guilt without any corroborating evi cases, temporary blindness. During the recent work and permitting them to wear their own dence whatsoever in the Diplock no-jury courts. hot spell in May they turned on the heating clothes. Fully eighty per cent of all present-day Repub system for the first time in seven months. In late 1975, however, the Labour government lican prisoners have been convicted solely on Despite sustained attempts by the British decided to reverse this policy. Merlyn Rees, the basis of such 'confessions', after which government to suppress information about the then the Cabinet minister responsible for they a~e thrown into gaols like the notorious prisoners' campaign -- including a hamfisted Northern Ireland,enforced the recommendations Long Kesh concentration camp. and unsuccessful attempt to shut down the of the Gardner Commission report, which called But even as imperialist repression is Provisional Sinn Fein newspaper Republican News for an end to formal internment (replaced by stepped up, it is being met by determined re on April 27 -- the Long Kesh struggle has won 'internment by remand', allowing the state to sistance in the Catholic ghettoes -- and in the widespread support throughout the Catholic hold suspects for up to 18 months) and the dungeons of Long Kesh and other prisons. For community, In the most notable solidarity ac phasing out of :special category' status. Rees almost two years a steadily increasing number tion to date, 10,000 people marched through decreed that anyone convicted of an offence of prisoners in the H-Block of Long Kesh (and Belfast on April 30 to support the prisoners. committed after the beginning of March 1976 more recently in Crumlin Road and Armagh gaols Prison revolts such as the current one have would not be granted this status, but would be as well) have been waging a campaign for recog a long tradition in Ireland, and have often treated like a common criminal. nition as political prisoners. More than three received widespread sympathy and support among hundred inmates have refused to wear the prison the working population. Back in 1917 Republican Rees was able to overturn the earlier gains clothes of a criminal, instead going naked with militants in Mountjoy gaol went on hunger won by the Republican prisoners because the only a'blanket for covering. For their efforts strike demanding to be treated as political Provisionals' position vis-a-vis the British they have been kept in solitary confinement, prisoners. Their demands were conceded only army had severely weakened by 1975. As opposed after one of them, Thomas Ashe, had died as a to 1972 -- by any account the peak of the consequence of forced feeding. Provos' influence and combativity -- 1975 sa~ April 1920 saw the most notable example of a a steady decline in IRA support, caused both by campaign for political status, which defeated the general war-weariness and by the increase an intransigent British administration. When in purely sectarian killings in both com 100 Mountjoy prisoners went on strike, Lord munities. By conflating sectarian shootings French (then Viceroy Qf Ireland) haughtily an- with attacks on imperialist agencies like the . nounced on April 5 that they could starve to RUC and British army, Rees was able to secure death if they so wished. On April 12 the Labour acquiescence for his policy of condemning as Party executive in Dublin called a general 'criminal' all violence not practised by the strike to support the prisoners. The work stop state. Six months later, the H-Block political page began the following day, shutting down prisoner campaign began. every part of the island except Belfast. It lasted only two days, and ended with the Support the prisoners! government shamefacedly acceding to many of the prisoners' demands. Prisons are a highly concentrated expression More recently, in 1972, 'special category' of the repressive violence of the bourgeois status was conceded to Republican prisoners in continued on page ? LETTER VVorkers Vanguard 'Quiet .attentions'
for DCI?/ 13 April 1978 goes· fortnightly Dear comrades: As WV [Workers Vanguard] has the reputation ThG follOl.Jing 'statement is reprinted from cadre generally were hardly immune to these of being a paper of record as regards the left Workers Vanguard, newspaper of the Spartacist component disintegrative processes. For a wing groupings I am writing to correct some
League/US3 no 2063 19 May 1978. The first couple of years as first human resources then minor inaccuracies in your issue no 200 in the issue of wv following its reversion to a fort financial ones were exhausted, it had to impo article rather pretentiously entitled 'The
nightly publishing schedule (no 2083 2 June) tently witness weaknesses as the organization Rebirth of British Trotskyism' [also published announced the successful completion of the slowly ulcerated. Individual responses drifted in Spartacist Britain no 1, April 1978]. Spartacist fund -drive with a total collection toward 'frenzy or passivity, depending. What The Blick-Jenkins group, more properly the requires explanatioH is why we were not then of $583 735. Bulletin group, has I believe broken with the Beginning in June will Workers Vanguard faced with some kind of self-serving revision OCI for over a year. Blick has left them and is become a regular biweekly [fortnightly] with ist factional upheaval, akin to that of not a member of any group. He has been sickened weekly supplements as needed. This step is but Cochran-Clarke in the SWP of the early 1950s. by the OCI's manoeuvres. I have not seen the one of a number of cuts and adjustments to Two observations may~suffice: ours is a rather documents but I am told that what started as bring the Spartacist League of the US and the young senior cadre, mainly in the 25-35 age minor political differences resulted in the Trotskyist League of Canada into line with cur range. If it were ten years older an explosive swift creation of a loyal OCI faction by dubi rent North American political, social and exodus would have been more likely. Objec ous methods since Lambert wanted one hundred financial realities and to ass'ist in the work tively, too, this period is not one of deep, .percent subordination. There was then a split of the international Spartacist tendency else witchhunting reaction as then, and today many which is tiny and unimportant. Doubtless more where, particularly in Britain. of the truths of Marxism are visible in America could be said. We do not lightly shift WV back to biweekly for all to see. Far from contradicting your assessment of frequency. We do so because we must and events this correction strengthens it. Thornett because what we hoped the weekly would be has, So instead and after a precipitous break in the WV Editorial Board, there followed several will indeed need a long spoon. in its 33' months, not come to pass. From its However I am cynical enough to remember that beginning as a monthly in October 1971 through , months of discussion also involving the leader ships of other sections internationally. With the SL, quite recently, gave the OCI, 'some its 29 months as a biweekly and then as a quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, weekly, WV has been a powerful and sometimes the approval of the international organization as a whole, several measures are being taken to nor so vague as to be misunderstood'. Whatever brilliant propagandist newspaper. Its work on programme the Lambertistes had, they were try to rectify the situation. As stressed here, the Chilean coup', Portuguese revoluti6'n, dom always, as I pointed out to you verbally at estic labor and social struggles, in exposing ,WV is to go biweekly. We expect our subscrip tion base to be weakened and correspondingly the time, easily the most right-wing and un and polemicizing with opponents, expounding principled grouping on the French left. Marxism, is notable. But as the weekly WV it aim to increase single copy sales, especially did not and could not serve its central in bundle placements. Moreover, the frequency of Yours fraternally, tended purpose -- as an agitational organ of the English language theoretical organ of the Ted Crawford intervention into major and continuing social international Spartacist tendency, Spartacist3 Spartacist Britain replies: We thank comrade upheavals in America in order to help shape and will be increased. We are cutting back our Crawford for his information relating to the direct elemental and partial class struggles in work in a couple of localities in North British supporters of the French Organisation accordance with the historic aims and possi America. And we have instituted sustaining Communiste Internationali~te. We would only bili ties of the working class. The problem is pledge reductions centered in the range that note that the tendency which split from the not some absolute overextension of our capaci most affects our industrial workers. ' Bulletin group claims t~at the OCI's Organising ties, but rather one relative to the quiescent Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth period through which we are passing. Given Successful emergency fund drive concluded International (OCRFI) does not publicly favour evident'urgent need, any rational group half In the midst of grappling with these prob-. ei tber...JIT..9Yp as its 'official 's.ec~ hu.t-_-.• _____, ~ our size could produce a weekly (and others a '·le1hs··atm"~'~<";ftd"~..,'rtinister'· regards both'lIlli''part''t;Y-'-t'he'9l''1. tish OCRFI sec- quarter our size do so). The inner capacity of threats to our organized existence, we found tion. the weekly WV to do its job has been well ourselves in an immediate and desperate cash Comrade Crawford accuses the Spartacist shown by its work in the recently ended miners' crunch in which the underlying weakening of our tendency of having behaved towards the OCI in strike. However, our appetites as revolutionary position through constant increase in fixed the past in the same way that the WSL does Marxists have run too far ahead of recent ob expenses intersected very heavy temporary today towards the OCRFI and the United Sec jective possibilities and for too long. Valu retariat (USec). But even a cursory comparison able as the w'eekly has been in other ways, the expenses, partly around the miners' strike and the processes of international consultation, of the WSL's current opportunist manoeuvres (in continuing discrepancy between intention and but especially over the breakthrough in Britain particular its document, 'The Poisoned Well', realization brought the few hundreds of the and the launching of written for consideration by the USec's SL/US right to the brink of a major breakdown. Spartacist Britain. We turned to our US members, sympathizers 'Eleventh World Congress') with our principled Excessive pressures threaten breakdown and comrades in other sections with a non approach to the OCI in 1972-73 reveals the public four week fund drive, noting in the PB utter falsity of this accusation. Though centered and most grinding on the circular (of 4 April) announcing the drive: As comrade Crawford knows, the international press, the excessive pressures have been across Spartacist tendency and its predecessor forma the board in the organization. It has been felt 'Since we have never undertaken such an tions have always sought to build an inter in all the undermanned Cen~ral Office depart emergency (or any) fund drive before, we do national democratic-centralist organisation on not know how much to expect from it. Five ments, not just the press. Our cadres -- typi the basis of firm Trotskyist principle. To that thousand dollars would be poor; twenty thou fied by the executive committees of too small end we have sought to engage in serious politi local committees, the heads of inadequate trade sand dollars would be good. Your leadership has let us drift into this mess; maybe the cal discussions with other tendencies which union fractions, those going in spirals trying membership can help us get out.' appear to share certain central programmatic to forge a black cadre component, the incom positions with us. In seeking these discussions This fund drive is now being completed. At the plete leadership of the Spartacus youth League we have always been candid about our aim and -- have been repetitively faced with urgent same time that Sustaining Pledge donations held about our political positions. firm and windfalls increased, the comrades paid tasks often hopelessly beyond the means and Following the shattering of its unprinciple~ forces available. Our membership as a whole has in on the fund drive, not $5,000 or $20,000, alIi ance wi th the Healyi te So.cialist Labour but more than $57,000! We can only agree with responded to our needs and priorities superbly, League (SLL) in 1971, the OCI made what ap the FBI investigation summary on the SL of 25 not least in the relentless sales of the weekly peared to be a turn in the direction of serious August 1976, the most recent in our file WV and in our highly successful subscription international work. It established the OCRFI, secured through 'Freedom of Information' drives. But the members too find themselves in which issued a call for international political an increasingly untenable situation. While the channels: discussion leading to an international confer size of our membership has as yet remained 'As noted earlier, the SPL, though small, is ence open to all those who 'state [their] will stable, it has been ground down doubly by the determined to ultimately carry out its revol to fight on the program of the Fourth Inter impact of conti~uing inflation. The SL's sched utionary objectives. It has a hard core of national to reconstruct the leading center, ule of minimum sustaining pledges for members educated, disciplined, articulate, and highly which [they] agree does not yet exist'. is rightly highly progressive and new schedules motivated individuals. They are deeply in In January 1973 the Spartacist League/US over the years have been heavier and steeper VOlved in the world-wide communist-Trotskyist wrote to the OCRFI and OCI requesting the right (largely to finance international work). So as movement. '. to partiCipate in this discussion, while noting wage rates rise, but lag behind the cost of And we will come back to a weekly Workers continued on page 5 living, the portion of our members' wages going Vanguard when either continuing sharp class to the party has automatically risen very struggle demands it or simple bulk growth of steeply and to the pOint where an auto or steel the SL/US readily permits it. But beyond that worke'r must have a very high ,communist con stands our perspective, involving communist sciousness indeed to stay in the SL. But to daily papers, in this country too; of a revol inadvertently create an organization of peace utionary workers party, section of the reforged time martyrs is very likely the road to extinc Fourth International. .- tion, not revolution. Published for the Central Committee of the Spartacist League, British sympathising section of the international Spartacist Editorial Board, Workers Vanguard For a limited and orderly retreat! tendency, by Spartacist Publication~, 26 Harrison St, London Political Bureau, SL/US WC1. Printed by Dillcourt Ltd, London (lUI. The central party leadership and senior 'Interim Secretariat, iSt
2 SPARTACIST BRITAIN No room for Trotskyists in WSL
(which manages to be at the same time sponse they received to their international More ex-WSLers counterposed to empirical reality and to discussion document, from the international Marxist science) has several functions. Spartacist tendency (iSt). We also saw that join Spartacist League First, it attempts to protect the WSL member the WSL was totally unserious and parochial ship from. the uniquely correct theory and in their attitude to international pro programme of the Spartacist tendency on grammatic questions. For example, the only 27 June 1978 Stalinism. At the same time it serves, by thing which even caused them to take a pos Dear Comrades: drawing attention to a supposed 'the~retical' ition on the national question in Ireland fight against the politics of the Stalinised With this letter we are applying for mem was the fact that the Trotskyist Faction had bership in the Spartacist League. We have Third International, to divert attention away fought for a position parallel to· that of the iSt. For us the WSL leadership's complete un worked with the organisation for some months, from the WSL's practical ignominious capitu are in agreement with its programme and now lation to the politics of the Second seriousness about internationalism was wish to be bound by its discipline. International. glaringly revealed by John Lister's sneering We were formerly members of the Workers The Wohlforth/Adam Westoby theory of attitude to building an 'international leader Socialist League (WSL), from which we re gradual class transformation of Cuba over a ship expressed in the Socialist Press article signed together with Ian Kaye, Julia Kellett period of ten years, under the umbrella of "'Vanguard" in retreat'. This attack on the and Steve Piercey on 1 April 1978. Although Soviet power, would be of no help in building iSt produced nothing but contemptuous and there were some differences among us on the a revolutionary party in Cuba or anywhere cynical talk of 'jet-setting' and apolitical question of principled opposition to votes else. Neither does it explain how Trotskyists abuse about Trotskyist Faction members being for workers parties in bourgeois coalitions, could have intervened in the situation on 'dilettantes' and 'refugees' who were being led we all had positions (outlined in our resig this analysis that somehow, slowly and im up the garden path by the 'cynical con-men' of nation statement) which paralleled those of perceptibly, the capitalist state was being the Spartacist tendency. the SL in important respects. However we transformed into a workers state. For the The iSt's serious attitude to the ques failed to see at that time the importance of Spartacist tendency theoretical work on tions of trade.union work and attitude the propaganda perspective as the means to Stalinism and the Cuban question has been towards the Labour Party were for us a re develop a cadre on a Marxist programme, both developed as part of a struggle for a pro freshing contrast to the minimalism of the nationally and internationally, and the means gramme with which to intervene and change WSL. In particular we nave argued inside the whereby pretenders to revolutionary politics the world. Thus its theory enabled it to re organisation against the opportunist prog can be won or destroyed through programmatic cognise Cuba as a deformed workers state a ramme of Alan Thornett's campaign for TGWU decade and a half ago and raise the call struggle. general secretary, which was in line with the The group which resigned had belonged to a for workers political revolution to oust the economism of the CDLM (Campaign for Democracy Castro bureaucracy. faction which, althou~h politically closer to in the Labour Movement). We also disagreed the Trotskyist Faction (which went on to fuse The international Spartacist 'tendency is with the WSL's completely uncritical support with the Spartacist tendency) than the WSL the sole embodiment of Trotskyist politics for John Plant's campaign as a Labour candi leadership, nevertheless blocked with that -- the Marxism-Leninism of today. We seek date in Newham North East, which called for leadership against the TF out of a misguided to build it as the only road forward to the the Council to buyout private landlords and subjective 'loyalty' to the working-class rebirth of the Fourth International. institute bans on fascists. When we chal cadre of the WSL. This subordination of pro Fraternally, lenged this demand'for bans on fascists by the capitalist state, Executive Committee gramme was a crucial error, which muddied the Tim Hume, . member, (PL) replied that the call was correct, Rolitical issues and made th~ task of the TF SLL/WRP 1971-74, 'Yorkshire Area Committee, if it was directed at a 'Labour Party Council more difficult. We now understand that the Huddersfield branch secretary; WSL 1975-78, democratically elected by the workers'! fight for programmatic clarity must be at the North West Area Committee, Liverpool branch centre of the fight to build a party. '. secretary. ' $;.oA.ven.9.:t: W$.L .. llat.... i.o.n.aa.l. 1 ... s'~.I~;."'-= '. The programmes put forward in these cam- -",~,~~t" ·<"h.r~, ..... ~l,"~""iI?;:&-,:'it' ~lletli1tr"i.~"~~ci,=itee . i1!~"'0"'~ "pii'gns'have never raised governmental ques the haiimark ~f Spartacism. Our failure to tions in any way which goes beyond parliamen understand the importance of this fight de Patricia P, tary left Labourism. We have argued for rived from our experience in the WSL, where WRP 1976; WSL 1977-78 raising the call for a work~rs government workerist and economist conceptions are ram based on workers organisations, by which pant -- and are, in our view, an expression Trotskyists mean the dictatorship of the of the inadequacy of the organisation's break proletariat. from Healyism. We now agree with the fighting Resignations continue propaganda perspective as the alternative to It is clear that the WSL doesn't really the liquidationist 'mass work' through which want to fight its political opponents -- as June 25, 1978 was shown by its coverage of the Interna the WSL tries to find an opportunist short tional Marxist Group conference in cut to.the masses. To the Executive Committee of the Workers Socialist For the WSL, internationalism is not the Socialist League Press, which implied that the United Secre tariat is reformable and is really not an core from which politics derive; rather it is Dear Comrades: obstacle on the path of building a revolu a window dressing necessary to maintain a tionary leadership. By contrast, we believe facade of 'Trotskyism'. In reality the poli We are writing this letter to confirm our that the Pabloites must be politically tics of the WSL start from the shop floor resignations from the WSL, which we originally destroyed through clear programmatic struggle at Cowley, regardless of the objective tasks made verbally at the Liverpool branch meet for the principles of Trotskyism. of the proletariat. Even when it comes to the ing of June 21st. In this letter we will question of Ireland, which is so intimately explain our reasons for leaving the WSL in We now believe that the WSL is only bound up with the day-to-day class struggle order to pursue political discussions with another centrist barrier -- although very in Britain, the WSL takes a position merely the Spartacist League. much smaller than the United Secretariat as a formality. It does not consider the We were both mem~ers of the Granby branch to reforging the Trotskyist Fourth Irish question important enough to take up in (Liverpool) of the Workers Revolutionary International. the trade unions; particularly, it does not Party when we first came into contact with The fraudulent 'youth work' of the Healy see its position on Ireland as something to the WSL in 1977. We left the WRP because we ites is something ~e though we had left ~ight for among Irish leftists who can become realised that it had long ago abandoned any behind us when we left the WRP. But soon the nucleus of the Irish revolutionary real fight for the Transitional Programme, after we jOined, the WSL was sticking together vanguard. and in particular had adopted Pabloite posi a ridiculous parody of the WRP's 'mass' The WSL has no intention of taking up a tions of supporting the petty-bourgeois movement -- even down to the substitution of fight in the working class around the Irish nationalist Arafat leadership of the PLO and discos for politics -- with a handful of question. On the rare occasions when it is the reactionary Muslim dictator Gaddafi. almost entirely raw and inexperienced youth. discu~sed (internally,: of course) the WSL We were initially attracted to the WSL by We do not believe that this 'Socialist Youth leadership is incapable of advancing a class its apparent seriousness about fighting in the League' armed with the methods of theWSL programme which could split the Protestant trade unions, mistaking its workerist econ will ever recruit or train members politi workers from their reactionary Orange leader omism for real communist work. When we cally. We therefore also resign from the SYL, s4ip. Instead it chooses a get-rich-quick joined the organisation in late February and calIon its members and those of the WSL capitulation to the Catholic working class's (shortly after the conference where the to join us in examining carefully the politics Green nationalist leadership. Advocating Trotskyist Faction resigned), we also be of the Trotskyist Faction and the interna democratic rights for one community at the lieved that it was serious about trying to tional Spartacist tendency. expense of another has nothing to do with reconstruct the Fourth International, es pecially after reading 'Fourth International: revolutionary politics. Clearly, a democratic Chris F, Problems and Tasks'. solution in Ireland can only be achieved WRP 1977-78; WSL Liverpool branch 1978, North However inside the WSL we discovered that through united class struggle leading to the West Area Committee; National Committee, the organisation had no real conception of dictatorship of the proletariat..;· 'Socialist Youth League The WSL has recently made much of its re building a democratic-centralist inter publication of Tim Wohlforth's 'suppressed' national Trotskyist tendency. This was shown 'Theory of Structural Assimilation'. The by the fact that the WSL. leadership took Mark J, WSL's proud reproduction of this theory almost two years to reply to the only re- WRP 1977-78; WSL Liverpool branch 1978
JULY-AUGUST 1978 3 he Trotskyist theoretical framework for of the NLF could be used as a factional club understanding the Cuban revolution and other against Healy -- so the 15 May Socialist Press Tpost-war expans10ns of Stalinist rule has finally announced 'Now for the political recently been challenged, albeit rather inef Part 1012 revolution' . fectively, by the Workers Socialist League's The overriding interests of the workerist/ attempts to resuscitate Tim Wohlforth's 'The economist WSL leadership were from the start Theory of Structural Assimilation'. Amid much utterly parochial, but tradition and pressure ballyhoo the WSL has just republished from Healy did require a certain posture of Wohlforth's 1964 essay along with an intro interest in1'theory'. In addition to changing duction by Adam Westoby in a book entitled its line on the NLF' the WSL began to feel a 'Communists' Against Revolution. certain anxiety to revise the inherited Healy The victory of Fidel Castro's petty The real ite position that Cuba is capitalist. bour~eois 26 July Movement in Cuba in 1959 and In its theoretical nakedness, the WSL the ensuing events were critical for the poli reached for inspiration to a 1964 essay by tical future of those forces in the world which Healy's chief American agent, Tim Wohlforth. considered themselves Trotskyist. For the 'The Theory of Structural Assimilation' pre Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United tendS to be the key to understanding the cre States -- an organisation whose revolutionary ation of deformed workers states and Stalinism fibre had been badly damaged under the chill ,lessons since the Second World War. Wohlforth had made winds of the McCarthyite fifties -- Castro's an earlier contribution on the Cuba question in revolution ninety miles from the Florida coast 1961, setting down in writing the position was decisive in completing a break from revol which then prevailed in the still-united SWP utionary Marxism to centrist accommodation. left opposition that Cuba was a deformed The SWP went beyond the necessary staunch workers state (see 'Cuba and Marxist Theory', defence of the Cuban revolution against imperi Marxist Bulletin no 8). But his now republished alism to politically embrace the Castroites, of Cuba essay is simply a shoddy and pretentious dubbing the Cuban lider maximo an 'unconscious rationalisation of his decisive capitulation in Marxist'. Guerrillaism became the road to 1963 to Gerry Healy. This 'trivial parody of Rocialism for the SWP: 'Where would the Cuban Marxism' (as we described it in the introduc- Trotskyists have been? ... What they needed was 'tion to Marxist Bulletin no 8) was produced in 12 guys to go up on the Sierra Maestre' was its final form to justify Healy's view that SWP leader Joseph Hansen's comment in 1961. Cuba remained capitalist. This capitulation became the central basis Wohlforth never issued his promised 'separ for the SWP's reunification in 1963 with the ate ,analysis' of Cuba, but the WSL has unwisely centrist International Secretariat led by extenged to the Cuban events his theory's fun Michel Pablo and Ernest Mandel to form the damental thesis: United Secretariat (USec). To this day these pseudo-Trotskyists continue to hail the Castro 'They [the deformed workers states] were / bureaucracy and maintain that there is no need transformed after the image of the degenerated for a political revolution by the Cuban working / workers' state [the Soviet Union], in an area where this state has essential hegemony, the class -- though foll~wing its transition from motive force of the transformation being either the Soviet bureaucracy itself or its , agents, its extension, the domestic Communist Review of 'Communists' Parties.' (Wohlforth, p 89, our emphasis) ,And that is the core of the 'theory' of Against Revolution by Tim 'structural assimilation'! Viewed from one angle, all it amounts to is the profound 'dis Wohlforth and Adam Westoby covery' of something everybody always knew any way -- that the existence of the Russian degenerated workers state was a precondition centrism to reformism, the SWP has of course for the formation of new deformed workers abandoned .all advocacy of guerrillaism in order states. But for Wohlforth and Westoby it be to demonstrate social-democratic 'respect comes the complete and SUfficient precondition, ability' to the American bourgeoisie. opening up 'the possibility of any bourgeois The WSL, however, is not a direct product of state becoming a deformed workers state. To the reunification of 1963, but derives from their flash of brilliant original thinking is the tradition of the International Committ~e's added a new advance in Marxism -- an advance (IC) fight against Pabloism. At the time of the previously COdified by such luminaries of Marx Cuban events Gerry Healy's British Socialist ist science as Kautsky and Khrushchev -- that Labour League (SLL) sought to uphold a prolet under special circumstances the old bourgeois arian perspective against Pabloite revisionism, state does not have to be smashed to open the but found that Cuba presented a special chal way for the proletarian state. lenge. It offered in a more difficult form the overthrown by the workers if they are to move The WSL is deeply afraid of looking at what problem posed by all the post-war overturns of forward.' ('Spartacist Statement to Inter really happened in Cuba for fear of finding capitalism which occurred in the absence of a national Conference', Spartaaist no 6," June that the petty-bourgeois Castro -- God forbid - reVOlutionary party. July 1966) had some role to play in creating a new de But the increasingly bureaucratic IC lead The IC, dominated after the SWP's defection formed workers state. Thus it holds the view ership -- already well advanced along the road by Healy's SLL, was never able to come to terms that the real transformation from a bourgeOis with the Cuban question. While they initially to quali tati ve political degeneration -- would brook no criticism of its false positions, land to a workers state had nothing whatever to do staged demonstrations in-defence of the Cuban with Castro taking power but occurred wholly in revolution, the Healyites insist in the face had the Spartacist delegation high-handedly expelled from the London Conference. The a subsequent gradual process through the trans of all evidence' to the contrary 'that Cuba cendental power of Soviet geo-strategic might. following year the Healyites provided dramatic remained a capitalist state. This position is compellingly attractive to confirmation of our characterisation of their Only the Revolutionary Tendency in the SWP, the WSL because it shares Healy's and Wohl methodology as 'Pabloism afraid of itself': which became the Spartacist tendency fol forth's inverted Pabloite method. Reliving in Fourth International and the NeuJsletter began lowing its expulsion in 1963, was able to a less obvious way the SLL's disorientation to ape Pablo, Mandel and the SWP by uncriti provide a Marxist analysis of the Cuban events over Cuba, the WSL accepts the premise of cally cheering on various non-revolutionary at the time, and thereby shed light on the Mandel and Hansen -- that the creation of a forces, from the Chinese Red Guards to the whole history of post-war social overturns. workers state (even a deformed one) by a Vietnamese NLF. Today the rump Healyite IC The Spartacist tendency and its precursors petty-bourgeois guerrilla army must mean that equals even the USec in political liquidation. were for more than a decade unique in their the nationalist leaders are 'unconscious correct understanding that a deformed workers Marxists I -- and recoils in 'orthodox' horror state had been created ,in Cuba, which required WSl, Wohlforth, Westoby from the liquidationist conclusion that Trot a proletarian political revolution led by a In 1974 the Healyites' increasing sec skyist parties are unnecessary in the colonial Trotskyist vanguard to oust the Castroite tarianism and political bankruptcy produced a world. The SLL escaped this trap by a straight bureaucracy and open the road to socialism. major split, led by Alan Thornett, which forwa~ denial of reality. For them Cuba was We fought to win the IC to this pOSition, formed the Workers Socialist League. Its a capitalist state. Nevertheless, as the 1960s only to be slandered by the Healyite leader break f~om Healyism was partial, workerist, progressed, the Healyites were quite disarmed Ship as 'empiricists' who could 'only see the rightwa~d in thrust, and did not at first as they faced the ever-more prominent Viet surface of events'. In our remar~s to the 1966 encompass the questions of Cuba or post-war namese revolution and the conflicts within the IC conference in London, we explained the Stalinism at all. Indeed the WSL initially Chinese bureaucracy during the 'Cultural methodological significance of Healy's error: accepted the Healyite position on the Revolution', finally flipping over to Pabloism 'The Pabloites have been streng~hened against Vietnamese National Liberation Front: in 1967. us, in our opinion, by this simplistic reflex Socialist Press's first reports· (in issues The WSL, already programmatically in the of the I.C., which must deny the possibility no 5, 6 and 7) on the insurgents' drive to camp of Pabloism, has sought to overcome the of a social transformation led by the petty victory in early 1975 were remarkably uncrit same theoretical dilemma by a complicated and bourgeOiSie, in order to defend the validity ical of the NLF and Khmer Rouge, offering only obscure denial of reality. As 'honest' and necessity of the revolutionary Marxist a programme whose essential thrust was to urge movement. This is a bad method: at bottom, it workerists they cannot accept the idea of equates the deformed workers' state with the the NLF, with its 'revolutionary unity' and charismatic, cigar-smoking petty bourgeOis road to socialism; it is the Pabloite error 'revolutionary spirit' to take on the Hanoi overthrowing capitalism. Instead they glam turned inside out, and a profound denial of the Stalinists (apparently the only Stalinists orise the Soviet bureaucrats ..• who after Trotskyist understanding that the bureaucratic in the country). Only after the seizure of all had something to do~ith a genuine ruling caste is an pbstacle which must be Saigon did the WSL perceive that criticisms workers revolution. 'A knock-on effect' was
4 SPARTACIST BRITAIN \
Westoby's description at the WSL's June 15 at Yalta and Potsdam left the Soviet Army meeting in London where 'Communists' Against occupying the countries that today are Euro Revolution was launched. Wohlforth expresses pean deformed workers states (excepting 'Quiet attentions'? ... the same notion less co~loquially: Albania and Yugoslavia), along with a chunk (Continued from page 2) 'The basic pOint is to recognise the nature of of Austria and northern Iran. No national the domestic CPs as essentially an extension state power (in~ed, no decisive domestic our inability to request admission to the OCRFI of the Soviet bureaucracy itself. Once this armed force) existed in any of these countries. itself because of many outstanding political is recognized then social transformations of They were in the hands of the USSR; and the differences. The letter (reprinted in Sparta a more "indigenous" character like that in cist no 22, winter 1973-74) contained a summary Yugoslavia can be comprehended.' (Wohlforth,' diplomatic and military interests of the Soviet of our most important political differences p 62) bureaucracy determined whether the Red Army handed over power to 'bodies of armed men' with the OCI and OCRFI, ranging from their and: directed by native Stalinist parties and liquidationist 'strategic united front' concep 'To the extent that the CCP [Chinese, Communist committed to defending socialised property, or tion to their Stalinophobia, their non-Leninist Party] was and is independent of domestic position on youth/party relations, their use of social classes, it is dependent upon -- is whether, as in Austria and Iran, the occupied violence within the workers movement and their essentially an extension of -- the bureaucratic territories were returned to the orbit of caste of the USSR, the distorted product of a imperialism. past opportunist cohabitation with the SLL in workers' revolution.' (Wohlforth, pp 74-75, However in Yugoslavia, China, North iorea side a federated International Committee. emphasis in original) and Vietnam the Red Army never occupied 'the , We considered it our internationalist duty country; in each case a petty-bourgeois guer to approach the OCI for discussions despite This view of the bureaucracy and the rilla army shattered the bourgeois state power. these major differences because of its experi Communist Parties around the world as simply Even more worrying for the theorists of enced senior cadres and its long history and the rather grubby expressions of the October structural assimilation, Cuba is 4,000 miles continuity in the world movement. Comrade revolution is completely false. The bureau from the. nearest workers state, and up to 1961 Crawford argues that it was 'always ... easily cracy, as Trotsky emphasised repeatedly, is was absolutely insignificant in the strategic the most right-wing and unprincipled grouping a parasitic growth on the workers state, with military calculations of the Soviet Union. on the French left'. But this is patently un interests counterposed to,those of the prolet Even more -- the 26 July Movement that took true, as evidenced by the fact that the OCI's ariat internationally, and at the most ab power in January 1959 was the militant adven forebearers were the first organisation in the stract level is the expression of imperialist turist wing of Cuban liberalism, not a peasant Fourth International to take up the fight pressure on the deformed workers $tate. The Stalinist party in arms. In fact the Partido against the revisionist pOSitions of Michel Workers Socialist League fears capitulation Socialista Popular (the Cuban CP) remained Pablo in the, early 1950s. Moreover, for all its to Castro so much that it paves the way for Castro's rival until well after the overthrow errors, throughout the 1960s and beginning of a political capitulation to the Stalinist of the Batista dictatorship. the 1970s the OCI continued to uphold a whole bureaucracies, viewing them as deformed All these well-known facts make the fake series of anti-revisionist (and politically expressions of revolutionary politics. orthodox WSL deeply anxious. These revolu unpopular) positions against both the Pabloites Furthermore the view of international tions were led by petty-bourgeois elements and the SLL -- for example opposition to their Stalinism as a monolith is simply wrong. but the WSL fears that if it accepts this fact, enthusing over the Viet~amese Stalinists, the The Communist Parties around the world are then it must revise the Trotskyist programme of Chinese Maoist Red Guards and the so-called subject to a number of pressures (which proletarian-led permanent revolution and (like 'Arab Revolution'. ultimately must conflict). Even when closely the Pabloites) reject the need for a Trotskyist Under the impact of the rise of popular tied to Moscow they also act generally as vanguard party to open the road to socialism. frontism in France, the OCI has since system agents of their 'own' bourgeosies,. and are To ward off the prospect of such open revision atised its many weaknesses and under~ne a pro subject to the pressures Qf the struggling ism, itis',prepared to enlarge upon Wohlforth's grammatic degeneration from unstable left oppressed they seek to mislead in their own implicit denial of Stalinism'S counterrevol centrism to craven right centrism with a strong countries. The notion of the tightly unified utionary character. Wohlforth opines: reformist appetite. In the recent French elec , Stalinist monolith is today so much at odds •... the proletariat will do a cleaner, tions, its hysterical campaign for 'unity' at with reality that Westoby is forced to apolo heal thier job of it. Most anyone will prefer ~ll costs of the popular front placed it if gise for Wohlforth in his essay: a dirty job that is concretely accomplished anything to the right of both its major osten to the promise of a cleaner job .• 'It is, most clearly, in these chapters on sibly Trotskyist opponents, the Pabloi~e Ligue (Wohlforth, p 89) Yugoslavia and on "Structural Assimilation in Communiste Revolutionnaire and Lutte Ouvriere. We summed up the implications of this view 12 Asia" (which deals with Indochina, Korea and But this does not vitiate the correctness of Tibet, as well as China) that it is necessary years ago: our principled approach to the OCI for partici to take issue with the theory of structural 'At bottom what this assertion of Wohlforth's pation in discussions in the early 1970s. assimilation as Wohlforth then set it out .• means is .hat he believes or fears that the (Westoby, p 139) 'state of LefiDr~til1f';'lItat-e or'~re Furthermore, it remains highly probable that 'Wohlforth ••. underestimate[s) the real, if identical as regards their ability to move the OCI, like the WSL in Britain, will play its limi ted, poU'tical independence, of both the forward to socialism.' (Marxist Bulletin role in contributing Trotskyist cadre to the Chinese and Yugoslav CP·s.· (p 140) no 8, p 7) struggle for the reborn Fourth International, •... Wohlforth naturally felt the pressure to John Lister (who, as editor of Socialist despite its bankrupt revisionist leadership minimise the extent to which capitalism could Press, has less free time than Adam Westoby) and programme. be overthrown by movements politically inde tends to set down the opinions of the WSL camp Not a: single serious political person can pendent of the Soviet leadership in centres directly instead of hi~ing behind Wohlforth believe that the WSL seeks to engage the USec more geographically remote from the USSR and its need for "defensive expansionism" .• ian verbiage or 'dialectical' diplomacy in the and OCRFI in such political combat with the aim (p 141) manner of Westoby. He bluntly replicates of winning subjectively revolutionary sup Wohlforth's revision in ,a letter wri tten on porters of these tendencies to the WSL pro Westoby fails to see that he has not merely behalf of the WSL to the international Spar gramme -- assuming that the WSL even has a engaged in some fine tuning of Wohlforth, but taci~t tendency: coherent and comprehensive programme of inter has pointed to a fundamental flaw in the theory 'What, then, is to prevent further Cubas, national scope, which it doesn't. The reality of structural assimi~ation. The false premise further petty bourgeois Castros taking the is that the Thornett leadership of the WSL is that the Yugoslav and Chinese Communist Parties road to social revolution? Why should Trotsky simply not very interested (or capable) in pol are organic parts of the Soviet bureaucracy is ists run the risk of impeding such progressive itical issues outside this little isle, but vital to the fantasy that 'defensive expansion changes? The flimsy barrier erected between under appropriate circumstances is quite pre ism' of the Soviet U~ion is the force which has the iSt and outright liquidationism is your pared to capitulate politically to one or replaced capitalism by proletarian states since insistence that Castro's revolution gave another revisionist international formation. World War Two. birth not to a pure revolution but only to a In contrast to the WSL, no one who is fam The defensive tone of this portion of West deformed workers' state.' (Letter from WSL to iliar with our history and'publications -- and oby's introduction is weI.! justified. It is the iSt, 21 March 1978. emphasis in original) we confidently include comrade Crawford in this cases of China and Yugoslavia (and Cuba) which So the deformations'of Stalinism, the usurp category -- can believe that the Spartacist really test the theoretical conceptions of ation of the working class's political rule by tendency has sought some sort of cosy opportun Trotskyism. The events in tne bulk of Eastern a 'counterrevolutionary bureaucracy, are but ist accomodation with any internationai bloc Europe after the war are, in comparison, rela a 'flimsy barrier'! No, comrades, we stand with with which we have ,serious disagreements. That tively easy of analysis. The division of the historical interests of the working class is one, of the chief reasons why, in response to Europe by Stalin and Roosevelt and Churchill against Stalinism. Our supposedly finicky insistence on the qualitative distinction be our proposals of diSCUSSion, the OCI stone tween Lenin's state and Stalin'S is the very walled and the WSL ran away: they are afraid of basis of Trotskyism, the basis of our insist real political debate. ence on the necessity of the independent mobil As a final point, we cannot resist remarking isation of the working class behind parties that it does seem odd for our correspondent to of the Fourth International in deformed and rail about the 'right-wing' and 'unprincipled' degenerated workers states. A bureaucracy nature of the OCI, when he himself is a sup NAME ______ruling in place of the working class in a porter of ... the Workers League. Perhaps this ADDRESS ______workers state does not just sully the ideal of is another expression of the comrade's 'cyni communism; it sabotages the planned economy and cism'. If the Workers League, a state ______~OXE ______thereby holds back the development of the pro capitalist right split from the social ductive forces. And the nationalist anti democratic International Socialists, doesn't working-class policies of such a bureaucracy win the cup for 'right-wing' and 'unprincipled ' o Spartacist Britain: £1 for 12 issues undermine the struggle for world-wide politics on the British Trotskyoid left, this socialism. is only becaus~ it has so much competition from the likes of the Militant group, the Bulletin o JDint subscriptiDI: TO BE CONTINUED £4 for 24 issues WORKERS VANGUARD / group, the IMG, etc, etc. (fortnightly Marxist paper of SL/US) plus Which only goes to demonstrate that the SPARTACIST BRITAIN for duration of subscription title of our article on the founding of the plus SPARTACIST (iSt theoretical journal) Next issue: the WSL's distortion of the Spartacist League/Britain which aroused comrade Make payable/post to: Cuban events of 1959-1962 in the interests Crawford's objections -- 'The Rebirth of Spartacist Publications, PO Box 185, London lelB 8JE of a Kautskyist position on the state. British Trotskyism' -- was not 'pretentious' at all; it was plain truth .•
JULY-AUGUST 1978 5
r End of the road for Working Women's Charter -'
The third (and probably last) conference of alise that there was really no way forward. bourgeois market. researcher. 'In 1974 we had an the Working W.omen' s Charter Campaign (\¥WCC), The Charter campaign was never the basis for open field', they say. But since then other held in Manchester on June 17, had an unmistak a real Leninist united front -- an agreement for products (eg the 'socialist-feminist' movement) ably funereal air about it. Where in 1976 three practical, concrete action -- nor did it pos have come onto the market: 'The Charter Cam hundred delegates attended the first national sess the communist programme which can bring paign could not hope to compete with these conference, this year attendance peaked at women's emancipation through proletarian revol forms of organiSing the fightback' (IMG leaflet, about 60 and shrank to less than half that by ution. Rather it was a bloc between union bu 'What we need is a change of directioq'). The day's end. reaucrats, left-wing organisations and femin IMG's solution is to 'breathe new life' into The conference began in lacklustre fashion ists (with the latter two doing all the donkey its 'invalid' by ... agreeing to have another with a series of dreary report-backs, then work) for making reformist propaganda for conference in the autumn, where participhnts tailed off from there. Delegates from the two women's rights. By 1976, when this bloc had could discuss launching some kind of 'co-ordi fake-Trotskyist organisations which have been failed to attract the hoped-for 'masses', its nating' newspaper. the recent mainstay of the campaign, the Inter more left-wing components (Workers Power and The IMG is a sizeable enough centrist organ~ national Marxist Group (IMG) and the much the I-CL) began to argue that the Charter isation to have many more swamps to play in smaller Workers Power (WP) grouping, squabbled should be 'amended', in an attempt to make it than the WWCC. But for Workers Power, the death for a few hours over their respective proposals slightly less blatantly reformist. But the ever of a campaign into which it had pumped a great for 'reorienting' the moribund campaign. At the. rightward-moving IMG and its independent deal of organisational energy comes as ,a rather end of the day, . after having lost the vote on 'socialist-feminist' bloc,partners refused to large blow. With the Charter clearly on its its proposals, the Workers Power delegation an go along with any changes at the 1977 confer last legs, WP struck a very left pose at the, nounced that it was withdrawing from the cam ence, thus ensuring that the WWCC remained as conference, in order to have an excuse to jump paign and walked out -- leaving twenty-six minimalist and inoffensive as possible. ship when its proposals were rejected. people huddled together on their fold-down Workers Power and the I-CL began from the WP presented yet another new programme for chairs exchanging uneasy glances. (obvious) observation that the creation of a the campaign at the conference, one which was Despite the continued adherence of the IMG mass communist women's movement, based solidly superfici~lly very militant and introduced with and a few 'socialist-feminist' independents, on the revolutionary programme and rooted in the rhetorical flourishes about 'the struggle for the campaign's future looks bleak indeed. But proletariat, is not an immediate possibility in socialism' and the need to 'adopt a distinctive while the faithful few at the conference could Britain today. Their conclusion however was a and effective strategy'. This programme was not help but realise that they had a loser on typically opportunist one: to try to convince significantly more left-wing than both the pre their hands, they all sought to ignore or dis the rest of the 'far left' and 'socialist-fem sent Charter and WP's proposed amendments of miss the real explanation for the failure of inists' to join them in cobbling together a last year. This led both the IMG's Socialist the Working Women's Charter Campaign, advanced watered-down, reformist version of a mass work Challenge and the I-CL-supported Workers' Ac- on the floor of the conference by the Sparta ing-class women's movement (which would be bap tion to heap scornful charges of ultimatism on cist League. tised a 'united front' to quieten uneasy mem the WP draft p rograJ!UDe. bers). Once this reformist mass had somehOW However, a careful reading of the programme been assembled, they reasoned, they would be and the other material issued by Workers Power What was the Working Women's Charter? able to provide a left wing within it. at the conference reveals that the organisation The Working Women's Charter was originally a The sorry fate of the WWCC is one more proof has not executed any kind of fundamental left brainchild of the Communist Party-dominated of the bankruptcy of this classic centrist turn. WP insists that the old Charter ('a piti London Trades Council in 1974. It was a list of 'strategy'. For WP and the I-CL work around the ful list of inadequate demands') or its own reform demands which, as they referred to both Charter was a substitute for making communist 1977 proposal 'might have validity as a limited the home and the workplace, had a' spurious propaga'Dda1or
6 SPARTACIST BRITAIN that sex, and not progY'amrne, determines who Stalinist bureaucracy than the working masses. state henchmen must be freed now! Those really fights for women's liberation. Commu A large number of them were, in fact, at one 'guilty' of nothing but membership of the IRA, nists seek to unite class-conscious men and time Khrushchevite advocates of self-reform by which is proscribed by the imperialist govern women in this battle; in contrast, WP sees the bureaucracy who lost faith as a result of ment, along with those whose offences have been working WOmen as a pressure group, and en the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. 'proven' merely by 'statements' exacted in the dorses a modified concept of 'sisterhood ' as With futile hopes of liberalization of the torture chambers must likewise be released primary. This is not the road to women's bureaucracy having soured, a section of the immedi a tely. liberation. Soviet intelligentsia turned toward the West. The Spartacist League demands the immediate Despite its pathetic inadequacies, however, For these individuals, the prospect of emi and unconditional withdrawal of British troops the WWCC once enjoyed a prestige which made it gration seemed preferable to the maintenance from Ireland -- not merely a 'declaration of the envy of the countless other campaigns pro of the oppressive Stalinist regime of Brezhnev intent' to withdraw by the government, as moted by the British left. Labour bureaucrats & Co. Thus they have appealed to Cold War demanded by the Provisional IRA. Imperialism's were happy to lend an appearance of success to sabre-rattlers such as US Senator Jackson to entire repressive apparatus in the Six Counties an organisation which so accommodatingly use imperialist blackmail (eg the threat of must be smashed -- from its Loyalist shock covered for their failure to take concrete cutting off wheat shipments) whose real victims troops in the RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment action on behalf of women workers. The Charter would be the Soviet people. Although certainly to its hellish prisons and concentration camps. campaign could benefit only briefly from this many revolutionaries can be recruited from When a Republican militant shoots a British trade, of course. The unique appeal which it among Soviet intellectuals, particularly soldier or an informer or bombs a, military once possessed for the labourist' British left students, as a social stratum this grouping is barracks, however much we may disagree tacti is difficult to credit now as we observe it in extremely susceptible to the corrupting influ cally with his action we do not regard it as in its unglamorous death throes. ences of both the Stalinist bureaucracy and any sense 'criminal'. Our criticisms of adven The final passing of the WWCC may have the liberal bourgeois ideOlogy. turism and militarism as a strategic substitute appearance of being of importance only to the For the Soviet working masses it is entirely for the mass mobilisation of the working class few members of the British family of fake~ different. They have nothing to gain and every in no way prevent us from demanding that these Trotskyism who have remained with the patient thing to lose from the restoration of capital so-called 'criminals' must not rot one day to the end in order to squabble over the re ism. Except under the most extreme conditions, longer in Britain's gaols. mains. But in fact it is an event which it is unlikely that the pro-imperialist sharply outlines the failure of these osten blathering of the dissident intellectuals like Communal terror and imperialist terror. sible revolutionaries to pursue a class line Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn could win any broad in the fight against women's oppression. As the credence among the Soviet proletariat. The But the activities of the Provisional IRA life-support system provided by the fake first condition for the building of a general, are not limited to attacks on direct imperial Trotskyists gradually drains away, the correct powerful workers opposition to the Stalinist ist targets. The Provisionals are a petty response is not to pray for reincarnation like bureaucracy must be the rooting out of such bourgeois, ant~-working-class o~ganisation the IMG, nor to beat a hasty exit like WP and corrosive influences. Klebanov and the victim which has a sordid history of sectarian viol the I-CL, but .to draw the necessary political ized Soviet workers must be defended against ence against innocent members of the Ulster lessons. the rapacious persecution of the Brezhnevites, Protestant community. but there can be no quarter given to appeals to Such actions as the bombing of the La Mon Women's liberation through proletarian the imperialist 'democracies' against the restaurant earlier this year, or the sectarian revolution.! Soviet degenerated workers state. murders of innocent working people simply be The dissident Soviet workers have two cause they are Protestant, are thoroughly choicesl)'efore them. On the one hand, they may inimical to the interests of the working class. pursue a bloc with the pro-imperialist dissi The fact that many Protestant workers in the dents. Such a course would be not only a be North currently support the presence of trayal of the interests of the Soviet masses British troops and are relatively privileged but also an inestimable gift to the Stalinist compared to the Catholics does not make IRA USSR 'free' bureaucra~y in its cynical attempts to pass communal terror any less anti-working-class itself off before the Soviet people as de~ than communal violence by Protestant gangs like fenders of the October Revolution. The Soviet the Ulster Volunteer Force . trade unions ••• workers' disgust at the Orlovs and Sakharovs is When a Republican patrol stops a mini bus, (Continued from page 8) a perverted but also just expression of their questions its occupants about their religion hatred of imperialism and attachment to the the intervention of the ILO (which includes the and murders all the Protestants, it is not tremendous achievements of the Russian Revol representatives of employers organizat'ionsand striking a blow against imperialism. Rather it ution. Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev & Co have capitalist governments) and the Western i!1lI!eri is strengthening the hand of the i~erialists alwayS" smr~~ay7a-n'-OIfJlOtlenT§'tO'1ffie'T£c-'" alist powers (co-signatories of' the H~isi;ki·-,~-r -bi~driving Protest~ant' ;orker~ ~;er deeper into anti-working-class regimes as lackeys of accords) . the arms of their reactionary, pro-imperialist imperialism. In the face of the fundamental hostility of misleaders. Or, alternatively, the dissident workers can the capitalrst states to the very existence of The perpetrators of sectarian terror, both follow the necessary course of judiciously t,he workers states, it is indispensable to Orange and Green, can only be dealt with justly opposing the excesses of the bureaucracy while distinguish between working-class opposition to by the class-conscious proletariat -- above all explaining to the Soviet masses th~ principled bureaucratic usurpation of the Russian Revol through the formation of integrated workers means by which the original goals of October ution and imperialist opposition to the revol defence squads, which are necessarily both can be recreated. ution itself. No proletarian opposition to the anti-sectarian and anti-imperialist. The occu The pseudo-Trotskyist USec and OCI, left Kremlin can be built without a firm commitment pying forces of British imperialism cannot mete social democrats and 'Eurocommunists' all con to defending the conquests of the October out real justice, for their 'order' is in ciliate the pro-imperialist dissident currents. Revolution. The 'Free Trade Union Association' herently unjust and reactionary. Only authentic Trotskyism, as represented by does weakly take up this point, writing: 'We The 'order' which imperialism 'seeks to the international Spartacist tendency, with its have lost confidence in the Procurator of the impose on Northern Ireland is the 'order' of firm insistence on the need for defense and ex USSR as an organ which will stand guard over the baton, the fist and the gun. The ~ctions of tension of the gains of October, through pol- the gains of October .•. ' ('A Collective Com Britain's armed gendarmes -- guilty of cen i tical revolution against the Stalinist, plaint'). (This document, incidentally, was not turies of mass terror against the oppressed usurpers, provides a banner around which the reprinted by the AFL-CIO or Amnesty Inter masses of six continents -- have always been Soviet proletariat can rally., national.) But the dissident workers group then and continue to be infinitely more criminal turns around and in effect .appeals to capital Reprinted from Worke~ Vanguard no 207.26 May 1978 than the worst sectarian atrocities of the IRA ist governments, State Department socialists or even of the right-wing UVF. and reactionary union leaders who are mortal Only the forging of a revolutionary vanguard enemies of the Russian Revolution. party which shatters sectarian barriers and If the victimized workers believe what is Northern Ireland ... unites Catholic and Protestant workers against written in their complaint and in their refer British imperialism and the domestic Orange and ences to socialist property, then their appeal (Continued from page 1) Green capitalists can show the way forward for the toiling masses of Ireland. An Irish workers to anti-Communist forces in the West is self state, and Marxists support any measures which republic, part of a socialist federation of the defeating; if this is but a cover to ward off can partially alleviate the brutal, de human British Isles, is the only state which can charges of anti-Sovietism, then it still shows ising conditions of prison life. Moreover, Long provide true order, justice and freedom for the the strength of the Soviet workers' attachment Kesh is far from an ordinary gaol -- it is a working people of both communities. to their ~evolution. And if the dissident concentration camp into which the British occu The Irish revolutionary vanguard will be workers have not yet realized how decisive this pation army throws its political opponents, built in implacable struggle against not only issue is, they should see how their appeals to, most of whom are guilty of absolutely no crimes Orange Loyalism but also Green Republicanism. anti-Communist forces in the West have added, from the standpoint of the proletariat. In However, even as they raise high the red grist to the imperialist propaganda mills. raising the demand for 'special category' pol banner of proletarian internationalism, the Genuine Soviet trade unions will never be worth itical status, the Republican prisoners are communists of Ireland will uphold the best a kopeck to the workers as defensive organs to rejecting the 'right' of the British state to traditions of those who, in however flawed or regain and defend Soviet liberties unless they classify them as criminal. Such a campaign is partial a manner, sought to fight against 0" are bulwarks against capitalist restoration! appropriate and supportable. British imperialism. In particular, those who It is not surprising that the first organ But by itself it is clearly insufficient. were gaoled or martyred for their struggles ized stirrings of opposition among Soviet The belief, propounded by the Provos and their will be avenged in the future Irish workers workers would be infected with the right-wing fake-left camp followers in Britain, that this state -- including the militants who campaign ideology of the,broader dissident mOvement, demand should be the focus of solidarity ac heroically today in the hellholes of Long Kesh. from tsarist Black Hundreds fanatics like tivities because it is 'realisable' gives de Solzhenitsyn to pro-imperialist liberals like facto recognition to the 'right' of British Free all victims of imperialist repression in Sakharov. Most of the current generation of imperialism to maintain its repressive appar Ireland! dissidents are drawn from a petty:"bourgeois atus in Ireland. The workers movement must Troops out now! Not Green against Orange but stratum of intellectuals, artists, pro~ recognise no such 'rights' for British imperi class against class! fessionals and government officials which in alism. Every Republican militant imprisoned for Smash imperialism's prisons -- for the social composition far more resembles the fighting British imperialism and its Loyalist proletarian justice of a workers republic!
JULY-AUGUST 1978 7 , '1 BRITAIN .-' '-Free'trade unions in USSR?
Last November a group of dissident Soviet the same capitalist mouthpieces which denounce workers held a press conference before foreig~ 'greedy unions' in the West are protesting the journalists in Moscow. The following month the victimization of Klebanov and his comrades. group, claiming some 200 members, announced the The George Meany gang was quick to echo the formation of the Free Trade Union Association Guardian and its counterparts in the American of Workers in the Soviet Union and has since bourgeoisie. The latest issue of the AFL-CIO managed to smuggle several documents out of the Free Trade-Union News (May 1978) has a front country to Amnesty International. Subsequently, page article, commenting on the Soviet according to Western press reports, a Committee workers, entitled 'We Want to Tell of Our Unim for the Free Trade Union of Workers of the USSR aginable, Inhuman Suffering .... ' The virulently was formed in mid-April (Los Angeles Times 3 anti-communist AFL-(;IO draws the conclusion: 29 April) . ' ... it is now also increasingly clear that The"first appearance in years of an organ whereas the proletarians of most "bourgeois" ized grouping of Soviet dissident workers has countries have fought for -- and won -- their created an international stir far out of pro workers' rights and material well-being, the portion to the group's limited impact in the workers in that bastion of Marxism -- the USSR USSR. Widely disparate elements, ranging from -- are still fettered by the most inhuman the conservative bourgeois press and the reac chains of social injustice and poverty'. tionary Meany bureaucracy of US unions to left On the left, the response has been more wing Labour MPs in Britain and the fake muted. But Eric Heffer, a leader of left Labour Trotskyist 'United Secretariat', have all Party MPs, urged both the British trade unions rushed forward to uncritically embrace the and the International Labor Organization to cause of the rebellious workers. Bum what is Founders of 'Free Trade Union' in Moscow. Left, Vladimir press for an investigation of the Soviet this 'free trade union' movement and what does Klebanov. unions. In a letter to the GUardian (19 March) it stand for? Heffer attempted to distinguish himself from complaints against bureaucratic abuse and cor The materials made public so far, prepared the right wing, whose ostensible support for ruption, followed by retaliation against the from the group's documents by Amnesty Inter the Soviet workers he termed the 'height of workers involved. Maria Dvoretskaya, a worker national's research department, shed little hypocrisy'. Heffer asserted that the Soviet in Alma Ata, appealed on behalf of her husband, light on their ideological predisposition. worker dissidents 'do not in any way want to who had been ruled 'mentally non-accountable' Almost all the material made public is of a restore capitalism or involve themselves in descriptive character, detailing the per and 'socially dangerous' and put into an insti tution as a result of incidents regarding his ideological conflict with the Soviet auth secutions and abuses suffered by individual orities, but simply demand to freely signing o~ statements complai~ing of thefts and members of the group at the hands of the Soviet organize ..... ' Meanwhile, the United Secretariat bureaucracy. According to Amnesty Inter fraudulent wage payments to non-exiStent workers at a creamery and, later, a shoe fac (USec), which indiscriminately lauds anyex national, the 'group began its existence pression of 'dissent' in the deformed workers tory. Varvara Kucherenko, who worked at a through the accidental meetings of unemployed states, simply published information from the' curing plant in Dagestan, was demoted and then workers,who had come to Moscow to press their Amnesty International documents with no criti fired for exposing the administration and complaints in Person at the offices of the cisms whatsoever. And the ostensibly Trotskyist trade-union committee in her plant for stealing highest party government and legal auth- French Organisation Communiste International goods. She was later detained by the police and ori ties'. iste (OCI) gave blanket political support to also incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. The first written public appeal to arrive these dissident Soviet workers: outside the Soviet Union was issued 20 May In its appeal, 'To World Public Opinion, On 'It is an imperative duty of the internatio~al the Real Situation of the Workers and Employees 1977, signed by eight workers. The May 'open workers movement to give its support, without letter' cited 35 workers in different cities on the Eve of the 60th Anniversary Of the USSR' reservations, to these courageous fighters for who had been thrown into prisons and psychi (18 September 1977), the Soviet 'Free Trade basic working-class freedom.' (Informations atric hospitals for 'exercising their right to Union' group writes: CUVri21'6S. 12-19 April) , complain'. Since then the group has issued an 'We, Soviet people from different strata of Information about the Soviet workers' group appeal to the Belgrade conference concerning society, people of various nationalities from is sparse, and it is doubtful that its member various corners of the country, are forced to application of the 197~ Helsinki accords; a ship is homogeneous. There have been reported turn to the so-called "bourgeois press". Our 'collective complaint', issued on the 60th conflicts between it and other dissidents. leaders, our press, party and Soviet organs anniversary of the October Revolution; and an do not want to listen to us, honest toilers of Klebanov says he was rebuffed by physicist appeal to the International Labor Organization Soviet society, the producers of material Andrei Sakharov. 'They consider themselves (ILO). The appeal charges that between the time weal th, even though they, according to their above us', he said, referring to the petty of its first press conference in late November tasks and responsibilities, are obliged to bourgeois dissidents (Washington Post, 22 and the end of February ten workers who signed listen to us and to respond to our questions. ' January). However, the spokesman of the 'Com various of the documents were detained by And in its 'Collective Complaint' (7 November mittee for the Free Trade Union', Vsevolod police. Seven of the arrested members were 1977), the Association writes: 'It is the Kuvakin, now says that 'the cautious att~tude either missing or known to be in psychiatric sacred duty of every citizen of the USSR to shown by workers toward the intelligentsia ~as hospitals as of 27 February 1978. protect socialist property ang to protest gross been overcome'. In any case, at least tacitly Vladimir Klebanov, the principal spokesman violations of human rights.' It charges that the victimized workers have accepted the strat of the group, worked for 16 years as a foreman functionaries of the Communist Party (CPSU) egy of supporters of Western imperialism like at a coal mine in the Donetsk region of the 'watch-dog' commission for official abuses, the Sakharov by addressing their appeals to the Ukraine. The document's assert that Klebanov Central Committee Department of Administrative Belgrade conference, the ILO and anti-communist unsuccessfully attempted to organize an inde Organs, 'are guided by personal motives and not unions like the AFL-CIO. Thus they play into pendent trade union at the mine in 1960; in by the instructions of the party and the the hands of Jimmy Carter's 'human rights' 1968 he was,'dismissed from his job for refusing government' . ideological offensive against the USSR. to assign overtime to his workers or send them However, by far the most vociferous 'cham Trotskyists defend victimized workers such, onto jobs where he believed safety standards pions', of the cause of these Soviet workers as Klebanov and the others of his group against were not being observed. When he protested his have been the most die-hard opponents of both the bureaucratic arbitrariness and suppression dismissal, Klebanov was ruled mentally ill and SOCialism and trade unionism alike. For years by the Kremlin. And an integral part of our confined to a maximum security 'special psychi the CIA and other counterrevolutionary forces program for proletarian political revolution in atric hospital from 1968 to 1973. Since his have complained that the overwhelmingly petty-' the degenerated and deformed workers states is release he has been prevented from working, as bourgeois composition of the Soviet dissident the struggle for unions free from state control well as being detained in hospitals several movement makes it difficult to tout as rep -- as opposed to the present Soviet 'unions' more times. Klebanov was reportedly being held resentative of the Soviet people. Thus, the which are simply one more arm of the bureauc in a psychiatric hospital in Donetsk as of bourgeois press eagerly seized upon the forma racy (as is the 'party' as well). Trade unions February 28 where, according to the group, he tion of the Sovi'et 'free trade union associ are necessary even in a healthy workers state had been diagnosed during an earlier incarcer ation' ,particularly since its appeals were to guard against possible encroachments and ation as suffering from 'paranoid development directed to imperialist agenCies such as the abuses by the government, as well as to help of the personality' with a mania for 'strug ILO. Weeping crocodile tears over 'the extra plan production, work methods, etc. But genuine glirig for justice'. ordinary extent to which the USSR has been trade unions and soviets governed by the norms Other accounts provided by the group outline harassing and imprisoning ordinary working of workers democracy wlll not be built through roughly similar stories of individuals making folk' (Manchester Guardian Weekly, 2 March), continued on page 7
8 JULY-AUGUST 1978