SWP abandons revolutionary traditions as it breaks from Fourth International

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In the '60s, the SWP hailed the Cuban Revolution but pointed to the shortcomings of the Cuban leadership 20 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1990

BARRY SHEPPARD

At the June 1990 convention of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the delegates voted to disaffiliate from the Fourth International (FI), the world body of revolutionary socialists founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938 shortly after the founding of the SWP itself.* The establishment of these two organizations in the same year was not an accident. The SWP played a central role in founding the Fourth International and building it in subsequent decades.

The break with the FI represents a major rupture with the entire history of the SWP up 10 the early 1980s. One would think such a major move would be carefully documented, debated, and explained. But the "World Political Resolution" placed before the June 1990 SWP convention which codified this break contained only one reference to it in a single sentence:

"We are not part of the "Trotskyist movement,' or the Fourth International, currents that emerged from the 1980s on a trajectory determined by rejection of a communist course toward building parties of workerBolsheviks who are part of the fighting ranks of the working class."

This resolution itself was not available to the branches of the SWP for discussion until two weeks prior to the election of delegates to the convention. But there was very little opposition to leaving the FI among the SWP ranks. How can that have happened?

First, the lack of discussion on such an important topic reflects the overall atmosphere in the SWP, which more and more emphasizes "centralism" and following orders from above than party democracy. Anyone who even questions any major aspect of the politics of the central party leadership in New York is swiftly branded as "retreating from communism" or as "losing faith in the working class."

Unilateral split from FI But another factor operated in this case. Since 1985, the SWP membership received no documents on the discussion in the Fourth International, and few if any reports on what was happening with its sections. In actual fact, the SWP had split from the F1 years ago by unilateral action of its leadership, with no discussion within the ranks of the SWP and no balance sheet on the FI to justify this split.

An addendum to the "World Political Resolution" that seeks to further explain why the SWP split from the FIl is in the form of a May 1988 letter from SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters to some comrades in the Swedish section of the Fl, urging them to split from that section.

The major reason given is the assertion that the Swedish section, and the FI as a whole, had failed to carry through a major reorientation decided on by the FI at its 1979 World Congress-to work to get the majority of its members into industrial jobs.

It is true there are very grave weaknesses in the FI and its sections, including the question of their class composition. But by abandoning the FI, the SWP has given up the fight to try to change the FI's course.

When the Australian SWP split from the FI in 1985, the SWP issued an "Education for Socialists" bulletin, in which Doug Jenness pointed out that "Despite its view that the Fourth International's 'very existence' is an insurmountable roadblock to 'to building a new international revolutionary movement— one with mass influence. •.. Despite all of its talking about turning 'toward a more real internationalism,' the [Australian] SWP leadership has walked away from the only revolutionary international organization that it could be part of today."

The Fourth International has not changed qualitatively from what it was in 1985. Doug * Because of the restrictions of the reactionary Voorhees Act, the SWP participated in the Fourth International only in a fraternal capacity.

Fidel Castro in the 1960g Jenness' words back then fit the American SWP today-for the U.S. SWP also claims to be turning toward a real internationalism. The "World Political Resolution" calls it "our world movement.

The "world movement" referred to are groups in seven countries in addition to the United States (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, Britain, Sweden, and France) which politically agree with the SWP. These groups have either split from the FI, or were pushed out of the Pi by the FI majority leadership. Most are quite small, adding up to less than 200 members worldwide, not counting the SWP.

Before discussing the nature of this "world movement," let's see how things got to this state.

Building a new mass international In the early 1980s, the SWP leadership including the two authors of this article—projected building a new mass International, based on a convergence of forces from the Fourth International, the Cuban Communist Party, the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), and the New Jewel Movement in Grenada.

The latter two had taken power in anti-dictatorial and anti-imperialist struggles in 1979. The hope was that they would follow the path blazed by the Cubans and extend the socialist revolution in the Americas. This would give an impetus to the development of revolutionists elsewhere and lay the objective basis for a new mass International for the first time since the destruction of the Third International by the Stalinists in the 1920s and 1930s.

But things didn't work out that way. Despite an initial thrust forward in the mobilization of the workers and peasants, the FSLN failed to deepen that course and indeed opted for its opposite. They turned away from the Cuban road, with the result that a capitalist state has been consolidated in Nicaragua Revolutionist Maurice Bishop of Grenada Revolution but failed to build a proletarian party following the victory of the New Jewel Movement in 1979. This, combined with his lack of understanding of the nature of Stalinism, led to the coup against Bishop by a Stalinist faction around Bernard Coard.

Coard was able to defeat a pro-Bishop insurrection by the Grenadian masses, with the result that the revolution was destroyed. That paved the way for Washington's invasion and the reimposition of imperialist control over the island.

There remains the Cuban Communist Party. This party was built and consolidated following the revolution led by Fidel Castro's July 26 Movement that overthrew the Batista dictatorship in 1959. The Castro leadership carried through a far-reaching land reform, stood up to imperialism, and by the fall of 1960 mobilized the working masses to carry through the expropriation of both foreign and domestic capital and set up a workers' state.

At the time the SWP hailed the Cuban Revolution as the opening of the socialist revolution in the Americas, and the opening of a new stage in world history following the Stalinization and destruction of the Third International. A new revolutionary leadership had emerged that had bypassed Stalinism from the left. At the same time, the SWP correctly pointed to weaknesses in the understanding and program of these new revolutionists of action.

With the adoption of the "new mass International" approach in the early 1980s, however, the SWP leadership dropped virtually all critical evaluations of the Cuban leadership that the SWP had held up to 1979.

The SWP simply labeled the Cuban CP as "communist" —and by "communist" the SWP today means not a general term that encompasses all who claim to be Marxist, but a very specific term referring to those who have a genuine Marxist program. For example, it does not think that the two authors of this article are communist—nor is Socialist Action or the Fourth International. But the Cuban CP is communist in their view.

Marxist analysis of Stalinism This new analysis of the Cuban CP is another major rupture in the continuity of the SWP after 1979. But it is precisely the weaknesses of the Cuban CP which prevent it from charting a road toward building a new revolutionary international.

One of these weaknesses is the Cuban CP's failure to develop a Marxist understanding of Stalinism and of the bureaucratically deformed and degenerated workers' states. This has led them to oppose the mass movements for democratic rights that have erupted in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China.

While correctly opposing the Stalinists' push toward capitalist restoration, the Cuban leaders have turned their backs on the only people who can resist capitalist restoration— the working masses of these countries, whatever illusions they might have. Such resistance, in fact, has already begun.

Without understanding the Marxist analysis of Stalinism, which was developed by Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky in the 1930s, it is impossible to have a truly world revolutionary viewpoint.

The Cuban leaders also have no revolutionary program for the imperialist countries. This leads them to take reformist or liberal positions when they do mention these countries. For example, they support the Democrats in elections in the United States— although they always have resisted U.S. imperialism, whether the Democrats or Republicans were in power in Washington.

In the colonial and semi-colonial countries the Cubans have generally taken much better positions, especially in the fight against imperialism. Their genuine internationalism in sending doctors and teachers abroad, in aiding anti-imperialist struggles like sending troops to defend Angola against the South Africans, is well known and hated by the imperialist powers.

But their message to the masses in the oppressed countries of the world is ambiguous. On the one hand, from the beginning they have said that for these countries there will be "either a socialist revolution or a caricature of a revolution." On the other hand, they have given political support to "left" bourgeois regimes.

The Cubans have not fully grasped a key idea advanced by the Third (Communist) International under Lenin's leadership. The Third International explained that in the oppressed nations, the democratic revolution cannot be carried through to completion, nor can its conquests be defended, without going on to mobilizing the masses to make the socialist revolution.

Following the Stalinization of the Communist International, this idea was denounced by the Stalinists as "Trotskyism" and as part of the perspective of "permanent revolution." The Cuban Revolution itself is a positive example of this truth, while the defeat of the Nicaraguan Revolution is a negative one. [See article pp. 18-19.] But the Cuban leadership is not Stalinist. While bureaucratic deformations exist inside the Cuban workers' state, they have not crystallized to the point that a distinct bureaucratic caste has arisen whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of the Cuban people.

Cuba and workers' democracy Internally, the Cuban Revolution has much to its credit. The revolution leans on the mobilization and arming of the masses to defend itself from the real threat of a U.S. imperialist attack. Socialist values of equality and human solidarity are appealed to, as opposed to the capitalist values of greed and selfishness.

While encouraging the participation of the masses at local levels of power, the Cuban leadership has yet to involve the masses through their representatives at the national level to participate in debates with full information on the big national and international (continued on next pa

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(continued from previous page) questions vital for the revolution's survival. And the leadership has yet to set up mechanisms to bring workers into the actual management of their enterprises.