AN OPEN LETTER TO THE WRP FROM THE INTERNATIONAL GROUP

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE WRP FROM THE INTERNATIONAL GROUP AGAINST NATIONAL TROTSKYISM-FOR THE BUILDING OF THE FI

This was written back in 1986 when the WRP split in two and was written by Phil Hearse and Dave Packer for the IG (forerunner of the ISG, antecedent of the IMG)CC. I thought that some of the wild eyed-Trot spotters might be interested. It was given out at WRP meetings when a fusion was on the agenda.


Dear Comrades of the WRP,

At your November 1985 public meeting on the expulsion of Gerry Healy, Cliff Slaughter announced that you would carry out “a wide ranging discussion on the history of the Trotskyist movement and that all those who want to learn the lessons can certainly participate. We shall discuss all questions as Trotskyists.”

In this context we want to pose one question which is of particular import when discussing the tasks of the Fourth International-the existence of the FI and the thousands of militants struggling to build sections within the framework of the United Secretariat. We know full well that this is not the mass FI which Trotsky fought to build, but it is, whatever you think of it, the largest component of the world Trotskyist movement. We think that it is appropriate within the framework of making an historical balance sheet, to review the causes of your organisational separation from the United secretariat, especially in the light of your International Committee.

THE 1963 REUNIFICATION

The 1963 reunification of the FI by-passed the SLL and Lambert’s OCI in France. The central political question at issue was the refusal of Healy and Lambert to recognise the existence of a workers state in Cuba. This refusal flew in the face of reality. Today it is obvious that the social relations which exist in Cuba are in essence the same as those which exist in the Soviet Union and in eastern Europe and that indeed capitalism was overthrown in the 1959-61 period in Cuba. We ask again today: do you now recognise that after 1959 capitalism was overthrown in Cuba? And that a workers state, albeit with bureaucratic deformations, was established? What now is your balance sheet of this dispute, which was so central tot her refusal; of the SLL to participate in the reunification of 1963? And do you still agree with Healy’s statement at that time that “the time had come to put aside the characterisation of the Pabloists as a trend in the world Trotskyist movement?”

In our view, the 1956 workers uprising in Hungary, and the identical response to it by both the IC and the IS—that of supporting the workers councils and of calling for political revolution—put in question the 1953 split in eh International. It put in question whether anybody had “capitulated to Stalinism”. And it created the basis for opening of the discussions of reunifying the Fourth International. The attempt at reunification met active sabotage on the side of the IC from Healy, which was smatch3ed on the other side the activities of Pablo, initiating a political fight which eventually led to Pablo’s expulsion.

PABLOISM-WHO HAS CAPITULATED?

The fate of those who have led the struggle against the reunification of the FI: Healy and Lambert-is a sorry example of the fact that those who build their organisations on a basis of sectarian shibboleths are headed for catastrophe. Irony of ironies: those who made their claim to fame the relentless struggle against Pabloism turned out to be the biggest liquidators of all. There is nothing in the history of the USFI, despite all our mistakes, to compare to the craven capitulation of the Healy-WRP to bourgeois and petty bourgeois nationalism in the middle east. Neither is there anything to compare with the degeneration of the Lambert sect in France, with its forning attitude to social democracy and the Force ouvriere bureaucracy sand abandonment of class struggle in favour of classless democracy. And, never despite all the myths to the contrary did the USFI ever effuse and enthuse over the Chinese cultural revolution and the Stalinists in the manner that Mike Banda did in the SLL’s Newsletter during the 1966-68 period.

The Healy-WRP persisted in characterising the USec as “Pabloites” and revisionists despite our expulsion of Pablo and our repudiation of his organisational and political methods. This was the consequence of Healy’s world view through sectarian spectacles—the continuous need to justify the WRP’s separation from the rest of the world Trotskyist movement.

We ask again, do you still characterise us as Pabloites and liquidators? and if so, how do you explain our adherence to the programme of permanent revolution and the revolutionary struggle against Stalinism? How do you explain our continued adherence to the fight for political revolution in the workers states? Our support for Solidarnosc in Poland and our efforts with the limited resources we have available to organise forces on eastern Europe and the soviet union for this programme? Finally how do \you explain that after decades of capitulating we have not actually succeeded in liquidating ourselves into anything and have built the largest component of the world Trotskyist movement—we must be the most incompetent liquidationists in history!

MIKE BANDA’S SCEPTICISM

Mike Banda has written a central text called “27 reasons why the IC must be buried forthwith”. The central thesis of this document is that the whole history of the WTM is a write off, and that after Trotsky’s death all his central followers turned out to be charlatans and frauds and capitulators!

Such arguments place in question the whole point of declaring and founding the International in the first place.

Elements of such a view are found in John Spencer’s piece an others who date the going off the rails as far back as world war two! In our view, such scepticism is harmful and places in the dustbin all the struggles of the Trotskyist militants over decades to build a revolutionary alternative ton Stalinism and social democracy over a fifty year period. This struggle was what kept revolutionary Marxism alive when the combined forces of imperialism and Stalinism threatened it altogether. If the trot organisations today are numbered in hundreds and thousands rather than in handfuls it is because of the battles waged against all the odds by FI supporters all over the world.

In our view, the thesis Banda puts forward is Anglo-centric and Healy-centric. There is a real danger in the discussion being discussed in terms entirely related to the history of the WRP and the IC, given the bankrupt outcome of such a discussion can easily lead to pessimism or even despair…if such a discussion is to be a serious one it can neither take the existence of Pabloism ore revisionism as a given. If everything is up for discussion then, it cannot go round the existing cadres of the Trotskyist movement. Neither can it avoid the question of overcoming the dispersal and fragmentation of Trotskyists worldwide. The time has come to pout aside epithets, innuendos, and character assassinations in relation to Trotskyist organisations. It is in his sense that we appeal to you to accept the participation of militants of the USec in your discussion.