The New Wave (Bolshevik-Leninist) is a revolutionary Socialist organization committed to rebuilding the BLPI in South Asia and the 4th International Globally

June 2014 www.newwavemaha.wordpress.com www.litci.org/en

Contents : -

1) Reports from Brazil on the metro worker's strike..................................................................3

2) Message of Solidarity to Brazilian workers ............................................................................7

3) Trotsky on Stalinism and Bolshevism (excerpt).......................................................................7

4) The BLP on the political situation in India (excerpt)..............................................................14

5) Rebuttal to Gerry Downing from Socialist fight .....................................................................18

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Editorial

Momentous events are unfolding today ! The eyes of the world are on Brazil where the working masses have come out on the streets of their cities in the millions ! What for ? For housing, healthcare, livelihoods and basic needs. The Brazillian government cares for none of this, if that was the case why would they spend $11 billion in constructing stadiums and sporting infrastructure instead of addressing the people's needs ? If they have money for the Fifa world cup, why not for healthcare and public transport ? This is that the masses of Brazil are asking today !

Our age is the age of imperialism, and this period, is objectively revolutionary. The 21st century has only proven this argument made by Lenin, with the first two decades witnessing revolutions from South Asia (Nepal) to the Middle East and all over Latin America. Brazil is the most recent nation to be caught in the whirlwind of revolution that blows through the world today overturning dictatorships and democrats alike. Albeit we have seen more failures than successes in this phase, this was due to the absence of the subjective force of revolutionary leadership fighting for the class. However, in Brazil, this is not the case. The international has succeeded more than anyone else in building of a revolutionary bolshevik-leninist party in the form of the Socialist Workers Party – United or the PSTU as it is better known in Portuguese.

We are proud to have been associated with the revolutionary international and promise to strive to build up international solidarity with the struggling masses of brazil. For this newsletter, we are going to focus on the present struggles in Brazil centered around the metro worker's strike. We start this newsletter with a collection of news reports on the metro worker's strike from the International. We then move on to theoretical articles from Trotsky on Stalinism outlining the politics of a counter-revolutionary force which masquerades as a progressive and revolutionary force of the working class. On the same theme we present the article of the BLP of India Burma and Ceylon which described the situation which prevailed in India in 1942. These articles help us understand the dynamics of class struggle in a heightened phase of pre-revolutionary upsurge.

This is the reality for many countries today, yet most fail to recognize the fault lines. Chief among these are the fake trotskyists who though claiming to be marxists never bother to apply marxism scientifically, they hold a sectarian point of view which writes off the strength of the class and resorts to using conspiracies to prove their point. At the end we present a rebuttal to a detractor of the New Wave who called our statement on Ukraine “confused and garbled”.

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Reports from Brazil on the metro worker's strike :

We are publishing these reports from the website of the International Workers League – Fourth International ( www.litci.org/en ) . These reports have been written by comrades of the international in the heat of the struggle evolving in Brazil.

I) Sao Paulo metro workers on strike ! (written by PSTU Brazil – 07/06/2014)

Alckmin refuses to release turnstiles and puts people at risk by forcing the operation of some lines.

The São Paulo governor, Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) [1], reinforced his truculence and threatened with layoffs. The mainstream media have fulfilled their usual role and make an intensive campaign against the metro workers. But to no avail. Continuing the strong strike that began on June 5, the metro workers approved ots continuation at an assembly held on the evening of that Thursday.

During the hearing at the Regional Labor Court (TRT), the metro workers trade union reduced their demand of pay rise from 16.5% to 12.2%, in an effort to ensure an expeditious settlement and put an end to the strike. The company and the government, however, remained adamant and refused to offer something more than the previous proposal of 8.7%, already rejected unanimously by the workers. "This proposal by the Metro company is lower than several

workers sectors are achieving such as transport workers, who won 10% increase," reports Altino Prazeres, president of the Metro Workers Trade Union and a militant of PSTU.

Free turnstiles and government neglect

In contrast, the metro workers once again launched the proposal of returning to work, including payroll deduction, if the government releases the turnstiles, alternatively to strike, while the negotiations are going on. By law, if the metro workers release the turnstiles on their own, they could be dismissed without any severance pay.

In a poll conducted by the website R7 questioning whether or not the government should release the turnstiles, 86% agreed the measure proposed by the union. The government, however, refused to adopt the proposal, showing how much he cares for the problems the strike is causing to the population.

The indifference of the government goes beyond. To ensure the operation of part of the Metro lines, some white-collar workers are under pressure to operate the trains. These employees, however, do not rely on technical training to perform the task safely.

Due to the strike, trains and railroads have no maintenance, which can cause crashes and accidents. With a total strike in the maintenance and train operation sectors, if any technical failure occurs, the fail can’t be fixed. Alckmin’s government is putting people's lives at risk to prevent further political erosion.

The strike continues, Alckmin it’s your fault!

The metro workers carry on a legitimate struggle. During the arbitration meeting, however, the judge

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Assembly of metro workers

Rilma Hemérito argued that the subway should operate 100% of trains at peak times and 70% the rest of the day. This type of determination on the part of Justice ends with any possibility of stoppage and is an affront to the constitutional right to strike.

The precariousness of the São Paulo subway is permanent. The subway does not operate at 100% capacity even in normal days. There is no structure or staff for that. The daily overcrowding is the result of the dismantling that the public transport is suffering. Only in the last corruption case [2] the diversion of US$ 111 million has already been discovered, not to mention other fraudulent transactions envolving Alstom’s bids. So, the funds that should be used to improve the Metro operation end up in the pocket of the corrupt.

There is money to be invested in public transport in São Paulo, but end up with overcrowded metro stations and trains is not Alckmin’s priority of government, as it was not in the last 20 years of PSDB’s governments in the state.

The strike remains strong

The workers’ mood is of victory, even without progress in the collective bargaining and the numerous threats by the government, including mass dismissal. The metro workers understand that there is room to fight and to show the public that it’s possible to have a quality subway, if there is a fight against corruption to use that money to invest and expand the railway network.

This poses a challenge: the metro workers are willing to negotiate their demands and intend to work without pay, provided that the turnstiles are free to the public. It's the uncompromising and truculent stance of the Governor Alckmin and not the struggle

of the metro workers that affect the population.

Alckmin negotiates with gas bombs and rubber bullet

After the thursday assembly, the metro workers went to the stations to make picket lines, in order to prevent the white-collar employees to operate the trains, ordered by the São Paulo Metro Company.

This practice, however, is very dangerous. That workers do not have the necessary skilfull to deal with operational problems and no maintenance on the trains and lines are being performed since the beginning of the strike. The combination of these two elements poses a real risk to the passengers' safety.

To avoid this risky action, the metro workers made picket lines at Bresser-Mooca and Ana Rosa stations, around 3 am. The pickets were peaceful with a quiet dialogue with supervisors. But, around 5:30 am about 10 police officers arrived to talk to the strikers.

Realizing that the metro workers’ action was successful, around 6 am the police officers were reinforced with anti-riot troops. Vitor Ribeiro, a metro worker, said the appearance of the police destabilized the supervisors, who are under pressure to operate the trains. "They said they did not want to operate the trains, because they had no psychological conditions for it," he says. "While we talked, the anti-riot troops came down the station with a violent attitude, trying to expel us from the station and firing rubber bullet and gas bombs," denounces the metro employee. "The supervisors did not call the police, this action came from the state government; Alckmin sent the police to crack down on the Ana Rosa station. The order came from above!" says Raimundo Cordeiro, also a metro worker.

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[1] The PSDB is a right-wing neoliberal party which rules over São Paulo state, the richest of the country, for 20 years.

[2] This corruption case is known as propinoduto tucano, where propinoduto is the conjunction of two words, meaning “bribe pipe” and tucano is the Brazilian multicolored bird adopted by the PSDB as their symbol.

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II) Metro workers: The strike continues ! (written by PSTU Brazil – 09/06/2014)

The São Paulo metro workers approved the continuation of the strike at a meeting held on Sunday afternoon, by a large majority of votes.

The metro workers are on strike since June 5 and face strong intransigence and truculence of the state government and the labor justice.

The trade union’s court was packed with metro workers for the meeting that discussed the next steps of the movement. A few hours earlier, in the morning, the Regional Labor Court (TRT), in a clear demonstration of subservience to the state government, declared the strike illegal and imposed a fine of US$ 220 thousand to the union if the strike continued. Moreover, the court reaffirmed the proposal made by the Metro company management,

of 8.7% increase in wages, and stepped back on what it had suggested before (9.5%).

The workers have already faced the brutality and the threat of layoffs made by the governor Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB), as well as an intense media campaign against them, and did not bow to the Court decision. They decided to continue the strike. The meeting demonstrated the unity of the workers and the willingness to fight that spans virtually every sector, from maintenance, passing by security, to train operation.

"There's a World Cup, the biggest international sporting event, we have the entire world watching this stuff, it’s a single moment we have now," said Altino Pleasures, president of the Metro Workers Union and a PSTU’s militant. Defending the continuation of the strike, Altino recalled the period of the military dictatorship, when the metal workers from the ABC faced Justice (in 1981), as well as the strikes by the street-sweepers in Rio, last February, and the construction workers of the Monorail, whose strikes were also declared illegal by the labor justice, but were victorious.

"The only way to confront and overcome the fear is to fight all together, united," argued Paulo Pasin, from the union’s leadership and president of the Fenametro (National Federation of Metro Workers). The truculent court decision, which does not recognize the right to strike, further united the workers, who chanted after the approval of the continuation of the movement: "No step back".

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III) Freedom for political activists (Americo Gomez – 10/06/2014)

The state and federal governments are trying to criminalize the social movements.

Their objective is to force the workers and the youth who occupied the streets as of June 2013 and today are going forth with strikes and mobilizations into retreat. The governments, the Justice and the police are under the FIFA`s command to guarantee the multinationals’ profits during the World Cup.

Rio Grande do Sul`s government, in a more selective way, is directly attacking militants from PSTU, PSOL and the anarchist federation (FAG).

On May 16th, the Judge from the 9th Judicial Circumscription of Porto Alegre accepted the report

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Anti-riot police attack striking workers

filled by the Public Ministry against six activists of the Bloc of Struggle for the Public Transportation, that led last year´s mobilizations. The unjust accusation consists on the formation of armed “criminal association” for the “practice of damage on patrimony”, explosion and robbery.

The activists from the Bloc of Struggles that are being prosecuted are: Matheus Pereira Gomes, PSTU’s member and a member of the National Assembly of Free Students (ANEL); Lucas Maróstica, affiliated to the PSOL and the JUNTOS collective; José Vicente Mertz, anarchist militant; Rodrigo Barcellos Brizolla and Alfeu Costa da Silveira Neto, from the Utopia and Struggle Autonomous Movement and Gilian Vinícius Dias Cidade, affiliated to the PSTU.

As a proof of the supposedly criminal association, they are arguing that in a meeting that took place in the state´s data-processing workers union, the group organized crimes that were carried out during the June 27th, 2013 demonstrations. The proof being the testimony of a reporter from the Zero Hora newspaper, who accounts for imprecise, generic and absolutely false facts.

In the police investigation it is possible to see the account of civil policemen infiltrated during the mobilizations, in complete violation of the constitutional right to the freedom of manifestation, meeting and political organization.

In spite of this absurd practice, the investigation was unable to establish any relationship with the alleged crimes. This means there is no evidences that the activists committed any of the crimes they are accused of.

In fact, the activists are being charged for leading last year´s mobilizations against the increase in the price of the bus fare, in a clear persecution whose objective is to silence all those who struggle.

To struggle is not a crime!

We need to guarantee the freedom of the activists!

It is urgent to go through with a campaign that guarantees the freedom of these young activists who are being charged, in a more general context of a Campaign against the Criminalization of the Social Movements.

The calendar includes June 5th, date in which an act will take place in Porto Alegre (RS), and the following 6th, date of the Seminary against Criminalization in Florianápolis (Santa Catarina).

To go forth with the campaign it is necessary that entities and personalities send telegrams, motions and notes of support. Subscribe the online petition for their freedom clicking here: Against the criminalization of the Bloc of Struggle’s activists

Participate in the campaign! Download the motion model that follows and send your support message.

Excelentíssimo Juiz de Direito da 9ª Vara Criminal de Porto Alegre – RS.

Dr. Carlos Francisco Gross.

Ref.: processo n. 001/2.13.0045013-2

The Trade Union / Organization / Students Organization/ Movement …..... render our solidarity with Matheus Gomes, Gilian Cidade, Rodrigo Barcellos Brizolla, Alfeu Costa Neto, Lucas Maróstica and José Vicente Mertz, members of the Bloc of Struggle from Porto Alegre who are being unjustily charged of the formation of criminal association for the practice of damage on the public patrimony, robbery and explosion.

In the 50th anniversary of the civilian-military coup that established a military dictatorship in Brazil the governments and the police attack the social movement that took to the streets to demand better conditions in public services such as transport, health, education and housing that are increasingly precarious.

Supposedly a police case, it is actually a clear political persecution. Investigations that resulted in the Police Inquest 017/2013 in Rio Grande do Sul are an attempt to silence the popular discontent with the current situation of public services and a restriction of democratic freedoms of expression and organization.

In this sense we argue against the political persecution and demand a halting of the Criminal Suit no. 001/2.13.0045013-2.

Send the motion to: frpoacent9vcri@tj.rs.gov.br

Copy to: sapolim@hotmail.com, direitodeclasse@yahoo.com.br

Translation: Alejandra Rojas

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Message of Solidarity to Brazilian workers :

To metro workers in Sao Paulo Brazil,

The New Wave Bolshevik Leninist, on behalf of the working masses of India greet you. We are a revolutionary organization in India struggling to rebuild the Bolshevik Leninist party in South Asia and the fourth international globally.

We express our solidarity with the strike action which you have decided to take. At the time when the world is watching the developments in Brazil around the Fifa World Cup, your strike action sends a strong message both to the capitalists in Brazil and capitalists worldwide. A message that they cannot take the lives of the working class and poor for granted ! That we won’t be pacified with shows of glory ! That the masses can and will fight for what is our just needs.

In this endeavour, we stand in solidarity with you and all the struggling people of Brazil.

In India too, we have seen the arrogance and intransigence of the capitalists during the Commonwealth games. Billions were squandered in scams and wasted over gaudy construction projects all to make the rich richer while the poor stayed poor. Hundreds of workers even died during the mega construction projects like the stadium in New Delhi where bonded labor was used for construction (despite it being illegal!) but the government turned a blind eye to this reality. That government has been justifiably thrown out of power, but the capitalists remain.

Should you succeed in your struggle, it will be an inspiration for the workers here fighting against capitalists who are just as corrupt, just as ruthless and just as brutal.

Long live international Solidarity !

Long live working class unity !

Excerpt from Stalinism and Bolshevism

- Leon Trotsky

Here we are publishing a relevant excerpt from Trotsky's essay on Stalinism and Bolshevism which explains the basis of revolutionary Bolshevik-Leninist politics as distinguished from counter-revolutionary Stalinism.

Is Bolshevism Responsible for Stalinism?

Is it true that Stalinism represents the legitimate product of Bolshevism, as all reactionaries maintain, as Stalin himself avows, as the Mensheviks, the anarchists, and certain left doctrinaires considering themselves Marxist believe? “We have always predicted this” they say, “Having started with the prohibition of other socialist parties, the repression of the anarchists, and the setting up of the Bolshevik dictatorship in the Soviets, the October Revolution could only end in the dictatorship of the bureaucracy. Stalin is the continuation and also the bankruptcy of Leninism.”

The flaw in this reasoning begins in the tacit identification of Bolshevism, October Revolution and

Soviet Union. The historical process of the struggle of hostile forces is replaced by the evolution of Bolshevism in a vacuum. Bolshevism, however, is only a political tendency closely fused with the working class but not identical with it. And aside from the working class there exist in the Soviet Union a hundred million peasants, diverse nationalities, and a heritage of oppression, misery and ignorance. The state built up by the Bolsheviks reflects not only the thought and will of Bolshevism but also the cultural level of the country, the social composition of the population, the pressure of a barbaric past and no less barbaric world imperialism. To represent the process of degeneration of the Soviet state as the evolution of pure Bolshevism is to ignore social reality in the name of only one of its

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elements, isolated by pure logic. One has only to call this elementary mistake by its true name to do away with every trace of it.

Bolshevism, in any case, never identified itself either with the October Revolution or with the Soviet state that issued from it. Bolshevism considered itself as one of the factors of history, its “Conscious” factor – a very important but not decisive one. We never sinned on historical subjectivism. We saw the decisive factor – on the existing basis of productive forces – in the class struggle, not only on a national scale but on an international scale.

When the Bolsheviks made concessions to the peasant tendency, to private ownership, set up strict rules for membership of the party, purged the party of alien elements, prohibited other parties, introduced the NEP, granted enterprises as concessions, or concluded diplomatic agreements with imperialist governments, they were drawing partial conclusions from the basic fact that had been theoretically clear to them from the beginning; that the conquest of power, however important it may be in itself, by no means transforms the party into a sovereign ruler of the historical process. Having taken over the state, the party is able, certainly, to influence the development of society with a power inaccessible to it before; but in return it submits itself to a 10 times greater influence from all other elements in society. It can, by the direct attack by hostile forces, be thrown out of power. Given a more drawn out tempo of development, it can degenerate internally while holding on to power. It is precisely this dialectic of the historical process that is not understood by those sectarian logicians who try to find in the decay of the Stalinist bureaucracy a crushing argument against Bolshevism.

In essence these gentlemen say: the revolutionary party that contains in itself no guarantee against its own degeneration is bad. By such a criterion Bolshevism is naturally condemned: it has no talisman. But the criterion itself is wrong. Scientific thinking demands a concrete analysis: how and why did the party degenerate? No one but the Bolsheviks themselves have, up to the present time, given such an analysis,. To do this they had no need to break with Bolshevism. On the contrary, they found in its arsenal all they needed for the explanation of its fate. They drew this conclusion: certainly Stalinism “grew out ” of Bolshevism, not logically, however, but dialectically; not as a revolutionary affirmation but as a Thermidorian negation. It is by no means the same.

Bolshevism’s Basic Prognosis

The Bolsheviks, however, did not have to wait for the Moscow trials to explain the reasons for the disintegration of the governing party of the USSR. Long ago they foresaw and spoke of the theoretical possibility of this development. Let us remember the prognosis of the Bolsheviks, not only on the eve of the October Revolution but years before. The specific alignment of forces in the national and international field can enable the proletariat to seize power first in a backward country such as Russia. But the same alignment of forces proves beforehand that without a more or less rapid victory of the proletariat in the advanced countries the worker’s government in Russia will not survive. Left to itself the Soviet regime must either fall or degenerate. More exactly; it will first degenerate and then fall. I myself have written about this more than once, beginning in 1905. In my History of the Russian Revolution (cf. Appendix to the last volume: Socialism in One Country) are collected all the statements on the question made by the Bolshevik leaders from 1917 until 1923. They all amount to the following: without a revolution in the West, Bolshevism will be liquidated either by internal counter-revolution or by external intervention, or by a combination of both. Lenin stressed again and again that the bureaucratisation of the Soviet regime was not a technical question, but the potential beginning of the degeneration of the worker’s state.

At the eleventh party congress in March, 1922, Lenin spoke of the support offered to Soviet Russia at the time of the NEP by certain bourgeois politicians, particularly the liberal professor Ustrialov. “I am for the support of the Soviet power in Russia” said Ustrialov, although he was a Cadet, a bourgeois, a supporter of intervention – “because it has taken the road that will lead it back to an ordinary bourgeois state”. Lenin prefers the cynical voice of the enemy to “sugary communistic nonsense”. Soberly and harshly he warns the party of danger: “We must say frankly that the things Ustrialov speaks about are possible. History knows all sorts of metamorphoses. Relying on firmness of convictions, loyalty and other splendid moral qualities is anything but a serious attitude in politics. A few people may be endowed with splendid moral qualities, but historical issues are decided by vast masses, which, if the few don’t suit them, may at times, treat them none too politely.” In a word, the party is not the only factor of development and on a larger historical scale is not the decisive one.

“One nation conquers another” continued Lenin at the same congress, the last in which he participated ... “this is simple and intelligible to all. But what happens to

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the culture of these nations? Here things are not so simple. If the conquering nation is more cultured than the vanquished nation, the former imposes its culture on the latter, but if the opposite is the case, the vanquished nation imposes its culture on the conqueror. Has not something like this happened in the capital of the RSFSR? Have the 4700 Communists (nearly a whole army division, and all of them the very best) come under the influence of an alien culture?”. This was said in 1922, and not for the first time. History is not made by a few people, even “the best”; and not only that: these “best” can degenerate in the spirit of an alien, that is, a bourgeois culture. Not only can the Soviet state abandon the way of socialism, but the Bolshevik party can, under unfavourable historic conditions, lose its Bolshevism.

From the clear understanding of this danger issued the Left Opposition, definitely formed in 1923. Recording day by day the symptoms of degeneration, it tried to oppose to the growing Thermidor the conscious will of the proletarian vanguard. However, this subjective factor proved to be insufficient. The “gigantic masses” which, according to Lenin, decide the outcome of the struggle, become tired of internal privations and of waiting too long for the world revolution. The mood of the masses declined. The bureaucracy won the upper hand. It cowed the revolutionary vanguard, trampled upon Marxism, prostituted the Bolshevik party. Stalinism conquered. In the form of the Left Opposition, Bolshevism broke with the Soviet bureaucracy and its Comintern. This was the real course of development.

To be sure, in a formal sense Stalinism did issue from Bolshevism. Even today the Moscow bureaucracy continues to call itself the Bolshevik party. It is simply using the old label of Bolshevism the better to fool the masses. So much the more pitiful are those theoreticians who take the shell for the kernel and appearance for reality. In the identification of Bolshevism and Stalinism they render the best possible service to the Thermidorians and precisely thereby play a clearly reactionary role.

In view of the elimination of all other parties from the political field the antagonistic interests and tendencies of the various strata of the population, to a greater of less degree, had to find their expression in the governing party, To the extent that the political centre of gravity has shifted form the proletarian vanguard to the bureaucracy, the party has changed its social structure as well as its ideology. Owing to the tempestuous course of development, it has suffered in the last 15 years a far more radical

degeneration than did the social democracy in half a century. The present purge draws between Bolshevism and Stalinism not simply a bloody line but a whole river of blood. The annihilation of all the older generation of Bolsheviks, an important part of the middle generation which participated in the civil war, and that part of the youth that took up most seriously the Bolshevik traditions, shows not only a political but a thoroughly physical incompatibility between Bolshevism and Stalinism. How can this not be seen?

Stalinism and “State Socialism”

The anarchists, for their part, try to see in Stalinism the organic product, not only of Bolshevism and Marxism but of “state socialism” in general. They are willing to replace Bakunin’s patriarchal “federation of free communes” by the modern federation of free Soviets. But, as formerly, they are against centralised state power. Indeed, one branch of “state” Marxism, social democracy, after coming to power became an open agent of capitalism. The other gave birth to a new privileged caste. It is obvious that the source of evil lies in the state. From a wide historical viewpoint, there is a grain of truth in this reasoning. The state as an apparatus of coercion is an undoubted source of political and moral infection. This also applies, as experience has shown, to the workers’ state. Consequently it can be said that Stalinism is a product of a condition of society in which society was still unable to tear itself out of the strait-jacket of the state. But this position, contributing nothing to the elevation of Bolshevism and Marxism, characterises only the general level of mankind, and above all – the relation of forces between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Having agreed with the anarchists that the state, even the workers’ state, is the offspring of class barbarism and that real human history will begin with the abolition of the state, we have still before us in full

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force the question: what ways and methods will lead, ultimately, to the abolition of the state? Recent experience bears witness that they are anyway not the methods of anarchism.

The leaders of the Spanish Federation of Labour (CNT), the only important anarchist organisation in the world, became, in the critical hour, bourgeois ministers. They explained their open betrayal of the theory of anarchism by the pressure of “exceptional circumstances”. But did not the leaders of German social democracy produce, in their time, the same excuse? Naturally, civil war is not peaceful and ordinary but an “exceptional circumstance”. Every serious revolutionary organisation, however, prepares precisely for “exceptional circumstances”. The experience of Spain has shown once again that the state can be “denied” in booklets published in “normal circumstances” by permission of the bourgeois state, but the conditions of revolution leave no room for the denial of the state: they demand, on the contrary, the conquest of the state. We have not the slightest intention of blaming the anarchists for not having liquidated the state with the mere stroke of a pen. A revolutionary party , even having seized power (of which the anarchist leaders were incapable in spite of the heroism of the anarchist workers), is still by no means the sovereign ruler of society. But all the more severely do we blame the anarchist theory, which seemed to be wholly suitable for times of peace, but which had to be dropped rapidly as soon as the “exceptional circumstances” of the ... revolution had begun. In the old days there were certain generals – and probably are now – who considered that the most harmful thing for an army was war. Little better are those revolutionaries who complain that revolution destroys their doctrine.

Marxists are wholly in agreement with the anarchists in regard to the final goal: the liquidation of the state. Marxists are “state-ist” only to the extent that one cannot achieve the liquidation of the state simply by ignoring it. The experience of Stalinism does not refute the teaching of Marxism but confirms it by inversion. The revolutionary doctrine which teaches the proletariat to orient itself correctly in situations and to profit actively by them, contains of course no automatic guarantee of victory. But victory is possible only through the application of this doctrine. Moreover, the victory must not be though of as a single event. It must be considered in the perspective of an historical epoch. The workers’ state – on a lower economic basis and surrounded by imperialism – was transformed into the gendarmerie of Stalinism. But genuine Bolshevism launched a life and death struggle against the gendarmerie. To maintain itself

Stalinism is now forced to conduct a direct civil war against Bolshevism under the name of “Trotskyism”, not only in the USSR but also in Spain. The old Bolshevik party is dead but Bolshevism is raising its head everywhere.

To deduce Stalinism form Bolshevism or from Marxism is the same as to deduce, in a larger sense, counter-revolution from revolution. Liberal-conservative and later reformist thinking has always been characterised by this cliche. Due to the class structure of society, revolutions have always produced counter-revolutions. Does not this indicate, asks the logician, that there is some inner flaw in the revolutionary method? However, neither the liberals nor reformists have succeeded, as yet, in inventing a more “economical” method. But if it is not easy to rationalise the living historic process, it is not at all difficult to give a rational interpretation of the alternation of its waves, and thus by pure logic to deduce Stalinism from “state socialism”, fascism from Marxism, reaction from revolution, in a word, the antithesis from the thesis. In this domain as in many others anarchist thought is the prisoner of liberal rationalism. Real revolutionary thinking is not possible without dialectics.

The Political “Sins” of Bolshevism as the Source of Stalinism

The arguments of the rationalists assume at times, at least in their outer form, a more concrete character. They do not deduce Stalinism from Bolshevism as a whole but from its political sins. the Bolsheviks – according to Gorter, Pannekoek, certain German “Spartacists” and others – replaced the dictatorship of the proletariat with the dictatorship of the party; Stalin replaced the dictatorship of the party with the dictatorship of the bureaucracy, the Bolsheviks destroyed all parties except their own; Stalin strangled the Bolshevik party in the interests of a Bonapartist clique. The Bolsheviks compromised with the bourgeoisie; Stalin became its ally and support. The Bolsheviks recognised the necessity of participation in the old trade unions and in the bourgeois parliament; Stalin made friends with the trade union bureaucracy and bourgeois democracy. One can make such comparisons at will. For all their apparent effectiveness they are entirely empty.

The proletariat can take power only through its vanguard. In itself the necessity for state power arises from the insufficient cultural level of the masses and their heterogeneity. In the revolutionary vanguard, organised in a party, is crystallised the aspiration of the masses to obtain their freedom. Without the confidence

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of the class in the vanguard, without support of the vanguard by the class, there can be no talk of the conquest of power. In this sense the proletarian revolution and dictatorship are the work of the whole class, but only under the leadership of the vanguard. The Soviets are the only organised form of the tie between the vanguard and the class. A revolutionary content can be given this form only by the party. This is proved by the positive experience of the October Revolution and by the negative experience of other countries (Germany, Austria, finally, Spain). No one has either shown in practice or tried to explain articulately on paper how the proletariat can seize power without the political leadership of a party that knows what it wants. the fact that this party subordinates the Soviets politically to its leaders has, in itself, abolished the Soviet system no more than the domination of the conservative majority has abolished the British parliamentary system.

As far as the prohibition of other Soviet parties is concerned, it did not flow from any “theory” of Bolshevism but was a measure of defence of the dictatorship on a backward and devastated country, surrounded by enemies on all sides. For the Bolsheviks it was clear from the beginning that this measure, later completed by the prohibition of factions inside the governing party itself, signalised a tremendous danger. However, the root of the danger lay not in the doctrine or the tactics but in the material weakness of the dictatorship, ion the difficulties of its internal and international situation. If the revolution had triumphed, even if only in Germany, the need of prohibiting the other Soviet parties would have immediately fallen away. It is absolutely indisputable that the domination of a single party served as the juridical point of departure for the Stalinist totalitarian regime. The reason for this development lies neither in Bolshevism nor in the prohibition of other parties as a temporary war measure, but in the number of defeats of the proletariat in Europe and Asia.

The same applies to the struggle with anarchism. In the heroic epoch of the revolution the Bolsheviks went hand in hand with genuinely revolutionary anarchists. Many of them were drawn into the ranks of the party. The author of these lines discussed with Lenin more then once the possibility of allotting the anarchists certain territories where, with the consent of the local population, they would carry out their stateless experiment. But civil war, blockade and hunger left no room for such plans. The Kronstadt insurrection? But the revolutionary government could naturally not “present” to the insurrectionary sailors the fortress which protected the capital only because

the reactionary peasant-soldier rebellion was joined by a few doubtful anarchists. The concrete historical analysis of the events leaves not the slightest room for legends, built up on ignorance and sentimentality, concerning Kronstadt, Makhno and other episodes of the revolution.

There remains only the fact that the Bolsheviks from the beginning applied not only conviction but also compulsion, often to a most severe degree. It is also indisputable that later the bureaucracy which grew out of the revolution monopolised the system of compulsions in its own hands. Every stage of development, even such catastrophic stages as revolution and counter-revolution, flows from the preceding stage, is rooted in it and carries over some of its features. Liberals, including the Webbs, have always maintained that the Bolshevik dictatorship represented only a new edition of Tsarism. they close their eyes to such “details” as the abolition of the monarchy and the nobility, the handing over of the land to the peasants, the expropriation of capital, the introduction of the planned economy, atheist education, and so on. In exactly the same way liberal- anarchist thought closes its eyes to the fact that the Bolshevik revolution, with all its repressions, meant an upheaval of social relations in the interests of the masses, whereas Stalin’s Thermidorian upheaval accompanies the reconstruction of Soviet society in the interest of a privileged minority. It is clear that in the identification of Stalinism with Bolshevism there is not a trace of socialist criteria.

Questions of Theory

One of the most outstanding features of Bolshevism has been its severe, exacting, even quarrelsome attitude towards the question of doctrine. The 26 volumes of Lenin’s works will remain forever a model of the highest theoretical conscientiousness. Without this fundamental quality Bolshevism would never have fulfilled its historic role. In this regard Stalinism, coarse, ignorant and thoroughly empirical, is its complete opposite.

The Opposition declared more than 10 years ago in its programme: “Since Lenin’s death a whole set of new theories has been created, whose only purpose is to justify the Stalin group’s sliding off the path of the international proletarian revolution.” Only a few days ago an American writer, Liston M. Oak, who has participated in the Spanish revolution, wrote: “The Stalinists are in fact today the foremost revisionists of Marx and Lenin – Bernstein did not dare go half as far as Stalin in revising Marx.” This is absolutely true. One must add only that Bernstein actually felt certain

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theoretical needs: he tried conscientiously to establish a correspondence between the reformist practices of social democracy and its programme. The Stalinist bureaucracy, however, not only had nothing in common with Marxism but is in general foreign to any doctrine or system whatsoever. Its “ideology” is thoroughly permeated with police subjectivism, its practice is the empiricism of crude violence. In keeping with its essential interests the caste of usurpers is hostile to any theory: it can give an account of its social role neither to itself nor to anyone else. Stalin revises Marx and Lenin not with the theoreticians pen but with the heel of the GPU.

Questions of Morals

Complaints of the “immorality” of Bolshevism come particularly from those boastful nonentities whose cheap masks were torn away by Bolshevism. In petit-bourgeois, intellectual, democratic, “socialist”, literary, parliamentary and other circles, conventional values prevail, or a conventional language to cover their lack of values. This large and motley society for mutual protection – “live and let live” – cannot bear the touch of the Marxist lancet on its sensitive skin. The theoreticians, writers and moralists, hesitating between different camps, thought and continue to think that the Bolsheviks maliciously exaggerate differences, are incapable of “loyal” collaboration and by their “intrigues” disrupt the unity of the workers’ movement. Moreover, the sensitive and touchy centrist has always thought that the Bolsheviks were “calumniating” him – simply because they carried through to the end for him his

half-developed thoughts: he himself was never able to. But the fact remains that only that precious quality, an uncompromising attitude towards all quibbling and evasion, can educate a revolutionary party which will not be taken unawares by “exceptional circumstances”.

The moral qualities of every party flow, in the last analysis, from the historical interests that it represents. the moral qualities of Bolshevism self-renunciation, disinterestedness, audacity and contempt for every kind of tinsel and falsehood – the highest qualities of human nature! – flow from revolutionary intransigence in the service of the oppressed. The Stalinist bureaucracy imitates also in this domain the words and gestures of Bolshevism. But when “intransigence” and “flexibility” are applied by a police apparatus in the service of a privileged minority they become a force of demoralisation and gangsterism. One can feel only contempt for these gentlemen who identify the revolutionary heroism of the Bolsheviks with the bureaucratic cynicism of the Thermidorians.

Even now, in spite of the dramatic events in the recent period, the average philistine prefers to believe that the struggle between Bolshevism (“Trotskyism”) and Stalinism concerns a clash of personal ambitions, or, at best, a conflict between two “shades ” of Bolshevism. The crudest expression of this opinion is given by Norman Thomas, leader of the American Socialist Party: “There is little reason to believe”. he writes (Socialist Review, September 1937, p.6), “that if Trotsky had won (!) instead of Stalin, there would be an end of intrigue, plots, and a reign of fear in Russia”. And this man considers himself ... a Marxist. One would have the same right to say: “There is little reason to believe that if instead of Pius XI, the Holy See were occupied by Norman I, the Catholic Church would have been transformed into a bulwark of socialism”. Thomas fails to understand that it is not a question of antagonism between Stalin and Trotsky, but of an antagonism between the bureaucracy and the proletariat. To be sure, the governing stratum of the USSR is forced even now to adapt itself to the still not wholly liquidated heritage of revolution, while preparing at the same time through direct civil war (bloody “purge” – mass annihilation of the discontented) a change of the social regime. But in Spain the Stalinist clique is already acting openly as a bulwark of the bourgeois order against socialism. The struggle against the Bonapartist bureaucracy is turning before our eyes into class struggle: two worlds, two programmes, two moralities. If Thomas thinks that the victory of the socialist proletariat over the infamous caste of oppressors would not politically and morally regenerate the Soviet regime, he proves only that for all his reservations, shufflings and pious sighs he is far

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Red Army civil war poster

nearer to the Stalinist bureaucracy than to the workers. Like other exposers of Bolshevik “immorality”, Thomas has simply not grown to the level of revolutionary morality.

The Traditions of Bolshevism and the Fourth International

The “lefts” who tried to skip Bolshevism in their return to Marxism generally confined themselves to isolated panaceas: boycott of parliament, creation of “genuine” Soviets. All this could still seem extremely profound in the heat of the first days after the war. But now, in the light of most recent experience, such “infantile diseases” have no longer even the interest of a curiosity. The Dutchmen Gorter and Pannekoek, the German “Spartakists”, the Italian Bordigists, showed their independence from Bolshevism only by artificially inflating one of its features and opposing it to the rest. But nothing has remained either in practice or in theory of these “left” tendencies: an indirect but important proof that Bolshevism is the only possible form of Marxism for this epoch.

The Bolshevik party has shown in action a combination of the highest revolutionary audacity and political realism. It established for the first time the correspondence between the vanguard and the class which alone is capable of securing victory. It has p roved by experience that the alliance between the proletariat and the oppressed masses of the rural and urban petit bourgeoisie is possible only through the political overthrow of the traditional petit-bourgeois parties. The Bolshevik party has shown the entire world how to carry out armed insurrection and the seizure of power. Those who propose the abstraction of the Soviets from the party dictatorship should understand that only thanks to the party dictatorship were the Soviets able to lift themselves out of the mud of reformism and attain the state form of the proletariat. The Bolshevik party achieved in the civil war the correct combination of military art and Marxist politics. Even if the Stalinist bureaucracy should succeed in destroying the economic foundations of the new society, the experience of planned economy under the leadership of the Bolshevik party will have entered history for all time as one of the greatest teachings of mankind. This can be ignored only by sectarians who, offended by the bruises they have received, turn their backs on the process of history.

But his is not all. The Bolshevik party was able to carry on its magnificent “practical” work only because it illuminated all its steps with theory. Bolshevism did not create this theory: it was furnished by Marxism. But Marxism is a theory of movement, not of stagnation. Only events on such a tremendous historical scale could enrich the theory itself. Bolshevism brought an invaluable contribution to Marxism in its analysis of the imperialist epoch as an epoch of wars and revolutions; of bourgeois democracy in the era of decaying capitalism; of the correlation between the general strike and the insurrection; of the role of the party, Soviets and trade unions in the period of proletarian revolution; in its theory of the Soviet state, of the economy of transition, of fascism and Bonapartism in the epoch of capitalist decline; finally in its analysis of the degeneration of the Bolshevik party itself and of the Soviet state. Let any other tendency be named that has added anything essential to the conclusions and generalisations of Bolshevism. Theoretically and politically Vandervilde, De Brouckere, Hilferding, Otto Bauer, Leon Blum, Zyromski, not to mention Major Attlee and Norman Thomas, live on the tattered leftovers of the past. The degeneration of the Comintern is most crudely expressed by the fact that it has dropped to the theoretical level of the Second International. All the varieties of intermediary groups (Independent Labour Party of Great Britain, POUM and their like) adapt every week new haphazard fragments of Marx and Lenin to their current needs. Workers can learn nothing from these people.

Only the founders of the Fourth International, who have made their own the whole tradition of Marx and Lenin, take a serious attitude towards theory. Philistines may jeer that 20 years after the October victory the revolutionaries are again thrown back to modest propagandist preparation. The big capitalists are, in this question as in many others, far more penetrating than the petit bourgeois who imagine themselves “socialists” or “communists”. It is no accident that the subject of the Fourth International does not leave the columns of the world press. The burning historical need for revolutionary leadership promises to the Fourth International an exceptionally rapid tempo of growth. The greatest guarantee of its further success lies in the fact that it has not arisen away from the great historical road, but has organically grown out of Bolshevism.

(28 August 1937)

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BLPI on the political situation in 1944 (excerpt)

In this excerpt we are publishing, the BLP discuss the tactics of Gandhi and the struggle against British imperialism around the 1942 “Quit India movement”. The lessons learnt here show the negative consequences of a leaderless movement and the modus operandi of a treacherous and counter-revolutionary leadership in action as well as the deadly cunning of British imperialism. This episode of the history of class struggle India serves as a shrill lesson to us and is relevant even today for those actively participating in the class struggle.

Gandhi’s Tactics

The rapid advance of the Japanese through the Pacific regions and to the very gate of India transformed the political situation in India. The prestige of British imperialism was severely shaken; the sense of unshakable British power was undermined. The mass needs rose; and with it the bourgeois sense of opportunity. Proportionately British imperialism’s former need of intractability also visibly softened. It sought a settlement with Congress as a means of consolidating itself.

This was the background of the Cripps mission. Although the Cripps proposals were in form an offer of “Dominion Status” after the war, they were in fact hedged about with conditions which made the offer itself unreal. In particular, it was made a condition precedent to any “transfer of power” that a treaty be signed which “will cover all necessary matters arising out of the complete transfer of responsibility from British to Indian hands ... (and) will make provision, in accordance with the undertakings given by His Majesty’s Government, for the protection of racial and religious minorities.”

Under this vague and far-reaching clause, British imperialism retained a maneuvering power which

would enable it to insist on almost any terms it chose to impose, and even to find a way out of the proposal altogether. Further, no change whatsoever in India’s status was contemplated during the war. On the contrary although “leaders of the principal sections of the Indian people” were to be invited to participate in “the counsels of their country,” this was no different from the former offer of an expanded Viceroy’s Executive Council, inasmuch as the Council continued to be advisory and the Viceroy’s powers remained as absolute as ever. On this question of the Viceroy’s powers the Cripps negotiations with Congress broke down.

The real reason for the failure of the negotiations, however, was the sharp change that had taken place in the military situation. The threat of the application of a “scorched earth policy” in the case of the expected Japanese invasion had caused important sections of the Indian big bourgeoisie to take a sharp leftward turn. Further, Japan’s advance had not merely hardened the attitude of the Indian bourgeoisie towards British imperialism but radically changed it. Contemplating the possibility of a successful Japanese invasion of India, the Indian bourgeoisie began to consider the possibility not merely of altering the terms of their partnership with British imperialism but even of changing partners; i.e., the possibility of Japanese imperialism replacing the British. In other words, the bourgeoisie were preparing to climb the fence so as to be in a position to decide which way to jump at the proper time.

Thereafter events moved swiftly. The Congress Working Committee met in July and announced its current terms for a settlement with British imperialism. These were “withdrawal of British rule in India” immediately and the negotiation of a treaty between “free India” and Great Britain “for the adjustment of future relations and for the cooperation of the two countries as allies in the common task of meeting aggression.” Coupled with these terms, however, there was, for the first time, the open threat of a non-violent

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mass struggle in case they were not granted. An AICC meeting was called for August to endorse this decision. Congress had moved with the worsening military situation for Britain from conditional support to open opposition. The next move lay with British imperialism.

British imperialism’s answer was categorical and

dramatic – not words, but action. On the very morning after the AICC session of August 8th at Bombay, where Congress authorized mass action under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership as a means to forcing British imperialism to accept the Congress terms, the government struck at Congress with a wide-spread series of simultaneous arrests which completely paralyzed the Congress organization.

August 9 Movement

Government’s action evoked an unexpectedly prompt widespread and violent mass response, namely, the mass uprising which began on August 9, 1942. This uprising had the character of a spontaneous rebellion against the British power. It is important to note, however, on the one hand, that it did not draw in important provinces like the Punjab at all; and, on the other, that save in certain areas like North Bihar, Eastern UP, Orissa and Midnapore district, the upsurge never went beyond the proportions of a violent demonstration. This derived from the perspectives which the bourgeoisie themselves had set before the masses through the Congress generally and Mahatma Gandhi in particular. These perspectives were exactly comprised in the latter’s slogan, “Quit India,” which was more an invitation to the British to quit than a call to the masses to drive them out. In other words, the Congress perspective was not the overthrow of imperialist rule and the seizure of power, but at the most, the paralyzing of the government administration as a means of bringing about an agreed devolution of power.

This analysis of the Congress perspectives in August is in no way invalidated by the Gandhian slogan of August 8, viz., “Do or Die.” Read in the context of non-violent action and “open” rebellion in which

Mahatma Gandhi put it forward, the “Do or Die” slogan was itself not a call for an organized mass onslaught on British imperialist power but for individual action of an anarchist type – let each man consider himself free and act as if he were free; that was Gandhi’s own advice.

The basic reason for the August movement not outstripping in any significant manner the bounds of the bourgeois perspectives was the failure of the working class to move into militant class action on a decisive scale. This failure was due principally to the absence of a revolutionary working class party to lead the workers. No doubt the Communist Party acted as a brake upon the working class. And no doubt there was working class suspicion of the bourgeois leadership, particularly in Bombay. But in view of the fact that the working class did demonstrate its solidarity by an actual widespread stoppage of work, there can be little doubt that they would have gone into militant action had there existed a working class party to provide it with an alternative and militant leadership. As it was, with the lack of militant working class participation, the movement was bound to fail.

It failed disastrously. The movement was violent but government met it with a himalayan display of organized violence unexampled in India since the great Mutiny of 1857. The movement rose in places to revolutionary heights, e.g., Bihar; where little statelets were actually thrown up for little periods like foam on the crest of a rapidly advancing wave. And the very height to which the struggle arose resulted, in complete defeat, in the depth of the subsequent fall. Above all, the petty bourgeois who led and the petty bourgeoist who fought – it was mainly a petty bourgeois uprising – lacking the leadership of the working class with its consistent revolutionary perspectives, and bound by the bourgeois perspective of “pressure politics” as distinct from revolutionary politics, bound up, that is to say, by a narrow horizon of violent action without clear revolutionary aim, fell away from the struggle on its defeat, nonplussed and confused. Passing from a sense of frustration to a feeling of futility, he fell away

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marchers during the August 9 uprising

ultimately not only from the struggle but from politics itself. In other words, the petty bourgeoisie became generally demoralized.

Meantime the bourgeoisie have once more changed front. Hard on the heels of the collapse of the mass struggle has come also a sharp turn in the military situation. The Japanese, are, no doubt, still at the gates of India, but they are no longer knocking on them. The Germans have been pushed from El Alamein and Stalingrad right across North Africa on

the one side and Russia on the other, back into “Festung Europa.” Russia is nearing the Eastern borders of Germany. The Anglo-American armies have landed and advanced in Italy and landed and consolidated a bridgehead in Normandy. Away in the Pacific, Japan is being pushed from her outer island screen back onto her first line of inner defenses. Everywhere the Axis is on the defensive and in retreat; and Anglo-American imperialism, conscious of its overwhelming power, looks triumphantly forward to victory and unchallenged world-domination.

Post-August Developments

The Indian bourgeoisie have reacted rapidly to this change in the military situation favorable to British imperialism. They have come down once more from the fence they climbed, come down on the side of Anglo-American imperialism. Though they still cast covert glances in the direction of the American imperialists (they have long appealed to Roosevelt to solve the political “deadlock” in India) they have for the present at least plainly decided to throw in their lot openly once more with British imperialism. Hucksters that they are, however, they still look

round to see whether some little concession cannot be salvaged from the wreckage of the 1942 hopes.

The first sign of this turn in the bourgeois attitude came in fact during the August struggle itself. Scared by the violence of the masses, they quickly tightened the purse-strings of Congress on the receipt of a private government assurance that the “scorched earth” policy would not be applied to India in case of a Japanese advance. The open signs of the change in the bourgeois attitude came later, however, in the form of a vociferous press campaign for a resolution of the political “deadlock.” This was in fact, a demand that imperialism itself should take the initiative in restarting negotiations with the very Congress it had just smashed, as Churchill had always held it should be smashed. Imperialism was adamant. It demanded “unconditional surrender.” The newspaper tune thereupon underwent a significant change. From the demand for the release of the Congress leadership’ as a preliminary to negotiation, the demand became one for the government to provide facilities for the Congress leadership in jail to meet in order to propose new terms. Imperialism still remained’ adamant; it was not prepared to negotiate at all. It demanded that the Congress leadership should come in sackcloth and ashes to accept the terms that it (British imperialism) was prepared to impose. The deadlock therefore continued.

Possible Variants

What will be the likely consequences among the masses of the coming Congress-Government settlement? Will it release any forces that will change the present mass mood?

The present situation in India is one of widespread mass apathy consequent on the August defeat.

Among the petty bourgeoisie it amounts to demoralization and a turning away from politics. Any perspective of a resumed mass movement is thus pushed away into an uncertain future. There are, however, two important saving features.

In the first place, the prevailing demoralization, though

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(L to R) Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Nehru the ruling trio of the Congress Party

it has influenced the proletariat too, has not caught it up to the same extent. It is significant that the wave of strikes on the food question followed the August struggle; that there have since been important strike struggles (e.g., the Karachi Docks strike) which in some cases have been very prolonged (e.g., the Nagpur textile strike); and that, even recently, sporadic strikes on such questions as food, bonus and the dearness allowance have taken place. Although the working class too, is politically apathetic, it certainly is not demoralized and is even ready to take action on economic issues that affect it vitally and interest it directly.

Secondly, there has never been a greater hatred of British imperialism among the widest masses than there is today; a hatred so deep that it would actually welcome (and this is its reactionary aspect) a change of imperialist exploiters because a change would entail the end of British imperialism. This hatred reflects itself also in the mass attitude to the war, an attitude which, if it is not one of active opposition, is definitely one of complete indifference, namely, that it is not their war at all. And not all the propaganda of the National War Front, the Stalinists and the Royists put together has been able to accomplish any significant change in mass opinion in this respect.

The present political situation is thus deeply contradictory. It is largely a question of the subjective factor and not of objective conditions. And this subjective factor can undergo a rapid transformation in the event of a sharp change in the correlation of forces internally or externally. Whether such a sharp change will take place in the near future it is impossible to foretell; but the setting of the imperialist world war in which the Indian political situation is developing makes swift changes always possible. Until a change takes place, however, the present mass mood will not lift. And until the mass mood lifts, whether as a result of slow molecular processes within the masses, or rapidly as a result of some sharp change in the correlation of forces, mass work must necessarily proceed on the basis of the program of elementary democratic demands.

The return of Congress to office is likely to initiate a

change in the mass mood. The opportunity that will arise for engaging in “constitutional” politics will arrest the demoralization of the urban petty bourgeoisie and cause a return by them to political activity. In particular, the demand for the release of all political prisoners will undoubtedly provide a strong plank for general agitation among them. Among the peasantry, especially in the areas where the “August repression” did not strike with its heaviest force, partial struggles on elementary issues are likely to arise. Most of all, among the working class, by reason of the relatively higher level of morale, partial economic struggles are likely to break out. In participating in these struggles, the task of the party will be to extend their sweep when they are based on general issues like wage, food, dearness allowance, and bonus questions, and to raise their level by linking them up through such questions as the arrest of strike leaders, with more general political issues like the release of all political prisoners.

Further, a sustained agitation on such questions as the right of independent trade union organization, free speech and meetings, the right to strike, etc., must be systematically conducted as a means of reviving militant trade unionism. Insofar as such revival takes place it is bound to lead also to a revival of the general working class movement, for there cannot be, in present conditions, any militant trade union activity which will not immediately pose political issues. Above all in all its agitational and propaganda work, the party must ever keep to the fore the issue of imperialism and the imperialist war. The setting up of a “National Government” at the center and constitutional governments in the provinces will provide imperialism with a facade behind which to operate and thus reduce the sharpness with which the anti-imperialist issue was posed by reason of the bourgeoisie’s going into open opposition. In this situation, the party must help the masses not only to withstand the treacherous role of the bourgeois Congress but also to see behind the facade the real power it actually faces, viz., imperialism. The party must, therefore, in all its work, clearly and concretely, relate all issues to this question by bringing home to the masses the all-pervasive effect on economic and political conditions of the imperialist war and the intensified exploitation it entails.

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Rebuttal to Gerry Downing :

Soon after we had published our statement on the present situation of Ukraine, Gerry Downing from the sectarian organization known as “SocialistFight” had made an admonishing rebuttal against us. To his criticism we give our rebuttal :

I) Gerry Downing shows the bankruptcy of Sectarians :

The old joke made by Bertolt Brecht comes to mind when observing the language of sectarians “the people have lost the confidence of the government, let us elect a new people”. Sectarian organizations like Socialist Fight and sectarian individuals like Gerry Downing recognize only one force working, that is the organized force of the state and institutions. For them everything is about groups, parties and governments while the masses are nothing but blind manipulable pawns in a global chess game. This is no different for the situation in Ukraine.

If Gerry Downing is to be believed, what is happening in Ukraine today is nothing but a massive propaganda made by the US which according to him is the only imperial power present in Ukraine and “ are the mobilisers, paymasters and chief organisers of the fascist gangs that are attacking the working class in the east” . So the entire right wing reaction in Ukraine is actually a conspiracy by US imperialism and its 'hit men' i.e. The CIA director and Joe Biden et al. For him the social and historical processes most likely mean nothing. Svoboda and other right wing parties weren't just conjured by a magic wand wielded by US imperialism. They are the expression of the decay and destruction caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The party which till recently was a fringe force built itself over the last 20 years to become a major political force in Ukraine. The world crisis hit Ukraine harder than most economies, and with the absence of a revolutionary working class party, the discontent of the masses found the only other available channels. These are complex social dynamics which aren't just limited to Ukraine but are happening everywhere today. Of course for sectarians like Gerry Downing none of this is important at all, the only thing that matters is one phone call by the CIA director establishing contact with the far right in Ukraine. This and not the massive weight of counter-

revolution that is still besieging Ukraine and the former USSR countries is what is relevant.

In the same vein he stresses that we : “ .. misidentified Russia as the main enemy which it thinks is a "sub - imperialist power" instead of realising that it is the main target of NATO expansionism. It then identified the EU as the second imperialist enemy, (without internal contradictions) and only then focused on the role of the USA, which it sees as the least important actor whereas it is the prime mover in all this” . Russia which is a trillion dollar economy, with one of the largest armies in the world, imposing a virtual monopoly of gas supply in Europe is somehow to be treated as a hapless victim ?? Gerry Downing and his organization has made a conclusion which would lead us to take a position where we solidarize not with the working class of Russia, but its the interests of its ruling clique !

As a 'target of NATO expansion' he would have us believe that this overbearing expansionist behemoth which has had a past and present of imposing a vicious imperial rule over the nations bordering it, is to be defended ! The reality of Russia's rising imperialism stares at us with blinding clarity today more than every before, to ignore it requires some very special kind of ignorance. Agreed, that Russia is still a developing nation, and its imperialism is still nascent and weak compared to the behemoths of the US and EU ( led by the finance capital of France and Germany ).

His vision is like the infamous telescope of Admiral Nelson ( where he looked through it using his blind eye, and said he couldn't see the signal telling him to do something he didn't want to do...) and is the part that reveals it : ". No, no, no. A reactionary mobilisation led by the far right and fascists and sponsored by the CIA (the director general visited to organise his spooks, Biden and Cain and many others did likewise) succeeded succeeded in its aims and is pressing on with its project, but now meeting fierce resistance from the working class, with Putin promising but failing to assist them because his reactionary project is to establish a more favourable alliance with USA imperialism, on the backs of the Ukraine working class if that is possible" .

The entire Ukrainian conundrum is thus reduced to a wonky conspiracy theory to his liking. Rather than

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observe a social reality unfolding and giving it a scientific analysis the sectarian prefers to turn a blind eye to reality and mend reality to his liking. “The people has lost the confidence of the government, so lets elect a new people” only they can't elect a 'new people' so they use Nelson's telescope to blind themselves to the reality they live in and create a reality of their own liking.

II) Gerry Downing shows the politics of Stalinism :

Whether Gerry Downing realizes it or not, his position is actually an expression of Stalinism. Beneath the overt trotskyist labels and names is his true ideology which is what makes him not only oppose the fascists who hijacked the maidan movement and the ouster of Yanukovich, but to throw in his lot in with Russian sub-imperialism (which he emphatically denies !). You see, for him, it is not a loss of sovereignty if a foreign power who had military bases in Ukraine along with substantial political and economic clout muscles its way over the country to defend its strategic interests. It is only a loss of sovereignty if this is done under a US flag !

The Cold war has ended with the fall of the USSR and its Stalinist bureaucracy, but for some there are still only two possibilities. Either US imperialism, or benign socialist intervention the Soviet Union. In this case since the Soviet Union is absent, there is only the one possibility by default that of US imperialism triumphantly marching through and smashing any opposition. There can be no other imperialist threat, or not ones which matter in any case. Its the USA all the way !

The sheer stupidity of this kind of thinking is revealed by concrete facts. It was Russia, not America which sent in its armed forces into Ukraine. It was Russia to where Yanukovich escaped to seek refuge after his ouster from Ukraine and not the US. The force with which Russia effected the secession of Crimea left every other actor in this game paralyzed for action. Most importantly, it left the Kiev government in a fix and began a whole new phase of struggle in Ukraine this time against the new Kiev regime.

Rather than trying to appreciate the contradictions of the class struggle in Ukraine and locating the role of the various imperialist forces, Stalinists world over tend to simplify it all into a fight between a bad US imperialism somehow putting a fascist government in power, and a 'good' Russian imperialism which is

good only because it finds itself contending for the US for influence. Stalinist parties worldwide have shown their preference for state capitalist dictatorships with their unconditional support for Gaddafi in the Libyan revolution and now their disgusting support for Assad against Syrian revolutionaries. In Ukraine, they take the unthinkable a step forward and support Putin and the intervention of Russia.

Gerry Downing is quite conscious of which side of the barricade he stands in, but is equally conscious of his fake 'Trotskyist' image. So while there can't be a 'good' imperialist Russia, he continues to use his Nelson's telescope and prefers to blind himself to the reality of Russia's imperialism and ridiculously paint it as a kind of US lackey ! In his words this is what Putin's plan really is : “his reactionary project is to establish a more favourable alliance with USA imperialism, on the backs of the Ukraine working class if that is possible” . Now if that really were the plan, why on earth did the Americans go out of their way to impose sanctions on Russia ? Why was the government in Kiev changed in the first place in fact ? Yanukovich was an unspoken lackey of Putin after all, and Putin is being a good “friend of America” right ? The more one thinks of it the more convoluted and bizarre the picture becomes, to the point where it would seem as if America is constantly fighting itself !

The reality is while the US is still the most powerful and the unquestionably leading imperialism in the world, it is far from being unchallenged and far from the only imperialist in question. Today American imperialism is still the leading force, but like Britain on the eve of the first world war, it is a declining power. The world project which it had constructed over the course of the twentieth century is now falling out of its control. Nations as small and weak as Ecuador are standing up to US imperialism and this in the absence of a powerful counter-weight in the form of the Soviet Union.

Conclusion : The fact is that Gerry Downing and his ilk of sectarians cannot understand the dialectics of class struggles. What unfolded in Ukraine was a popular democratic movement leading to the ouster of a puppet of imperialism who was nothing more than a corrupt gangster oligarch. We stand by our position on the Maidan protests and the ouster of Yanukovich. We state that the movement was progressive, but was hijacked by right wing reactionaries and has now been led to a dead end. The movement which emerged against the policies of the new Kiev government ( like the declaration of Ukrainian as the only national language ) is also progressive but is now being

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moulded to the whims of Russian sub-imperialism and its ambitions over Ukraine.

It is a complicated situation, but one which can be understood, if one can look through the myriad forces appearing only on the surface and see the force of

class struggle running beneath it all as an invisible mover of history. Sectarian muddle heads and Stalinists alike, are too blind to see this. They would rather change the reality to suit their fancies than change their upside down view of history and society to better understand reality.

Name Address Phone Email

Adhiraj Bose 8/7 Atur Park Cooperative Society, 5 Koregaon Park Road, Pune - 411001

9730109981 comradebose1989@gmail.com

Rs. 30/-

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