Party: 60 years of misdirection
in the unions. ONE organisation which has gained in membership during the miners' strike has been the Communist Party. With many of its best and most active rank and file NUM militants travelling outside their home areas to work with local Support Committees, the CP has been able to project the image of a solid, working class organisation.
But new contacts and recruits may be excused for wondering exactly what Party and what politics they are signing up for. The Communist Party's daily paper the Morning Star has been more conspicuous in recent years for its plunging circulation obituary column and knife-edge fund appeals than for any political leadership or clarity. And the past 18 months has seen an ugly public faction fight for control of the Star and its editorial line.
On the one side are ranged the "traditional"
Stalinist advocates of unapologetic the "Moscow" line - a minority in the present-day Communist Party, but still clinging on to a majority control of the formally "independent" more openly
who have taken a majority on the CP's Executive Committee but have been unable to assert their control over the Morning Star.
Yet on most major issues of policy regarding the British class struggle, both wings of the Party share a common approach. The differences are sharpest on international issues, such as Poland and Afghanistan — where he old guard doggedly defend the
Moscow Stalinists, embarrassment in aid this o secure a "broader" base for the Party amongst liberal thinking sections of the middle class.
Ton the central issue of class-struggle politics today, the miners' strike, there is no real division between the main CP factions. Both wings are committed to a policy of preserving the Party's longstanding "peaceful co-existence" with the "left" wing of the TUC General Council, and the trade union bureaucracy as a whole.
yearsone has moonged to old bee policies over to a quite disproportionate number of official positions and influential posts in the unions, even though the Party's membership has dwindled year after year to below 15,000.
The CP's refusal to challenge or put demands for action which might bureaucrats — even though the TUC itself has moved steadily to the right under the blows from the Thatcher "lefts" have shown themselves unwilling to take any firm stand against the right wing -in the miners' strike.
Himself influenced by CP politics,
accompanied in maGahey and Peter Heabetield, ict thur Scargill's attitude towards the TUC itself, and the union leaders at the Labour Party conterence, been one which has repeatedly let the bureaucrats off the hook. Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 24
By HARRY SLOAN
At the Brighton TUC Congress, the NUM leadership wrongly opted for the hollow facade of "unity" around the empty formulae of the General Council's resolution, and made no real attempt to fight for and demand real action from the other unions. The result: despite paper pledges of lined to operate aeratie fun. supplies are being accepted across NUM picket lines; and the Tory government, encouraged by the pro stration of the TUC, has given High Court judges the green light to seize
national assets. Yet the Morning Star hailed the TUC decisions as a victory for the miners.
Likewise at the Labour Party conference, where the seizure of the union's national assets and even jailing of NUM leaders was immediately hreatened, NUM leaders agreed t he withdrawal of the TGWU resolu tion endorsing their retusal to go to the High Court. Despite the NUM restraint, they did not even receive in
1926 General Strike: CP line was all power to the General Council" — which sold out after 9 days.
return the "unity" of a speech or two by other unions pledging to defend the miners against further court action.
There is reason to believe that this line is more that of the Communist Party than Arthur Scargill, who in the early days of the strike set a healthy precedent by going out of his way to put other union leaders on the spot, and calling - sometimes over their heads - for solidarity action from other sections of workers.
Yet now The Miner, edited by longstanding CPer Maurice Jones, facing the question of seizure of the whole union's assets, makes no ap. peal for action to any other union, and despite the headline "It's War!" brushes aside the sequestration.
And the CP policy of peaceful coexistence with the right wing of the union bureaucracy has also made itself felt on the question of picketing. A clear example of this was to be seen during the for a mass picket of Didcot power station, near Oxford, on October 24.
When a delegation from the Oxford Trades Council and the South Wales NUM attended the South East Region TUC support group to propose backing for the picket there was very great reluctance to do so. They quoted the TUC Congress resolution which required the unions inside the power stations to agree before a picket can be placed on the gates. They argued that there was a danger that such pickets could alienate the officials concerned and the stewards inside. A week later and after much debate the decision was taken to support the Didcot picket and promote other mass pickets of power stations in the South East Region.
Nor was the opposition a chance thing. Most of those opposing the picket to one degree or another were CP members clearly acting on party lines.
Behind this attitude of the CP lies a view of trade union work as one of collaborating and preserving "unity" with the right-wing TUC "establishment" — even where this is at the expense of the rank and file struggle. Cers saw it as pe tuds to uphton
Brighton resolution than to take action to shut down a power station.
This political approach is not new. It has a long and undistinguished history period of the 1926 General Strike.
The British Communist Party was formed in August 1920 in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution; it attracted many of the most class conscious and militant workers, as well as elements from the small, divided and politically weak groupings of British Marxism.
The motive for joining such a party was plainly the need for a clear, revolutionary political leadership in the British workers' movement, where the class collaboration of the stillemerging Labour Party and its leadership was a mirror image of the largely conservative trade union bureaucracy.
But the early Communist Party lacked a coherent policy or perspective for relating to the exising labour movement. As the inheritor of many of the sectarian methods of the early British Marxists, it did not begin a serious attempt to implant itself in industry until 1922-23 — by which time slump and mass unemployment were major obstacles.
The CP did after a while become involved with a growing rank and file movement which, in the light of repeated betrayals by the official union bureaucracy, began to spread through the trade union movement trom 1922 onwards. Miners, engineers and transport workers began to organise their own "minority movements" - so named because AH Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 25
of the complaint by "minority of union bureaucrat over the troublemakers". In 1924 these rank and file groups came together to form the National Minority Movement.
Rather like so many of today's more radical Broad Lefts, the NMM — like the CP itself — was stronger on propaganda for action than on organisation in workplaces. But the conference called for the setting up of factory committees. And a key resolution called for a strengthening of theil, to enable it to Call outeral
, to enable it to call out the whole movement in a general strike While warning that such a change by no means guaranteed that the General Council would become any less rectionary, the resolution argued thalle
guard against the General Council becoming a machine of the capitalists, and can really evolve from the General Council a Workers' General Staff only by, in the first place and fundamentally, developing a revolutionary class consciousness amongst the Trade Union membership, and in the second place, = deneral councel constitution of the as to ensure that those elected thereon have the closest contact with the workers. A far cohe is mi this militant spirit of hostility to bureaucracy, from today's cosy links between "communist" union officials and the TUC right wing. It was on this albeit rather risky - basis that the Communist Party of 1924 argued the slogan "More Power to the General Council". And the Communist fraction at TUC Congresses took up the fight for control over the General Council, making the minor but significant breakthrough of ensuring • that the Council's annual report was issued to delegates a week in advance
Tanks on the street during the General Strike of Congress rather than on the day!
Minority Movement successes in working with the many militants involved in a wave of strikes in 1924 seem to have been a major factor in provoking union bureaucrats to hit back against the CP, throwing union block votes behind Ramsay MacDonald's moves in 1924 and 1925 to bar Communists from individual membership of the Labour Party.
But at the same time a "left" element of the union bureaucracy began to emerge, seeking to adapt to the militancy of the workers, and using the issue of friendly relations with the USSR as a handy means of proving their "radical" credentials without disrupting their stance on the class struggle in Britain.
In 1924 the TUC sent a delegation to the USSR, a group of whom Purcell, Hicks, Bromley and Swales - began to speak out in favour of unity between British and Russian trade unions as a step towards international unity.
This hollow gesture was sufficient to win the enthusiastic applause of Stalin and the emerging vative, bureaucratic leadership which took complete control of the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin in 1924.
In that same year Stalin had revealed his conservative, nationalist "theory" that in a situation of "stabilised" capitalism on a world scale, it was necessary to look not to the spread of revolution but simply to build "socialism in a single country" With this narrowing focus came readiness to reach out for well-placed "friends" of the Soviet Union in the capitalist countries: and among the first objects of this new affection were the "Lefts" of the TUC General Council.
With Moscow waxing eloquent on the importance of these newlydiscovered "Lefts" — who at home significantly steered well clear of the Minority Movement, and made no attempt to defend the Communists against witch-hunters in the Labour Party - the British CP also began to drop its initial public distrust.
Increasingly the CP began to look
for action to the bureaucratic "Lefts" already ensconsed in the General Council rather than to the building of
movement and forcing General Council to respond to the demands of the workers. "More Power to the General Council" was increasingly detached from any cautionary qualification.
This was the background to the bankruptcy in the General Strike of
As Baldwin's Tory government utilised the breathing space obtained by their retreat on "Red Friday", June 1925, to prepare an all-out offensive against the paap should have been and conditions of the redoubling its efforts to mobilise the rank and file of the trade unions through the Minority Movement for the necessary General Strike. Instead
Party and its press Council "Lefts", failed to challenge their retreats, and peddled illusions in the General Council as a whole.
The same CP which had prepared and argued correctly for revolutionary mass action in the run-up to Red Friday turned - partly through pressure from Moscow - to propaganda work and cheer-leading for the TUC "Lefts" by May 1926 Even the Councils of Action for which the Minority Movement called were viewed by CP in 1926 as bodies which would "see that all the decisions of the General Council and the union executives were carried out...
As George Hardy, CP secretary of the Minority Movement admitted after the General Council's 9-day betrayal of the General Strike:
"Although we knew of what treachery the Right Wing leaders were capable, we did not clearly understand the part played by the so-called 'Int in the unine leade to bo. In the main they turned out to vindbags and capitulated to the light Wing. We were taught a majo lesson; that while developing a move to the left officially, the main point in preparing for action must always be Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 26
to develop a class-conscious leadership among the rank and file.
(G. Hardy, "Those Stormy Years")
The Anglo-Russia Committee proved to be no more in practice than a mechanism for hog-tying the Communist to the bureaucratic "lefts" who were to sell out the General Strike and leave the
isolated for many months more before they were starved into defeat.
The Party itself was gaining in size ind in political influence at the time of the General Strike. The jailing of some of its leaders in October 1925 growth of the Minority Movement and the sharpening of class division had all helped create a situation where a sharp line in opposition to the "Left" betrayal could have won the CP truly massive support. Instead the Party shared responsibility for the betrayal.
Of course the treachery of the TUC "Lefts" was not entirely unexpected. Leon Trotsky, in casting a critical eye over the policies and orientation oi the British CP, had consistently warned of the danger of overestimating the TUC "Lefts" and underestimating the British working class. A Marxist analysis of these leaders was not impossible even in the heat of events: but no such leadership came from the British CP or from its Moscow mentors.
Today's Communist Party, cosying up not only to the Bucktons, Knapps and Todds on the General Council, but also to the Basnetts and Lairds in its search for "unity" at the 1984 TUC, with all the compromises that entails at local level, is simply confirming that the lessons George Hardy learned so hard in 1926 have been set aside.
The search for influential "friends" in the union hierarchy at the expense of political compromise is not the exclusive perogative of the "Euros" or the Moscow-liners: it is a common heritage of Stalinism from the mid 1920s. It is the unfortunate hallmark of the Stalinist movement that its bureaucratic structure and opporunist motives prevent the assimila ion of political lessons or the health correction of past errors.
While George Hardy in his look back at 1926 was to stress the need for class conscious leadership at rank and file level, this was not to remain CP policy for long. Indeed clear advocacy of class struggle has been only the occasional attitude of the Communist Parties in the last 60 years.
Some newcomers to political life may believe that the political line put forward — most stridently by the Euro wing of the CP, and particularly in the Party magazine Marxism To. day which they control - is a "modern" adaptation to the realities of the 1980s.
But when today's CP - both its rival wingsliancall foga cross-chass
alliance" against "Thatcherism", reaching out — with particular gusto in the case of the Euros - to the SDP and "progressive"
Tories, it is simply reverting to the mainstream of Stalinist politics since the mid 1930s. Then it was called the policy of the "Popular Front". Now it rides again.
The run-up to last year's General Election coincided with the CPinspired and dominated People's March for Jobs. Not only did the organisers and CP marshals on the various leas of the March rigorously and violently suppress any political slogans — even at the level of basic anti-Tory calls for "Thatcher Out" but their efforts were backed up by the arguments of the "Moscow-line" Morning Star.
While militant unemployed youth who wanted to fight the Tories and their system were ruthlessly gagged, the doors were thrown open to "liberal"-minded from local Chambers of Commerce, or in the words of Star reporter Mar'tin Gostwick:
"the churches, the liberals, the nationalists, students, teachers, factory workers, unemployed workers, yes, and even Tory farmers, businessmen
Star, March 25 1983)
In fact it was in pursuit of the Thatcherite Tories" that young militants and socialists were muzzled by the CP - at the height of a General Election campaign!
Both today's "Euros" and the Moscow liners can look back to the tradition of the CP to back up these poltical positions. Despite its name, and despite its pretensions to Marxism, the Communist Party of Great Britain is no stranger to class collaboration: and the collaboration began under the directions of none other than Joseph Stalin, gravedigger of Bolshevism, and what remained of the Communist International in the
Alarmed by the military threat from Hitler's Germany after 1933, looked for detence of Union not to the European workers' movement, but to alliances with the governments of Germany's main imperialist rivals, principally France. In wooing these governments, he was at pains to downplay any prospective revolutionary threat posed by Communist parties. At the same time,
Ta strong groundswell of working class militancy and pressure for unity against a growing fascist threat. The outcome of these combined forces was a deformed offspring: France in 1934 and adopted as policy of the Comintern at its Seventh Con-
Under the Popular Front policy, the CPs obediently abandoned their 7-year policy of shrill and ludicrous denunciations of social democrats and reformist leaders as "social fascists" (who they claimed were worse than overt fascists because they operated under cover within the workers movement)
Now the CPs opened their embrace not to the social democratic workers
SO much as to their bureaucratic trade union and political leaders; and to the various "anti-fascist" parties of the capitalist class and Liberals of yesteryear, as well as political platform bourgeois forces could be united with "Communists" was a bourgeois platform. The CPs accordingly set aside
revolutionary slogans, and embraced instead the reactionary values of class collaboration and nationalism. In France and Italy this reached the extent of peals to fascist movements for tional unity".
This was presented by the leaders of the Communist International as a transitional approach to socialism" in reality it abandoned any revolutionary perspective in the search for the "broadest possible alliance".
The results on a world scale were disastrous: most shattering of all was the impact of Popular Front politics in Spain, where the abandonment of calls for nationalisation of the land, and other socialist policies which could have attracted the peasantry,
Othe advantage to Franco, whose army depended upon peasant forces. A similar "Popular Unity" line brought crushing defeat to the Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 27
Chilean workers 34 years later in
In Britain, the politics of the Popular Front were grotesque. The Young Communist League appealed for the convening ferences of all social, Christian and political organisations in the depressed areas". It staged "keep fit" ferences involving Scouts, Ramblers Association, Bible Class and Girl Guides".
Communist Parties jumped through bourgeois political hoops like performing circus dogs in
"anti-fascism", Stalin behind the scenes was striking a new diplomatic deal with... Adolf Hitler!
August 1939 came news of the Stalin-Hitler Pact. healthy break from the Popular Front line, which brought the British CP to take at first a line of oppositioin to the British war effort between September 1939 and June 1941. And it was Hitler's predictable invasion of the Soviet Union, not any change in the class struggle elsewhere, which brought about an abrupt reversal of policy class collaboration by the go in Bri and a period of tain setting the scene for CP politics up to the present day.
In the first phase of the war, CP anti-war propaganda insisted that: "This is not a peoples wate war in the interests capitalists against the interests of the people... The Labour leaders have been given subordinate places monopoly capitalism's war machine, serving on Government Committees of all kinds. the purpose of camouflaging the real character of the war and become the
Cof monopoly capitalism on the labour movement...
(Trade Unions and the War,
So effective was this political stand
and so much did it link up with working class opposition to the exploitation forced upon them by pro-
- that the CP's
aily Worker was banned in 1940 b
lory-led coalition aovernment
Yet by May 1942, the reasons given by a CP Conference as to why the government should allow the paper to publish once more were:
"If the Daily Worker were allowed to appear, we could count on certain very important results taking place. First, there would be a greater unity ot the people behind the
there would greater drive for increased producdidates would not be defeated in by-elections. Fourth, the demand for the Second Front would be stronger. Fifth, the working and fighting morale of the people would be increased. And sixth, the bonds of solidarity between the British people and the peoples fighting fascism all over the world would be far stronger.
Britain needs the Daily Worker the lack of it deprives the people of one of their most powerful weapons in the struggle for victory this year.
("The Way to Win")
The nationalism of periods of Popular Front policy was stepped up to a jingoist hysteria, as the CP argued for an anti-fascist "national front" (yes, really!):
"The Communist Party, vanguard of the working class, is striving for working-class unity and for the peoples' anti-fascist national front, in order to drive the existing Government forward and for more greasy Those who orose this action against Nazi are hankering after a line that would involve us turning aside from the mobilisation of the people to force the Government forward now, and would mean that we concentrate our energies in mobilising a certain section of the people [the workers!] in an attempt to drive the Tories out of the Government.
This could make it much easier for those reactionary appeasement in-
still in and around the Government who, no longer confronted with the united pressure of the people, could further their policy of passivity and inaction.
, but a big in Advisory They serve AND MLY WOR PEACE January 1940) FOR RE JADE UNIO READ Only ICTORY NE Worker БЕЛО TE TOGETHER agamsh infinitely against previous for Tory candidates in by-elections: as the to be a Tory
Government Conservative FOR SOMALISM TURN IDA80 RACING TE IT CATTO DOO TII D1 GRADE ALL LE TE organisation, TLER vience following DNPRIT KC.MP
And with the goal of boosting the
Othe CP energetically fought
"The stand taken by our Party in regard to by-elections has been firm and clear: to support the Government candidates whatever their personal shortcomings, as an expression of unity behind the Government, at the same time as conducting our own campaigns for our victory policy. on the The correctness of this stand has already been and will increasingly be demonstrated by the course of
We want to deal with some of the difficulties that are said to stand in the way of our Party members when they take part in by-elections and recommend the people to vote for a Government candidate who happens
Clearly it is not an easy task to patriotic for the CP's taste. But worse. Workers were far from keen to vote for Tories - and had to be urged on by. What is said to be the biggest obstacle in winning Labour workers Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 28
support our policy where the
Tis a Tory? That they refuse to vote for a Tory?'
Aside from their unpaid labour as members took over from Labour the tasks of camouflaging the character of the war and acting as the watchdogs of monopoly capitalism — tasks which the CP had correctly condemned in 1940. CPers became archstrikebreakers,
Tand defenders union legislation, glorifying the increased exploitation:
"It has been magnificent. In spite of excessive overtime, low wages for
especially the women workers, long hous spent in
inconvenience and caused by the black-out, food difficulties, imposition of an unjust scale of income tax and method of deduc-
managements and chaotic they have turned out tanks, guns, planes, shells, ships and coal to a marvellous extent."
(The Way to Win)
While the immediate motive for adopting the policy of total subser-
Wto Churchill's National Government had been the new requirements of Kremlin toreign policy
Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, there is no doubt that the extreme level of class collaboration involved, following on years of Popular Front policy, had a major impact on the Communist Party itself — and particularly on the members recruited during the war years.
Far from seeing the cross-class "national front" as a temporary expedient forced on the Party by the circumstances of the war, CP leaders plainly began to enjoy the prospect of a long-term liaison with the British imperialist bourgeoisie. In 1944, CP leader Harry Politt began looking beyond the end of the war: his vision was restricted to one of reforms within capitalism: The Communist Patty o WAY TO A WIN Decisions of the National Conference of the Communist Part) of Great Britain, MAY, 1842.
"It will be possible, even though capitalism remains,
(How to Win the Peace, 1944)
Three years before the Cold War, ind with China still in the grip of the iciously anti-communist Chiana Ka Shek, the dreaming Pollitt mused on
"peace-loving" imperialism:
"It is, moreover, a world in which there is a firm resolve on the part of
Soviet Union world security...
... affords a real basis for systematic planning on the speed-up would need to be maintain- Britain's (!) industry and trade...
In Pollitt's
Othe post-war capitalist reconstruction:
production and creasing development of the productive forces is an absolute necessity for even the most modest schemes of social reform. A mere re-distribution of the national income on a more
just basis is enough to guarantee freedom from want, even in Britain and America, countries and the devastated areas of
Every man and woman, therefore, who is prepared to fight for freedom from want must regard the war-time
Cof production, menace to be feared, but as a great ally on their side, cutting the ground from beneath the feet of those who claim that we cannot afford Bever-
cannot afford to build four million houses, cannot afford to raise secondary education to all.
We believe that the whole of BriHow To Win The Peace by Harry Pollitt
WORKER the war-time tain's productive far more fully used even under the capitalist, their "vested interests" in questions like wages and conditions, and prais- Anthony Eden for wage controls accordance with the people's needs, on a basis of complete co-operation and recognition of our obligations to "There will be
Pollitt urged workers to put aside ed the implicit call by (Tory) Minister rupt "It cannot be done if left to the free play of employers; it can be done by vested Production, demands with those from abroad in British by Labour. devastated Europe and the Colonial It demands a complete called the sident and tod Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 29
dependent interests of the working class. It is reformism - but a reformist perspective that arises not from the unsophisticated illusions of militant workers, or the established reformist apparatus of the unions and the Labour Party: it is a cynical reformist line argued in the interests of a cor-
Tand degenerate Kremlin bureaucracy, while brandishing the stolen colours of "Communism"
It flowed, naturally enough, into a CP position of calling for a continuation of the National Government in the 1945 General Election — at which
workers were in fact to register their distaste for the Tories
giving a landslide victory to Communist Policy for Britain REPORT of the A8th National Congress The Communist Party November, 1945 One Shilling
"Peace" and political revolution in Eastern
The CP's national congress Report for 1945 registers their blunder only in pa becomes clear, in the light of the Election results and the political developments that had taken place, that the proposal (to put forward after the Crimea Conference) to Coalition Government, including the
Othe Election, was
However, the Party still lacked any serious class-struggle policies. naturally enough to the adoption of tormhe British gramme of the CPGI
which was personally endorsed by Stalin in 1951.
"British Road" proclaimed the new "orthodoxy" which was later to be enlarged upon by the "Euros" in the 1970s: power was to be won not through mass action by the
Abut through Parliament, and peacefully taking control of the
Estate machinery. basic ABC lessons of Marxism and Leninism on the need to smash the state machine and construct a new workers' state were cast aside in the tell-tale formula:
Tour traditional instituwe can transform Parliament into the effective instrument of the people's will, through which the major measures of the change to socialism will be carried. Using the rights already won in the Labour movement's historic struggle democracy, we can change capitalist democracy, dominated by wealth and privilege, into Europe
WHERE should the left wing of the
lissident ¡roupings talinist-ruled states of Easter:
Europe, Asia and Cuba? The am-
biguities on this question
sharply to the surface in the con-
fused attitudes
vingers in the trade unions anc he Labour Party towards the vas
Polish Solidarnosc
which emerged in 1980. While the
huge support for the movement
amongst millions of Polish workers
was beyond doubt, there were
revolutionary democracy, where only the interests of the people count. (The British Road to Socialism, 1958 step along the road which has led it to the present crisis. The reason is ob- lesgislative already has a reformist party tor embarrassing links to brutal dic- tatorial rule in Eastern Europe and socialist By HARRY SLOAN on the IOse many left movement overseas, fashion Struggle.
edition, p. 10) Tell that to the workers of Chile! By embracing this reformist for- the British CP took a further vious: the British workers movement much larger than the CP. The Labour makes no bones about its Socialism, and is not hamstrung by nany at every level in the labou novement in Britain who pointec "socialist countries", and see inter- national solidarity as links bet- ween them and fellow bureaucrats responded in perialist he Polish Workers •eanwhile, exploiting Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 30
the USSR. As the popular appeal of the CP's traditional ties to Moscow
invasions of Hungary and Czecheslovakia, more dubious, so the Party's fortunes have dwindled.
with membership at the lowest for decades, union base restricted in most unions to bureaucratic positions while rank dilemma of how best to proceed is tearing the Party apart
For the traditional Stalinists, pretty much a question of "business as usual" in the unions, linked with popular front policies and endorsement of the global policies of the cur-
"Euro" Stalinists, eager political bedfellows, search is on for a more "respectable" image, keeping Moscow length. Both face the problem that CP policy in theory and in practice is on many issues considerably to the right of Labour's active left wing -and that iecruitment prospects are therefore poor.
However long it takes the present CP majority to seize control of the Party's daily paper, and whichever way the beleagured Moscow-liners decide to go, the lesson is that any forces drawn around today's Communist Party should look closely at the pedigree of the pup they are be-
Those looking for a coherent working class line and a programme of revolutionary struggle will need to look not to the rotting hulk Stalinism but to building an organisations on the politics and methods of
this weakness and aping the anti-
communist rhetoric of Reagan and
Thatcher, it was the extreme right-
wing of the British trade union
bureaucracy that cynically at-
tempted to steal the banner of
Solidarnosc and parade as
'defenders" of workers rights.
This same problem has found its
Perined Foutan international ot
1938 placed no reliance in the
Soviet bureaucracy, and should
argue:
"for the freedom of the trade
unions and the factory committees.
for the right oi assembly and
freedom of the press."
Having suffered and witnessed
Stalin's vast purges of
tionists of all descriptions and the
frame-up "Moscow Trials", Trotsky
placed no trust in the bureaucracy
to detend the USSR, and insisted
that:
"All political trials, staged by
the Thermidorean bureaucracy, to
be reviewed in the light of com-
plete publicity and controversial
openness and integrity.
(Transitional Programme, 1938) But lacking Leon Trotsky and his
fierce independence of judgement.
many Trotskyist groupings
the war have succumbed
Stalinist pressure and backtracked
on this bold, unconditional
defence of democratic rights
what they have loosely termed the
"workers' states" of
Europe, Asia and Cuba. Instead of
recognising the enemy to be the
brutally repressive ruling Stalinist
bureaucracy. many who Estonian statement ESTONIA is one of 3 East Baltic states (the others being Latvia and Lithuania) which were incorporated into the USSR after the World War. It has a population of about 2 million people, about a third of which now are Russians, native Estonian population decline. The Estonian language very similar to Finnish and so the Estonians are influenced by Finnish culture. OUR geographic location on the shores of the Baltic Sea and our historical birthright give us the justification for turning to you. Tallinn is less distant from Stockholm than are the cities of Goteborg Nevertheless, we have been denied the
participate in the Conference about to begin even as observers. have no prospect of becoming acquainted in a normal way with the problems to be discussed, nor will we be given the opportunity to state our views on them.
In order to secure greater "trust" and stability in the Baltic region, the Red Army occupied the three Baltic States in operation that was carried out in days - from June 15 to 17, 1940. (The size of the occupation force that "delivered" the 5.5 million people living in the Baltic States from their governments, so that they might be guaranteed "security" and "the right to free expression", some 500,000 men.) As far as Estonia was concerned, approximately 130,000 Army troops participated in the operation (according to the estimates of the Kersten Commission of the US Congress in 1954 Of the 130,000, 40,000 were already in Estonia by virtue of having been billeted in bases set "Because, under the Assistance Pact. according Soviet historians, there were 133 (!) Commmunists in Estonia at the time, it becomes
themselves as Irotskyists have in- stead condemned, or acquiesced in the repression of. tionary ideas reflect the conditions tional groupings to argue oppost- politics does not commit us to de- fend or endorse the ideas they put forward. Just as many Solidarnosc leaders entertained illusions in the IMF and still more Western bank loans as a solution to the problems of the debt-laden Polish economy; just as many Solidarnosc militants retained religious prejudices even as they fought for workers' control privileges, so many oppositionists in Stalinist-ruled states have put since forward some to in minorities is combined with con- Eastern fused or naive illusions resulting rom Western propaganda and in stinctive rejection Stalinist political dogma. Defen- regard ding the right of such groupings to "led" the "revolution" Second with the factor that did not involve itself in in is the Lithuanian Communists, St , 1940, he said: refugees. an three Áccording that period. statistics of the United tional Refugee Organisation, 1946 (on the heels of the Poles). ", amounted to Red Mutual to
small. largely pears to be the right of opposipaigns" in struggle ideas with which disagree. Most a kernel of healthy revolt particular aspects of the official evident that some 1,000 Soviet soldiers which stood behind every local Communist who
Later Communist historical treatments of the coups of 1940 have attempted to one down the role played by the Soviet armed forces; the Red Army is portrayec as a stabilizing but simultaneously passive Paleckis at any rate, who was the leader of beans" right from the start in his excessive zeal. In a declaration from the tribune of
Cof the USSR
the Red Army entered Lithuania, soun ling praise to Stalin, with the objective o1 protecting the interests of the Soviet
The price that the Baltic States had to pay for such one-sided trust and security was one of the cruelest — even by the stan- some dards of World War II. The population of Estonia declined by 22 per cent between 1940 and 1950 as a result of war, repression, mass deportations, and the departure from the country in 1944 of a wave of
- the greatest population loss suffered by any European nation during
Wto the official Nations Internacitizens of the Baltic nations constituted the second largest group of refugees in the world in
As long as we are discussing the confidence and the security of the countries on the Baltic Sea, the fact simply cannot be overlooked that at present it is very dif ficult to find a region of the Soviet Union that compares with the Baltic States (ex-
Ffor the Murmansk and basics Kamchatka areas) in terms of the high concentration of military bases. Additionally, young nearly 15% of the territory of Estonia has
declared to be a border zone, to Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 31
fight for their views is a starting point for any attempt to change those views and develop them.
A particular case in point ap-
Othe politics of the various dissident peace groups that have emerged in opposition to the official state-run peace "cam-
Eastern Europe. For readers' information, and as part of
what we hope won bee nontoing discussion both on the politics the peace movement and on the
against Stalinism in Eastern Europe, we are reprinting here two texts distributed earlier this year at the European Nuclear Disarmament Perugia, in Italy.
One is a message from Jacek
Cof Solidarnosc, which urges European
movement to link the issue of
that of civil and particularly
with regard to Eastern Europe. The second is an appeal from
lependent peace group in Estonic
vhich was originally distributed a
the Stockholm conference of Scan-
Christmas 1983.
with Coul special permission and in the coastal areas of which the rights of the civilian popula-
restricted. It is not insignificant that the Soviet border and internal security forces (note that the militia is a separate entity!) were estimated to number 350,000 men in 1977. This means that the forces that are basically intended to stand vigil over — and keep in check —
Soviet people themselves outstrip in size the whole of the British Armed Forces or the Bundeswehr, which, according to Moscow, pose such a danger to European
In contrast with the zealous encourage-
Aby the USSR to the peace movement in foreign lands, within its own borders it is the military that is exalted throughout the length and breadth of the land. It is an institution commanding only praise, even though it grows more burden-
from one day to the next. The military cannot be criticized; neither can it be controlled. From earliest childhood, the consciousness of the Soviet citizen is inculcated with a military-secrets hysteria. The slightest personal interest one might show towards the mission of the Armed Forces, the presence of bases,
general smacks of espionage and high treason — let alone getting involved in protests or daring to demand demilitarization! that Soviet youngsters are among the most heavily indoctrinated young people in the world in respect of the military should provide peace advocates with food for thought. Mandatory military training is imposed on young people in every school (in secondary school even girls are expected to be able to field-strip, assemble, and fire the standard-issue weapon and must learn the
Cof battlefield tactics). This continues at the university level, meaning that
women, upon graduation, are assigned ranks, put on the lists of the Military Registration and Enlistment Of-
fice, and thus made technically subject to both mobilization and call-ups refresher training.
Scattered to the winds throughout the vastness of the Soviet Union, young Estonian servicemen are often abuse and beatings at the hands of Russians and persons of other nationalities, who see "fascists" in the young men from the Baltic area, with their savoir-vivre. Those who are discovered to religious convictions suffer persecution.
Hundreds of young Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians have already met a cruel and shabby fate in the dirty imperialistic war being waged in Afghanistan. peace activists (particularly students) are "rewarded" for expressing their opinions with immediate mobilization into the Soviet Army, where aginable uses of terror against detenseless youngsters are condoned - up to and including deadly force.
The options open to Soviet citizens who want to do something in the interests furthering international peace and stability are limited. One can pay one's rubles into the "peace fund" (which in fact is a mandatory exercise — declining to contribute is not allowed), or one can get co-opted into helping organise official peace actions, which take place in the increasingly infrequent gaps sandwiched between military reserve training sessions, air defence exercises, disaster reliei drills, and vituperative propaganda critical of Reagan, the "war-monger". All self-introduced peace initiatives beaten down in the literal sense of the term right at the outset (some years ago, when a worker showed up at the October Parade In Tallinn with a hand-made sign saying "NATO - No! UN - Yes!", this gesture was considered so dangerous to the state that the placard was trampled undertoot and the carrier of the sign locked up for several days on charges "hooliganism").
Therefore, when the idea of turning Northern Europe into a nuclear-free zone was conceived in the northland, it was well received by the native populations of the Baltic countries.
An appeal signed by thirty-eight Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian rights crusader and peace made public on October 10, 1981, proposing that the Baltic Sea as such and the three Baltic States upon its shores be included in the project to turn Europe into a nuclear-free zone. In short order, the signers of the began to be persecuted by the authorities.
During 1983 alone, four of the Estonians belonging to the group that had signed the document were arrested: Lagle Keikki Ahonen, Arvo Pesti and Enn Tarto. Sentenced on December 16, 1983, the first three were given long terms of imprisonment (ranging from seven to nine years) for their efforts in the name of peace and 'for disseminating undistorted information; a harsher sentence probably awaits the 46 year old Enn Tarto, who has suffered twice on earlier occasions in Soviet prisons.
Two leading Estonian human rights figures, the biologist Mart Niklus and the chemist Juri Kukk, who, things, allowed themselves the liberty of protesting against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, were throttled in a similar way earlier on, in 1980. Juri Kukk perished (or was murdered) a year later, in the Vologda Prison. Mart Nuklus is serving a 15 year sentence in a solitary confinement cell in the notorious Chistopol Prison.
In a country were the denied its democratic rights, cannot exert
My cano so or senate bial. for that do not conform to official policy (anti- Soviet propaganda!); where no trace of a subjected to spontaneous and responsible peace move nent can be found (the official peace movement merely serves as camouflage the all-powerful toI militaristic frame of reterence) — in such a have state, the sadistic and military men, in its isolation from the people, has a free hand in embarking on adventures every peace marches of hundreds of thousands of West Europeans Young signatures lending support to the idea of establishing nuclear-free zones will be of university the point avail until по preceding sentence all sideration and until those seldom-seen in- im- dividuals in the their determination, sense of responsiblity and who earnestly seek the democratisation as of demilitarization of their society begin to be regarded as true allies. sessions are of human activists was Northern memorandum Soviet Parek, among other population,
the absence cannot express or disseminate beliefs chauvinistic- constrained advantage, sealed-oit clan of bureaucrats description. The and the millions of made in the right is taken into con- East who have kept up and self-respect, ference well as the Sea, MAGYARORSZAG NE LEGYEN MIROSIMA FOR, ABSEVE FRIENDS Socialist Viewpoint, No. 2, November 1984. Page 32
Peace and security are inconceivable in
Cof truth, justice, and an operative solidarity with those who are oppressed and suffering. • The free countries on the Baltic Sea basin cannot have feelings of confidence and security towards a great power that, although it sermonises noisily about peace, actually cultivates un-
militarism and ideological rancor and has applied violence to its own
putting in thralldom the eastern and southern coasts of the Baltic Sea. It will be possible to begin discussing real trust and security on the day that the Soviet Union brings its policy towards the occupied Baltic nations into accord with the principles of the Universal Declaration ri Human Rights, giving theres eoples the
Wto self-expression, self-determination, and demilitarization.
Extacts of a declaration of Neutral and Nuclear-Free Balticum association to all those taking part in the Stockholm Con-
Ton security-building measures and disarmament in Europe and to peace organisations in all countries on the Baltic
Christmas 1983.
For the sake of
demilitarize Central Europe. An open letter from Jacek Kuron to all people for whom the desire for
peace is genuine.
Translation from the text of an arti cle published in
Masowsze of June 7 1984. "Do not ask for whom the bell tolls.
It tolls for thee." THE Polish state has violence, deprived our society of all human rights, and economically ruined our country.
The reality of economic collapse and of unpredictable consequences, becomes more vivid everyday. our society has refused to be deprived of its own organisation Soliarnose, which is ready for the struggle to protect its own rights, and to resist the state. Over all this however hangs the threat of Soviet intervention, for us would mean a national disaster and which could lead to a major world catastrophe.
For more than three years (since December 13, 1981), the spectre of war has hung over Polish society. The Polish people have been abandonned to face by themselves the destiny of the nation and of world peace. By East Peace Movements ONE of the main issues that arose it this Summer's Perugia Europear Nuclear Disarmament Convention was that of "the empty seats", that is absent friends, peace activists denied visas by their respective governments to attend - for exam'ple the Independent Peace Groups of Eastern Europ, and Groups from Turkey and Israel.
This was exacerbated by presence in Perugia, for the first time at an END Convention, representatives of all the East European Peace Movements.
Mile to the delegates were hostile "Officials". naively and hospitably any dialogue was worth having. At the very first session of the Convention, a group of activists seized the stage and wearing gags, held up posters demanding the from jail of East European Independent Peace activists and Solidarnosc leaders. The Officials sent a strongly worded protest the provocation in cold war style and primitive anti-communism" and threatened to withdraw from the Convention.
Solidarnosc appeal Poland. showing guaranteeing world peace By allowing the face their own Tygodnik own selves. through mies are contantly on wage war on their own societies. is imperative, East Poland. But heartfelt concern. front of NATO bases, and Pershing which Peace Movements press all their weight behind and sup. support the peaceful the military dictatorship. Jacek Kuron European As well as the Group for Trust in the USSR, there dependent Peace groups in Warsaw Pact countries. In Czecheslovakia. with for 1983, 17 Peace cluding Charter Misteroline fearles interate te distributing the deployment of of Czecheslovakia. Official State very others felt that Czecheslovakia. ent Husak were circulated in th actories protesting about the deploy "Swords into release mainly November several peace activists with Western friends "against from the Dutch IKV and the Greens demonstrating in East Berlin for hemongainst ge deployment of 520e were surrounded by the police before they were all arrested. Two days later
extraordinary parence vis-à-vis dictatorship, the Poies are Polish people to destiny the aione, Peace movements all over the worid, opposed to war, are betraying their World peace is mean- ingless without putting an end to a situation in which Warsaw pac: ar- the aiert io This is why the demilitarisation of Europe most importantiy in and West Germany, and in Bishop My call is to all those in the world to whom the question of peace is a The struggle for Marx peace cannot only be conducted in where Cruise missiles are being deployed. It is the moral duty of the o: tha worid to port the anti war movements that came into being after December 13, 1981, just as they are duty bound to that struggle Polish society is conducting agairst expelled Former Peace of In- are a number Charter 77 has continued a dialogue the Western Peace Movement some time now. In November peace demonstrators in 77 spokespersons against She untical Free Ploughshares Last church-based hundred GDR
RI PE
Forck of the Protestant Church delivered petitions to the government against the SS20s. Protests also took place in Leip? Weimar Karl-
Stadt, Potsdam with demonstrators arrested mainly for "hooliganism". In Suhl 90 peace activists held a day's workshop accompanied by 300 uniformed and plain clothes police. Over 100 West German peace activists have been denied accesss to the GDR since last November.
The "Dialogue" group in Hungary were prevented from holding an in. ternational summer camp when 20 of their members were temporarily de tained and 15 Western activists were
from the country, The gro"p has since dissolved explaining that its main aim - Dialogue with the authorities — had become impossible and citing both continuous police harassment and also internal disagreement on future tactics.
Dialogue leader Ferene Koszegi has formed a network of
Clubs, while a group under the leadership of Ferenc Rusza also continue to campaign. Rabbi Csenyi who has served a spell in jail for advocating conscientious objection has launched a Jewish Peace Group in Budapest. During official signature campaign against NATO's deployment of Cruise and Pershing II missiles, some high school students began a counter petition protesting about SS20s. Iwo school principals were apparently sacked for failing to stop these petitions.
Poland, most underground KOS, endom on to or cal Resistance", issued clude opposition to SS20s in thei demonstrations and to link the ques
EUROPE
Crocodile tears in Brighton By Basil Hinton, Vice Chair, Labour Committee on Ireland. THE