Internationalism: a very practical question
Socialist Challenge1970sPhil HearseScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
deny that the results of every effective solidarity perspective cannot even be developed. IMG.
capitalism, the internationalisation of its counterrevolutionary and repressive funetions, the international co-ordination of workers' struggles intervention of the vanguard is an urgent TASK SUCT cannot be improved on a piecemeal basis.
The crying need is for a mass revolutionary sections deeply implanted in working class. Starting with existing revolutionary forces, can we begin this task? For comrades the answer is workers' struggles, discuss, but above all... wait'.
This is how Duncan Hallas of the SWP puts it:
'To develop a real current and without such a current all talk of an International is self-deception - it is necessary to start bi linking the struggles workers in one country with those of others. workers actually exist, namely in the various countries.
'It means putting aside grandiose ideas like "International leadership", "World Congresses" and the like in *IT IS around such issues as internationalism that the International Socialist Alliance and the international are planning series dav-schools. The first will be o *Revolutionary Strategy and the Revolutionary Party', on Saturday 10 March.
are inviting all signatories to the appeal for joint work which appeared in the 4 January issue Challenge to attend, as well as comrades who feel they agree with the appeal. Big Flame has also been invited.
Venue • Hampstead Room, YWCA, Great Russell Street, WC1. (Organised auspices of the London World Affairs Group.] Registration £1, School, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP. offered by socialist organisations of every variety. Furthermore, the Iranian struggle has brought home to many revolutionaries the very practical questions of building a party in Iran.
Internationalism is a fundamental, practical issue, which can no longer be dismissed as 'abstract'. Very few socialists would impact of dramatic events like the Russian Revolution, the critical opinion of their development, the steps which should be iS at a national and local level, is involved in debate with, amongst . It is written by Phil Hearse, a member of the including however limited and the co-ordination lets in various essential...'(1)
the build BUBe tendency nOW "link up abandons the revolutionary ulous approach below. Further, in 1978, on TCHIL of is acclacary annoualca of the permanent organisational on political analysis.
, in London mechanisms the SOcIalISI real problem internationally Rally the when the from se on the SWP 'national' struggle can be national IMG propaganda and agitation in one's own country together with developing meaningful international links, which first are meaningful to workers outside the milieu...meetings and scussions Derween socialist groupcountries are Let us note straight away that this approach abandons all attempts to pontical in favour of 'humdrum tasks' and 'meetings and discussions. In this respect, such an argument left in each particular country to its own spontaneous development, a ridicdiscuss the notion that there does not exist a real curIn the workers movement in many countries But the real objection to Hallas' approach is its abandonment of the the possibility of the Marxist vanguard in each country co-ordinating its activity and developing a common analysis of situation and political These possibilities exist even when revolutionary groups are very small; but they cannot be realised without a common framework for discussion, a structure and at least a limited division of labour, and a commonly accepted way of making decisions and agreeing If some comrades find the names actually given to these essential (International leadership, world congress, international executive committee, etc) "grandiose" then that is a very secondary objection which can easily be dealt with. The whether agreed analysis possible, agreement on internationpossible, or whether these things are merely 'fictions' and 'self-deception.
For example, was it 'self-deception Fourtl oriented its sections at the 1965 world the congress to building mass campaigns Vietnam? Or did it find some concrete result in the central role of the US anti-war movement, the central role of the in the Vietnam Campaign or the central role of the JCR in building the Comité Vietnam in France?
Was it 'a fiction' when the French and Swiss sections set about jointly linking up the struggle of French and Swiss workers during the strike at the Lip watch factory - a decision which led to some concrete, not just verbal, linking up of workers' struggles internationally in SIne COTIN demonstrations attended by workers in watch factories in both France and Switzerland.
Or again, was it simply a fiction when the whole weight of the Fourth International was used to win over a substantial section of the nationalist movement to Trotskyism. Without the intervention and especially the influence of the French section or the ETA-VI comrades, TOLS VISIT would be in an incomparably weaker state than it is today in Spain.
Is it pure fiction that Trotskyist organisations have been built in several East European under repression and in the most difficult circumstances, plishment which would have been literally impossible without permanent work of militants from many countries in Western Europe? We could add endlessly to this list of examples. They all testify, against the international passivity of Hallas, to possibility international work by revolutionaries.
Such things are not however, if contact between Marxist vanguard is limited "meetings and discussions between grouplets in various Permanent Joint action requires an arganisational framework: i every- agreed programme and thing has to be discussed from scratch in "meetings and discussions, then nothing practical gets done.
The many conferences held by the French organisation Lutte Ouvrière, several times attended by the British IS (SWP), demonstrate that conferences without programmatic agreement or organisational framework modify nothing. For comsde Hallaterm nes existence consciousness. His polemic represents the rationalisation of a nationallybased group, albeit a large one, which terrain.
The near-destruction of revolutionary Marxist tradition by Stalinism has led to a situation where re-building OI revolutionary organisations and the re-appropriation of revolutionary Marxist politic especially after 1969 - by broad new forces has taken place in a complex and contradictory fashion.
FOR ARORIO ROTE Ernest Mandel speaking at the IMG's rally on the 40th anniversary of the Fourth International last year Solidarity fully broke HICVCH positions been through of Joint on one of its central concerns seizure of power.
Basque to the tune of Il Manifesto'.
has been the win these centrist revolutionary Marxist positions.
Manifesto's COUTES CS.
an accomment whole. the organisations, tion which are ABC to Marxists. meaningful internationally possible, nated struggle the seriously countries'. national intervention;
joint practice totally face of the revolutionary left.
pamphlet On determines Trotskyism'.
failure the The Other Up&p.
Duncan Hallas.
Revolutionary
'Party and Class', Pluto Press, 1969 This is classically demonstrated by the case of Il Manifesto in Italy. Its core was expelled from the Italian Communist Party (PCI) at the end of
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far-reaching — or even decisive — in changing the relationship of forces on a world scale. We need only remember the differing
Spanish Civil War, Vietnam, Chile or Portugal. That's why it is not enough to organise support for these upsurges when they occur. Much more is called for, including a
taken, and the political tasks involved. Without this approach and a sound
precluded, The question of internationalism, specifically the Fourth International, is the centre of much discussion today. The IMG,
others, comrades of the Socialist Workers Party, the Workers' Socialist League, and the International Socialist Alliance. Below, we print a contribution to the debate which is taken from a new pamphlet called 'On Trotskyism and the Fourth
the 1960s for leftism'. But its leading group, around Rossanda and Magri, trom Stalinist Failing to develop a homogeneous politics or cadre, the organisation has numerOus internal crises, and has ended up going back - the key role of workers control in the Now it sees its central role as left pressure on the PCI, in Rossanda's words making the 3½ million legs of the PCI march Crucial in this whole development absence of firmly-rooted revolutionary Marxist organisation capable of intervening to forces experience has been repeated in slightly different ways by the other two major organisations of This represents a major tragedy for the European revolutionary moveThese huge numbering nearly 50,000 militants at one time, each with daily papers, are being frittered away because of their inability to answer central questions of orientaNo modification can occur in the state of the existing revolutionary left without a co-ordi by revolutionary Marxists. Any national revolutionary organisation which takes its own ideas must attempt an interand this immediately poses the question of international organisation. Any other approach simply leads to constructing alliances with the most diverse trends, incapable contributing anything to changing the * The extracts above are from the Trotskyism and / the Fourth International'. The pamphlet contains two essays: 'On the Fourth International' and 'Big Flame on The last article will be of particula concern to many Socialist Challenge readers who were critical of our Big Flame's pamphlet. We would urge them to order a copy of the pamphlet from:
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Socialist Challenge. 22 February 1979 page 13
Pigeon post YOUR pigeon racing correspondent labours complete apprehension when he February and pseudonyms are Trotsky and Tariq Ali?) that Beakless Benn could be one of those birds unable to get out of its shell.
Those in the know recall that this winged wonder once ruled the skies, nanc missuggests (l sort of of Lord particular THIS EXIST? HAVE THEY SURVIVED? /NEVER MIND • TRY DIGESTING THE ECTAKIAN KAVINGS C 1LEFTTHATSOME OF HE SKIESH A WONDER WHO THEY'RE TALKING
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