Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 01:56:48 -0500
Subject: M-G: Revolutionary regroupment or centrist alchemy?(Part 2) 


Continued from Part 1..

"The 'gang of eight' was capable of sweeping away Yeltsin in
 its pathetic excuse for a putsch because, as we wrote, it was a
 'perestroika coup'. But both imperialism and the forces of
 internal counterrevolution were aligned on Yeltsin's side. The
 coup plotters were not only irresolute but didn't want to unleash
 the forces that could have defeated the more extreme coun-
 terrevolutionaries, for that could have led to a civil war if the 
 Yeltsinites really fought back. And in an armed struggle pitting
 outright restorationists against recalcitrant elements of the
 bureaucracy, defense of the collectivized economy would have
 been placed on the agenda whatever the Stalinists' intentions."
 --Workers Vanguard no 535, 27 September 1991

The WIL/LTT today openly acknowledge that Yeltsin's
countercoup was the key event in the destruction of the Soviet
Union, deriding the ICL because we did not immediately 
declare at the time that the Soviet Union had ceased to be a
degenerated workers state. While recognising that the state
power had been decisively fractured by the August events, we 
looked to spark working-class action in defense of collecti-
vised property. The ICL distributed tens of thousands of 
copies of our leaflet "Soviet Workers: Defeat Yelysin-Bush
Counterrevolution!" It was only when it became clear that the
working class, which had been atomised and its conciousness
thrown back by decades of Stalinist bureaucratic misrule, was
not going to move against Yeltsin that we said that the Soviet
workers state had been definitely destroyed.

And what was the position of the WIL/LTT, which now
prides itself on recognising that the victory of Yeltsin spelled
the end of the Soviet degenerated workers state, at the time of
Yeltsin's countercoup? While taking out Workers Power for
their call for a "united front" with Yeltsin (and effectively
demolishing WP's inane denial that capitalism has been
restored) the LTT nonetheless declared that "those supporters
of the LRCI and the WRP/Workers Press who appeared at the
barricades were entirely correct to do so" (Workers News no 
46,August 1993). Small wonder: at bottom the LTT had 
exactly the same position as Workers Power, albeit dressed in
somewhat different verbiage.

In  In Defence of Marxism (no 3,June 1995) they write:

 "...as at August 19, 1991--the most important task was to
 defend the democratic rights of the working class and the
 mimority nations against the immediate threat of the coup, by
 mobilising for a general strike, and, if conditions had ripened, 
 by organising an armed uprising....
 "The success of such a policy presurposed a willingness to fight
 in a military bloc alongside Yeltsin and his supporters. Simular 
 tactics were applicable towards the nationalists in the non-
 Russian republics, most of whom sat out the coup in cowardly
 neutrality."

In the name of "democratic rights" the LTT not only proposed
"a temporary bloc with the Yeltsinites"--but denounced
the various reactionary nationalist regimes (many of which,
like in the Baltics, were filled with fascists), for not actively
participating!

As for the LCMRCI group, when they left Workers
Power's international in 1995 they excoriated the LRCI's call 
"for a 'united front' with Yeltsin without conditions" as
tantamount to a "united front" with imperialism. True enough.
But this didn't stop the LCMRCI group in New Zealand from
proposing the possibility of a "military block" with Yeltsin,
offering that if Yelysin "broke with the bourgeisie", revolu-
tionaries would have demanded that he call for a general strike.
In  other words, their "opposition" to the LRCI's line of
unconditional support to Yelysin's counterrevolution was a call
for a "united front"" with Yeltsin...under certain conditions.

Nonetheless, the LCMRCI still has problems in squaring
their condemnation of Workers Power with their fusion with
the LTT which had a virtually identical position. At a 15
December London public meeting on "regroupment", the
LCMRCI's (John Doe) tried to discover a "class line" between
WIL and Workers Power's attitude to Yeltsin. To this end,
(John Doe) cited an LTT statement issued after Yeltsin took power,
proclaiming that "while a military bloc with Yeltsin and his
supporters would have been appropriate had the August Coup
developed into a civil war, there could have been no united 
front with a restorationist government bent on the destruction
of the workers state" (In defence of Marxism no 4, May 
1996).  Only a centrist manoeverer, loking for a home in a 
bigger swamp, could find a principled difference in the LTT's
"opposition" to a united front with a restorationist government
when it was quite prepared to line up with Yeltsin in creating
just such a government.

"Workers Aid to Bosnia"

Capitalist counterrevolution and the resulting destruction
of the Yugoslav bureaucratically deformed workers state has
brought the Balkan peoples all-sided communalist massacres,
fuelled by contending imperialist rivilries and intervention. As
proletarian internationalists, we have opposed all of the
competing nationalist forces in the wars that have raged in the
former Yugoslavia, while militarily defending the Bosnian 
Serbs against imperialist attacks. We have stood against all
forms of imperialist intervention, including under the UN flag,
and called for an end to the economic embargo of Serbia.

Most of the centrist and reformist left lined up behind one 
communalist force or another and, at least tacitly, behind
imperialist intervention. Workers Power, the United Secretar-
iat and the WIL/LTT all boosted "workers Aid to Bosnian",
which was a stalking  horse for NATO/UN intervention on the
Bosnian Muslim side. This repeated call to "loft the arms
embargo of Bosnia" was simply a thinly veiled call for the
imperialists to arm the Bosnian Muslim forces. The LCMRCI
split from Workers Power as a puported "left opposition"
after the latter flagrantly refused to call for defence of the
Bosnian Serbs against NATO bombing in the summer of
1995. Denouncing his former organisation's support to the 
Bosnian Muslims in the Balkan conflagration, LCMCRI 
leader (John D) wrote that "all sides were reactionary" and
called for "defeatism on both sides and the transformation of
an inter-ethnic slaughter into a class war" (Workers News no
56, March-April 1996). But now this put to one side, as
(John D's) LCMRCI prepares to join forces with the LTT, which
called for support to the Bosnian Muslims (and earlier
Croatia) in the nationalist fratricide.

Bosnia is not a nation and there is not a Bosnian "people".
As part of the former Yugoslavia, prior to the communalist
slaughter of recent years, the population of Bosnia consisted
of a mix of Slavic Muslims, Croats and Serbs living together
within the samr territory. In such situations, there can be no
"democratic solution" within the confines of capitalism where
"self determination" of one peoples take place through
denying that right to another, through bloody "ethnic cleans-
ing". The only just solution to the Balkin crisis lies in
socialist revolution to sweep away all the reactionary regimes
and establish a socialist federation of all the Balkans. Above all
this task requires the building of revolutionary Trotskyist 
parties, bound together by the principles of proletarian
internationalism.

Tailing laborism "Old" and "New"..

A strategic task for genuine revolutionaries is to break the
stranglehold of Laborism on the working class. For much of
the so-called "far left" in Britain, however, the very idea of
breaking from Labor is unthinkable. This has been brought 
home in their reactions to the formation of Arthur Scargill's
SLP. WIL is cravenly loyal to Labor, and hostile to Scargill's
break from the Labor Party. they admit that New Labour's
election material is a "bosses charter", and that "Labour's
pro-imperialism is stronger than ever" (Workers News no 58,
October-November 1996) but advocate that workers must vote
for it, and therefore against the SLP, come hell or high water.
Others like the International "Bolshevik" Tendency (IBT)
have simply liquidated into the SLP (or partly liquidated as in 
the case of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).

The formation of the SLP as a split from the Labour Party
represents a challenge to the hegemony of the Labour Party
over the workers movement. As such it provides a potential
opening for a Marxist party to intervene and to demonstrate
the neccessity for an authentic Leninist Party by exacerbating
the contradictions between the aspirations and the interests of the
working class base of the Labour Party and its pro-capitalist
leaders. That is the basis upon which the Spartacist League/
Britain has sought to intervene into the developments in and
around the SLP.

While maintaining our own political independence, SL/B 
comrades have actively campaigned for the SLP candidates in
Hemsworth and Barnsley East, noting that their platforms
addressed felt needs of working people, and that they stood in
opposition to Tony blair's "New" Labour Party. Together
with going door-to-door with SLP members and distributing
their election materials, we also intervened in SLP election
meetings where we distributed our own leaflet calling for
critical support to the SLP candidates and sold our newspaper
Workers Hammer. While the IBT, the CPGB and others are
busily engaged in internecine manoeuvering for internal
influence in the SLP, we made it clear our fundemental disagree-
ment with the political programme of the SLP, which is one of
"Old" Labour reformism, tacitly accepting the framework of
British imperialism and its parlimentry institutions. We
counterpose the need for a Leninist party committed to the
revolutionary overthrow of British imperialism and the
establishment of a federation of workers republics in the
British Isles.

As for the WIL, they have a history of attacking Scargill
>from the right. Thus they published a Stalinophobic denuncia-
tion of Scargill's SLP by Al richardson, which rails that the
SLP "appears to be mesmerised by Stalinism" and refers to ex-
Communist Party members now in the SLP as "the fag ends of
the most sevile defenders of the old Russian bureaucracy"
(Workers News no 57, May-June 1996). Here is a measure of
the commitment to "democratic socialism" (otherwise known
as social-democratic betrayal) of the Laborite left in Britain.
Harsh words for Stalinism--which even the imperialists
proclaim is dead--from those who amnesty that servile
instrument of British imperialism, the Labour Party. Nothing
new here for the WIL, which has never repudiated their
past role as servants of Gerry Healy and his vicious anti-
Communist attacks on the miners union leader.

As for the Committee for Revolutionary Regroupment
(CRR), they split from the British USec rejecting the latter's
purposed fusion with Militant. As cheerleaders for green
nationalism, the CRR couldn't stomach Militant's fawning
over notorious Ulster Loyalist paramilitary figures such as
Billy Hutchinson. Yet the CRR retains the USec's commit-
ment to support for and "entry" work in Blair's Labour Party,
while turning a blind eye to Blair's enthusiasm for Loyalist
leaders like David Trimble, who last year stood at the head of
some of the largest Loyalist mobilisations against Chatholics
which has beeen seen for years in Northern Ireland.

In this centrist lash-up, WIL and the CRR are wedded to
Blair, yet the LCMRCI calls for a vote to the SLP, having
declared that "The creation of the SLP represents the most
important left wing split from Labour in more than sixty
years" (International Bulletin no.1, Augusy 1996). None-
theless, the LCMRCI still calls for a vote to Tony Blair's
Labour Party in constituencies where the SLP is not standing.

The Leninist tactic of the united front v the
"anti-imperialist united front"..

Our intervention and concrete work around the SLP
candidacies in Hensworth and Barnsley East were an applica-
tion of the tactic of critical support proposed by Lenin in 1920
as a means for a small communist vanguard to "det a hearing"
>from the masses. Critical support is an application of the tactic
of the united front: by proposing urgent united action around
concrete issues in defense of the working class, the young
Communist parties sought to win the mass of workers who 
retained allegiance to the reformist social-democratic parties,
proving in struggle the superiority of the communist pro-
gramme and leadership. Through the clash of opiomion in open
political debate and common action the conciousness of the
working class is raised and the workers can be broken from
their reformist misleaders and their centrist tails. The ICL
bases itself on this Leninist tradition, summed up in the slogan
"march seperately, strike together", because our aim is to fight
for proletarian state power.

In his1934 piece on "Centrism and the Fourth Interna-
tional" Leon Trotsky desdribed how a "centrist swears readily
by the policy of the united front, emptying it of its revolution-
ary content and transforming it from a tactical method into a
surpreme principle". These words aptly describe, the LTT,
whose lengthy tones about the "united front" serve as a
justfication for supporting class-collaborationist alliances.

Independence for the working class from their exploiters is
the fundemental principle of revolutionary Marxism. Yet the
LTT not only calls for electoral support to workers parties in
popular-front coalitions with the parties of the bourgeoisie but
even gives electoral support to bougeois nationalist parties.
In the 1994 elections in South Africa, WIL called for a vote to 
the nationalist popular-front "tripartite alliance" of the ANC,
Communist Party and COSATU (Congress of South African
Trade Unions). Yet, even at the time they openly admitted that 
" the ANC has ceased to be a national liberation movement,
and has become an increasingly conservative bourgeois
nationalist party, readt to give white-dominated South African
capitalism a black political face" (Workers News no 50, May
June 1994).

This is characteristic of centrists. They are quite capable of
a perfectly correct "analysis" from which they draw absolutely 
no practical revolutionary conclusions. On the contrary they
act, in practice, in a manner indistinguishable from organisa-
tions to their right. As Trotsky noted, "Centrists talk a lot
about the 'masses' and always end up orienting themselves
towards the reformist apparatus." The LTT uses this centrist
rationale for their capitulation to anti-proletarian forces. Thus,
their South African group Comrades for a Workers Govern-
ment (CWG) tries to justify supporting the ANC with the
arguement that it "has a mass proletarian following".

In the South African elections we called for a vote to the
Workers List Party (WLP). While noting that the WLP's
programme did not go beyond the bounds of left reformism, 
we wrote:

 "The question of political organisation of the proletariat,
 independent from and in opposition to the nationalist ANC, is
 a key strategic question for South Africa today. In this regard,
 the WLP does draw a crude class line and a vote for it will be
 seen in South Africa as a vote for a workers party rather than
 ANC."
 --"ANC/DeKlerk neo-aparthied regime:enemy of black
   freedom", WH no 141,May/June 1994

For its part , the LTT/WIL has also supported Gennady 
Zyuganov's Communist Party of the Russian Federation
(KPRF) in the 1995 elections. In spite of its name,
Zyuganov's party is a throughly bougeois party committed
primarily to fostering Great Russian chavinism and the
revival of Russian imperialism. Evidently the LTT/WIL's
previous concern for the "democratic rights" of minority
nations in the former Soviet Union vanished in the aftermath
of the counterrevolution.

(John D.) and the Latin American component of the
LCMRCI try to invent a supposedly "anti-imperialist" wing of
the bourgeoisie in underdeveloped countries in order to
politically capitulate to it. They call this the "anti-imperialist
united front". For (John D., along with all Latin American
centrist organisations, this is a convenient cover for their
position that the "main enemy" is not at home. This centrist
methodology, which is also shared by WP, flatly contradicts
Trotsky's perspective of permanent revolution. Trotsky
insisted that the bougeoisie in backward countries is so
dependent on imperialism that even the tasks of the bourgeois-
democratic revolution can only be accomplished through a
proletarian seizure of power, and its international extension.

The "21 Conditions" for entry into the Communist Interna-
tional (CI), adpted at the Second Congress of the CI, in-
cluded the condition that: "Every party that wishes to belong
to the Communist International has the obligation of exposing
the dodges of its 'own' imperialists in the colonies, of support-
ing every liberation movement in the colonies not only in
words but in deeds." At the same CI Congress, in his
"Priliminary Draft Theses on the National and the Colonial
Questions", Lenin also clearly spelled out the tasks of the
Communist Parties in relation to the colonial countries, calling 
for:

 "...a determined struggle against attempts to give a communist
 colouring to bourgeois-democratic liberation trends in the
 backward countries; the Communist International should
 support bougeois-democratic national movements in colonial
 and backward countries only on the condition that, in these
 countries, the elements of future proletarian parties, which will
 be communist not onlt in name, are brought together and
 trained to understand their special task, i.e., those of the
 strugggle against the bourgeois-democratic movements within
 their own nations."

To Be continued... 


 







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