Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 22:34:20 +0100
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: LCMRCI anti-Moreno article, reply to Jon F.


Jon F writes:

> >> the LIT said that the centre of world revolution was in Argentina and the
>PTS said it was in Eastern Europe. Second, the PTS opposed the re-creation  of
>a popular frontist bloc with the CP. The PTS initially
> supported the creation of the "Peoples' Front with the Workers' Peronism and
>the Left" (FREPU) around the CP and  some Nationalists, but after it was
>dissolved,  the PTS was      against the re-foundation of this alliance.
> The PTS started a process of  PARTIAL but INCOMPLETE rupture with Moreno. The
>PTS.............. <<


>  This stuff makes Hugh Rodwell look like old Fred Engels. Good golly jesus
>and holy crumbcakes!  I can just imagine taking a paper chewing this cud up
>down and sideways and giving it to a worker on the job.
>
>  Anyway, it shows the Trotskyists can give our most feverish Maoists on this
>list a run for their money.


Thanks for the compliment, ole buddy -- it was a bit backhanded, but all
contributions gratefully received, etc.

You make a very important point:

>I can just imagine taking a paper chewing this cud up
>down and sideways and giving it to a worker on the job.

That would be recruiting suicide, of course. But remember, this list isn't
exactly the worker on the job, so posting the thing here can pass. The
problem is, it's taken from the journal of a New Zealand group, which
presumably has workers among its intended readership. Now, uncommitted
workers spoiling for a fight against exploitation and injustice are more
interested in reading about exploitation and injustice and how to fight it
than party infighting. So the way to make policy struggle between groups
interesting is to relate it to the class struggle and its prospects. This
the piece quoted fails to do. One of Moreno's great strengths was his
concentration on the class struggle and precisely this ability to relate it
to questions of revolutionary policy. His polemics against Mandel and
Lambert, for instance, illustrate this.

Of course, the big bust-up with the USec was over Nicaragua and the
Sandinistas, which this LCMRCI article fails to point out.

The big strategic weakness of the political positions which can be
discerned behind the noise and the finger-pointing is found in the position
on the issue of national liberation and its relation to the creation of
workers' states. In common with the Stalinists, the LCMRCI disregards the
fact that an involuntary union (of states, parties, whatever) is useless
for the development of revolutionary socialism. The clearest Marxist work
on this can be found in Trotsky's writings on the Spanish Civil War, where
the major goal for Bolshevik-Leninists was a voluntary federation of
socialist Spanish nations, and failing this a Spain of free, but Balkanized
and weakened nations (the parallels with the civil wars in Yugoslavia are
obvious). On no account a forced union of the nations in a fascist or
Stalinist straitjacket. If the Stalinists had won (some hope!),
Bolshevik-Leninists would have had to relate to the new state as a deformed
workers' state, with an economic and social basis to be defended against
imperialism, and a counter-revolutionary regime to be overthrown by a
political revolution.

A second big weakness of the piece is its failure to characterize the fall
of Stalinism in the ex-Soviet bloc. Or Stalinism in the ex-Soviet Union for
that matter. Does the LCMRCI regard Stalinism as the defender of socialism
in the ex-Soviet Union? Does it regard Gorbachev as something other than a
Stalinist? Does it think that Pablo's line that the Stalinists would
objectively defend the conquests of October was correct? The talk of
Stalinophobia would seem to imply this.

The analysis made by LCMRCI seems a bit superficial and impressionist, so
questions about the real forces at work beneath the surface of society
might be wasted, but they have to be put:

Were there no pressures within the working class objectively building
towards a political revolution (given Stalinist repression and Pabloite
capitulation, the subjective factor was  absolutely minimal)? Class
discontent that could rapidly have responded to the emergence of a
conscious revolutionary socialist alternative?

Has the LCMRCI considered Trotsky's dual projection for the Soviet Union,
that either the workers would sweep the bureaucrats out of power and move
towards socialism, or the bureaucrats would hand power back to imperialism?
Since the workers were unable to build a  revolutionary socialist
leadership in the short period in which the crisis erupted, it seems
obvious to me that what happened was the second alternative. The
difficulties the restoration has encountered since 1989 are basically the
result of real conflicts of social interest. The handover was voluntarist,
with no real class force behind it -- the bureaucracy is a caste, lacking
the cohesion and unity of interest of a class. The real class interests of
the workers lie in political revolution, not capitalist restoration, hence
the tremendous sluggishness of the process. Kissinger and friends all
agreed back in 89-90 that imperialism had about a year to reshape the
ex-Soviet bloc, while the euphoria of release from tyranny lasted, until
the anaesthetic wore off. The anaesthetic has long since worn off, a stable
capitalist class has still not been created, and working class and popular
resistance to restoration is growing. Is the restoration of Stalinism the
answer? But where are the forces to restore Stalinism -- not even Zyuganov
wanted that?

Finally, on the Yugoslavian civil wars, LCMRCI characterizes Bosnia as
Muslim, tailing the worst of the imperialist press and such
counter-revolutionary professionals as Carrington, Owen and the UN and Nato
general staffs. An independent, multi-ethnic Bosnia, with a strong
non-sectarian working-class tradition typified by the miners of Tuzla, will
provide the best prospects for the development of a strong, independent,
freely internationalist revolutionary labour movement in Bosnia itself and
in its neighbouring republics.


To me, the more and more energetic searching for unity within the
Trotskyist movement is a sign of a deep-seated drive for a new
revolutionary, internationalist socialist leadership leadership growing
within the working class. As the pressure grows, many of us will be forced
kicking and screaming into alliances with once-bitter enemies or despised
renegades, as the criteria for unity become clearer and simpler. If the
LCMRCI insists on picking a fight over every jot and tittle in its canon as
if it was a matter of life or death -- this isn't the same as *discussing*
every jot and tittle -- it will end up (if it's lucky) as a footnote in
someone else's history book.

Probably ours!

Cheers,

Hugh


PS Jon, I think you meant *some* Trotskyists could give the Maoists a run
for their money. But be serious, the LCMRCI article has been lapped several
times over in the Black-vomit-police-spy-cockroach-scab-renegade Stakes --
we've got Adolfo and Quispe slugging it out for the ghould and poor old
Rolf huffing and puffing along in their wake trying to win a medal (and
wondering why those radioactive pills he was sold are taking so long to
kick in).

Cheers again,

Hugh




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