A critical reappraisal
International Viewpoint 27 October 1986 c) the Trotskyist position on the deformed and degenerated workers states, including both defence of these imperialism the fight for political revolution.
We would of course add to this the organizational corollary of these positions - the fight to build the
International as the world party of socialist revolution. In our view, a regroupment of Trotskyist forces on this basis cannot go round
It is only natural that the WRP, expulsion of Gerry Healy from the Workers Revolu-
SINCE THE tionary Party (WRP) the organization has undergone further division and splits. (1)
However, a number of the old leaders of the WRP, such as Cliff
Slaughter, Geoff Pilling and Bill Hunter, remain in the organization and have embarked on a wide-ranging reappraisal and process of discussion with other organizations of the British left. This political openness, combined as it is with a preparedness to engage in broad- based joint work with other forces in the workers' movement, marks an important break from the past.
One discussion which has opened up in the pages of Workers Press, the WRP's weekly newspaper, is on the polities of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI), and on the problems of building the Trotskyist movement.
The following articles are an exchange of views between Paul
Stevens of the International Group and Cyril Smith, a long-time leader of the WRP.
What is
"Pabloism"?
WORKERS PRESS (July 15, 1986)
published the WRP resolution "Pertional. As supporters of the United
Secretariat of the Fourth International, this discussion can only be welcomed by us.
PAUL STEVENS
However, there are some formulations in the resolution which would prejudge the discussion to seem before it begins.
Your resolution affirms the "necessity to work out a definite attitude to the revisionist United Secretariat".
But why do you have to work out a definite attitude towards revisionists if you know a priori that they are
... revisionists?
document states that
Again, the
"unity should be the long term aim stand on the with all those who transitional programme, the history
22 of the permanent revolution and the fight against Pabloism". Leaving aside that it seems strange to put the fight against "Pabloism" on the same level as the transitional programme and the theory of permanent revolution, what
"Pabloism" and anybody, today embodies it?
This seems a relevant question to ask, especially since the WRP under Healy used the term Pabloism as an item of ignorant abuse to evade real discussion and a serious analysis of the wolld Trotskyist movement. Moreover, it was guilty of virtually every traditionally attributed to - capitulation to Stalinism, petty-bourgeois nationalism and so on.
reservations, method of the WRP resolution - that of seeking a regroupment on the basic programmatic planks of Trotskyism -seems to us to be correct.
We would pose these basic programmatic planks as:
the Leninist-Trotskyist strategy conquest of working-class power in the imperialist countries, including acceptance of the method of the transitional programme and of the united front;
theory of permanent in seeking to reorientate itself after the split with Healy, should seek to re-examine the history of the Trotskyist movement. But we would add a word of caution. A regroupment of Trotskyists is unlikely to take place on the basis of complete agreement about the history of the movement. Provided there is basic programmatic agreement, there can be many dif ferent shades and views on the history of the movement itself.
Certainly when the attempt was made to reunify the world Trotskyist movement, which led to the 1963 reunification of the International Secretariat forces and some of those which had been organized in the International Committee, it was prethe programmatic criterion, correctly in our view, which was used and not the criterion of a common assessment of the 1953-54 split. (2)
To seek common agreement on the history of the movement can only be an excuse for refusing to reach a principled programmatic regroupthe damaging dispersal of Trotskyist separation of the comrades now organized in the WRP from the USFI has its roots not only in the 1953 split, but in the refusal of Healy to participate in the 1963 reunification along with Pierre Lambert's group in France, the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste (OCI). (3)
See "End of the road for a sect", by Pete Clifford in International Viewpoint' No. 90, January 13, 1986.
2. After the 1953 split in the Fourth International, Gerry Healy's group Britain, along with the US Socialist Workers Party and others, formed the International Committee of the Fourth International, independent of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International.
Following from the international reunification conference in 1963, which formed the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI), Healy, and his international supporters and allies who rejected unification, claimed that they were con tinuing the International Committee.
3. The OCI - now known as the Parti Communiste Internationaliste (PCI), originated from the majority of the French section of the Fourth International, which split in 1952. They joined the International Committee after the 1953 split (see footnote 2 above), but subsequently broke with Healy in 1971 to form the Organizing Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International.
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BRITAIN after Healyism
International Viewpoint 27 October 1986
It is well worth addressing programmatic issues involved in dispute. In fact, the central issue was the refusal of Healy and Lambert to period, a workers' state had been established in Cuba, and their insistence that Cuba remained a capitalist state. While Lambert's OCI has, after more than 20 years, now recognised the existence of a workers' state in Cuba, to our knowledge Healy maintains this position to this very day.
This stubboress flies in the face of the facts. Today it is obvious that social relations established in Cuba by the mass moblilizations which led to the nationalization of economy between August and fundamentally identical to those which exist in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe -i.e. those of a workers' state.
By taking this stand reunification of the world Trotskyist movement on this issue, his face against a living revolution and constructed a sectarian shibboleth on which to base the separation of the WRP's predecessor, Labour League (SLL), mainstream of the world Trotksyist
In some of the writings in the SLL's Fourth International during that period, it seemed to be implied that only a section of the Fourth International could lead a successful overthrow of capitalism, a fundamentally secrarian theory, which did not prevent the WRP's subsequent gross opportunism on inter-
The opportunism of Healy towards bourgeois and petty-bourgeois East is well known. Less remembered is the "prettification" of the Chinese cultural revolution and the Vietnamese Communist Party by Mike Banda and others in the pages of the SLL's Newsletter.
But despite this latter-day international opportunism, the fundamental characteristic of the Healy-WRP
Line) sectarianism, sectarianism towards real revolutions, towards the real labour movement, towards the world Trotskyist
The sectarianism towards the world Trotskyist movement was by the catch-all accusation of Pabloism against the main forces of world Trotskyism. It is impossible to deal here with all the issues involved in "Pabloism". But we would insist point: it is necessary to make a distinction between some of the theories and practices of Pablo, especially those in the 1953 split - long repudiated by the world Trotskyist movement - and the politics of the United Secretariat.
Healy continued to make this amalgam, oblivious of the fact that Pablo had been expelled, and that no one accepted the obviously incorrect theories of Pablo in the early fifties "centuries of degenerated workers' states". transformation of the left wing of Stalinism into revolutionary parties and so on.
Ifoi the accusation of Pabloite liquidationism"' is to be made to stick, where the United Secretariat have "capitulated" to Stalinism, petty-bourgeois nationalism and so forth have to be produced, and real facts about how the United Secretariat gave up the fight to build revolutionary parties have to be enumerated.
Such evidence was never produced by the Healy camp.
One final point. In 1970, Healy, the International Frank, a leader of the United Secretariat, to propose a discussion to overcome the disunity of Trotskyists. Nothing ever came of it, and it seems likely it was part of an ill-thought-out
Healy spoke of the negative effects, the youth, dispersal of the Trotskyist movement Trotskyist organizations. On Healy had a good point. But if the disunity of those calling themselves Trotskyist is caused liquidationism, sect politics or whatever, course the division is justified.
If not, then disunity on a national and international level is an obstacle to making Trotskyism a real force in the workers movement, which we should all strive to overcome.
But a real discussion on this process will be difficult if it starts with accusations of
Gerry Healy (DR)
Does history matter? THE LETTER from Paul Stevens of the International Group raises ques tions which are vital for the future of the world Trotskyist movement.
There is no doubt that the expulsion of Gerry Healy from the WR opened the way for the movement internationally to discuss its problems openly and honestly, for the first time in several decades. CYRIL SMITH man's personal position. tion in the WRP reflected the emergence of objective conditions in which the position of Trotskyism in the workers' movement can be immeasurably advanced. The upheavals in many other organizations throughout world, among them the Inter-
Group [IMG previously the British section of the Fourth International], expressed the same conditions.
I think the violence of last year's explosions forces us to deeper than Stevens seems prepared to go.
Let me agree wholeheartedly with Stevens on three points before I begin:
that the term now become just a term of abuse; only foul up the discussion;
(ili) The characterization of Cuba (we never really explained just what kind) is nonsense.
when it comes to describing just how to go about the reorganization of the International, I find myself disagreeing with many of the points raised in the letter.
we seek unity basis of a few programmatic points?
the history of the United Secretariat itself contains enough lessons to answer this question with a decisive "no". It is not enough merely to try to overcome the "damaging dispersal" of the movement. To pose the problem this way is to suggest that the fragmentation of Trotskyism was caused by the failings of individuals. Were we just cantankerous, argumentative or big-headed? (Of course, Healy easily disposed of the whole problem: it was all the work of agents of someone or other.)
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I think that we are obliged to undertake a really objective study of the International's history, not just to find out who was to blame for its difficulties, or establish just who did what to whom, but to prepare a fundamental advance in theory.
In particular, the split of 1953 must be carefully examined. At the start, we merely rejected Pablo's innovations and defended "orthodox Trotskyism" Later, we began to deepen our understanding of the problems faced by the FI. But, as with so many such discussions, work was broken off and submerged in the small change of inter-group manoeuver.
The tendencies to adapt to Stalinism, social democracy or petit-bourgeois nationalism, which have characterized many in the FI since the late 1940's, were not the responsibility of Pablo or any other individual. They must be traced to the objective situation in which the movement found itself after the war.
We tried to fit the new world situation, in particular the apparent strength of Stalinism, into the framework of Trotsky's pre-war analysis. But this could not be done without major development of Marxist theory. Instead, we had at best some terminological experimentation, and at worst a series of attempts to find short-cuts to the building of revolutionary leadership.
Central to this was the tendency to place the responsibility for revolutionary leadership on to any shoulders other than our own. This implied the debasement of the whole of Marxism, its entire world outlook, and even the conception of socialism.
I was particularly struck by paul Stevens' statement: *It seemed to be implied that only a section of the Fourth International could lead a successful overthrow of capitalism, a fundamentally sectarian theory."
we cannot deny that capitalist property forms have been overthrown, and states set up to prevent their return, under the leadership of Stalinist parties, and, in the case of Cuba, of a petit-bourgeois nationalist one. In some cases, this involved the mobilization of masses of workers and peasants, but always under careful bureaucratic supervision. None of these overturns, in my opinion, constitutes a proletarian revolution like the one that took place in Russia. In not one case has the proletariat been led to take state power through its independent class action since the year 1917.
Call me sectarian if you will, but I contend that the transition to a socialist world demands the independent, conscious movement of the working class, and this is impossible without the construction of bolshevik parties, based on the most advanced theory. Only the Fourth International, fighting to take forward the theoretical work of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, can accomplish this task.
Unless we make this conception the bedrock of all our work, theoretical and practical, Stevens' "programmatic planks" are reduced to decorative ornaments.
So, while we must welcome wholeheartedly the renewed discussions about re-unifying the Trotskyist movement, I don't think Paul Stevens' approach to the question will do. An unkind observer could caricature it as "find the lowest common denominator and let bygones be bygones".
There is no way to grasp the chance now offered for constructing a unified International without tracing the history of the movement since the war, because only in this way can we uncover the objective problems which that history expressed.
We have to bring our theoretical armoury to the level demanded by the objective situation. Then we will be able to realise the opportunities which, I believe, have been in existence for three decades without being fully grasped. • The Fourth International CYRIL SMITH's reply to my letter on the history of the FI and Trotskyist regroupment, and especially the question of the United Secretariat - which the International Group supports - is serious and well-reasoned. PAUL STEVENS
It is particularly welcome that he states unequivocally that the characterization of Cuba as a bourgeois state by the Healy-WRP was wrong, and that the WRP should put aside such epithets as "Pabloite"
News
Line.
HEALY'S
G. HEALY
ULSION-
EXPELLED
NewS
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REDGRAVE ISSUES WRIT cemen
• and "revisionist" when discussing with the USFI.
On the questions on which he takes issue with me, in relation to the role of the FI and the basis of Trotskyist regroupment, I think that comrade Smith will find that there is more in common between us than he suspects.
Comrade Smith says he was "particularly struck" by a phrase in my letter in which I said it was a fundamentally sectarian theory that only a section of the FI could overthrow capitalism. He replies that "... it cannot be denied that capitalist property forms have been overthrown, and states set up to prevent their
News
Court keeps grip on
24 return, under Stalinist parties, and in the case of Cuba, a petty-bourgeois nationalist one ... [but] none of these overturns constitutes a proletarian revolution like the one that took place in Russia. In not one case has the proletariat been led to take state power through independent class action, since the year 1917." On this point I would tend to agree with what Cyril Smith says. International Viewpoint 27 October 1986
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Yes, since 1917 there have been bureaucratic overturns of capitalist social relations - bureaucratically deformed revolutions if you want to describe them that way - but in any case the establishment of deformed workers' states under nonTrotskyist leadership. The only point I was making was that the Healy theory of Cuba tended to deny that Cuba was a workers' state precisely because there were no soviets or a bolshevik party.
There is a second point on which there seems to be agreement with Cyril Smith, when he says: "Call me a sectarian if you will, but I contend that the transition to a socialist world demands the independent, conscious movement of the working class and that this is impossible without the construction of bolshevik parties, based on the most advanced theory. Only the Fourth International, fighting to take forward the theoretical work of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, can accomplish this task."
Well, I don't want to call Cyril Smith a sectarian because there is agreement that the transition to socialism requires the construction of a mass revolutionary international, and that the only way to fight for it is building bolshevik parties in every country as part of the Fourth International. I really don't see where we have a difference on this. Essentials for regroupment
On the final point though, 1 am still not sure how much agreement we have. This is the question of whether complete agreement on the history of the Trotskyist movement and its development is essential for Trotskyist regroupment. Cyril Smith says that an unkind observer might say my position was one of "find the lowest common denominator and let bygones be bygones". - Well, an unkind commentator might, but not with much justice. The point I was making is that complete agreement on the history of the movement is unlikely to be achieved. Why should complete agreement about the 1953 split be essential to regroupment, if basic programmatic agreement on the major issues of the world revolution and the building of Marxist parties is achieved?
The history of our own movement is one which of course should be studied, to help us enrich our understanding of building mass revolutionary parties. And it is a history upon which it may well be possible to draw up some preliminary common
International Viewpoint 27 October 1986 assessments. But complete agreement? That is, to say the least, unlikely, just as much as even complete agreement about the history of the Third International is unlikely.
Let's give some examples. Were Rosa Luxemburg and the Spartacists right to split from the centrist USPD [Independent Social Democratic Party] in Germany in December 1918, or should they have stayed in longer to win the USPD majority more rapidly to the Comintern? (4) Did Trotsky always adopt the correct tactics to fight the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party between 1923 and 1926? Was he too slow in taking up the fight against the Stalin-ZinovievKamenev triumvirate? And did he make too many concessions on the China question in the early stages of the controversy?
Surely there is room for disagreement inside the Trotskyist movement on these questions. But there is no room for disagreement that Luxemburg and the Spartacists were right to fight to win the USPD centrists to communism, or that Trotsky's fight against the degeneration of the Bolshevik Party and the Comintern was historically correct, because these basic points inform central programmatic questions (the fight against centrism, the struggle for revolutionary Marxism against Stalinism).
We therefore have to sort out the basic historical questions from the secondary ones: the historical questions which are central from the point of view of determining programme, and those which can be discussed and disputed by those who share the same basic programme.
My original letter was given an unfortunate title by the editors of Workers Press: "Historical agreement not necessary for Trotskyist regroupment" Posed that way the statement is an absurdity. In a certain sense the Trotskyist programme is nothing else but the summing up of the history of the international working class movement. But the criterion of separating out basic questions which affect programme from secondary ones has to be applied to the history of the Trotskyist movement itself.
For example, it surely must be agreed, as a basis for regroupment, that the Trotskyist movement was correct when it gave unswerving support to the Hungarian Revolution. This question affects a basic programmatic question, the struggle against Stalinism and for the political revolution. But is complete agreement on the "Open Letter" of Cannon in 1953 a question of the same order? Or that the tactics of Healy toward the Bevanites were absolutely right, wrong, or partially right or wrong, a necessary basis for regroup-
Leon Trotsky (DR) ment? (5)
Of course there have been programmatic disputes inside the Trotskyist movement. But it is a feature of
"Trotskyism" that it has sectarian raised each and every dispute in the Trotskyist movement to one of world historic principle, thus failing to distinguish between programmatic questions and secondary questions of tactics and assessment, and in the process grossly inflating the real influence and the ability to change the real world of the Trotskyist movement.
By all means, comrade Smith, let's trace the development of the movement. But let's make sure in the process that we sort out the basic historical wood from the secondary historical trees.
4. The UPD was formed by some deputies in the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) in January 1917, after they had voted against or abstained on new war credits. They wavered back and forth between the SPD and the Spartacists. Its leadership eventually returned to the SPD after the war, while many of the rank and file of the USPD joined the Communist Pahe term "Bevanites" describes a Let-eine usent, led about Payer
1950s, led by Aneurin Bevan.
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