File spoon-archives/marxism-news.archive/marxism-news_1997/97-02-23.213, message 45


Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 05:35:19 +0100 (MET)
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: COCKROACH! =A336 Part 2


COCKROACH! #36 Part 2

A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE.

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It is time that the poor and working class people
have a voice on the Internet.

Contributions can be sent to <malecki-AT-algonet.se>
Subscribtions are free at    <malecki-AT-algonet.se>

Now on line! Check out the Home of COCKROACH!

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How often this zine will appear depends on you!
--------------------------------------------------------
necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff. In order to do this,
it is necessary to intervene in the centrist currents internationally.
It follows from this that we must give up the pretence that the USFI
is the world Trotskyist movement - in reality, it probably organises
barely 30 per cent of Trotskyists internationally - and instead, we
must seriously assess the other forces which lay claim to the name of
Trotskyism and orientate to them on that basis. Only a few former
Trotskyist organisations, like the LSSP in Sri Lanka, the
Healy/Redgrave Marxist Party and the Posadists, have become openly
counter-revolutionary. However even these continue to propagate some
ultra- leftist positions. The majority of those who call themselves
Trotskyists have evolved into a particular type of centrism, claim a
common heritage in the struggles of the 1920s and 30s and uphold,
however distortedly, certain elements of the Transitional Programme.
Most of the CTOs tend to be in the centre with various rightist
positions combined with ultra-leftism alongside some generally correct
Trotskyist positions. There is not scope here to evaluate them all but
they include the USFI majority and oppositions factions connected to
Matti, the British ISG leadership and Socialist Action (US), (on all
of whom we have produce much material whilst within Socialist Outlook,
which is available from the CRR). The WRP/WIRFI, some of the LIT
factions, Partido Obrero (Argentina), the PORE (Ramos) group in Spain
and their co-thinkers, etc. all seem to be moving to the right at
present. We reaffirm the perspective that to regenerate and rebuild
the Fourth International will require a process of splits and fusions
in centrist groupings of Trotskyist origin (CTOs), allied to
consistent revolutionary intervention in the class struggle and in the
mass organisations of the class. Although there are dangers in
creating generic categories for each of the myriad Trotskyist
currents, it is nonetheless useful to recognise the differences
between the groupings: In addition it is also necessary to establish
other key features of any given grouping:

(a) In which direction is it developing - is it moving left or right?
(b) What is their level of commitment to the method of the
Transitional Programme? (c) Does it have a democratic internal regime
and any real culture of democratic centralism? The level of real (not
just paper) commitment to the transitional method is the main factor
which determines whether groups are on the left, centre or right of
the spectrum. However the direction of evolution is what determines
the level of attention we pay to a given group and the level of its
internal democracy determines the perspective we will have in our
intervention: fusion, entrism, split to our group or individual
recruitment, combined with inflicting the maximum possible damage on
the opponent group. But movement is possible between these categories.
For instance as a consequence of the WRP explosion in 1985, the WIL
began to evolve from the degeneracy of Healy's WRP towards their
present positions in 1987 and took a step forwards towards consistent
Trotskyism in 1988. From the same split, the WRP/Workers Press has
zig-zagged between extreme liberal glasnost and dirty sectarian
manoeuvring. However it has manifestly failed to develop towards
Trotskyism and has regressed back in the direction of some elements of
Healyism (self- proclamation, Stalinophobia, sectarianism towards the
workers' movement as it is, combined with 'build your own labour
movement' stunts). For a period, Workers Power moved in a healthy
direction from right to left, jettisoning the theory of state
capitalism and other IS prejudices on the way. Conversely the SWP(US)
moved from the centre to the right from the end of the 1970s, to the
point where it publicly repudiated most of the key programmatic
foundations of Trotskyism by the early 1980s. Socialist Action
(Britain) has followed a similar trajectory. However by its nature all
centrists will have some right wing position combined with genuine
left and ultra- left positions, making it difficult to categorise
some. A prime criterion for intervention is the crisis of a group,
which often sets its members thinking for the first time in years. For
instance the dramatic falsification of perspectives, as when the
Sparts suddenly realised after Yeltsin's coup in 1991 that a wing of
the bureaucracy would not lead the political revolution, can results
in splits which may evolve in a healthy direction. It is further
useful to note of those groups who are either strongly Stalinophobic
or Stalinophilic what direction are they moving on that question in
the wake of the events between 1989 and 1991?

Orientation to CTOs
Left centrists of Trotskyist origin may be won over individually, in
groups, or may develop independently as Trotskyists. This is because
the long crisis of post-war Trotskyism has meant that there is no
authoritative Trotskyist international to attract leftward
developments. We must acknowledge that the leaderships of the main
centre and right CTOs are unreformable. Of course, this does not mean
that individual leaders or groupings cannot develop towards
Trotskyism. Centrist leaderships, hardened - sometimes over decades -
must be defeated both politically and organisationally in order to
rebuild the Fourth International. Oppositional factions which emerge
against these leaderships may develop in the direction of Trotskyism,
as they have in the past, in the circumstances of a politically
explosive disintegration and discrediting of the former leaderships,
or where there is enough internal democracy to allow left moving
factions and tendencies. The norm in most discussions between
Trotskyist tendencies is a combination of false diplomacy and
factional intrigue. As against this, revolutionary regroupment aims to
qualitatively and quantitatively take the revolutionary vanguard
forward. Its goal must be political clarification, tested out,
wherever possible, by common action and intervention. The alternative
is either federalism, whereby no clear line is agreed internationally
- witness the disarray in the USFI over eastern Europe - or shotgun
weddings, like the Moreno-Lambert Parity Committee, which rapidly
split along its original fault lines. We must identify those that are
closest to us programmatically in order to further the process of
revolutionary regroupment. The LTT Of all the groups claiming the name
of Trotskyism, the closest to us programmatically and politically is
the Leninist Trotskyist Tendency. The LTT consists of the WIL
(Britain), Comrades for a Workers Government (South Africa), Workers
Voice (Sri Lanka) and the Leninist Trotskyist Group (Canada), together
with a few members in Germany and Belgium, and the beginnings of a
group in Jamaica. They have opened discussions with a group in Sweden
and one in France. Despite the modest numbers of the forces involved,
this is a fair achievement for a group emerging from the WRP
explosion, and its groups come from several different quarters, which
is surely a healthy sign for regroupment. The South Africans originate
>from an unaffiliated grouping, WILSA, and have an important union
implantation, particularly in NUMSA. CWG played a major role in
building the Committee for a Workers' Party prior to WOSA's decision
to stand in the elections as the Workers' List Party - a decision not
supported by CWG, which regarded it as premature. The LTG originates
>from the first real faction struggle to have taken place in the
Spartacists in the past 25 years, and to judge from their paper, have
completely broken from the Spart tradition. The Sri Lankan group was
started by ex-members of Edmund Samarakkody's now almost defunct RWP,
in opposition to their passive sectarian propagandism. It orients to
the NSSP and the unions, and has grown steadily. The WIL is well known
to us, and was the only British group to participate with us in
International Workers Aid. It carries out a certain amount of MO work,
and is open to joint work in other areas such as Irish work, trade
union solidarity, Asylum Bill etc. The WIL also initiated the Campaign
Against Repression in Argentina, which operated in a good, non-
sectarian spirit. As the CRR we have had discussions with the WIL with
a view to fusion. This is the only group in Britain which not only
defends principled revolutionary positions, but also actively is
pursuing a regroupment policy.


Workers Power/LRCI
Workers Power/LRCI is one of the few tendencies to have evolved
positively from the ranks of centrism - in this case, the SWP
(Britain) - in the direction of Trotskyism. For an organisation of
their size (about 110 internationally), the LRCI has an enormous
literary output. However, it is top heavy with intellectuals, and has
little im-plantation in the working class in any country. It
mechanically tries to compensate for this by some workerist positions.
Some of their theoretical and programmatic work is good and does raise
the level of political struggle within Trotskyism internationally.
However their perspectives have become increasingly disoriented in
recent years, in particular since 1989. Having hailed the mass
movements in Eastern Europe as opening a new revolutionary period it
was then confounded by the counter-revolutionary outcomes of these
'revolutions'. Refusing to recognise the destruction of the Stalinist
deformed and degenerate workers states they 'fitted in' the
'revolutionary counter-revolutions' to a new and bizarre
characterisation of the period. It was, according to the LRCI, 'a
counter-revolutionary phase in a revolutionary period'! This
revolutionary period was 'strengthening imperialism' and the working
class was benefiting by the 'removal of the road-blocks' to their
further advance because the Stalinists and the Social Democrats were
'exposed'. This whole load of objectivist nonsense is connected to the
advance of an old right wing clique in the LRCI leadership. This
group, around Keith Harvey, had fought to retain a version of the
SWP's state-capitalist theories in the early 80s and have now
re-emerged as the leadership with the death of chief theoretician Dave
Hughes and the political confusion of other leaders. Workers Power and
the LRCI have no serious political orientation to the USFI, nor, in
recent years, until the current (failing) flirtation with the PTS
(Argentina), towards any of the various CTO groups. Rather than
patiently taking into account the degree of disorientation among
Trotskyists, they tend towards denunciations of all other tendencies
as 'degenerate centrists' - unless, of course, they are engaged in an
overture, in which case the language becomes suitably diplomatic. This
reveals not only an inconsistency in the LRCI's orientation, but a
seriously flawed and frequently haughty method, which expects the
'unclean' to come to the LRCI shrine to be cleansed! Recent
developments, including significant splits in Austria, New Zealand,
Australia, Bolivia, Peru and Britain reveal not only a high degree of
political inconsistency over some important questions (e.g. Bosnia and
eastern Europe), but, perhaps more importantly, an undemocratic and
enclosed British-dominated leadership. There is a history of division
over the question of the International in the LRCI between three
positions - 'Fourthists', 'Fifthists' and those in favour of a New
International. While such differences could be contained within one
organisation the heat of the conflict over this shows a strong
tendency towards self-proclamation. Workers Power tends to adopt a
very schematic approach towards united front work - either sectarian
abstention or opportunist accommodation - and this is a reflection of
the defensive ideology of the group. The LRCI is dominated by Workers
Power, which, via the British-dominated LRCI leadership, exports their
line to other sections. Applying our criteria we can sum up by saying:

(a) The LRCI has shown signs of evolution to the right in recent years
in conflicts involving imperialism e.g. Haiti, Bosnia, the Baltic
states and on Eastern Europe and the former USSR. In Haiti and
Yugoslavia the LRCI put forward a dual defeatist position when they
were attacked by imperialism. Despite characterising Serbia as a
workers' state, they asked imperialism give arms and men to the
Bosnian Government. (see 'The Left Opposition in the LRCI' and other
opposition documents published by The LCMRCI). (b) Although Workers
Power has consistently striven to develop the Transitional Programme,
this has involved serious distortions (see the critique of the
Trotskyist Manifesto by ND of the CRR). (c) Formally, the LRCI has a
developed culture of internal democracy, (IBs, the right to tendency
and faction etc.) In practice, however, oppositionists have found a
very rigid interpretation of 'discipline' used against them. DC is
very much a British export in the LRCI.

To conclude: While recognising the dogmatism of the present leadership
of Workers Power makes progress difficult, we should nevertheless seek
to engage it, fight out political differences and explore the
possibilities of fusion in the long term.

The LCMRCI
We are discussing with the Liaison Committee of Militants for a
Revolutionary Communist International, a group of ex-LRCI members
around New International in Britain and Europe, with groups in New
Zealand, Bolivia and Peru. Many of their criticisms of the LRCI
coincide with our own, despite important differences over Bosnia and
some other questions. We have begun a series of discussions with them
in conjunction with the WIL. The willingness to seriously fight out
political differences in a spirit of mutual co-operation seems to
exist in the LCMRCI in sharp contrast to the LRCI.
 The ILC
Among those programmatically close to us can be counted the groups
affiliated to the International Leninist Current (ILC), formerly the
International Liaison Group of Communists. This is a bloc, rather than
a international democratic centralist organisation, and its main
constituents are Voce Operaia (Italy) and the RKL (Austria). Workers
Voice (US), a former affiliate, has decamped. The ILC's federal
structure has meant that important differences between the groups have
continued for years. It also has an unenviable reputation for wily
manoeuvring - a speciality of VO leader, Moreno Pasquinelli. VO is
probably the most significant group in the ILC, and for a number of
years has pursued entry work within Rifondazione Communista, along
with much of the Italian left. Their strong side has tended to be
their activism, combined with some important militants in COBAS.
However, their positions have become increasingly Stalinophile, and
has led them to support the Bosnian Serb militias in ex-Yugoslavia.
Both VO and the RKL have ultra-left positions on reformism.

The PTS
The PTS (The Partido de los Trabajadores por el Socialismo,) with
300-400 members in Argentina, is one of the largest CTOs. Formed in
1988 in opposition to the rightward drift of the flagship section of
the LIT, the MAS, it represents a left variant of Morenism. It has a
youthful (largely student) membership, which is highly active. It
represents a step forward, but retains many of the problems of
Morenism - particularly a tendency towards windy rhetoric, rather than
serious analysis, of the world situation, in which 'revolution and
counter-revolution' are in constant flux. It retains an 'optimistic'
view of events in eastern Europe since 1989, although their position
on Bosnia has been generally good. For several years, the PTS, along
with small sister groups in Chile, Brazil and Mexico, maintained a
primary orientation towards the LIT, although it had discussions in
1990-91 with the LTT (see In Defence of Marxism, Nos 1 and 2).
Recently, however, it has announced the formation of privileged
discussions with Workers Power/LRCI. The differences are huge and both
currents are using the discussion, which appear to be foundering, to
try to show their members that they are doing some kind of
trans-continental work. The PTS recently decided to create a new

Continued in Part 3





   

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