SOONER! COPS OUT OF OUR SCHOOLS The SWP under founder James P. Cannon (below) advocated self-thinking revolutionary parties to mobilize workers and youth in the

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coming struggle for power.

James P. Cannon-founder of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP)

In short, the Cuban leaders have yet to institutionalize measures of workers' democracy through soviet-type institutions at all levels of government, and factory committees that increasingly involve workers in management itself, as outlined in the program of the Communist International, based on the teachings of Marx and Engels.

At the same time, internal differences in the Cuban CP itself are not allowed to be expressed by the formation of internal tendencies or factions, and debated out on that basis, as was the case in Lenin's party.

Too many decisions are made at the top, and indeed by Castro himself. This weakens the party, not strengthens it. What will happen when Castro is not on the scene? How well will the party ranks and leaders at all levels have been educated without organized internal debate?

The Cubans lack an understanding of Leninist party building concepts in another area. They have been unable to chart a course for the extension of the Cuban Revolution to the rest of Latin America and the rest of the world—which is the only hope for the survival of the Cuban Revolution itself. This stems from the same theoretical shortcomings.

In the 1960s the Cubans thought they could bypass the Stalinists and extend the revolution in Latin America through guerrilla warfare. That strategy, which avoided the hard question of building Leninist parties (which would necessitate a political struggle against the Stalinists and other opponents of Leninism), failed. Since that time, the Cubans have had no strategy to build a world To point out these or other weaknesses of the Cuban leadership does not detract from their great accomplishments, which we must more than ever defend in the face of the debacle of the heirs of Stalin and the mounting imperialist threats. But these weaknesses must be overcome if the Cuban Revolution is to survive and if the Cuban revolutionists are to make their contribution toward building a genuine mass international party.

But for this to occur, it is necessary for revolutionary-Marxists to articulate an alternative program to that of the Cuban CP leadership-that is, the historic program of the Fourth International. The organizational form which Cubans who agree with this program will assume must be left to them.

A new addition to the list Lately, the SWP leadership has added to those who might form part of a new mass International. They refer to a supposed real Marxist current emerging in South Africa.

In her May 1988 letter to some Swedish comrades, appended to the "World Political Resolution," SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters gives as one reason why the Fourth International should be abandoned:

"I would add that the response of the United Secretariat [of the Fourth International] to the communist leadership emerging within the African National Congress over the last decade has been ... [that] they see it as a threat" [emphasis in original].

What makes this very odd is that the SWP's "World Political Resolution" makes it clear that we should not orient to the South African CP, which is described as "Stalinist," or "any wing of it." Who then are these genuine communist leaders emerging in the ANC? Do they have names? What is their program?

Thus, as can be seen, the SWP perspective of a new mass international with the Sandinistas, the Grenadian New Jewel Movement, and the Cuban CP collapsed, becoming instead a "world movement" of those groups from the Fourth International that agree with the current line of the SWP.

The SWP's new 'world movement' What is this "world movement" like? First, we should note that many of the members of the seven former sections of the FI were originally attracted to the SWP because of its strengths, and not the deviations and weaknesses it ceveloped during the 1980s. They were attracted to its long record of building a proletarian party in the United States, and its record of struggle for a correct orientation in the Fourth International.

In the 1970s, that meant support for the struggle led by the SWP against a guerrillaist deviation adopted by the FI majority against the Leninist strategy of party building. They were also attracted by the SWP proposal to get the majority of FI members into industry.

Based on their trust of the SWP, however, these comrades were induced to follow the SWP leadership in its break with the continuity of the SWP during the 1980s. Now that process is completed with the break of all these groups from the Fourth International and the establishment of what the SWP calls "our world movement."

In the "World Political Resolution" the SWP goes on to explain what it means by "our."

First, the centralism of this movement, according to the SWP's resolution, "is the opposite of the perspective of a programmatic regroupment of revolutionary organizations based on a checklist of political points, or "principles,' of agreement and disagreement."

Whatever else this odd formulation is supposed to mean, we can be sure it means that no deviation by these groups from any aspect of current SWP policy will be tolerated. As both of us heard SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes explain to a meeting of the SWP National Committee some years ago, these groups "must give their souls to the SWP."

Second, this centralization is "the opposite of centralization that flows primarily through executive bodies made up of leaders selected from parties in various countries (whether chosen by the parties themselves on a federative basis, or elected by a sovereign international congress)." So much for elections and democracy in "our" new "world movement."

What then does the "growing international centralization" of this movement consist of? A "double axis of our political work." One, all the groups in the seven countries outside the United States must expand the work of distributing books published by Pathfinder Press, which in the main are edited by SWP leaders. Two, they must distribute The Militant newspaper, also edited by SWP leaders and printed in English, as their main weekly political paper—no matter the language used in their own countries. This is not projected as a temporary expedient.

In short, the SWP runs the whole show, lock, stock, and barrel. This is its World movement in the full possessive meaning of the word. While the word "centralism" is used over and over in relation to this world movement, the word "democracy" never appears once.

In lockstep, every one of these groups will carry out the same campaigns in every country-campaigns decided by the SWP.

An example given is "Eastern strike solidarity." Leaving aside the SWP's ludicrous insistence that the Eastern strike is in October 1990 "stronger than ever," it is the height of foolishness to maintain that Eastern strike solidarity work should be a common international campaign in the United States, Iceland, and Australia, etc., organized through a single newspaper published in New York.

The setting up of this "world movement" represents a rupture with everything the SWP stood for in the past in regard to international work.

Break with past internationalism It is true that Lenin and Trotsky favored a democratic-centralist international party and that the statutes of the Third (Communist) International which they founded provided for this type of functioning.

But the political authority of the leadership of the Third International was derived from the successful Russian Revolution of 1917. This revolution affirmed the program of revolutionary-Marxism in practice; that is, it established the first government on earth where the working class became the ruling class.

Yet even under these circumstances, Lenin and Trotsky avoided in virtually every case imposing their authority when differences arose in the Third International. They preferred patient discussion to clarify the correctness of their views.

The SWP had been known in the Fourth International as standing against every form of "super centralism" on an international scale. It explained, over and over again, that each section in each country had to develop its own leadership naturally out of its own ranks.

To do this, each section had to think through its own positions, not only concerning its own country but on all world issues.

From Lenin to Trotsky, any attempt to impose a single press, with a single position, on the sections of the International-even if that position was correct and the section's was wrong-was rejected.

No self-confident leadership could emerge in the sections in such circumstances, and no section could be built with a tested leadership that could face the enormous task of building a revolutionary party that could take power in that section's country.

The socialist revolution is international. But proletarian revolutions are made country by country, not all at once internationally. That's why independent sections must be built as components of a world movement.

Jack Barnes himself had explained these truths many times in the past. Now Barnes, the SWP, and those around the world who have "given their souls to the SWP" have broken with this view.

What can only begin to happen in such circumstances-and it probably has already begun—is that the SWP leadership will begin to choose the leadership of these other groups from among the most sycophantic. Any who resist "giving their souls to the SWP" will be looked upon with disfavor.

All this is a sure recipe for an international sect, whose components will form a cult of the SWP leadership. What a debacle!

Malik Miah and Barry Sheppard are former National Chairpersons of the Socialist Workers Party.