USFI split: the form. A letter from the IMG

Socialist Press no. 179, 12 December 1979, p. 8

Transcribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.

London, November 28

Dear Comrades,

Please find enclosed our reply to your article in Socialist Press on the split in the Fourth International. We hope that this can be published as soon as possible in order that the record can be put straight on questions which you evidently had inadequate information about when you published your article.

Comradely greetings

Phil Hearse

The article published in Socialist Press (14.11.79) contains allegations against the Fourth International and members of its British section, the IMG, which are quite untrue.

We protest, in the strongest possible terms against the publication of what amount to crude falsifications in this article.

First, you state that members of the Leninist Trotskyist Tendency were "bureaucratically expelled" from the International and that the Bolshevik Faction "pointed to the expulsions from the USFI as unmistakeable evidence that the majority would not allow a democratic world congress".

The fact of the matter is that the expulsions from the French section of leaders of the LTT and the Bolshevik Faction took place only after these people had signed a public appeal together with the OCRFI for a conference to "re-organise" the world Trotskyist movement.

This action, taken after the comrades had disloyally attended a meeting of the "international bureau" of the OCRFI, was quite incompatible with continued membership of the International and its French section.

How is it possible to consider as loyal members of the International people who sign a public appeal together with an opponent organisation aimed at attacking and splitting the International, and who refuse to rescind this action in front of the Congress of the French section?

Would the WSL, for example tolerate in its ranks members who signed a public appeal against the wishes of the WSL leadership attacking the WSL and calling for a conference to reorganise the British Trotskyist movement because the WSL was "dead"?

Would you consider that a loyal act? Would you tolerate such people in your organisation? Obviously not.

Then how can you attack the leadership of the French section for defending the elementary norms of democratic centralist functioning? What is "bureaucratic" about that?

Second, you argue that cde John Strawson, a leading member of the LTT in Britain carried out an "eleventh hour climb down" which prevented "mass expulsions" from the IMG.

This too is a crude falsification. John Strawson did not "climb down" on his political positions; he defends identical positions today as he did before the split.

What he did do was refuse to go along with the splitting act of the French LTT and Bolshevik Faction leaderships, and oppose their flagrant breach of national and international democratic centralism.

Comrade Strawson pointed out, correctly in our view, that the differences over Nicaragua were not differences of a fundamental programmatic nature.

To be sure, turning a sectarian face against the Nicaraguan revolution poses big dangers of being drawn behind pro-imperialist forces.

But the political line actually defended by the Bolshevik Faction amounted to an ultra-left sectarian position, not fundamental programmatic breaks with Trotskyism—whatever the future course of those comrades who have separated from the FI.

Therefore the split is an unprincipled split, which flows from incorrect positions on the programmatic basis of the unity of the party.

As the World Congress showed, the LTT was able to defend its positions. This gives the lie to the accusations that the leadership of the FI is a "rotten bloc".

The Fourth International is the only democratic centralist International where differences can be discussed out, including between components of the majority leadership.

This brings up the conference being organised by the OCRFI, the LTT and the Bolshevik Faction.

This conference has no political basis of agreement. The only thing which brings these forces together even for a conference is hostility to the USFI and a desire to split up and destroy the Fourth International.

Since there is not the slightest possibility of this conference setting up a new organisation, it represents not an attempt to "reorganise" or "reconstruct" the Fourth International but a simple retreat into "national Trotskyism".

How is it possible to "reconstruct" the Fourth International by attending a conference which is simply a cynical manoeuvre, an unprincipled conbination with no future? What construction of the Fourth International is taking place outside the ranks of the Fourth International itself?

We have seen a number of conferences of "all those adhering to Trotskyism" before, organised by Lutte Ouvriere.

They always finish with no common resolutions, no agreement on action. This new conference, like those organised by LO, is merely a smokescreen for those who want not an International, but a situation where they maintain absolute freedom from international constraints in their own country, "national Trotskyism" pure and simple.

The expulsions and split in the Fourth International were in fact provoked by grave breaches of democratic centralism.

For us, the building of an international democratic centralist organisation is a fundamental point of the Trotskyist programme.

Is this not also a fundamental plank of the WSL's programme?

And if so, how can you possibly continue to give public support to an operation precisely aimed at not forming an international organisation and designed as an alternative to doing so?

In this light we urge you to withdraw your public support for this conference.