Aspects of the History of the International Marxist Group

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INTRODUCTION The following three papers were written to provide factual and political background information for the discussion about the programme of the new organisation which is to be formed from the fusion. of. the Baie) and Spartacus League. The IMG is not the first attempt to form a section of the Fourth International in Britein, A history of the previous endeavours ha’ yet to be written. However, the launching of the new | organisation necessitates some exemingtion of the paste These” papers ‘coves three’ ‘dreas 3 (a) a-brief factual, account of the origins lof the” ‘present ‘British séctions (®)'a limited balance sheet of the political experience of the IMG; and (¢) an, examination of some of the characteristic traits of British Trotskyism. The ‘papers, of course, overlap out the first concentrates on. giving. the factual backar ground to the endeavours . of the comtades: who built the IMG from a tiny. group in 1961. Only a ‘book ‘could’ do- justice. to the complexities . of the history of British Trotskyism in the “post-second world wer. eras Of necessity. the brief. account is’ oversimplified and misses many important ‘évents, However, if nothing else it will assist comrades plespecially those who have joined the movement since the IMG became the British section ‘“of the Fourth International) in understanding the origins of the. various groups. It also aims to give comrades a "feel" of. what. the situation was like. before the big. increasé in the size of the revolutionary left. . Such an understanding is necessary. if one is to ‘make a proper political assessment of the Trotskyist movement in those. days. This, in turn, is not. aw idle exercise in historical contemplation - we need to understand the lessons of the past.in order to orientate ourselves correctly today. Its in this spirit that the. second paper. tackles its “subject matter. However, again, limitations of time prevent the fullest” ‘exanjnation being made. Yet another book is called for! | An additional lint ting factor is: ‘that. those events in most. recent history are intrinsically: Linked with discussions which are taking place in preparation for. the: fusion. These issues are not ignored, of course, but complete assessment lies. outside, the province of this: docunent. . The ‘third paper is a bit more , slibitious:. It is “the: summary of a document the writen. hopes to tackle as soon as time permits. This, document will have. the aim of positing of the’ pecularities: of British Protskyisn (especially the pernicious features) in the general: context of British history and political life. It is written in brief. telspasrephiie terns. | However, it is’ ‘hoped that the thread of the argument will assist the general discussion about British Trotskyism. In’ particular, it is hoped that the : faults of British frotskyism will be seen to be located less in the failings of ind-+ iduais than in the - general ~ ‘features ‘of the situation, which pring into play these a weaknesses, To put it another way we need to try to understand how it is that a man like ‘Healy’ ~ with all his’ “obvious feults ; - can become the ‘dominant figure in British Trotskyisn for’ a ‘whole’ periods Finally, it is: to be hoped’ that: nany sugges tions and “comments will be ‘gent in by comrades , ° Eventually “these ‘papers will form’ the basis’ “for. articles in our press =) and pamphi¢ts, perhaps. Factual corrections,’ alternative interpretations, suggestions abouts : ‘argumentation and method ‘will all be at ereat value .in ensuring that what appears in piiblic is as good as’ ‘possible, Needless: ‘tor say I would recommend that the job can only ¥e'done properly 4 in 1 book ford’ “PETER PIERSON 17 /2/72

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is tJ i : ha TION OF THE IMG AS BRITISH SECTICH OF actual account of the origins and development of the IMG would, be > Sneonpcten sible unless a' short summary of the history of British TrotsKyism since the mid-1940 is given. A convenient point. to start from is the foimation of “the ROP s. sty (2) The Revolutionary Communist Party eme rged ‘in “Lod from ‘a: fusion botweon, ‘the Workers International League, the Revolutionary Socialist Le Sague (mark I) and other smaller groups, The WIL, which had-not taken part in the foriiation of “the Fourth International (indeed it had peen characterised by the. founding cénférerice: of that- organisation as & factional. and insular organisation). was by far the larger ‘of the groups making up the RCP, It had opposed entry work (as practised ‘by “the RSL) atid concentrated upon open ' propaganda work and intervention in strikes, The basis for the RSL's entry tactic virtually disappeared during the war. Bs the ‘Labour Party bécané an empty. shell owing to a generation of younger men. being in. the arned. forces. Tn addition participation in the Labour Party. by..the-organised working oless” declined ‘because. of the demands of war production and” the political conseqilences of the. coalition. “goveranent. After the Nagi invasion of ‘the Soviet Union, the cpct “‘becamé -an openly ‘class collaba, é ationist, strike-breaking organisation. The WIL, and later the-RCP, became the only significant organisation to openly support. strikes and other working class struggles. Under these circumstances the RCP. established ‘itself in the minds of considerable numbers of militant workers in the position normally ‘held by * the CPGB. In a sense it filled"the gap in the political, spectrum left by ‘the’ CPGB. * : * (3) Very shortly after the formation of the RCP the question. of post~nar policy became '-@ divisive issue in the organisation., By 1944; it was clear - that the Akis powers had ~ “been defeated and that the end of the war was in sight.’ It was, furthermore, obvious that a revolutionary tide was in the ascendancy? the shashing of the Nazi armies by the Soviet Union, the partisan movement of Yugoslavia and ‘the resistance movements of Greece, Italy, France, etc., were signs that the era of defeats of the European workers movement (commenced by Hitler's rise to power in 1933) was ending. This set the _ background for a post-war radicalisation of the working class, This radicalisation “Would, moreover, coincide with both the. traditional wings of the organisations of the “working class = social democracy and Stalinism - carrying out extreme class collabor~ ' ation policies. Jn Britain, this vradicalisation would express itself in the form of & break with the Tories. - Because, ‘of “the” wight wing policies of the Communist Party this mass feeling would, CxPEESS. itself in the’ Labour Party. ae ae TR oF AC \ minority of the REP, headed. by, Gerry Healy, # 3 in. favour of almost conplete entry _ into the Labour Party- (itshould | be noted that thérd “was alréady’ somé fraction work in that party). This tendency. argued that the. 3 ostiwar’ radicalisation. in Britain would take the form of the workers seeking to kick out the Tories ‘and replace then with a Labour Government, The working class identified‘ the Tory Party with the prewar mass unemployment .and blamed the Tories for the rise of Hitler, Despite the fact ‘that the Labour Party had participated, in the war-time governments ,- that party .was identified with social change. ’ Many clags- -conscious: ‘wortkers'-saw in the victories of ‘the Soviet’ armies»proof that,.collectiviséd, property’ ‘relations were vastly superior to "private enterprise", Because of the. right-wing policiés of: the CP6B it was unable to really capitalise upon the popularity of the Soviet Union and’ become an alternative pole of attraction, On the above points the perspectives of the minority were soon to be confirmed, ; “ However, the minority linked this side of their platform with a perspective of a catastrophic slump in the immediate post-war period. This view was held by the

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vity of the world Trotskyist movement and many other sectors of the left, Thus, argued the minority, a.Labour government would be elected by workers } having big illus. sions in it; furthermore; it would be faced very shortly after its election witt , catastrophic slump, This combination would lead to a mass Left wing energing, Only by going through this experience with the class could the revolutionaries intervene in the process, the Healy wing of the RCP -argueds only then could 1% contend for leaderaaa ship of this mass left, The majority, led by ‘Grant, the Deane brothers, Jock Haston et al, argued that there would be a post-war replacement boom which would give a modest scope for reforms. . However, the Labour Government would attack the workers and their organisations.in the interests of rebuilding British capitalism. The CPGB would. continue its class collab- - orationist policies in the "spirit of Yalta". Under these circumstances. it would te best for the RCP to continue open work. There was a third “+ tendency: the so-called Left Fraction. This tendency neintained that the election of the 1945 Labour Government was Britain's 1905! Entry should be principled, it argued, i.e., on the basis of deep entry and publicly carrying out ' Labour Party policy. . This being interpreted to mean that public criticism of the Labour Party was breaking working class discipline. Later this tendency degenerated ~ to such an extent that its members refused to sell its journal to people unless the latter showed their Labour Party cards. — (5) The faction fight. ‘between the ‘majority. and ‘minority was bitter and threatened to paralyse the organisation, The majority of the Fourth International supported the minority but did not take the position of imposing a tactical line. However, -: eventually in 1948 ~ because the dispute seemed doomed to drag on endlessly - the International. sanctioned the temporary division. of. the section to allow the two tend~ encies - “to carry. ‘out their respective tactics .. vk. (6) This division only’ las téd. a year or. S00 There. had, “indeed, been, a ‘revival Of pole iticel Life. inside -the ‘Labour. Party. and the beginnings. of the emergence of. a defte Whilst the majority of ‘the working class had been convinced by the nationalisation and reform measures of the Labour Government that it was qualitatively different from the Tory Party,.important.sectors were dissatisfied. These sectors tended to express: thenselves politically through the Latour Party. and gave a constituency base for ra ' parliamentary "lefts", whi ch eventually formed, the core of Bevanism. » This pheriomenon _ gave a mileu for entry work, although it must be noted that the Healy wing of the section always tried to link up with industrial struggles. The emergence of the coldwar led to the CPGB putting on a left face. Once this.took place -the CPGB soon proved more effective in servicing industrial struggles than anyone else on the left.. This . political background ‘led to the decline of the old majority and the growth of the forr “minority. When the two tendencies united the positions were reversed and the British section became an entry group under the leadership of one Timothy Gerald Healy. Sons of the old majority refused to accept unification on the basis of entry and formed the Open Party Faction - this.soon disintegrated and gave rise to all kinds of Oehlerite type groupings, most of an extremely. ephemeral nature. (a few of these-comrades came together with disillusioned CPers and, other odds and sods to form the Socialist. Workers Federation, under the. leadership of Eric Heffer, this only lasted a féw years. Other majority supporters had by now fallen by the wa ayside: Jock Haston, for instance, went over to social democracy.- a rightward evolution he has continued to this day» in the following year, 1950, other differences. exploded, A number of people holding state capitalist views were expelled on the grounds of alleged: breakings of discipline: on the question of Korea, These comrades, many of whom had held state capitalist views for some years (Tony Cliff's book “Russia, a Marxist Analysis" was originally 3

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an internal RCP bulletin!) were also very-critical of the character of the Chub's- {ag the section was know by then) entry work, They considered that collaboration with CP fellow travellers and such types as Bessie Braddock (who wrote for the Club's ntry paper SOCTALIST OUTLOOK) as capitulation. They tock the view that support for North Korea was evidence of a developing pro«stalinist trend in the Club and the Fourth International as a whole. After their expulsion they established a paper cailed. SOCIALIST REVIEW and continued with entry work, mainly in Birmingham. as 0 Qs (8) Around the same time several of the people making up the leadership of the old majority - Grant, Jimmy Deané, ete., were expelled, again with allegations of the infringement of discipline. These corirades, too, had been opposed to the character of the éntry work around the paper SOCIALIST OUTLOOK. They were in favour of a "purer" form of entry ‘work which did not invalve active collaboration with left social democrats. They established a paper called INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST and continued’ with entry work, notably in Liverpool, They eventually started a youth paper called RALIT, The latter was published officially as the journal of a Labour Party youth section, (9) Another more serious - faction fight developed between two wings of the Club ag Headed respectively by Healy and Lawrence}: the two wings différed over the applicat tice of entry and relations with stalinists, The differences were linked with developing divergences on world perspectives in the Fourth International. The fight: took a partictlarly sharp form around the question of control over the Club's entry paper. The Healy wing won this fight and Lawrence and his supporters began their evolution towards stalinisn, passing on the way through a stage of working through TRIBUNE (combined with using their control of ‘the St, Pancras Labour Party and trades council to build a& vary powerful docal: base in ‘the Labour movenent). (10) When’ the Pourth International split in 1953, ‘the Club, under’ Healy's unchallenged leadership, supported Cannon's "Open Letter't-and became ‘the British section of the International Committee. The Lawrence group, whilst at first espousing some of Pablo's positions, voted to leave the Fourth International almost immediately after its emerg~ ‘ence as a separate ‘tendency. © The International Secretariat (ieee, the majority of the elected leadership of the’ Fourth Int ternational) was, therefore, left Without a section in Britain, oe Before going’ on it should be noted that Healy's: ‘support of Cannon represented & sudden shift-as he had been a firm supporter of Pablo (however , he was probably extremely or suspicious of Pablo over the Lawrence question) « This particular aspect of Healy" s ae history could well do with docunentir (11) _ This state’ of affairs continued until 1955 when the’ - OSmind bee for the Regroupnient of the British section of the Fourth International was established. This’ was organised around a mimeogfaphed journal FOURTH IN“ERNATIONAL ‘and brought together some individuals who had naintained contact with the International Secretariat, end the supporters of two! non~British ‘sections resident in Britains . , (12) In 1956: ‘this group fused with the International Socialist Group to form the Revolutionary Socialist League (mark II), ‘This. was recognised 4s the British sectioa of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International in’ 1957. ° From the start its politics were extremely confused, | reflecting its heterogenous composition. Whilst continuing’ the entry tactic’ in Liverpool, Lasgow (where the remants of the "Left Fraftion" of the RCP , also came’ tn) and through: a wmimeographed paper called SOCIALIST CURRENT, its main thrust was open propaganda work around another journal WORKERS INTERNATIONAL NEWS, This’ confusion in tactics ‘Led to the team’ which. produced SOCIALIST OUTLOOK leaving and setting 1 up 2 separate group.

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1908 2 development tock place which completely changed the picture e. navel ionary left in Britain. Since the death of Stalin in 1953 a tes o£ events had occurred which confirmed -the thesis thet Stalinism was the throes ‘of an- extrema crisis. The fall of Beria, tho Berlin Workers ‘ising, the anti-party gEreup affair and then the dramatic re-approachment tween the Soviet Union and- Yugoslavia were part. of a developing process. then in early 4956, the famous Khrushohov speech to the twantieth congress of the CPSU sxploded on tha scare. -This led to.2 crisis of confidence and. “general questioning in -the CPBG.. The leadership dealt with this by allowing a whole period of very frea debate in the organisation, The columns of. the DAILY WORKERS were opened to a. far-reaching discussion - articles ware pub-lished, for instances advocating. the dissolution of the CPBG. in favour of its members joining the Labour. ‘Party’ on an individual basis. One of ths fruits of this. general discussion was the REASONER, a discussion bulletin started by a section/fisiliusioned ¢ CP intellectuals: notably E.P, Thompson and John Saville. In| the late summer and autumn of 1956 the CPBG leadership, feeling more confident., | started to tighten up and aventually instructed the editors of the REASONER to cease publication. * Than: even harder blows strack the CPBG - = _ ‘the Polish October and the Hungarian workers revolution. Political-chaos reigned for a period in the CPBG and a crisis commenced which lasted ina. _ sharp. forn for over a year. During this eriod over 10, 000 people: left the CPBG. (14) This outpouring from tha CPBG led to the Socialist Forum 4 siovenent’ the WEW REASCNER and formed an important component of the later New Left clubs. The UNVERSITIES AND LEFT REVIEW which was also established in this period but by other farces, eventually. merged: with the NEW REASONER to become NEW LEFT REVIEW, Some ex OPers dropped political activity and became simply union activists, “In the same period as the Hungarian revolution took place the Suez crisis and the reaction of the “Labour Party to this laid the basis for many of the ex-CPers to go into the habour: Party.’ Many of. the Latter became activists in the Movement | for Colonial Preedom and other’ similar groups, These development s,cteated a big niliew for all the revoiutionary groups to operate in and. considerably re-inforeed the Left: -wing, of the, Labour’ Party. (15) Whilst all ite revolutionary atoups made some gains, the Healy group made the most by far bécause of its more dynamic and adapt approach, It intervened’ vigorously in the Socialist Forum discussions but on the basis’ ‘of attracting people to its entry work, The latter had become’ extremely opportunist “policy by that time -.the main tactic being the selling’of TRIBUNE, — However, because there was some political 1lifé in .the Lebour Party and Suez affair had apparently demonstrated that the Labour, Party could be an: instrument’ ‘of: struggle against the Tory Government; entry. work was ‘not. ‘80 repugnant as it would . be today, : . Phis potential soon exhausted itself? and the Group was compelled to make a sharp but partial turn in’ ‘orientation’ which expressed 5

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itself in the starting of the journal NEWSLETTER (entry work still continued, however). This turn had’ a dynamic of its own and drew the Group away from entry: and on the road of establishing the Socialist Labour League, The sum total of all this was that the Healy group won over @ number of v very talented ex- CP members and dented in a-very'limited way the OP industrial base, particularly in the London building trade. (16) The RSL made very few gains because of. its passivity, “Lack of clear perspective, and the dogmatism of léading spokesmen, The Grant-Deane tendency ‘made the-RSL unattractive in comparison, with the ‘Club because of its economic~determinist approach, However some ex-CPers joined the RSL after having come into contact with the theories and writings of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, Most of these comrades had at first been attracted to the Healy Group: and then repelled by that organisation's sectarianism and ganster-like methods, They were, moreover, impressed by the contrast-between the ser iousness of the International Secretarist's approach and the crude characterisation of so-called "Pabloism" which the Healy organisation used to justify the split in the Fourth International, (17) Notwithstanding their criticisms of the RSE, ‘these comrades’ decided to join it in order to become part of the International | Secretariat of the Fourth International, Whilst not being completely clear on the question, these comrades considered. that it would be necessary.to transform the RSI if it were to become a viahle section of the Fourth International, After a short period of membership of the RSL, these comrades, together with some others, opened up a struggle to change the orientation of the organisation, The main differences were over tactics and attitude towards. the Fourth International, On. the. former, point the oppositionists wanted a more dynamic. application of the entry tactic (away from the purely propagandist, economicdeterminist approach of waiting for the SLUMP), On the latter question, the oppositionists supported the line of. the. majority in the International Secretariat on such questions as the colonial revolution. and the. war danger... The RSL majority held | positions similar to those of Healy on the colonial’ revolution . and said that there was no war danger. until the working class in the west had been smashed, It requires no great imagination to see how isolated. the RSL was. in thegrowing. CND milieu,- . which by.that time had started to politicise jarge numbers of :. youth; :The Grant: tendency. opposed the opposition*sinterventionist line on, entry because this would involve working with other forces including. centrists, The RSL majority saw no essential difference between an entry paper and open party paper, ‘The struggle, took place over the years 1958-59, : (18) The outcome was a defeat for the opposition, These comrades were politically and organisationally inexperienced and had not worked out a completely clear line, In addition there was a built~in bias against them: dynamic elements who supported their politics. tended to leave the RSL in disgust, At an early stage of..the struggle the opposition split and a section of it joined ON

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the Healy group, which Dy that time had besome the.SUi, As noted before the winning over @ good number of ex-CPers had the effect of drawing the Group away from its entry stance, In particular, once some of the CP's industrial militants were won over a big pressure developed to abandon entry work, The NEW- SLETTER was used to organise industrial conferences, which prought together hundreds of industrial militants, A limited witeh -hunt was launched against the Club by the Transport House which was aimed at breaking the grip the organisation had on one or two constituency Labour Parties in South London, In characteristic style and with no real discussion under these pressures Healy evolved the idea of the SLE, which combined entry work with an open sector, The former members of the RSL who joined the SLL, after con- “Bultations with Brian Behan, thought that the rapid growth of the SDL would lay the basis for its transformation, ve (19) The remaining opposition in the RSL spent the next period developing a local base in Nottingham around @ bookshop, some entry work and work with black militants, However the pattern: of events was changed by the arrest of Pablo and Santen for their assistance to the Algerian revolution and its vanguard the FIN, The RSL underwent a financial and political crisis and for a period the international centre of the International © Secretariat of the Fourth International was disrupted (Pablo and Santen had been its two main functionaries), The RSL virtually ceased to exist for a period - its paper stopped appearing and its leading committees did not meet, . The Nottingham group took over the financial and organisational responsibility for the distribution of the International Secretariat’s journal, THE INTERNATIONALIST, for a short period, During this time the Nottingham group became the de facto voice of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International in Britain, , (20) The temporary collapse of the RSL seemed to solve the dilemma of the oppositionists, They had not wished to split from the RSL because thie would mean leaving the Fourth Internatonal on the other hand they saw no perspective of struggle within. the RSL because it was impossible to attract new forces towards it, Taking advantage of the apparent demise of the RSL they accordingly started to organise separately in 1961, - (21) In the autumn of that year a meeting took place of the remants of this opposition - some six comrades in the rather decrepit bookshop in Nottingham, ‘Thus the International Group was born, It was decided to contact other groupings which were repelled by the SLL and RSL and which were commited to building a British section of the Fourth International, In Nottingham: it was decided to orientate towards winning over a base in the Labour Party Young Socialists and in the university Socialist Society, The regroupment policy was a complete failure, leading only to the temporary cooperation with a group in Glasgow (the vestige of the left Fraction re-inforced by IPYS forces) and er 7

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ie) ing merged from the Socialist Review group {as the state capitalists were sti known as). The former scon broke away and attempted. without success to organise nationally. The latter tried to do entry work in the International Group to establish a national Pesadists group. This srouping still exists (with many changes of personnel) advocating the third world war and trying to conduct a political dialogues with flying saucers. Needless to say its short-lived attempt.to influence the International Group was somewhat unsuccessful. . The T.G. did, howover, succaed in attracting some forces from the various groupings which left the SLL. In particular most of the ex-CP, ‘ex-RSL. comrades. who-left-the RSL around the tim ‘the SLI was formed joined the International Group. EB ; Fs rs! 4s Q, Hi) ro) group. bali (22) In 1962 it had become clear that the majority of the International committas and the tajority of the Internatinnal Secretariat. (now unencumbered by the Posadistas) were moving rapidly towards re-unification. This led a position where the RSL received polibical assistance from tha English speaking sections ef the International Committee which favoured re-unification. This assisted the revival of the RSL. Thus there were now two groups supporting the Fourth International in Britain.: At the re-unification congress in 1963,at which tha majority of the International Secretariat and the majority of the International Committee united to form the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, a resolution was passdéd calling upon all supporters cf the FI to unite under its banner... Concretely in Britain this meant that the International Group and the RSL should unite. From mid-1963 until October, 1964, discussions tock place on this. question. (23) In this period the RSL was joined by sone ex-mambars of SLL, including Roger Protz, the former editor-of KEEP LEFT (now editor of SOCIALIST WORKER). This led to a big improvement iz its press and some improvement in its general organisation.’ A book servica‘was also established with assistance from the United Secretariat. The International ‘Group: rommenced its collaboration with the editorial team of NEW LEFT REVIEW in this period. One of the products of this was the conversion of IGts semi-internal journal THE BULLETIN, into a journal modelied on the first year of the NEWSLETTER, i.a.. a "non-sectarian" paper acting as a "service for socialists" oriented mainly to Labour Party activists and especially designed -to attract-the large number of ex-CPers who had gone into CND. MCF, ate, The IG’ had won a small number of cadres in the: LPYS and for 2 period was able to politically dominete the Labour Party's student organisation NALSO. By this time “the British political scene was dominated by the imminent General Election which was expacted to result in a Labour Government. Through a process of winning cadres from the IPYS the RSL had become more and more an , entry group. The IG had begun to strengthen its base in the Labour Party in Nottingham which it used in a strategic manner on a national scale. t also began to collaborate with the team of centrists and social democrats who started the VOICE industrial papers. The prospects for fusion seamed quite good. ‘ (24) Fusion was eventually achieved on the morrow of the Labour Party's election victory. However, there was no satisfactory sorting out of political programme nor organisation structure. .Althcugh there was supposed to be

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a joint common leadership the two crgenisations continued as before ~ the RSL continuing to bring out its. propagandist entry p pe aper and the IG concentrating on the WEEK. Tho understanding was that the two different tactics would becarried out for a year and then a conference neat decide on the basis of a majority vote which line to take. In general, the arrangement was ursatis factory and very sloppy. In the period immediately after tha fusion a sector of the former SLL member became very diss satisfied and gome left the organisation: § (25) In December of 1964 the SLL published a clain thet a ‘member of the *Pabolite RSL had been instrumental in expelling soma members of the KEEP. LEFT Young Socialists of the Labour Party. The comrades of the former International Group discounted this as a vile Healyite slander. However, they subsequently learnt that the charge was truce. The background to this was as follows: once tha Labour Party re-established ‘its youth organisation as an attempt to broaden its basa after its defaat in the 1959 General Election, all the left groups.oriented towards this milieu. The SLL because of its greater dynamism, decisiveness and superior resources goon bacame quite strong in the LPYS. However, the other left groups (RSL, IS and IG) combined to launch a united front left youth paper, YOUNG GUARD. the SLL organised around a long-standing youth paper, KEEP LEFT, and concentratad on building a mass LPYS, based upon social activity. The right wing found it difficult to maintain a base. A three-cornered fight developed with the SLE gradually winning a majority based upon extremaly crude politics. Towards the end of 1964 Transport House started a witch-hunt against the KEEP LEFT Young Socialists. This gave tha SLL the excuse to start to pull its forces out of the LPYS, The exact motivation is hard to establish. Because of the higher political level'of the other group's supporters in the LPYS, the SLL probably welcomed the charica to save its forces from “contamination. On the otherhand it is clear that the SLL leadership thought it possible to establish a mass youth organisation which would lay the..basis for a revolutionary party; certainly this was the line ths organisation purstied once it had pulled forees out of the. Labour Party. The SLL leadership felt:it tactically advantageous : to get its members axpelled rather just pull ott’ (although this happans to a certain extant e.g. in Northern Ireland where tho KEEP LEFT Young Socialists dust nels dzarus connections with the WILP). Hence its membars _ behaved in an. extremely disru tive manner at Labour Party maetings ; Tu. the- Wendsworth Labour ‘Party Young Socialist ihe RSL was: dominant. However. there were a small number of KEEP LEFT Young Socialists. The latter were very keen to expose the '"Pabloite revisionism" of the majority in the local LPYS. Among the methods they used was to threaten violence at LPYS mes tings «. The RSL had commenced its rigntward evolution inthe Labour Party by that time, I put the protection of its own Labour Party: position shove “that of principled politics. Hence the cooperation by the RSL in tho explusion of the KEEP LEFT Young Socialists. , ct Members of the former IG were extremely angry at this. The SLL had time and time again lyingly accused other loft groups of collaborating with the right wing in the expulsion of its supporters (from time to time it still makes these charges ) The Wandsworth affair gave substance to these charges. A National Committee of the: unified organisation was called. The RSL majority vefused to condemn thea action or take any disciplinary measures against the rn 7

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unex would walk out of the rete) das concerns The former IG members stated me ae if nothing vas cone. Evoentiieally they did s The whole meeting wa a farce - the RSL majority had already produced 4 sublic statement defending Sha actions of their comrades on the grounds of protecting 4 workers organisgation against hooliganism. The United Sccretariat public rate: a ad the RSL majority for its attitude but criticised the former _ ma. mber for walking out of the meating. (6) Once having broken away the former IG comradas faced a dilemmas a formal plit would place them outside the Fourth International yet it was clearly tnpos sible for them to pretend that there was a unified organisation. They had been joined by some mambers of tha RSL, mostly ex-SLLers. Eventually a formula was reached that tha comrades concerned considered themselves a faction of the British section which had lost confidence-in tha majority leadership | and found it necessary to organise separately. This position was strengthened’ by the fact thet the United Secretariat had publicly condemned the RSL for its hand] ing of tha Wandsworth Affair, (27) Despita this formlia the new group operated in an entirely independent manner. As a result of a rather unsatisfactory discussion the name International Marxist Group was adopted, The organisation held its -own conferences, etc. s and contact with the RSL was minimal, (28) This situation continued over the bulk of 1965, but at the end of that year the Sth World Congress of the Fourth International was held. This had ea special British Commission to investigate the split and the ganeral situation of the section. Tha Commission decided that neither group met up to the reguirsments of a saction of the Fourth International and both were reduced to sympathising status. The RSL, apart from its behaviour over the Wandsworth Affair, had mover adequately presented the programme of tha Fourth International and its financial and organisational record was shocking. Tha IMG had bean irresponsible in walking out in the way it did end did not have the organisational and political basis for being recognised as @ section, the Commission argued, (29) The RSL regarded the decision as its expuisien from the Fourth International and no longer made the. pretence of defending the line of FI in Britain, The IMG thus became the sole group eagctat ted with: the United Secretariat of the Fourth International in tain, — (30) The 8th World Congress had decided that activity in defenc of the Vietnamese revolution was an urgent and vital task for’ the sections of the Fourth International, The IMG made a turn in its work and entered this field of activity in a vigorous manner, Until then its solidarity work had been eonducted through its entry activity (the formation of a Labour Party Medical Aid Fund for instance), However, the Bertrand Russell Peace founda ation had decided, with the cooperation of the North Vietnamese and NLF° to lay the basis for a mass campaign in Britain on the question of the Vietnam war, The IMG ana the Betrand Russell Peace Foundation decided to work together to establish the Vietnam Solidarity 10

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Baia nad later of the ic ime awed to the estabii Britains a& movemer. ond helped, For a shang ‘ pattern wing politics, ivity was accormpani ied by o afi iticaL struggie Wit CPBG in which the latter denounce IMG for spl veces 7 ti~Vietnam war movement, The out come fo G - the CPRG was eventually forced to was @ victory f join the movement it denounced as splitist, on the basis of the latters programme and slogans, 31) However, the IMG was still formally committed to making entry work its major orientation, We will discuss this point more fully elsewhere but it needs to be said at this point that the ambiguity on this question constituted a time-bomb, One wing of the IMG whilst not being at all opposed to solidarity work considered that it should have a lower priority, This wing concentrated on building the workers control campaign (however it should be noted that the whole of the IMG took part in this at activity). The tactical differences about priorities eventually merged with incipient political differences, (32) For some 18 months the activities of the VSC were essentially smali-scale propaganda activity combined with vigorous educational oLlemics, However, the solidarity idea started to grip the minds B of theusands of young people and became the concrete focus of the anti-imperiolist— radicalisation in Britain, Slowly the IMG started to build up its cadre force through its leadership of this movement - although its ability to grow was limited by its Size and the confusion over entry. The majority Leadership saw the phase essentially as one in which main vask was to build up the cadre force and establish a group infra~-structure, Until that was done an entry orientation would be meaningless through Lack oF forces, The minority saw the main task as ons of acting in a strategic Manner , i,@, working out a strategy for the left in the fight against the Wilson Government, These two different concepts led to very different attitudes towards the "left" trade union bureaucrats, It was this which led to the 1967 split in the organisation, li. being published but had by then changed for campaigns Like the VSC, The paper ol material and in particular publi¢gised Sist the collection of funds for lLong~ (33) THE WEEK was sti to a servicing journal aiso published industri svrlkes and tried to a: standing disputes, re « L 5 In autumn, 1967, on unofficial strike broke out on the Merseyside Docks, Jack Jones, recently elected as secretary of the TGWU tried everything in his power re break the strike, He set up a special office in Liverpool which put cut regular bulletins to persuade the men to go back, fe. spoke at meetings in the docks 1 the seme line - such was his unpopularity that he had to have poiice protection at these meetings, These facts are well kmown and not in dispute, THE WEEK characterised this activity il

[page 13]

of Ss j the majo ip Yeit that it t arly important for the IMG to state its position or because of the cosperation with elements in the TGWU in vkers control campaign, The minority took the view that although it regretted Jones! activities it was inexpedient to publicly criticise them, The most important thing, this tendency argued, was for the revolutionaries to take advantage of the TGWU's assistance in the field of the workers control campaign -~ attacks on Jones threatened this, This dispute merely detonated the timebonbd, (34) The-cutcone was that the majority was excluded from the workers control campaign but was left in complete control of the Vietnam activities, The split took place on the eve of the big upturn in Vietnam activities and the first of the three msss demonstrations, The IMG started a modest growth in/B8riod from the split (October, 1967) but at its 1968 conference had only just over 40 members, . (35) In the spring of 1968, the International Socialist Group, wiich had had considerable growth through is participation in the VSC activities, launched a unity offensive, It called upon ali the revolutionary groups to join it on the basis ¢four points (it is interesting to note that at least one Labour MP, Sten Newens, said he agreed with the four points), The main aim of the unity offensive by IS was to eliminate the IMG as a competitor before it reached take-off point, The IS achieved very littie in a direct way through this. offensive (it "gained" WORKERS FIGHT, sone elements from Solidarity, and even one person from Socialist Current) but did succeed in using it to recruit a lot of unattached youth (mostly students), In particular it went to elements which had been active in the VSC and which were sympathetic to IMG because of the latter's leadership of that struggle, and told them to join IS, There was room for IMG sympathisers in IS because IMG was probably going to join IS anyway, the IS argument went, This situation created a difficult problem for IMG for entry into Is would have been an attractive proposition a la the entry of the American Trotskyists into the U,3, Socialist Party prior to the second World War, However, in the event, the IMG leadership decided that more was to be gained by remaining an independent organisation and turned the proposition down, Ths subsequent degeneration of IS and the recent experience of Workers Fight would vend to support that assessment, (36) Modest growth continued throughout 1968, although the IMG Was essentially confined to three main centres and a new small Opposition grouping emerged (this, too, wished to return to entry work), By 1969, membership had doubled, an office ana fulltimer had been esteblished, Serious work had started in the Seaton field via the RSSF (which at that stage had some organorenn - attraction), On. this basis of this improvement in 1969 ressonet and political ability, the 9th World Congress in Intemational the IMG as vhe British Section of the Fourth

[page 14]

‘Qur tendency never ist uthns, aS a revaia wo chock cur conclusion: 3 G Me mitted mistak ~ We Scientific conscientiousness and personal strictne are of Meexism and Leniniam. We wish to remain trus to cur teachers in this respect as weil." Teon Trotsky, "Tha Workers! Stata, 4 _ > Fe eat, nee a yey Thermider and Bonapartiam" (Writings 1954-75} i ti ds tc be Tho degeneration of the social damocratic and stalinist parties neads a iy rata sense. What it foundemental a i understood in a very conc ly wmnaans is itieal loss of the vanguard militants of the working class. I+ deprives the xevolutionary porty of tha flesh and blood out of. which it is ceonstructod, - Tha question of the creation of 2 revolutionary: verty is, thareford, in ?ach the question of the reconstitution cf a ravelutionary cadra within the working Glass. This is never something occuring spontancously. For us it meant an uphill battle not te regroup the pelitical vanguard of the working cless - beacause she dogeneration of the stalinists, socienl democrats and contrists moans thet such a cadre force dons not axist - but te creato i4. I¢ is this basic situ n % LK em 54 2 ft revolutionary 3 G & He ination of the past of the organisation is a positive step in the process of eati % voditi Fores. atch like tha IMG will vad their political training i n iteesif carrying out critical emamination of mts making it up should also take part in tants in Britain bocausa a 1, pride themselves Tha whole idcology of British society has beon formed by the axtrome stase at which the British bourgeois revolution took place and tha dominant world position of British imperialism, The fact that tha bourgeoisis hes baen defending khasidaas for no less than 200 years hss 3 the basis for it sdopting the phi pire a. a world H and the consequont S rarata “bits! an Ss £ the "facts" aboug 2 g OL method of trying to draw cox ons from an examination these "bits" and "pieces! wit relating them into a ¢ d less relating them to tha method by which these ‘facts" Hg Jaads to dominanca of so-called “commonsense” and the fragmentatio the danial of the role cf abstration and theory in knowledge and the active role of cognition. The marxist theory of praxis is in complete contradiction to enpiricism). ‘ed tondency hes been marked still further by the particular £ the Beitish working class movement. It has inherited three oa : : “8 : - :\ (1) an overriding insulerity, chauvinism and lack of internati g 2) contempt of theory and the worship of “facts't: (3) a dsep seated ior in the division between politics and treda unionism. This last element derived from the position cf British capitalism, The fact that from 1850 ommards the bourgsoisia could give economic concessions to the workers allowed trate un n n from the goneralisad struseie a Howevar, the three fundamenta asas \ Lh Lt net } ne yical fe OO a in} Sondamental be Qu ro ree Qo

[page 15]

4. v Teas = ate cont usm . a = a= is impos cotskvyist ly out of s -.avan Mar ULSI Byory Trotskyist organisation in the world suffered from the long period cf political retreat by the working class. Given the low starting point of working in Britain to start with the effect on British Trotskyisn was particulerly profound. I i ‘the initiel Trotsirist tendencies hed been, even in their period of relative success in the early 1940s. deaply marked by the pressurca of British society. For this reason it was probably inevitably that any healthy section of the Fourth International, in Britain, would have to coma into oxmistence as a result of an organic break with existing Trotskyist aft tradition and organisation. This, however, carrios with it great disadvancaccs ‘in particular it moant a waakness in cadre and lack of links with the traditicn ef the working class. The IMG exists not as a product cf British sociaty but in contradiction to the basic traditions of that society, What is more we ara ot ashamed of this break but proud of it. The fact that such an organisaticn can aven exist in Dritein is itself an indication cf the changed political situation and the possibilities of revoluticn in Britain. ‘The British working class will nover make a revolutian if it is dominated by insularity, rejuction of theory and the social democratic division between trade unions and politics. History has comonstrated that tho British working class must break with thesa traditions end ambraca the ideas of the Fourth International if there is to be a workers revolution in Britain. Thus the pre-conditions for revolution in Britain are procisoly those for tha growth of tha Fourth International . class conscicusness 3 Bt (74) "Tt is in the light of the above that the history and axperience of the IMG has to be get. These features meant: (2) The IMG had to be built virtually from scratch because the mainstream of Beitish frotskyism degenerated, Moracver the IMG did not come into existence as a result of a clear political struggle in the previous Trotskyist movement. (b) The IMG represanted a break with the past of British Trotskyism whereas its main rivals: the SLL, IS and RSL are linear dascendents of the mainstream of British Trctskyism. Probably such a fracture was necessary in order to ensure a braak with the bad methods and traits of traditional British Trotsikyisn. However, a prica was paid for this: with the absence of 2 tradition and practics and without a leadershin which had firm training in the mathods and programme of Trotskyism, the IMG(and ite precursors \virtually had to learn its Trotskyisn as if went slong. (c) Through out the history of the IMG tendoney it has had tho pressure of larger groupings upon it. ‘The effect of this has boon contradictory - it Has always provided the basis for sectarian and dogmatic pressures, but it has aiso stimulated "over-corraction"., The latter has been the source of some mistakas,. (a) Tha tendency which laid the basis for tha TMG came into existence at a time when tho world Trotskyist movement was vory badly split. In its developmen the IMG tendency has always had the affects of divisions in tho Fourth International weighing upon it. Indood, right up to this day the IMG feels the effacts of tho divisions between the majority and minority in the Fourth International in a far sharper way than any other section (with the exception of Argentina), 4 sacondary effect of this has bean that the leadership of the International has not been able to give the same kind of authoritative political assistance to the IMG tendency as different circumstances would have permitted. The whole Rs, exparionce was worsened by this factor. y) i f (2) The various stages of the development of +t ara roughly as LOLLOWS 8 Ane teat *or simplicit SE yratarraAd ta wih POLIT SG Ga

[page 16]

v 1 cr i y c (b) that of 3 regroupmen ‘o) that of tha International Group fune up to the abortive unification with (a) that of the stage immediately after the split with the KSL, i.e. entry in tha first full year of Labour Governments (a) that of the x the recognition of the IMG as 2 sympathetic section and ths of Vietnam activity ag 2 Major tactic: (f) that cf the i ietnam activity had clearly baen established as the main axis o ; vi but this question had not been politically Glarified. This wa } eo leading up to tho split with Hen Coates: (gz) that of the “pariod after the split with Kon Contes in which the IMG vas jeading large-scale activity on Vietnam (h) that of the poxiod after tha Vietnam activity went into a steay declins, t this staga includad the recognition of the IMG as the British section and thea beginnings of the discussion about launching a youth organisation: (i) that of the period after the decision to leunch the youth organisation - which has just finished with the decision for fusion. (3) Politically, these stages fell into the followi &) The initial struggle to gat a tondoney comitted e the vary gonoral idaa _of the neod to establish « British section of the Fourth International - this : nc ant maxing @ breek with the insularity of traditional British Protskyisms (b) the cpexation of the antry tactic with the spocial use of the worker control campaizn and other such campaigns as tha Gantre for Socialist Hducation + (c} the policy of msking Victnam the key activity. This both correspondcd to the objective needs of world revolution and ensbled 8 to intervene in the smurging youth rodicslisation; i) the strategic move of creating a youth organisation in order win over a section of the radicalised yo th; end the turn towards the policy of recognising the urgency of cn immediate timlantation in the working class via, in cular, work in the Claimants Unions. This stage has the ackground of the struggle in solidarity with the Irish | pecnlige as bE ch Nee i och cr be Fe B GQ Majority pricrity, Oo O'td 9g to Sp opooqgonry” ky (4) The struggle t> assemble a tendency which was Pr really com to building a British section sf the Furth Enterneticnal 1% extremely difficult one (tndecd it is by nu wenns complete It meant combatting the other lurger tendencies snd ail thes ww bh Ww ro) 3A) criticisms of the Fourth Internstional's policies. © Thi uerely « question of just desling with the SLLU's tircuss a; "Pabloism"., The fact that the official Intern:tionsl Secre section in “ari tein ~ the RSL - hod a Llestérship which systémcticaully trained its members in a hostile spirit towerds the urth , Intemational was, at 4 certsin stage, an sven more Gifficalt problem. Moreover, che fact that the RSL was the séction dis~ | credited the Fourth Intemationsl in wids circles. an suditione i Factor is thet the emstrent criticism .f the Fourth International by other tendenciés crentes a generalised cynicism about the FI. Our periphery and sven sur membors are effectcu by this -~ meny of the myths ond cutright lies have tenied ts becime “esteblished truths" ~ for instunes, much of the membership of the ING probably thinks that Pablo wis a minister in the salgsrion Government ang that the United Secretsriat tuok the position thet ceria was 2 workers stete ct one Stage. “sé Gennot, unf ortun: tely aa aii alg devot te sufficient ressuress to entering every lic which is tole about the Fourth Internstionsl - “te enpart articles in cs daily paper ere difficult to esunte . ins tere we Should concentrate on the methosuslogy +f ae oth 5 tompt te =a) ares ees

[page 17]

in assessing our ends:vyours in this a say that wo nave achieved somsthing uniques the este blishne endeney in Britain whici resily coum t. the ernitioncl d the building af that r vious “sections ne hed extremely bad cttid th Interns ticnal incidentel but very significent axprosel nis thet the is the only ergenisstion that has peid to the #F on gular besis). However, mistakes have buen mdse which heve excctcG o hecvy price Bev - In the ecrly aeys of the IG end IMG there was cn extreme reluctence to polemicise with the Heclyites. ‘The or amen t ees used thst the SLL was « sectarian irrelevency snd that the wey to uGal with 2 long period, it was by "getting mn with the job”. The Sy wes not regarded aS a serious epponent. ix polemicising with the state caps., it was felt that it was “sufficient to engegs its members in united-actizn. This mistske laid the basis for the IS group recruiting péoeple we hed politicised snd sducated a phenomen.n by n> mesns confinued to the VSC expericnes (the IS "used" the Gentre for Sscislist Juucation sna, to a lesser extent, the workers control compsign to rensch ‘ur industrial cuntscts}.» These sttituaes reflected e weakness in the pcliticcl understsnding of the necessity to build the organis: tion. The wacle expericnes of our varying reletions with the RSL needs careful assessment. In retrospect it is obvicus thst the Interaa as Secretariat made a mistcke in reczsmmsnding to the 5% World Congress of the Fourth Interneationsl that the R5L be recognd sad as the British Section. This decision was not univer Sally popular with the Secretcriat menbcors beesuse of the past Do olitics of the Grant-Deane tendency. Having meae the decisicn the International Secretariat was chliged frm a formal point 2f view to tell the ex-CPers to join the BSL and, at the stage after the 4963 International re-unification, work for the unificetion of the IG with the RSL. The problems srising from this formal position uclayed the esteblishment of a genuine section of the Fourth Intemational end assisted the SLL te maintein the fiction that it was the British Section. A firmer stend by the I} tendsncy would have Lessened the effects of this. Owing to our lack of intellectusl ecsures sur theoretical uncerpinnine of the ideological struggle by 9 Fourth International section wes weak, (however we were aided the fact thst our opponents!’ political positions were so oeuce end even weeker). Our practical international activity had a contradiectury effect: whilst it established us on a very wide field as sericus pecple with important international links, in s curtain sense it substitutcu for clear programmatic understeanuing. Now we are much larger orgen~ isation with the bulk of the memburs hin recruitea through our campuigning on yarious issues snd not on the distinctive aspect of our internationalism our earlier thesretical weakness can cause problems. Having made all these points we can say that the bal-nce Sheet of sur struggle for internsticnslism in Britain is extrenely positive, We have, to a certcin sense, ace mplished en historic task of breaking at lesst 9 seetion .f the revolutionary movement in Rritein eway from the triditional insulsrity cna shglo-centric tisory and practice of the past. (5) Our entry work has to be put ints a context bef :re it can be properly understood. Same important facts ncoed to bs established before positioning our work in that context: (a) at the time we developed our entry work all the revolutionary groups in Britain (with the exesption of very small outfits like “ric Heffer's 16

[page 18]

Sesialis regaraud if is as ekiomatic thet a Labour P: amount, ‘The iffeurences on this question vyerious spl i .f the entry tactic, (pb) that policies we unc were inspired by the polici of the Internsi the Fourth Intemati: 1. indéed, in civusly tried to smulate two experiences: th ium and thet of the SOGTALIST OUTLOOK episode a (¢) that our entry work was never passive end confined to the legcl framework of the Lebour Party. - On the’ Contrary we always sought to use “campaigns” end cemprign orgenis: tions in our entry work. (a) that there was always a tension within the leadership of the IG and ING (before the explusion of Ken Costes) between the “legalistic” and campaigning propagandistic aspects. It is important to add that these dif fferences were not olwa ws clear and were not connected with a consistent anslysis. However, they could take extremely sharp forms. This phenomenon was parallel in the soe ey experiences of most of the uropsean sections end could be said to reflect an inevitcble ombiguity in the entry tactic itself. (e) that throughout the entry expericnhce of our tendency we were committesd to maintaining an open face. The bsokshop, for arate: mMimeographed a whole series of Trotsky pamphlets which were widely edvertised through TRIBUNE, etc. ast various timcs we produced "oven" journals and we always distributed the Fourth Internctional’s publications. A very brief outlines of the basic principles of our entry work is necessary too. These ares: (a) that our understanding of how socialist consciousness develovs in the fight against pourgeois ideology teaches us thet the creation of mass revolutio onary socialist parties will not be achieved with~ out the fragmentation of existing parties of the working class. The whole experience of the Labour movement confirms this ~- the only cases in which such parties have been create in the twentieth century (ons has to make this qualification because the Situation before the mass working class particss existed was ane nLitatively different) have been via this process (6.8. the ereation of mass sections of the Third International). (ib) that over and above this géneral point the poculiar nature of the Labour Party in Britain underscores this. This colplice ted relationship between the Labour Party and the organised d working Glass in ™ritain means that there is a built-in tendency for the grip of the Labour Perty over the minds of the mass of workers be regenerated (sven after obvious betrayals) and for class Gonscious workers to be drawn towards seeing the Labour Partr as THE expression of working class politics... (c) that the growing aiseontent of the organised working class with the Tories was being channelled into the cemand for.the return of a Labour Government. A major aspect of British politics was the question of what policy this Labour Government would pursue there were big expectatisns in the working class, which were intensified after the victory of Wilson in the struggle for Labour Party leadership. ; (d) Constituency life in the Lebour Party had been re-inforced by large numbers of “leftists” bécoming active who had come f ‘ GP. CND and movements like MCF. The struggle against Gait "revisionism" and the nuclear GisarMazient issue gave bot of importance to political life in the CLPs and a perspec SUCCESS. ck BO (e) that the combination of expectations ana the inevitesble rightwing policies of the Lebour Governas to would, theresiorse, ley the objective basis for the sine a wine firmly rooted

[page 19]

lass end assist t Lgeuer | allocs enacest hinking snt 1 sir hers wW automatic nove t7 the is or Pey. tendenciss. On the contrary, apa tt tO rig i common and in the generally mors unts voureble econditions thse rey: sluticnary ore anise tions became weaker not stronger The j was that in & Situati whore the revolutionary orgenies not, in the eyes of mi lions of workers, o viable alter the aiseredituad social democracy or pases, the repilccenent leadership would form a bridge w en ape tay in the Working Class by avoiding a C..mp sing cisi The formation would elso create a ch the res t group could participate. The ma 8S SXOscte therefore, if it wers to fulfill nave to people who were a credible eltvern Listing in the eyes of millions of workers. as ons part oF our Snery work was t> Gemend res as mes Hilson he Lee that the Lebo AT: “Party. different relaticnshipv >of forces between the reve (6) another fexturs wiich really needs stressing partics of the working class then. At the time we entry work there were “probably ilsss revolutioner groups put together that there aré members of 1 Spartacus Léasue now. This situation only st G r the LPYS wes won over to revelutionery lcuéas by all the groups, Because the International Group both found it aiffic % to meke 8S in this field outsice of the fast Midlends and made certain ekes in reletion to this, it did not sain, even relatively, tiie Same ex ctent as the other pov slut chery ePrpsuns. Our gGophical distribution was lergely confined to one aréa where the oh, ngWays of thé LPYS was very We attempted to operate gsically to overcome this - we . cell (which WAS, unfortunate sly, successful) for the youth papers to unite, We even created pur -own tempore per to enshle us to put pressure on the IS (which had the p BEL, Largely based upon London) and the xsL * (wach was mein ed on Liverpool, via the paper RALLY), . The pesulting paper ) WARD, "ery soon passed under the complete domination of IS end enabled thet tendency to ret established in whole arsas 2f the country from which it hed previously been absent. It was in that period that aany of the pesic cadres of IS were recruited: Juhn Palmer, Roger Hosewell, ete. Our mistake was n.t to have seen the main tesk cs thet of. trying to win over the youth forces arvund the RSL. ‘his was, however, connected with sur underestimeticn of the youth mileu as & whole - we saw the prime importence of getting a unified left in the LPYS because this would assist thefbrmation of a moss left. aad 27 Dur sma set esti opera be eeA ly frectiv setulcte. S euncentreted in ach ducnees in ons unit of the ty = th gur Party - tually 7 Foentro= Lett isl « eretic

[page 20]

eer) main Spokesnan of the International presid ent of the Nottingham 7 Tye ay ck ct ed this base in & strategic way na such campaigns as the Labour Party ttee, by this means we circule the whole of } ade unicn movement with an " appeal to give 3 which was linked with the NEF, As a result dogens @ with sections of the labour movement were made, which ly useful in the earlydays of the YSC A larger group e used this particular operation to very great effect, ampa igns like the half million houses a year demand were uccessful, MEY OG wa a Oo | ps toad oc fe ca) 8 OQ by Cie OOM O che! ot = a Co a ch hy Sq He Qo ct A by a] OF Fy Q%<} & {5 BS bj ct et ay se xy poo OctO a t, ¥ i fs Gu oO 2 < ct pss 3 ra) Our industrial work was mediated through our entry tactic. to a bloc ive an example, a railway strike took place and we, in a with the delegates from the NUR on the Nottingham City Labour -Party, carried a decision that organisation should organise a demonstration in solidarity with the strike, Thus we had 2 situation where our comrades and sympathisers went to all the big factories in Nottingham with leaflets published in the name of and paid for by the local Labour Party calling upon them to support the railwaymen, The obvious advantages of this style of work are clear - but they could only be consummated in 2 situation where there was real life in the Labour Party, (8) This political | basis upon which entryism was premised may heave been correct. when first formulated in the early -1950s, but undoubtedly by the 1960s extremely profound changes taking place in capitalisn meant a2 new analysi is was necessary, In particular no real analysis had been carried out of the way in which the deca: of capitalism "from the edges" was undermining the organisational bold of social democracy over the working class, In consequence ak p theoretical aistinetion - that betwee no the organisations hold of social democracy and its ideological hold was not developed, As long as a simple core eption that the Labour Party "dominated". the working class was held then no sufficient snelysis of the situation could be achieved, It is still not excluded as & historical variant that the breaking of the working class from Labourism may involve a period of revived life inside the Constituency Labour Parties, Nevertheless it is extremely important to distinguish between this POSSTBLE variont and the more fundamental principle that the dominant ideology of the British working class is that of Labourisnm,. The failure to make this distinction was by no means. confined to the IMG: it was also made by the SLL, IS and the RSL, Im the case of the IS, this organisation : identified the breaking of. the organisational hold with that of the ideological domination, Hence this group's theory of the "vacuum on the left", which it seeks to fill, ‘This approach greatly reinforced IS's economistic practice and underpinned the mass recruitment cz ampaigns and consequent degeneration. of the organisation, The RSL's method is to confuse the organisational hold with the ideological hold and draw the conclusion that whilst the ideological hold is dominant the organisational. hold is inevitable, It, therefore, denies the role of revolutionary organisational in breaking the ideological grip - this approach (it is wrong to grace ti with the name of theory) rationalises the RSLs ligquidationism and capitulation before the social democratic bureaucracy, ; This error in analysis was made worse by some of the concrete appli ications nade of entry. In the case of Healy in the early 1950s (before the split in the Fourth International), In its practice the (Club tended to capitulate to social democracy, uke} vy

[page 21]

-- ot ae mp tetas Mt AWeao? TH 4 2 4 444 3 = « Healy talked of recruiting Michael Foou and consicered Bevan a close sympathis The analysis, owever, led to the twin views that any upsurge in the working class would automatically be reflected inside the Labour Party von stituencies, and that any movenent inside the ur Party as & reflection of an uUDsSurgse in the workin & Class, tt ks Labo These views were current in the IMG and in the European sections or the Fourth International practising entry, Tt was the failure of this analysis which led to-a wrong est timate of the nature of the left inside the Labour Party, A left based upon links wit the organised working class is one vhing it is forced to nak @ pretence at fighting to maintain its base, A "left" ina pe eriod with little particination by the org -anised working class in the CiPs is another, it can simply retreat before the rightward evolution of the leadership. Thus the failure to complete ely analyse the basis for a left in the Labour Party and, in parti failure to draw out the conclusions from a distinction betwee the ideological hold of Labourism and its organisational grip le to wrong estimate of the likely behaviour of the Tribunites and other such forces in the Babour Party, oo ic se) a The entire framework of entryism had been supported by two. funda~ mental ideas which seemed self- evident, Firstly, that the revival of struggle against capitalism after the post war lull would be led by the working class, Secondly, that inevitably that this upsurge wouid be channelled through the mass organisations of the working class, The second of these two propositions may still be proven correct on a historical scale, What was incorrect was the first, These ideas, 1 however, were so firmly fixed in the thinking of a generation of Tr otskyist militants that in many countries it proved extremely difficult to break with then, Big sections of the movement could not grasp the fact that the students were leading a political struggie against aspects of capitalism polic - on especially on the anti-Irperialist front, The whole exporter teks: Shows the danger of applying fundamental ABC marxist statements Like: "the working class will lead the revolution" as immediate guides to action, The Fourth International, _tespite the attempt to come to grips with theoretical problems of the student upsurge, was by no means free of the idea that recognising the above facts was So-called "student vanguardism" (i.e, the idea that students could replace the working class, in one form or another, as the main vehicle for social change). Indeed, in the IMG these views, which amounted to confusing conjunctural enalysis with revision of fundamental theories on a historical basis, underpinned some of the positions of the Coates tendency and the 1969 London minority, The corollary of this: mistaking this temporary phenomenon with permanent changes in the relationship between Social strata was not articulated in the IMG but 4id influence the milen in which we worked, e.g., the sectors attracted to BLACK DWARF, (9) This picture drastically changed in the period after election of the Labour Government, By that time our paper, TH WEER, had assembled an impressive list of sponsors (the purpose of these sponsors, who played no part whatsoever in the running of the paper, was to give this mimeographed unknown journal, brought out by unknown people, some credibility), As the labour Government moved to the right, the centrists in to the right at the same Speed, keeping one pace a ¢ f ar ah left in order to give vhemselyss some redence This srested a tena > y 8 the Tabour Party Ie Ari tt atau VME wb i LU sm or

[page 22]

there was unonimity on this question, The Ken Coates wing of tones TMG at that stage supported the idea of sticking/tur guns on such questions as the Congo (the first major intern rational betrayal of the Labour Government was to give bases to the American from which to Grown the Congolese independence movement in blood), However, once such figures as Cousins made some grunts of disapproval tens:ions within the IMG on this question developed, However, the process of us breaking relations - as tentative as they were - with the "left" MPs, the miscellaneous trade union leaders and "marxist" academics was drawn out over about two years a It was our activity on Vietnam which really brought vhings to a erunch, However, it mst be noted that we never atte empted tO really get to grips with the dilemma, this development created for our concept of entry work, Where would the mass left (and more especially t he replacement leadership) emerge from if at wtb ch stage of rightward evolution vhe eentrists and "left" MPs a cavitu lated? (D But this ambiguity in our practice and theory had much deeper roots than the supexficial day~to- -day problems of tactics, nless we could explain in political terms why the people we hoped would lead the mass left, and constitute a replacement leadership, behaved the way they did, we were compelled to resort to the crude psychological explanati ion of the SLL and accuse then of betraying, in retrospect it is eagy to see that we did not (and we were not arone by any means in-this respect) understand the changes which re taking place in social democracy and its relationship to the working class, The objective basis for this changed role of social democracy is the fact that capitalism is now guite unable to grant largescale reforms not even in the conjunctural manner it did in the immediate post-second world war period, Cf course this basic fact was understood by us and underpinned our thesis that the Labour Government would be obliged ie attack the working class, However, we failed to draw out all + he political conclusions from this, Im particular we did not Tink this with the fact that seotions of the working class would respond to this by contrasting the role of the trade unions as an instrument for defending their interests with the performance. of the Labour Party, We, along with many others, underestimated the long-term and ceeprooted trends for the CLPs to become - oupty shells, This savorved not seeing the temporary revival .in the life of the Labour Part (the influx of ex-members of the CP, forces politicised by the” CND, MCF and others brought in by the coming prospect of a Labour Government) for what it was: an oscillation upwards on a generally declining curve, Again sharing our mis-estimation with the bulk of the left in Britain, we were wrong in thinking that Wilsonism represented 2 break with Gaitskellism (i.e. a return more to traditional Lab- _ ourism as against Gaitskeli's attempts to "modernise" the party), Indeed, Wilsonism represent ed. a continuation of the last phases of Gaitskell? ‘'s policy of unifying the Labour Party on an extreme Ly chauvinist basis, The indications were there but virtually the whole of the left failed to see the organic connection between Wilsonism "uniting the party" and way in which the Labour Party rallied around Gatiskell when he opposed the Common Market shortly

[page 23]

ionary group in operating the entry tactic, <AiLthough never itly articulated, underlying our strategy was-an assumption od ideas were sufficient to attract andregroup 2 left | around us, Too Late did we realise that especially in the social Gamcoratic mileu with its prevailing pragmatic approach, that for e tendency to appear as a viable alternative it has to have much more than good ideas, This approach gave a theoretical "justification" for the attitude of the Ken Coates wing of the IMG which was opposed to energetic attempts to recruit, 1% also meant that it was not until we commenced the large-scale Vietnam activities a4 that we really appreciated the key importance of the work in the radicaliged youth, As a result of these weaknesses meant that our workers contrcl campaign was frozen at the level of making general propagonda, it meant that the relationship we developed with elements in the trade union movement had the seeds of dangers which became all too apparent in the evolution of Ken Coates, In particular, the smaliness of our forces and weakness of our ‘political intervention led to a guild-Socialism type tendency gaining influence in the workers’ control movement, Once workers control is posed without the key question of smashing the state machine such 2 danger is inevitable, IndeedKen Coates! writings at that period were not free from this theoretical error, This trend expressed itsel? in an organised wey through the VOICE chain of newspapers which we supported, Our endeavours to use the VOICE papers to get local and industrial bases were thwarted becouse we did not deal with this political question adequately, The subsequent evolution of the VOICE papers into centrist ond social democratic collaborators with the CPGB could have at least beem mitigated had we been stronger and our politics clearer, a However our entry work did play an important role in our development, We gained, through our campaigning on an entry basis, a place in the political spectrum, The original group of six or so people would have shared the fate of the SOCIALIST CURRENT group or the Revolutionary Workers Party of Posadas had it confined itself to "perfecting the programme" or straight propaganda work, Our entry endeavours gave us the chance to intervene ond project our ideas in @ manner which would have been quite impos- Sible in any other way because of the smallness of our size and limited geographical spread, The entry experience was a very important educational and training operation - a small group of cadres gained a wealth of experience of the labour movement; the _ importance of this is very clear when one confronts the problems that the majority of the present membership (gained without this training) have in trying to relate to the labour movement. and industrial work in general, One of the theoretical questions which was posed by the whole period of entryism and, in particular, by the workers control Campaign, was the use of transitional demands and the nature of the transitional programme, This problem has never really been developed in British traditional Trotskyism, <A transitional demand must (a) be part of a complete programme: (b) involve tran- Sition to new social relationships ( challenges* the bourgeois property and social relations and smashes: « the bourgeois state machine which defends those relations); and (c)}) be a demand which acts as a basis br mass mobilisations, The usual tendency has been to isolate one or other of the aspects of transition demands as the criterion for working out slogans, Moreover, the bourgeois concept of equating consciousness to stat dominated thus mpletely misunderstanding what i Fn my te tt Asa 3 Ceombattinge bour ia o ¢ re ~ io) eois ideology, x wh of Soy te: taorid+ s = “ by undermining, dissolving and eventually v7

[page 24]

There is anental difficulty invoived in using transitional = cenands ‘y work: one is debarred, under normal civeumstences, from putt rward the whole transitional progr 1@ Tor reasons of Legali his is a major reason why entry work must always be acconp by vigorous open propaganda work, Im the case of IMG altho ne organsation was always committed +o open propaganda work this was not organically connected with the entry struggles, Thus there was a tendency for slogans and demands of the entry work to be considered as selt-sufficient, The full danger of this is seen in relation to the workers control cane and its subseguent evolution, Slogans of workers control are, unless they are organically integrated into a programme which includes the struggle against bourgeois state power, intrinsically listb to degenerate into either gwild socialism or, at best, syndicalism, fhe RSG for long held the view that entry work consisted in putting forward the PROGRAMME inside the Labour Party without any consider~ ation of the mobilising function of the denands, w easily this formally very orthodox and dogmatic position slips. “into flagrant reformism is shown by the RSL experience, The IS rejects, in practice and sometimes even in theory, the use of the method of the transitional programe, Where it is formally trying to use this method it sees only the mobilising aspect and therefore opts for demands which it believes will gain most support whilst be to the "left" of social democracy ond stali inism, The confusion which flows from the anarchist aspect of IS theory (mot disting-~ uishing between authority relations and property r relations) reinforces this trend, The SEL, while on paper committed to the theory of the tra msitional ad progremmle, uses the methodology of pre-firs t world war social democracy, This orsanisation fights for a paper commitment to maximum demands whil st using completely reformist demands as an axis for struggle. Our entry work was politically principled and whilst confused on Some political questions it never prevented us from relating to any living struggle, As important was the fact that we were seen to be relating to living struggles by wide sections of the Left, Without this last footor we would heave never been able to play the role that we did subsequently in reiation to Vietnan, Very concretely it was our struggle within the Labour Par ty which eiabled us to take this step and without this we could never have Launched une ¥SC and become a factor on the revolutionary Left. all out of p proportion. to our size, (10) The struggle. we put7in + the Labour Party on the question of Vietnam became known to activists on the left, Press reports started to appear in the. summer of 1965 about this paper, THE WEEK, which took such a critical line on the Labour Governnentis policy of Supporting the Americans in Vietnam, We.took up cudgels on ehalf of one of our sponsors who resi iened the Lab our whip over this question (and eventually left. the. Labour Party), Williaa Warbey, ‘The Medical Aid Campaign has already been mentioned, However, it needs stressing that we were in a totally different position because of our tactic of haying sponsors for THE WEEE, etc, It was one thing for many of the little revoluvionary journals on the fringe of the left to thunder against the Labour Government over Vietnam - it as.enother thins for a journal which appeared to have +) king a sigeable semment of the fata agen tary Left and 1 ude umion leaders to do the sane, eteé ttenti This 3 tt is why we attrac on of the press, ee iS a mS cc) as Se ' QO = has . = = es LS bebb cho Gb bP vb

[page 25]

nt on the left which seened $ Bertrand Russell Poaceae Foundation. Our principled politics and ability to fight wera put to the test at the 1965 Labour Party conferance, the first full conference to be held after the i fe) f tha Labour Government. Throvgh our control of the South Nottinghen CLP, wa had 4 resolution which put @ solidarity lines on Vietnam on the agenda. The Tribunites, parHanenterians and our trade unicn collaborator eri put namixmum pressure upen.us to withdraw this resolution {or allow fo be com posited ont of existence) in favour of a moralistic resolution which morely called for the Labour Government to teke some initiative to end the war, Although the Platform cpposed the latter resolution it clearly was in lina with Wilson's postures which were aimed at proving thet Hanoi was responsible for the continuation of the war. The centrists and secial democrats argued that we wore splitting the left by rofusing to withdrew our resolution end its xtrema position would be used to confusa the position and discredit tho ‘moderate rasoluticon which would thus’ in danger of being defeated. They used all the pressure they could cn us: in formal terms only the actus] delaerate could withdraw tho resolution and our comrade who was delog sata from South Nottingham was not made of very sterm material (subsequentl ly he ee us after wo oxpelled Ken Coates, bacoming a sorsy left). Sensing his weakness tha centrists and social democrats concentrated upon him - aven to oxtont of waking him up several times in the middla of the night; whon isolated from us they expactad to be able te got him to: commit himself to withdrawing the. resolution in the interests of left unity. Wo, of course, appliod the pressure of the group. organisationaily and politically, and despite the weakness of tha comrada we won. Comrades not having had experience of Labour Party work and in particular, of a Labour Party conference will find it oxtraemaly difficult to understand tho extent cf tha fiercaness of this fight and the way it dominated our intorvontion at that Labour Party conference. Representatives cf the Botrand Russell Poaca Foundation participated in our intervention at the Labour Party conference and were convinced by our sticking to our guns in face of the pressure from MPs, union leaders and slick Tribunites that we were serious paople. ; > . The Betrand Russell Peace Foundation arcse after Russell and others became completely disillusioned in the Committee cof 700. Tha latter itself was the product of tha breaking away of the most radical wing of the CND. Ralph ‘Schoenman who had boen the driving force of the Comittee of 100 gained very strong influence over Russell. The basic idea of the Paace Foundation was that Russell's great standing among intellectuals and others could be used to gain wide support and money for the launching of campaigns, which became nore and more radical as Schoemman's influence grey. One of the first ideas which amergod was thet of launching a war crines tribunal to put US imporialisn on trial a la the Nuremburg judgement on Nazi leaders. The Vietnamese, especially the NLP, werc enthusiastic about the idea and gave political and organisational support tc it. Representatives of the Betrand Rugsull Poace Foundation had many discussions with Vietnmaese leaders to work out details of the war crimes tribunal. During these discussions tha Vietnamesa, egain espocially the NLF. made it clear that they had resorvations about the existing anti-Vietnem war moveneant in Britain, the British Council for Peace in Victnam, because of s concentration cn calling for negotiations and rafusal to make a political stand on tho war (the letter which launched the aie contained a statement that the sroup would "not take sides in the war"! ') hus the idea of starting anothar movement was born. At first it was mainly concoivad as @ servica organisation for the war crimes tribunal. 4 uv a c i i As a rasult of a Saries of discussions it was agreed that the BRPF and tha TMG would collaborate to launch such a movement. The IMG providing personnel. its network geined through THE WEEK Gvhich at that time it had near y 1,000 V is dical Aid Committee). and gonoral experiensd. The Ae ALES

[page 26]

One of the immediate steps which was taken was the moving of the author of this document to London from Nottingham, to work full + on the Vietnam campaign, This had many cansequences in the long term ~ for instance, effectively the centre moved from Nottingham to Bondon, This re-inforced the incipient political disagreements about” entry and reduced the specific weight of the Coates' wing ...in the day-to-day leadership of the organisation, It also helped to lay the basis for at last building a London brench of IMG - previous attempts having been unsuccessful because of politieal differences amongst the London comrades, When we Set about this ~ task in 1966 we had to virtually start from scratch, This made for a difficult situation: we had no IMG backing for the VYSC activities, and the pressure of involvement in these activities made it very difficult to devote the resources to building a group, Indeed we were. caught in a vicious cet rolFogr bgimbr ore this by concentrating on an intense political eduction/Tor or so of the most promising contacts gained through Vietnam work, We then recruited them altogether explaining how we planned in this way to get a group going in london, Thus the London IMG branch was born, It should be noted that comrade Gormley played in an extremely important role in all this, | ‘ (12) These movesccame directly after the 8th World Congress of the Fourth International which, as noted elsewhere, made work in solidarity with the Vietnamese Revolution a major priority for all its sections, The links the IMG gained with the BRPF and indirectly with the Vietnamese were of considerable assistance in operating this policy on an international scale, (13) Serious work commenced in beginning of 1966, The main form in the first year or so of operation was intense propaganda and polemic against the pacifist line of other organisations, In the first instance, the Vietnam work did not greatly clash with the entry work, In some areas, IMG comrades could work through Labour Parties: to support the VSC (Scotland was particularly notable in this respect), -Some of the sponsors of THE WEEK (especially Ernie Roberts and later, after some initial hesitation, Lawrence Daly) gave considerable support to the VSG, Meetings and conferenves were held in the name of the VSC which enabled the IMG to project its politics, gain contacts, and distribute its. literature to a much wider field than ever before, A conscious effort was made to orient the VSC. to the babour movement, Some conferences were held-in which guite a number of trade union organisations sent delegates - again particularly in Scotland, (14) During the course of 1967, the balance began to change, The polemic with the CPGB became very fierce and a number of our collaborators, in the the trade union field, especially, had close links with the Stalinists. Our strident criticisms of Wilson caused "our" MPs, with two exceptions, to demand that their names be taken off THE WEEK's sponsor list, On the other hand, the infiuence of the VSC in the LPYS and universities was growing indeed a very successful youth conference in support of the VSC was held, (It should be noted that the support the LPYS was mainly in YOUNG GUARD branches - in that period the IS adopted a policy of pulling these branches out of the Labour Party ang converting them into IS branches, This was the origins of the connection between IS and VSC at ground roots level), (15) This set the scene for the VSC to emerge as an organisation attracting very large numbers of young people; but the corollary was thet its support in the Labour Party and trade union movement declined, This was the situation 3rior +9 calline of the

[page 27]

SC demonstration in October, 1967, and Cur deep commitment to the Labour Part o assess the importance of wt by @ ck gs We had for a period been able to combine the entry work with Vietnam activities and, indeed, were still sending people we recruited through VSC work into the Labour Party. (It is interesting to note that a whole sezment of this generation of IMGers later became the London opposition of 1968/69, about half of whom joined up, after leaving IMG, with dissatisfied RSLers to form the Revolutionary Communist Teasue, This group, in the main can be said to operating the same kind of tactics we did in this transitional period as witnessed by their "support" for ysc, ISC and NJACWER), | ; 16) The 1968 conference of the sroup did not sort out this position, it mainly served the function of consolidating the group after the trauma of the split with Ken Coates who had been the group's best known and principal political leader, As noted elsewhere, 1968 was a year when the VSC grew in influence and servicing it (for now there was no support whatsoever from the BRPF) was our major activity and priority, This led to a severe contradiction between our commitment to entry and our practice, It was physically impossible except in a few areas te do both entry and Vietnam work (an exception was Scotland for a period), Furthermoré the recruits we were gaining at that stage were most reluctant to be put into entry work, This new practice was not, however, dealt with in an adequate way theoretically, The turn from entry work could be understood in one of two ways: either as a radical break with the entry tactic, or aS. an operation to gain forces for more effective entry. The former option meant, however, rethinking the theory of entry and why it had been necessary to abandon it, So strong and internally consistent had been the-commitment to entry and the snalysis of this that even after entry work had, in practice, been abandoned, the basic analysis to justify entry was still put forward, With such a split between theory and practice the break with entryism was carried out empirically, and not theoretically, It almost certainly led to the loss of opportunities, It is, for example, doubtful whether the IMG had the forces to launch a youth organisation of the SL/JCR type but this possibility was not even envisaged because of the formal commitment to the entry tactic, Youth organisations of this type only appear as options. when @ non-entry perspective is held of building the party. (17) The success of the VSC's demonstrations and its general influence amongst leftward inclined youth forced all the tendencies, with the exception of the SLL and its Maoist mirror-image, the CRB (M/E), to participate in the ad hoc committees formed to tres Sed the 1968 demonstrations, Participation by individual spade unionists and some trade union organisations tended to OF the tae Capitalist press, became obsessed with VSC_and some demonstration oe leading it, In May 1968, we took a 5,000 stron the Spring on to the DAILY MIRROR building because this housed at ratiger organisation in Britain, the occasion was to protest 28st the attempt to assassinate Rudi Dutscke, a8 the backeround to the struggle within the VSC about den ees October, 1968, demonstration, The very success olutiee give illusions that it could provide the basis wwRelconary movement (or wanted to 4CCess direotly os an ty +hs bey T7 a Pad s Over and aho Cy ¢ ' rs ‘

[page 28]

of the press and reaction against its charges of rent-a-mobism event, 3 tendencies arose in the VSC; the IMG and sup- Tn the portérs, which wanted to keep the VSC as a single-issue campaign and thought US imperialism should be spotlighted as the enemy. the Richman tendency (mainly ex-Maoists, moving toward spontex politics) which was greatly influenced by the US new-left type arguments about the nature of demonstrations and which saw in the VSC a short cut towards launching a mass revolutionary movement; and the IS, which wante# to find some magic forrmula for relating.the VSC to the workers strugele. . Although strong in the VSC committee, the Richman tendency was very weak in the VSC rank and file, IS had followed the line of trying .to recruit all supporters of VSC; In some cases it tried to recruit ysc branches to IS en bloc, Even at that stage the opportunist line of IS was clear - later it was to rationalise this by "discovering" the repression against Vietnamese Trotskyists, I+ only needs to be noted that IS scarcely ever refers to repression against members of the Fourth International when it takes place to see how hypocritical We specific manifestation of this dispute was over what route — the October 27 demonstration should take, The IMG, argued that the demonstration should converge on the US embassy area (for accuracy it must be noted that even the IMG bended under the ~ pressure of the arguments about tactics on demonstrations and the unde sirability of goine into the Grosvenor Square trap); the - Richmanites who wanted to march on the South Vietnamese "embassy" take it over and fly the NLF flag (this superficially attractive idea was objected to because the Vietnamese were extremely hostile to the idea as it legitmised the puppet regime in their minds and diverted attention away from the role of US imperialism); and the IS which wanted.to symbolise the connection between the struggle against the Vietnam war and the fight against British capitalism by starting from the Bank of Ingiand and marching through the City's empty streets, In the leadership meeting there was a virtual 33% vote for eaeh of these views, A compromise was thus necessary - like a lot of compromises it was a rotten one: goings on huge trek around London ending up in Hyde Park, . ~ The second stage of this struggle took place in the ad hoc committee (this brought together those organisations not formally affiliated to VSC but which supported the slogans of the activity VSC projected), The Maoists, Liu Shao Chiists, anarchist elements all combined to denounce the revisionism of the VSC for not going to the American Embassy, After a violent argument they withdrew and announced their intention of calling a separate demonstration to go to the U.S, Embassy. The IMG obeyed VSC discipline, although with the Maoists and others it could have sot a majority for its original proposition in the ad hoc committee, Thus VSC was manoeuvred into appearing to be to the right of the Maoists and their allies, The trajectory of this projection (which was reinforced by the CP and IS) took the VSC along a line of being opposed to any kind of unlawful activity on the demonstration and determined to show how "orderly" its supporters were, (18) The rest is well-known, The anti-climax af the Octeber 27th demons tration, given the background of the American manoeuvres, the increasing indications of the rise of workers struggles, the eet rhe ae FO 4S ae ea ~ 2 = aes virwel pulling out of IS and the bitter subsequent fight with the Richmanites, helped to undermine the VSC as a mass organisation,, $ Ahab as atin othe an capes + te « _ anf Since that experience its‘activities have been on a low-key and a ral = |

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e Li ond vee ied 09 ae) to according to the tempo for the war (or press reportage of the tempo of the war), + © ro) ct @ in ee au ta Of We clearly made important political mistakes in the period leading up to the October 27th demonstration and in the subsequent faction fight with the Richmanites However, more general ones can be diagnosed: we were, in particular, wrong to get into the position where our organisational responsibilities clashed with our ability to build IMG, In this the legacy of our entry orientation played an important role, Our lack of an open face in this whole period, our tendency not to organise in the name of the IMG re~inforced the problem of there being direct competition in the commitment of our Leading comrades betwéen working for IMG and working for VSO, There are many mitigating features - the role of IS, in particular, the weakness of our political cadre-force, ete put otvicus some improvements could have been made, For instance our press, in all its stages tended to argue the politi es of VSC at VSC's level, instead of making a clear division of labour (e.g, it was correct for VSC to issue "Why Vietnam Solidarity" but the IMG should have put out something on a higher level which argued why revolutionary socialists should support VSC, drawing the Logical conclusion that those revolutionar ry socialists who agreed with this line should join IMG), This kind of mistake is by no means confined to the IMG, other sections today appear to be in danger of making similar mistakes, We did not satisfactorily solve the problem of what to do when the united front basis of V&G collapsed, We tended to continue as though there had not been this basic change in the situation, The question of Vietnam being a priority for revolutionaries was argued in an abstract manner, Thus the change over to Vietnam activity being on a propagandistic basis instead of a mass action orientation was confused and contained ambiguities, Having made these points it is necessary to re-iterate that the Vso orienta tion was extremely positive, It laid the basis for the IMG to emerge as a political (if not organisational) alternative to the other tendencies, It helped build the organisation as no other orientation at the time would have done, Its objective effect in British politics was very large - it gave a focus for an enti-~imperialist radicalisation of many thousands: of young people, lastly, itewon_over to the IMG very impertant cadres who enabled us to win the political leadership of the current which emerged around the BLACK DWARF, Without the latter, the growt th of the IMG would have been extremely slow, - The decline of VSC as e mass orgamisation camot, of course, be explained by the behaviour of the left group - even if include our mistakes. Tha VSC, although basically inspired by the heroic struggle of tha Vietnamese people against imperialism, acted as a ganaral foous for anti-capitalist feeling and action. A large part of the axplanation for its damise as a big force was the rise of workers stuggle in Britian, in particular the fight against the Labour Government's "In Place of Strife". This gava an alternative and more meaningful focus for large numbers of young peopla to réalate to. The IS understood this in an axtremely impressionistic and empirical manner, which reinforced their scctarian attitude towards VSC. Compared with the attitude cof other tendencies. tha IMG damonstrated its rofusal to treat a question like this from an organisational sectarian point of view). This is.’ of ‘coursc, nota moral question .but one basic:to building - & revolutionary mdvanerit:: If: an “orgatiisdtion ‘treats 2 ques tien: Like”! Viatrian in an opportunist manner its monbars will ba trained in a wrong Hanner, Sooner or later this bad trsining will oxpress itsalf on the “domestic! front. What is involved is whether the organisations fights bourgecis ideology or adapts to it. In the last analysis the position of the IS amounted to the

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9) ®he 9th world congress of the ae Internatinnal had a discussion % the significance of the rise of radicalised youth movements and currents. noted that appearance of thease forces prasented huge cpportunities for the Fourth International, especially in terms of qualitative growth in si and influence. For the first time sinca the launching cf the Fourth Inte national thera was now a social layer in harmony with many of the ideas of the organisation. This analysis noted that on such questions as hostility to Stalinism and social democracy, intarnationalisn. anti-perliamentarianisn, opposition to bureaucracy, currents representing thousands of young people had emerged in many countrias. On one question, however, ‘therg was coniderable divergence with the Fourth International that of the necessity for Leninist organisation. ‘Tha youth radicalisation tended to equate organisation and bureaucracy. ; Ag are The same world congrass drew a balance sheet on entry and epproved the turn which had already been made in most countries of cnding this experience. It noted that the sections of the Fourth International had come out of the enti oy experioncs with only small forces - indeed it assessed lack of forces as bain. & major reason why the entry experience had not been successful. Accordingly, tha world congrass draw tha conclusion that the major strateric task of most of the sections was to criontate towards the youth radicalisaticn with the aim of rapidly winning over the best. clements. This cperation being necessary in order to reinforce the sections so that they could intervene more effectively in the coming mass industrial strugelos.. (the latter being an inevitable corollary of the changed objective situation in the advanced capitalist countries - the ending of tho relative aconomic stability of tha advanced capitalist countries etc). However, the discussion on the tactics of doing this was unsatisfactory: the text propared for tha confarence was not accepted (although tho way.it was subseguontiy published gava many comrades the impression that it ha a) and it was decide to continua the discussion. Only a smell amount of material hes appeared and reslly the decision has not been implemonted. This is the gencrel international background to the beginnings of the discussion about the IMG applying the line of the 9th world congress by launching a youth organisation. (20} the IMG was not in a good position to take up this line. As noted bafora it had failed to capitalise on the upsurge in the LPYS and recruitment from the VSe milou had been woak. A youth orientation had begun with the ettannt to build up a tendency within the RSSF {the latter organisation had beon started by IS to capitalisa on the post-Mey +968 upsurge amongst British students - they scon abandoned it when they foun hat thoy. could not deal ith the other tendencies politically). Our first* meeting to discuss this was held in a tiny roct in our offices in Toyrbea Street, Wa could gat all our membors and close sympathiser in the youth ficid in one small roont!! Only when this fact is srasped can one understand our difficulties. The political situation was also less than fevourable. In Britain thera had not been (nor has there been up till now) the sare kind of mass youth radicalisation that had ccocurred in many other countries. Instead wa had attempts to imitiata those movemont by tha virtually voluntarist endeavours of small groups. Many features cof the British education system intensified the problems: there had not been the same kind of student population explosion and the British bourgeoisia gave universities a relatively privilered position in relaticn to othar sectors of education. Henea the ROSE Wes really stillborn and doomed from the start. Indecd it was ovr recognition of this fact which halpod to decide us toe launch the youth sneanisntion.

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Spartacus League experiences, however it should be noted that in tho main perspective document of the 1970 i s stated guite clearly that the youth organisation would be of a spacial kind. Indeed it was even stated that tho creation of this organisation would be akin to meking en entry o the youth radicslisation. Howover, thoare was a Gisjuncture betwaon this concept and the ideas underpinning some of the founders of tho Spartacus League. The latter were not go numerous - the first. meeting of these forcas wes held in the basemant room of 182 Pantonville Road - snother indication of how small our forces wore, this wes 12 months after the RSSP work had begun. A cartain experimental approach was present - tha oxact perspactive of thé youth organisation not yaing worked out. This is why it was possible for different mombors of tha leadership of thé Spartacus League to hold differont positions on this question, An experimental approach is not totally wrong if one is charting entirely new ocagans - tactical flexibility is intrinsic to Leninism. What, however, is wrong is for the options and the objectiva and subjective conditions undorpinning thosa cptions not to be clear. It was this latter mistake which was present from the carly days of the Spartacus Leagua. This took a peculiar form within the leadership of the IMG, which was inavitabla in tha absoncoe of a fully rounded analysis, that of leaving the Spartacus League to sort thesa questions out itself. The argument being that the Spartacus League was an automonous organisation which had a leadership alected on the basis of democratic contralisms therefore it was quite impossible for the TMG membors to behave as a fraction within it. The necessary conclusion flowing from this was.that the IMG should not work out a lina for the Spartacus Leagua to follow. This argument had an internal consistancy but the logical conclusion from this was not drawn - that if we stuck to this position wea wera opting for the fusion perspective. No other porspective would justify the approach of "not interfering", Just how unclear this was is indicated by the fact that many conprades were shocked when the perspoctive dcooument for the 1971 conference put forward fusion. (21) Tha nearness of events mikes it unnccassary to chronologically traca tha histozy of the Spartacus League. Without doubt a central weakness which ereatly intensified the political failings noted above was the lack of a vigorous and oxperieonced leadership for the SL. A youth organisation above all needs drive and dynamism: evon with corract politics and a correct analysis this operation would not have been a complete success without the SL pre-~ jocting itself as a vigorous activist organisation. Indeed where it managed to do this on a local level it was quite succassful. With soma notable exception the SL branches operated as though thoy were IMG branchos with tho sama kind of tampo and list of priorities. This combined with lack of clarity about perspectives led to an extramely difficult position in some localities and, in a differant way, nationally - thes making the options posed in the 1971 perspective documants on urgant matter. (22) There are very big differences of cpinion about the balance sheet of the Spartacus League experiance, This is inavitebla in such a complicated question, with very different local exporionces end being so clese at hand that subjoctive attitudes play an important role. Howaver, two arguments neod to be countered if wo are to have an accurate assessment: (a) that the Spartacus Leagua experience was an expression of "student vanguardism': and — , (b) thet the Spartacus League experience was virtually a complete failure be~ cause tha IMG could have done everything the SL did and everyone who joined it could have joined the section direct. tori:

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ful high proportion of exe) mt thers was no rey) t is truce that this ion was not alwars s: offenders in this werd comrates ho had ) s rien Neither doeas the use of words "student vanguard! mean adhere to t hoory of studant vanruerdism. “Fomanliste and these of.a scholastic frame of mind find tha latter vitimate proof, thus only showings their own adhoronce to rormal 4 G instead of dieleotical logic. The use of this term in no way means, ag refarenco te whole of what wes said at the poriod tha SL was constituted moves, accepting tle view that studonts had replaced tha working class as the main Lastrument of social change. his term was used in the sense that ecartain layers constituted the vanguard of studant and anti-imporialist ok struggles at a given time. It is true that some wees did join the SL who would have normelly joined IMG, This was a good thing not a bad thing. One of the problans ING had been confronted with was that despite its neod te grow it found it extremoly difficult to assimilate all those who wanted te ji t. Tha problem of lack of geceraphical spsaec « .. this problem very di » Having made this ther elencntary points it should alse ba note IMG did continue to grow during the BL pericd. Where qualitative ch were achieved is in those casas where tho SL did succeed in gaining "aynard and abla’ to local forcsos. In a numbar of cases SL branches were astablished of a size and range of activities which would bea unthinkable had wa hed only tha. to offer. When fusion takes place wa will heave 2a whole series of br existing in towns whora two years ego we scarcaly had readers of our pre B (22) A satisfactory balance shset of the Spartacus League experience has yet to be wri itten. Wa are still working on producting an adequate ana alysis end clabora vba ing the way wo will intervene in. the youth ficld in the future. No one should + ink that there area easy. answers to these questions. The difficulties which our French comrades have experiencad in releting to this question should be a warning to us against hasty and impressionistic scneralisations. This task must be at least commenced tc the extent of elaborating a working hypothesis in the discussions around the platform, in partic cular a clear analyses of the perspectives for youth radicelisation is vital. With all the criticisms that can be made the main points should be born in minds the IMG has had a qualitive growth end scographical spread in the last pariod so that it is becomming Sn organisational. as well as political, ternative to obhes tandencies. In the youth ficld our forcoas havo expanded enormously ag eva tha slightest acquaintenship with the facts will demonstrata. This is not to white-wash tho woaknesses and mistakes but to create a factual framework within which those mistakes and weaknesses can.be properly assassed. 5 al nm (23) The establishment of the Spartacus League Has elso to.be Seen in the context ofthe task the 1970 annual conference of the IMG set the organisation: that of going from a propaganda group to a: igagus for revolutionary action in the shortest possible time. This being» absolutely nocossary if ara to intervane in the huge class strugelos which are on the order of tha day. The argumentation underpinning this concept is outlined in the documont "From a Propaganda Group to a Loague for Rovolutionary Action" so it is not necessary to repeat it here, In the two years since we took this position, the character of the ING and its intervention has changed almost beyond racognition. In almost avery areca where wa have an- organisation we are developing serious work in tha workers movement and our position in the Claimants Union, for instance, reverls a qualitative devalopment. Tho way wo managed to intervene in the recent mineral strike is quite different from what wa were capable of two years ago.

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3% anisational, The tensions are pro ical not org end = satisfaction in certain fields of work oF Leas isading committees can be, in one as grow! More precisely these are symptoms of esses whi ed as the organisation faces new adequacies 4 ave come to light are all the more what we are trying to do now is mich more significant relation to the ¢lass struggle than anything we have ab i impo atvtempte utmost seriousness and combat dilettantism, especially in the leadership, Mistakes which do not effect an organisation too much if it is only commenting, can be extremely damaging to an organisation which is interyening in aspsets or the class struggle. d in cur history, The organisation must, therefore, demand e Certain important areas have not been covered in this survey: the roles we have played in the women’s movement, our Irish work and the events around the Launching of RED MOLE, for instance, Any integrated and fuligerounded summing up of the IMG's political history would have to pulld these areas inte the account, Our actions in thease areas = in particular in the women's mgyement and in relation to Irish work - were suided and determined by oubyaiatysis and methodology, Hence any accoun’ which doesn't deal with them is necessarily incomplete in illustrating § our total approach - its strengths and weaknesses, consistency and inconsistency, Certainly when we write again all these aspects mst be inbuilt into the general picture, The gaps in this document are due to fact that these questions will be dealt with more exhaustively in conferenee documents and the author is. of the opinion that discussion about them is best contained in these papers,. (24) CONCLUSION In "Left Wing Communism” Lenin remarked that a serious attitude towards its own mistakes is one of the hallmarks of a bolshevik party, This document is written in that spirit, It is a frank attempt to assess some of the lessons of our history, As such, it concentrates, quite on obviously on mistakes, Indeed it can be said to be one-sided in that respect. The IMG has nothing to lose from such an approach, On the contrary, we have much to gain, We lay the basis, in this way, for a Tunéanental theoretical evaluation of our past work whieh will strengthen uS immensely, But we also gain by the fact that we will demonstrate our seriousness to the revolutionary left ~ what other tendency could , begin to be so frank? Those who seek to denigrate the positive aspects of the IMG’s history cecause of our frankness will find thet this attitude explodes in their’ +aces ~ history will contrast their arrogance (flowing from a sectarian, subjectivist, approach) and our attempt to be politically honest, Nothing in this document is meant to indicate that the past of the IMG is enything to be ashamed of - on the contrary, Whilst all the other groups claiming to be Trotskyist in this country have worked to destroy vhe fourth international - the essential instrument of world revolution “ we have done all in our power to build that organisation, We have ought against fantastic odds and under the gravest difficulties, We Neve grown from a minuscule group - the size of SOCIALIST CURRENT - to one which is beginning to contend with the other two larger groups, We albe +ORS challenged them politically, now we are becoming a credible aiternative in terms of resources and organisation as well, "@ have avoided, in the main, the traditional diseases of British t L t i bod 3 a | . G . . - - . Ne iad eay ism insularity, enti-~internationalism and organisational sectar- Mere en Oss tendencies which arose in our ranks bearing these traits sventually split away ,

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We have achieved these thines by fighting for the programme and method» of the Fourth International and by linking ourselves, to the best-of =~ cur ability, to every living struggle against capitalism, The latter © approach is the only real safeguard, in the final analyis, against: séctarian and opportunjst degeneration, We need, above all, to adher to this principle, To paraphrase and completely negate Adler's famous vemark: it is better to make some mistakes and remain linked to the living struggle against capitalism, than to be "oh-so=correct" and stand on the sidelines in sectarian purity, Whilst seeking to perfect our theoretical understanding we will never go back on that principle, Looking to the future, we have one more lesson to note, The revolutionary party will not be established in Britain by the arithmetical growth of the IMG ~ as necessary as that development is, Undoubtedly, within the terms explained at the beginning of this document, there will be regroupments and fusions in this process, The lessons we have learn in our ten years of existence will have to be re-lived and re-learnt many times, “he social conditions which have created the terrible deviations of traditional British Trotskyism, though weakened, persist, Thousands of _ potential revolutionaries have been miseducated in the schools of sect- 2 arianism, opportunism and centriam, Although we have won individuals from other groups, in no case have these comradesm despite their abilities, succeeded in building pro-Fourth International tendencies in those organisations, This demonstrates the extreme difficulty of breaking with these bad methodologies and the tenacious grip they have, In our history we have made more than one bad mistake in the field of regroupment, ‘We have to be absolutely clear about the significance and real —nature of fusion - never again must we mistake paper agreement with real ideological fusion, Thorough clarity on political positions must always be our aim ~ coming together on the basis of confusion or undisclosed differences is to be eschewed at all cost, After fusion with the Spartaucs League - which will be on the firm basis of the programme of the Fourth International - a much stronger and politically centralised organisation must emerge, Political centralism will be won in the fight for theoretical clarity and understanding and in the struggle against all manifestations of bourgeois ideology in our ranks - especially organisation] sectarianism, insularity, centrism, . &Clestism in theory and petit ~bourgeois individualism, We are better p fitted to win this struggle than at any time in our history ~ we have won many comrades capable of developing theory; we have a seriousness in our ranks and dedication to building the organisation; and the objective situation is extremely favourable, Above all, on an international scale the Fourth International is o.learly the only organisation cefending the basic principles of revolwtionary marxism ~ what is more wider and wider circles are realising this, The future looks good.

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SYWOPSIS OF SECTION 0% SOME TRAITS OF TRADITIONAL BRITISH, TROTSKYISM * €L) Section explaining that the voots of the failure of attempts to build a section of the Fourth International in Britain have deep roots in the political Life of the country. Psychological and erude economic-determinist arguments to expbain this must he counteredes (2) Section briefly explaining the foundations of the dominance of emprkicism in the intellectual life of Britain, tracing the crigin of this in the peculiar form cf the bourgeois revelution in this country ~ because it was "early (i.e., before the full development of the scientific revolution, etc.); did not involve a convulsion which > ~ challenged all existing idoelogical forms and because the landlord class was transformed instead of smashed. For these and other reasons bourgeois rationalism has been very weak in Britain and the bourgeois revolution was fought out within the framework of religious ideas This has been reinforced by the comparative social peace of the period since the bourgeoisie completed their political revolution, There has been nothing equivalent of the populist/marxist controversy to stimulate a school of fevolutionary thought. 4 (3} Section inter-relding the above with the objective basis for ths deminance of pragmatism and reformism in the British labour movement. This section should trace.the links between comparative social peace in Britain and the fact that this country was the workshop of the worl enabling the British bourgeois to virtually exploit the whole world via the mehcanism of unequal exchange, That when this period of Britain's industrial dominance was coming to an end, imperialis& expl-~ oOitation of the empire and other countries assisted in the prevention of a severe crisis of adjustment, ‘Thus there was a continuous and uninterrupted basis for reformism. There should be a mention of the role played by. the relationship between Britain and Ireland. Ireland simultaneously playing the Bole of the granary of England and the economic base of the landowning classes (with the Scottish Highlands also partially filling the last role). Some material should alssappear on the effects 6PYOTKFinucus Irs immgration con the working class (in the early 19th century thera were two mutually hostile working classes in the centres of large British , industrial towns, with the “oglish working class féeling superior). : The cheap food policy of the British bourgedisie which alsorested upon the exploitation of Ireland should be brought ins The general strategy of British capitalism trying to incorporate the organisations of the working class into its day~—to-day policies should be explained. This being linked with the fact that because in Britain the working class has formed the majority of the population for a Long period it is the only really mass base for such a policy (e.g0, there is no peasantry). Under these conditions it was possible for the working class to build very strong organisations (the trade unions and the co-op movement) which were capable of achiexing big suecesses. This should be Linked to the fact that the British working class was "Late" in creating its "own party", For a whole period after the collapse of the Chan ‘tist movement the British working class and its organisation expressed themséives politcally by putting pressure om the bourgeois parties, In the last stages of the bourgeois political revolution the two main paribes competed for skilled workers support. When the Labour Party Was inally formed it was not even nominally a socialist party (the being very strong resistance, despite its name, to it heing designa in a) Po Foo} Pd as a workers party = witness the “workers margarins' deha =} a LS tS ¥R ck Cay

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a further peried Llib-lab politics were supported by important segtion a the miners, The famous clause four » o£ the working class, ¢ dep T AR ae we a Ot programme of the Ladour Tapty vsing only adopted arter the impart of the Russian revolution on the working classe te The combination of the lack of a redicalesocialist (let alone marxiss revolutionary ) intelligent sia plus the deep roots of reformism and pragmatism in the Labour movement Led to the absence of a marxist tradition (and to a position where what ‘marxists" there were . wv parodies, sae, Hyndman). ce Eb jo (4) The characteristics of the socialist seets, fabianism and the classical centrism/reformism of the ILP flow from this general situat~ tone The great strensth of the unions .gave the mar vxist sects a feeling of impotence and they sought .-consclation in dogmatism. But because of the low political level of the left this dogmatism lacked even the virtues of thorough-going sectarianism (esge, de Leonism) and was of a completely philistine nature (isG.s, thorough ay impregnated with bourgeois ideology disguised as "common sense” or scientific obsectivism). “his could take the most bizarre forms: witness the leader of the SDF, Belfort Bax, who had been a friend of Engels, he fought against female suffrage om the grounds that it could be proven scientifically that women were inferion because their brains were smaller'4% (the same man thought black people were also inferior). th this was the constant tendency towards Intimately inter-related wit iS} they attempted to solve their isolations ab oppeotunism in the sects a The ideological roots of fabianism and the ILP have been well-traced py Trotsky in ‘Where is Britain Going?" anda short sunmary of. these roots réiating them to the subsquents developments should be included. ng ould be a section on the objective roots of English chau- (5) There shot vinism relating it to the central position of British capitalism and to imperialism, Jt should be noted that for a whole epoch other nations ° ! were “inferior’ in the sense that they were exploited by “ritish imper= ialism im a vicious manner. The deep roots of this has to be established, especially in the “ritish working classes attitude towards, Irish, Indians ané black people generally. The idoelogical rational~ isation of the exploitation of the EMpPITe ybCo y by the manufacturers of public values and opinions should be noted. The way that the dominant ideas of the labour movement have generally reflected the changing needs of British imperialism should be NOtEDs. GoSe, the way the Labour Party and TUC have gone from "defending the jolly old empire! to wikeing it up in its overt form (whilst preserving its nes—colonialist features) at the precise moments when these policies | corresponded to the general needs of the bourgeocisic. (6) A section on explaining how it was this general background which meant that the Communist Party of Great Britain inherited many of the characteristics of the sects (indeed it was formed from the bringing together of them in the main), Its base in the working class was in the main formed from elements which were driven by reformism of the official labour movement and the sectariainism and dogmatism of the MaArxzLst groups to revolutionary syndicalism, it should be stressed that it was precisly this kind of background which made the British CP such a candidate for the title of the tamest section in Stalin's Comintern. We should counter the conspiracy theory of history-type argument that the degeneration of the CPGB resulted solely from the maiipulation of the Soviet bureancracy. The CFGB's asy oscihlation from opportunism (support for the TUC in the “general 5 ‘rlike} to third period stalinism (Harry Pollitt advocating the breeki Up of all LP meetings; back to worse opportunism (popular frontism y 4 : - 7 © >. * 5 n the Liberal Party and strike-breaking during the second world war} bhi UL A

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withoub any mass berms s ck of a mass reyolt authoritative leader that the British disproportionate pole (7) The absence of ain the CEGB (ne P Protekyist movene in British Trotsk T Le nb had no “peal, ‘roots. yi ism has been played by (8) There should be a section which is a more political expansion of my remarks about the WIL and its reasons for suce in the period of the second world war. The point must be made that this particular experience gave a kind of raticnale and successPul model for the sectarian propaganda and revolutionary syndicalist policies which have characterised British Trotskyism, The effects on the consciousness of a whole generation of Trotskyish cadres. should be noted ~ in a sense there is a generalised tendency for them to want te return to the "good ck gy bs tO ch ck iM be dia old uncomplicat ea" days of the L; with its straightforward politics. This general Sendency has merged with the inclinations of some- elements which “have come out of ths CFGBR from i from its semi~syndaics alist wing, ¢oge, Brian Behan,s This srong in the SLL, IS and even, in the past, the Hohe. (9) There showlé be a section noting that now the objective basis for many of ths characteristic s described above has teen eroded condition are much better from breaking with these traditions. However, the momentum of this tradition, the training of cadres in this school and the general regenerating effect of the British ‘oolitical mileu (which lags behind changes in the objective situation) is so strong that ‘probably a completes fracture was necessary im ordsr to create a new praxise ked. In a society organisational emerg venee of control m bo opportunism auss of the very SLL is the prime onstant fight against ology is necessary. (10) The inner-dynamic of the sects should be lool in which commodity production dominates everything sectarianism provides the inner-mechanism for the by cliques and for rapid changes from ultra—leftis especially im a milieu dominated by pragmatism becau Nouccesses’ of organisational sectarianisn). The SZ example of this but every group is effected, Ac this particularly vicious fown of bourgeois ideol