Under A Stolen Flag by W. Sinclair (Bill Hunter)

Under A Stolen Flag by W. Sinclair (Bill Hunter),

May 22, 1957.

Introduction: The Fight Against Pabloite Revisionism

DURING THE PAST thirty years world Trotskyism has been assailed by two basic trends of revisionism. Both of these concern the nature and role of the Soviet Bureaucracy, and in turn emerged during certain difficult periods of our movement's history.

The years of the middle and late thirties found our numerically weak international movement under constant pressure from the forces of imperialism then actively engaged in the preparation of war on the Soviet Union. Things came to a head in the autumn of 1939 when a large group headed by Professor Burnham and Max Schachtman opened an all-out attack inside the SWP of the United States, against the theory that the Soviet Union was a degenerated workers state, maintaining that it should not be defended in the event of imperialist attack. The bureaucracy, they claimed, was a new class — a bureaucratic collectivist class. This point of view was mercilessly opposed by Leon Trotsky and the record of that great struggle is to be found in the books, In Defence of Marxism, and The Struggle for a Proletarian Party.

Trotskyism emerged from the second World War still isolated from the mass Labour movements, and weak numerically. Thanks to the treachery of Stalinism in Western Europe, the old capitalist politicians assumed leadership-once again, with the Stalinist parties retaining powerful support amongst the working masses, particularly in France and Italy. In Britain, the Labour Party came to power and successfully headed off the mass movement against Toryism. A period of slow, painful work in building up our sections began, under the most difficult material conditions. As in the years before the war, our movement had practically no financial resources, and a terrible shortage of cadres.

Then in 1947-53 came the period of the Cold War. The question was constantly posed: could we build revolutionary parties in time before war was upon us? During this period certain prominent individuals in the Trotskyist movement, headed by a man named Pablo — under combined pressures of European Stalinism and world imperialism — began to revise and reject the fundamental principles, criteria and method of analysis of the Trotskyist movement. The result of all this was a profoundly pessimistic world perspective and a false orientation based on a sceptical rationalization: the imminence and inevitability of the Third World War. This prognosis presumed not only the organic incapacity of the American and Western European working class to prevent such a war (and thereby dismissed its revolutionary potentialities) but conversely it also attributed to the imperialist bourgeois a power, homogeneity and stability which it did not possess. Trotsky's prognosis of Socialism or Barbarism was consequently replaced with the Pabloite schema of Barbarism first, Socialism afterwards.

Pablo developed the theory that since the next war would be against the Soviet Union, it would by its very nature be transformed almost immediately into an international civil war. Under these conditions, so the argument went, the Stalinist parties would move to the left and in certain circumstances could be expected to take the power as has happened in Eastern Europe and China. At first sight this looked reasonable enough, and it was not until Stalin died that the real face of the theory was revealed. In the summer of 1953 Pablo issued a draft document called 'The Rise and Decline of Stalinism'. In this he advanced the idea that sections of the bureaucracy in the USSR could unite with the Soviet masses and successfully re-introduce Soviet democracy.

When the East German uprising took place, Pablo opposed the withdrawal of the Red Army from Eastern Germany. It then became obvious that from the theory of 'international civil war' and the possibility of the Stalinist Parties taking power, Pablo, copying Isaac Deutscher, had now extended this theory into the USSR itself. For after all, if the bureaucracies of the CPs outside Russia could take power, why could not fundamental changes be introduced inside Russia by more 'left' or 'liberal' sections of the bureaucracy?

Like the theories of Burnham and Schachtman, Pablo revised the fundamental Trotskyist conception of the parasitic role of the Stalinist bureaucracy and by implication ascribed to it a conscious and progressive historical role. Whereas the orthodox Trotskyist movement from its inception maintained that the bureaucracy must be overthrown by the Soviet masses under the revolutionary leadership of a regenerated communist movement in the USSR, Pablo now placed a question mark over this basic proposition, and the result led to a series of splits in the world Trotskyist movement.

In France, Pablo placed the PB (Political Bureau) and the CC (Central Committee) of the French Section under the discipline of the IS (International Secretariat), refused to allow the PCI to designate its own PB, forced a split in the party and bureaucratically expelled the orthodox, proletarian majority. Two months before the split which he consciously provoked, he registered the PCI with the Paris Police Department under the leadership of the minority nominated by him!

In Britain, Pablo assisted Lawrence to organize a secret faction behind the backs of the democratically-elected leadership of the section. When the overwhelming majority of this leadership rejected Pablo's policies, he utilized this faction in an attempt to blackmail the section into supporting his policy. He informed the majority that Lawrence was not subject to the discipline of the British section but to the discipline of the International, in other words, Lawrence could do whatever he pleased, provided it suited Pablo, who at that time was the only official of the International present in Paris. The first thing he did was to refuse to implement majority decisions regarding the policy of our weekly paper. This led to a split on November 24th 1953.

Three weeks later, on December 15th 1953, Pablo constituted the Lawrence group as his official section and assisted them to re-organize their ranks in an all-out effort to capture control over our paper. The fight continued over six months, and at the end the policies of both Lawrence and Pablo were decisively rejected.

Several weeks after this, Lawrence took Pablo's policy seriously about the possibilities of the Communist Parties doing the job: he disbanded his group, stating that there was no need for an independent revolutionary party in Britain.

From that day to this, Pablo has never uttered one word of explanation of Lawrence's conduct. The fact that in 1954 his entire 'British Section' collapsed is kept well in the background.

Instead he set out to build another 'section' as if nothing had happened. Anxious to get some support, he obtained agreement with a small group of sectarians headed by G. (Ted Grant) Whilst, in true opportunist style, this group declared their opposition to Pablo in private conversation, they nevertheless managed to support him publicly in their journal 'Workers' International Review'.

This unprincipled alliance is directed mainly against the orthodox Trotskyists. It is designed to 'pressurize' us into an unprincipled unity by an all-out effort to confuse workers. In publishing the following document by Pablo f with a reply, we urge our comrades to study both with great care.

The gulf between Pabloite revisionism and ourselves grows wider and wider. We feel sure that this bulletin will be of important educational value for all the members of our organization.

Under a Stolen Flag

The document the 'Decline and Fall of Stalinism' is published by a body calling themselves the 'International Secretariat of the Fourth International'. In the name of the Fourth International they insidiously sap at its programmatic foundations.

Four years ago the same body published another document 'The Rise and Decline of Stalinism' which because of its revisions of basic principles, provoked a split in the world Trotskyist movement. It is hardly possible to find another four years in the past thirty which have delivered a more fruitful harvest of lessons for Marxists. They have been years which laid absolutely bare the counter-revolutionary character of Stalinism, the utter corruption and parasitism of the Soviet Bureaucracy; which outlined clearly the nature of the political revolution necessary to cleanse the workers' states, and clearly indicated the forces which will carry that revolution through.

Pabloism however, has forgotten nothing and learned nothing from those years. 'Rise and Decline of Stalinism', 'Decline and Fall of Stalinism' — the same method characterizes both. Four years have not cured the revisionist disease. In truth, the eclectic double-talk of the 'Decline and Fall' (1957) differs from the infamous 'Rise and Decline' (1953), only in that it is more miserably threadbare and more superficial in its analysis.

The IS begins its 'Draft Theses' with the declaration '...the present theses do not take up again either the historical expositions or the structural analysis and definitions of the theses 'Rise and Decline of Stalinism', of which they are neither a substitute nor a corrective, but a natural continuation and thus an integral part.' (our emphasis).

We must remark, in passing that Pablo and Co. show scant courtesy to the little group in Britain which made an unprincipled fusion with it last year. How now, Comrade G? You have justified your bargain — two professionals and a magazine, in exchange for a 'section' in Britain with a few 'principles' thrown in — by declaring Pabloism has changed. This shabby covering has now been torn away by none other than Pablo himself.

On page 1 of its thesis the 'International Secretariat' informs us that: 'The more and more dramatic events that have followed one another in the USSR itself, the Peoples' Democracies and in the CPs of the capitalist countries since the 4th World Congress, have completely and brilliantly confirmed the correctness of this analysis.' (Rise and Decline of Stalinism)

The major thesis of the 'Rise and Decline' was that the Stalinist bureaucracy was trapped between the drive of imperialism to immediate war and the ever-increasing mass pressure arising from the post-war revolutionary wave. Its 'objective basis' in the Soviet Union 'disappearing', this bureaucracy could no longer act in the same way as before. Conclusions which were essentially apologetics for Stalinism were summed up in the phrase which Lawrence, the British Pabloite leader, constantly and incessantly used: the bureaucracy 'has the will but not the capacity'. It has the 'will' for counter-revolutionary acts but not the 'capacity' to commit them. The 'Rise and Decline' put it: 'This new situation restricts more and more the capacity of counterrevolutionary measures of the bureaucracy.'

    There was no possibility of any real concessions to imperialism by Moscow. The Stalinist parties would be pushed more and more to the left. Temporary turns to the right might take place but they would be eddies in the mainstream of development and result only because 'mass pressure has not reached its culminating point.'

Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union the 'Malenkov era' signified 'the beginning of the decline of the Bonapartist dictatorship' (their emphasis). 'That regime can now maintain itself only by suppressing — temporarily or definitively — the most hideous aspects, that is to say the most characteristic ones of the regime' (our emphasis).

Thus a disintegration of Stalinism was taking place within the Soviet Union and within the mass Communist parties.

It is these arguments which we are told have been completely and brilliantly confirmed! The more events expose it the more the IS beats its chest to cover the hollowness of its ideas.

What are the facts? The bureaucracy which could no longer make concessions, has continued to direct its diplomacy towards a deal with imperialism! In the year following the publication of the 'Rise and Decline' it was entering into a compact with imperialism in an attempt to freeze the Indochinese revolution, enabling imperialists to maintain a toe-hold there. In line with the bureaucracy's wooing of French capitalism, the Stalinists in France voted for Mollet's emergency measures against the Algerian revolution.

It was the communist Parties which were to continue to move to the left, who followed the right wing directive of the 20th Congress and developed the 'theories' of the peaceful and constitutional road to socialism! And it was the regime whose most 'hideous aspects' were to be suppressed, the bureaucracy whose 'capacity for counterrevolutionary measures' was being more and more restricted, which launched the brutal attack on the Hungarian revolution!

The IS boasts that its analysis 'rendered our movement the only tendency in the international workers' movement capable of foreseeing and correctly interpreting the evolution of the world crisis of Stalinism.' We would ask: Gentlemen, don't you think you should take a little break from self-piaise and explain the evolution of 'your movement' in America, France and Britain? What happened to Collins, Clarke, Michele Mestre and Co? They took your documents to their logical conclusion, broke all formal adherence to the Fourth International and ended as open Stalinist fellow-travellers. Collins' role today is to give the Stalinist party a boost, and assist its leadership in its most severe crisis, when whole layers of the party have broken with Stalinism. The IS pass by in silence the evolution of these tendencies, but Collins, Michele Mestre and Clarke built on the foundations of Pabloism. The method which produced these open Stalinist tendencies yesterday, is the method of the IS today.

The disembodied Revolution

The 'Decline and Fall of Stalinism' substitutes for the political revolution a conception of irresistible evolution in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. To be sure, the IS writes often of the 'Political Revolution', it even elaborates a programme for it. The nature of that programme is itself revealing and we will return to it later. But what is the content of this Pabloite 'political revolution'? It is a process. More, it is an irresistible process — born from above, pressure from below, rifts between 'liberalisers' and 'Stalinizers' in the bureaucracy, and the growth of tendencies in the CPs which will lead the masses in struggle. It is the gradual peeling off of Stalinism like peeling the skins off an onion.

The process can swing back but, like a pendulum, it never returns to the point from which it started and will swing forward again. Thus: 'The "liberalization" of the regime, temporarily braked after the fall of Malenkov, started advancing again during the preparation, the holding and the aftermath of the 20th Congress.' 2 (Decline and Fall, P. 3)

And certainly a secondary place in this evolution is given to the masses. Their role is to be primarily one of pressure until, under the leadership of a section of the bureaucracy, they give the final spurt to the process towards socialist democracy, by finishing off the diehard faction among the bureaucrats.

The father of these theories, as has often been remarked, is Isaac Deutscher. The method is the same. Abstract generalizations are given the force of historical factors. There is a vulgar mechanical theory of the relationship between the material base of a society and its superstructure. Stalinism was the product of a certain set of objective circumstances, these circumstances have now changed and therefore we can expect 'a breathtaking reversal of the process by which the Soviet democracy of the early days was transformed into an Autocracy'. That is how Deutscher puts it in 'Russia after Stalin'. The IS limps along after him, with its 'liberalization', its 'new course' and so on — all implying a process of reform forced on the bureaucracy by objective circumstances. Its so-called political revolution is not a dialectical leap but an evolutionary march.

The IS uses the term 'political revolution' as an abstraction. What we have is a disembodied 'revolution' separate from its content of mass action. Hence the confused formulations in the 'theses' dealing with the action of the masses in relation to the political revolution. 'Without a transformation of the pressure of the masses into direct action of the masses' we read on p. 7, 'the political revolution cannot succeed in the USSR' (their emphasis).

If we have the traditional conception of the political revolution which is, precisely . . . direct action — the above statement is a tautology. Without the political revolution of the masses the political revolution cannot succeed. But if the concessions of the bureaucracy, the 'battle for freedom of thought' at the 20th Congress etc., are all part of the 'political revolution'; if we conceive of the 'political revolution' as being, in fact, an evolution towards democratization then the statement means something.

Again, we are told of future developments in Hungary, 'Encouraged by a fierce passive resistance and an unremitting mass pressure, the revolution will again take up its march forward.' P. 16 (our emphasis). Obviously, the 'march forward' is the actions of the bureaucracy on which mass pressure is exerted.

The metaphysicians of the IS love to play with idealistic abstractions. Listen to these lines which are palmed off on us as 'Marxist analysis'.' . . .the battle for freedom of thought in the USSR won at the 20th Congress tremendous victories whose effects cannot be wiped out. Filtering inexorably through all the cracks and crevices henceforth opened up in the shaking dictatorship, the spirit of criticism, the spirit of rebellion, will penetrate into the political field [the 20th Congress was non-political!] and will strike the spark of the political revolution' p. 5 (our emphasis). What lyrical poet was responsible for this piece of nonsense? Will someone please tell us what exactly is this 'battle for freedom of thought'? Like the twin spirits of rebellion and criticism, it appears to be creating untold havoc in the bureaucratic structure entirely apart from human beings.

We must admit, that posing developments in this way relieves one of the necessity of discussing concretely the nature and strength of the real forces at work. And that is what Pabloism avoids. It must spread cloudy words to bolster up its conception of evolutionary progress and of the decisive role of liberal tendencies among the bureaucracy.

What a mass of confusion is its analysis of the 20th Congress. First we are told that the 20th Congress 'witnessed the parallel development' of two tendencies. The IS makes the spectacular discovery that one of these is a 'proletarian tendency'! It is 'the proletarian tendency which is raising particularly the question of equality and which tends more and more to raise the question of the administration of the plants'. So writes the IS on page 4. The emphasis is theirs and they continue:

This tendency obtained important concessions at the 20th Congress (raising of low salaries, equalization of pensions, etc.) it skilfully seized on the 'struggle against the personality cult' to fight the principle of single command...It also obtained the recognition in principle (!) that the Labour code...must be revised. The attempts made by the Stalinist representatives of the economic bureaucracy (Kaganovitch and Bulganin) to introduce a reform into the salary system which...in reality reduced the overall pay of the skilled workers, were successfully combated. The proletarian tendency took its inspiration from the example of the Polish and Hungarian trade unions to demand a return of the unions to their genuine historical function: the defence of the specific interests of the workers if need be, against the administration and the bureaucratically degenerated state.

    Now the IS itself tells us later in its 'theses' that the 'CP of the USSR can scarcely be considered any longer a workers' party in the sociological meaning of the term (it is to a large extent composed of bureaucrats, as is confirmed by the statistics published on the occasion of its 19th and 20th Congress)', p. 9. Yet the strength of the proletarian tendency at this Congress of bureaucrats was so great that it was able to win important concessions! Not only that, but this powerful proletarian tendency of bureaucrats fought consciously for a proletarian programme! It skilfully seized on the struggle against the personality cult to fight the 'arbitrary omnipotence' of the manager over the worker. It was 'inspired' by example to demand a return of the unions to their genuine historical functions etc.

    As against this proletarian tendency is the 'tendency of the most conscious representatives of the most privileged layers of the bureaucracy', p. 4 (our emphasis). And what successes has this tendency achieved? 'This tendency' we read on p. 4 'had scored points especially during the year 1955...but workers pressure aiming at revising the Labour Code threatens to destroy part of those advantages. The bureaucracy [its most privileged layers?] demanded and obtained at the 20th Congress, the extension of the bonus system in favour of the administrative personnel. It is asking for a 'liberalization' of the Penal Code in economic matters and is obtaining particularly the right for each industrial enterprise to sell certain production goods'. (Our emphasis).

Tot up the balance sheet and it would certainly appear that the proletarian tendency had the better of it! With 'objective conditions' irresistibly forcing 'de-Stalinization' then certainly this 'proletarian tendency' may rapidly win over the majority of the bureaucracy. That is, given one thing — that the Pabloite cloud-cuckoo land bore any relation to reality.

But we haven't done with 'tendencies' yet. The 20th Congress, which 'witnessed the parallel development' of two tendencies on page 3 of the IS document, sees the bureaucracy torn into 'various tendencies' on p. 5.

'Under the pressure of the masses and of a discontent that was beginning to take on a political aspect, the leading nucleus of the bureaucracy was torn into various tendencies: a tendency in favour of major concessions to the masses (Malenkov-Mikoyan?); a tendency for stiffening the dictatorship (Kaganovitch-Molotov?); a centrist tendency (Khruschev-Bulganin).' The emphasis is ours, the question marks are the IS's very own. For a serious analysis they substitute a 'three card trick'. Instead of 'Find the Lady' however, it is 'Find the Liberal'.

And even now we are not done with 'tendencies'. On page 7 we meet up with a 'left faction within the liberal tendency''!

What a welter of confusion is in these pages. What a terrible theoretical degeneration. To what childish nonsence are those reduced who exchange eclecticism and impressionism for Marxist method. Pabloism, however, is something more than confusion. Its theories would lay the Fourth International prostrate in face of historic opportunities, would drain away its firmness, and confidence — in a period when the forces are maturing which will destroy the Stalinist canker. It does this by creating illusions in a faceless 'liberal section' of the bureaucracy.

One of the most important and even decisive sources for the crisis of Stalinism has been and still is the Chinese revolution. Unlike the Yugoslav CP however the Chinese CP leadership has attempted — up till the present — to maintain its differences with the Soviet bureaucracy within the framework of an unprincipled alliance which has retarded the crisis of Stalinism and undeniably bolstered up the Khruschev regime. This unholy alliance revealed itself unmistakably during the Hungarian revolution. The Peking regime — in return for industrial aid and credits from the Soviets — placed itself unreservedly on the side of the counter-revolutionary dictatorship of Kadar. This was a double blow against not only the working class of Hungary, but also the working class movement of the world. Firstly the Chinese CP justified the Russian intervention as 'righteous', secondly it threw all its prestige behind the bureaucratic national oppression of the Kremlin and the oppression of the working class so clearly illustrated by the suppression of the workers' councils. It is true that since then the Chinese leaders have had occasion to rethink their policy in Hungary, thanks mainly to the pressure of the revolutionary working class of China, who in the struggle for industrialization are becoming increasingly intolerant of bureaucracy and excessive centralism.

No analysis of Chinese Stalinism, however, can be considered complete or even truthful which does not expose and condemn the role of the Peking leaders during the October Hungarian Revolution. From this standpoint the analysis of the Pablo clique stands condemned. They do not mention once the role of the Chinese CP or its notorious statement, 'More on the Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat' which provided the 'theoretical' justification for the bureaucracy. It is amusing — and also a little tragic — to contrast the exaggerated emphasis given to the October 30th declaration of the USSR with the absence of any reference to the Chinese statement. The document does not mention the changes in the Constitution of the Chinese CP, and the current of 'de-Stalinization' which is operating within it. All this is correct and we have no intention of disputing the current trend of 'letting all flowers bloom.' This however does not regenerate insidious Pabloism. A stopped clock, it is said, can be correct twice in the day. What is important for our movement is that the present changes in China do not in any way obviate the necessity for a Chinese Section of the Fourth International. The constant and continuous persecution of the Chinese Trotskyites, the murdering of its leaders, and the refusal to rehabilitate Chen du Hsiu, founder of the progressive and Communist movement, in China, confirm and underline the necessity for a party based on the programme of the World Revolution. It is incumbent on the leadership of the Fourth International to state this clearly, unequivocally and without hesitation. Pablo deliberately refrains from issuing such a call. Why? To ask the question is to answer it.

Hungary and the Irreversible Process.

'One of the most spectacular results of the Hungarian revolution was the Soviet declaration of 30th October' the 'theses' inform us, and go on to assert: 'This statement attempted to establish relations between the peoples' democracies and the USSR on a new basis, thus implicitly recognizing the element (!) of national oppression that the Kremlin had introduced into the mutual contacts among workers' states'. The statement attempted nothing of the sort. The only way to establish relations between Hungary and the USSR on a 'new basis' was by the withdrawal of Soviet troops. In fact, under cover of its October 30th statement and its negotiations with the Nagy Government, the Kremlin prepared the second intervention and launched the attack on Budapest after cynically arresting the Hungarians, who were discussing putting relations on a 'new basis'.

The IS declaims:

Though the brutal intervention of the Kremlin in the Hungarian revolution opposes a scathing denial to the bureaucracy's protestations of good faith, its 30th October declaration will nevertheless be invoked against it every time that a tendency in the CP of the 'Peoples' Democracies' will try to free itself effectively from Kremlin tutelage. It will thus become, without the bureaucracy realising it, a new time-bomb which will blow to bits the relationships of subordination among Communist Parties and workers' states .

Of course, the masses will seek to use to their own advantage every concession or statement that the Soviet bureaucracy makes in self-defence. But the important lesson from the Hungarian events and the Soviet statement is that only the political revolution of the masses can resolve the national question in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

In the shadow world of the IS, however, this statement of October 30th enters as part of the de-Stalinization process. The implication is that it was a product of the liberalizers in the Kremlin. Now 'The immediate repercussions of the Hungarian revolution can stimulate a momentarily predominant faction in the Kremlin to 'harden' [note the quotation marks] its attitude toward the countries of the glacis. But the pressure of the masses cannot fail to continue to grow in these countries'. National oppression must succumb to the ever-unfolding process! 'The process of transformation of relations among workers' states, of relations of national oppression and economic exploitation into relations of equality and fraternal collaboration is irreversible', (p. 17 Decline and Fall) (our emphasis).

We are back to the essence of Pabloism, teleology replaces Marxism. History grinds onwards, irresistibly, to its predestined goal. And the role of the advance guard, the conscious revolutionary force? Can there be any place for it when the march of progress is irreversible? But wait! There is a task for it to perform: to persuade the Soviet bureaucrats not to resist the laws of history. The IS ends this central section of its document with the following sentence: 'The sooner the Soviet bureaucrats bow before this process, the more harmoniously it will be carried out. The more they resist it, the more it will lead to violent conflicts and sanguinary collisions'.

And this appears under the Fourth International! The more they resist the more it will lead to violent conflict. Absolutely so. The more the temperature drops the colder it will get!

The question, of course, is not what will be the results if the bureaucracy resists, but whether it will resist or not. It is that which the IS revealingly leaves open.

The Political Revolution and its Leadership:

'The formulation of a more detailed and precise programme for the political revolution by the Fourth International' is an 'urgent necessity', writes the IS. And do they give us such a programme? They do not.

Certainly we have a whole section which the authors have seen fit to present to us under the heading: 'The programme of the Fourth International for the Political Revolution'. But in the pages which follow is not a programme for the political revolution at all. There is what can only be described as a 'Draft Constitution for a Healthy Workers' state', and advice (to whom?) on measures to prevent a future bureaucratic degeneration.

Of course, every Marxist is concerned with the general problem of the danger of bureaucratization in the working class movement and workers' states. But the fight against bureaucracy demands a concrete programme against today's concrete bureaucracy. But by laying down a general programme for future healthy relations the IS avoids a real programme for the fight against the present bureaucratic cancer of Stalinism.

A programme for the political revolution must begin from the necessity of organizing the masses independently of the bureaucracy. Compare the Pabloite 'programme' with that for the political revolution in the Transitional Programme. Here are no abstractions, but a programme for struggle. Its sentences are clear and sharp, ringing with a revolutionary hatred of the bureaucracy.

A programme for the political revolution must have as its central aim the building of a conscious leadership. It must be imbued with the ideas that the success of the political revolution and the social revolution in the west are intertwined. From this follows the need for that leadership to be firmly imbued with internationalism and to be part of a world movement.

For the IS the problem of leadership is dissolved in the 'irresistible march' which will throw up a leadership from Stalinism. It is true you will find a sentence on page 15 where it refers to the 'essentially spontaneous character of the 23rd October insurrection' in Hungary and 'the lack of a revolutionary leadership capable of quickly coordinating the proletarian forces'. But the leadership it sees lacking in Hungary is the leadership that was pushed up in Poland. 'The political revolution in Hungary', affirm the theses, 'burst out in far more favourable conditions than those that permitted the Polish revolution to win its first stage'. Among the favourable conditions listed is 'the lack of an alternative leadership resulting from the lack of a broadly based tendency in the whole party and the workers' movement', (p. 15).

In other words, the irresistible and irreversible process skipped a stage of evolution in Hungary and went outside the party and the bureaucracy and therefore did not spontaneously generate a leadership as in Poland. Thus, for the IS, Hungary is an aberration, — the process, in the future will be patterned on Poland!

The IS take their inspiration, not from the real movement towards political revolution, but from their reflection. If we are to arrive at a correct perspective for the political revolution, then we must concretely analyse the East German uprising, Poznan and Hungary, from the point of view of how the mass struggle developed, what was its strength, what were its inadequacies. The first lesson is that, in their uprising against the bureaucracy, the masses will develop their own organizations, opposing them to the bureaucratic regime and all its agencies. This was shown most clearly and irrefutably in the Hungarian revolution, which developed to the stage of dual power with the setting up of a national network of Soviets. But the same lesson is to be drawn from the East German uprising which was organized not through, but against, the instruments of the regime — the party and the trade unions. In Poland, the Poznan strike and the mass upsurge which followed resulted in the setting up of workers' councils.

Hungary further revealed that the spontaneous development of the political revolution can carry it to a high level. It can unite the entire working class around democratic organs of the workers. But the first examples of the political revolution in real life, have also underlined the absolute necessity of a conscious leadership. A leadership that can carry the unity of the working class forward to the taking of all power by the Soviets; that can mobilize this class around a thoroughgoing programme to root out Stalinism; a leadership that understands, above all, that its political revolution will only be successful if extended to the Soviet Union and linked with the revolution in the west. Finally, we must add, a leadership that must fight all illusions in the bureaucracy — in Hungary this would have meant preparing the whole nation and the world working class for Moscow's bloody attack.

The IS implies the 'political revolution' in Eastern Europe will go through a stage of tendency struggles in the Communist Parties, which will end in mass action under the leadership of an oppositional tendency.

Its whole perspective for Eastern Europe is summed up in the following paragraph on page 9:

Gomulka in Poland, Nagy in Hungary, tomorrow perhaps Hernstedt or Ackerman in East Germany by becoming in the eyes of the masses symbols of the struggle for national emancipation are creating favourable conditions for a renewal of popularity for the CP (through its national tendency) and permitting the political revolution under oppositional communist leadership to mobilize national feeling in its favour. This has occurred especially in a classical form in Poland. (Our emphasis.)

The role of Gomulka and Nagy, in fact, only assumes importance — and then temporarily, from the point of view of this whole period of political revolutions — because of the weakness of Fourth Internationalist leadership.

What really occurred in Poland? What is the political revolution under 'oppositional communist leadership' and does it provide the norm, the classical form, for the future?

First: the basic movements in Poland were those of the masses, beginning with the June 28th general strike in Poznan. The strike began around economic demands, but, in face of the resistance of the regime, developed into an uprising for national independence and workers' democracy. The Stalinist regime attempted to crush the uprising by similar means as those used in East Germany, even to the denunciation of the strikers as 'imperialist inspired', and the staging of a show trial.

Several factors combined to make the subsequent course of events different from those in East Germany. The 20th Congress has increased the crisis of the Stalinist regime, which in turn had given greater confidence to the workers. Popular support for the uprising continued to be expressed and a movement of criticism developed among students and intellectuals. The widespread but formerly suppressed feelings against the Soviet occupation were voiced more and more. The Polish bureaucracy was using Russian troops and the harshest measures of suppression. They called back Gomulka. A section of this native bureaucracy began to lean on the masses to counteract the demands of the Kremlin.

It remains to add that the outbreak of the Hungarian revolution undoubtedly was one reason why the Soviet bureaucracy finally made concessions to Poland.

What are the conclusions? That the urge to political revolution in Poland was from below, the motor forces were the mass discontent resulting in the Poznan strike, the setting up of the workers councils and the workers arming themselves. The tendencies in the CP were a reflection of that. Gomulka was flung to the top by it. The concessions granted were a by-product of the revolutionary activity of the masses.

The political revolution has not been carried through in Poland. The revolutionary developments of the masses were arrested by the compromise of the Soviet bureaucracy with Gomulka. What exists now is an unstable relationship of forces in Poland. Gomulka is balancing and improvising, between the workers, the peasantry, the Catholic Church and the Soviet Bureaucracy. The Natolin clique, the direct representatives of the bureaucracy, continues organized. Already Gomulka has been forced to make concessions to it, attempting to limit the activities of the workers councils. At the same time there exists the danger from the growth of capitalist elements seeking support in the peasantry.

To carry through the political revolution it is essential in Poland to have a conscious leadership. The major task is to utilize this period, when the workers possess a confidence after winning concessions by struggle in October and before, when the ferment is continuing among the students and intellectuals, to build that leadership.

And what of the IS perspective in the rest of Eastern Europe: tendency struggles in the CPs leading to a renewal of popularity for these parties and then an oppositional tendency from the bureaucracy leading the political revolution?

It is possible, in the particular circumstances now existing in Poland, for a period, to have a degree of discussion in the Polish CP although the Natolin clique is seeking to suppress it and the leadership refuses to lift the ban on factions. But only on the basis of eclectic confusion and falsifying the real nature of the CPs, can the IS argue that the next stage of development in the rest of Eastern Europe is the launching of tendency struggles.

What is posed by the argument of the IS — although, as usual, they do not draw their conclusions out openly — is that in Eastern Europe the 'political revolution' will flow through and transform the Communist parties. However, when we come down to concrete facts, of which the IS is so contemptuous, we find that a feature of the revolutionary movements in Eastern Europe is that the workers set up their own organizations, as opposed to the instruments of bureaucratic oppression.

Will there be now an 'increase of popularity' for the CP in Hungary? The real support for the Hungarian party was shown in the uprising — when it collapsed. The political revolution there did not unfold under the leadership of an 'oppositional communist tendency'. In fact the uprising of 23rd October took place despite Nagy. Even when Soviet tanks were moving into Budapest the following day, Nagy was making appeals for the laying down of arms. Nagy, like Gomulka, was thrown off balance by the revolution. The relationship which quickly developed between the Nagy Government and the insurgent masses was one of dual power.

Of course, sections of the CP fought with the masses. But they entered into the Councils as part of a leadership being forged in the struggle against the Stalinist apparatus.

As to the future in Hungary, isn't it clear that the organization of the future rising of the Hungarian working class will proceed underground among the masses, with the Communist Party more than ever isolated as part of the hated apparatus?

But Pabloism continues to speculate on the rise of new Nagys and new Gomulkas to save the masses. Nowhere, in this document, is there a mention of the necessity of building sections of the Fourth International in Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union. And it is here, according to the ideas expressed in the theses, that the fate of the world revolution will be settled.

At best, the IS would reduce the FI to a collection of political commentators, and superficial pro-Stalinist commentators at that. The building of the Fourth International can only proceed through rooting out its conceptions which are set down in these 'theses' with all the ambiguity and confusion which characterizes the Pabloite tendency. Pabloism once again shows here that it abhors precision, clarity, the drawing out of thought to the end. Marxism begins from what is, seeks scientific objectivity, but Pabloism covers truth with obscurantist phraseology.

Its very ambiguity and confusion is revealing. Half a truth is the whole of a lie, and those who are ambiguous on the principled questions of Stalinism are miserable apologists for the bureaucracy — however much they prate abstractly about 'political revolution'—like thieves crossing themselves while robbing the altar.

The IS has its formulae, its occasional phrases to cover up its departure from Marxism. They inform us they 'considered the "new course" of the Kremlin not as a movement of self-reform by the bureaucracy, but as a movement of self-defence of it'.

Chatter about the 'new course' being self defence of the bureaucracy means nothing. The questions at issue are whether the moves of the bureaucracy are part of a simple evolution in the direction of democratization, or a measurement of the maturing forces of the political revolution, the prospects of which are bound up with the development of the masses, and the growth of their organization and leadership. Whether in face of all forms of self-defence of the bureaucracy — concessions and repressions — we expose the hypocrisy, counter-revolutionary nature and cynicism of Stalinism, and aim at rousing the masses against it. And finally, whether we undermine the struggles against Stalinism by minimizing these brutalities and counter-revolutionary activities, exaggerating its concessions, and peddling notions of a spontaneous process as a substitute for a struggle to prepare a leadership for the coming political revolution.