After a number of years of labor and national liberation struggle setbacks, during which many of the most important leftwing groups simply disappeared, the creation of a new, Canadian-state wide revolutionary organization constitutes, in its own way, a remarkable event. The unification also constitutes a step forward beyond the fragmentation of the Fourth International's bacco, was itself one-third controlled by
OBITUARY
Fred Halstead (1927-1988)
FRED HALSTEAD, a longtime three times a year.
leader of the
1986.
forces in North America during recent
A top-notch journalist, Halstead provided onthe-scene reporting for the [SWP's paper] The
Militant of the movement to boycott segregated buses in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956, and on other events in the civil rights movement. He was a central leader of the movement against the war in Vietnam during the late 1960s and early 1970s. His book Out now: a participant's account of the American movement against the Vietnam war was published in 1978.
In New York and Los Angeles, meetings are planned on June
18 and 19 respectively to honor
Halstead's contributions to the worldwide struggle of working people. Speakers will include
Jack Barnes, national secretary of the SWP, and SWP presidential candidate James Warren. *
[From The Militant, June 17,
1988]
American Socialist Workers Party, died of liver cancer at his home in Los Angeles on June 2.
He was 61 years old.
Born in Los Angeles in 1927,
Rorn in Inc Annalac in 1097
Halstead joined the SWP in
1948. He was a member of the party's national committee for many years and its candidate for president of the United
States in 1968.
An active member of the International Ladies' Garment
Workers' Union until his death,
Halstead participated in many labor strikes and organizing drives. He helped organize support for meat-packers who were on strike against Hormel & Co.
12 in Austin, Minnesota, in 1985-
International Viewpoint #144 • June 27, 1988
years.
Of course, there remains a long road ahead towards the construction of a credible alternative to social democracy and bourgeois nationalism, which still largely dominate the workers' movement in Quebec and Canada. The construction of a revolutionary organization is a difficult task, especially in the developed capitalist contries, and even more so in multinational states such as Canada. Yet we are convinced of having accomplished an important step in that direction.
The entire history of the left and the workers' movement shows the extent of the hardships in constructing an organization which is rooted in both Quebec and English-Canada. In truth, no-one has really succeeded to this day. It is nevertheless essential to unite the revolutionary forces of both nations in the struggle against the common enemy, the Canadian state.
This is important not only for the conduct of immediate struggles against the FreeTrade deal, for freedom of choice and free access to abortion, or against the privatization of Crown corporations, but even more so in the perspective of the struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeois Canadian state, for the dissolution of the imperialist confederation, for the national liberation of Quebec and the other oppressed nations.
From the moment of its foundation, Gauche Socialiste/Socialist Challenge can count on the contribution of militant comrades in the workers' movement of Quebec and Canada, in the women's, youth and gay movements, and in the solidarity committees with the peoples of Central America. It's still not enough with regards to the historical tasks which we have set ourselves. But it's already something significant when compared to the period of setbacks we have just crossed.
We have turned a page; we must now write a new chapter in the construction of a revolutionary worker's party that will consciously lead to its conclusion the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism, for the national liberation of Quebec, for the liberation of women and oppressed minorities, for socialist democracy. *
François Moreau & Barry Weisleder CANADA Rally celebrates 50 years of FI MORE THAN 130 people participated at the public meeting held in Montreal on May 21 by Gauche Socialiste and the Alliance for Socialist Action on the theme "Socialism, an international struggle", to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Fourth International.
Comrades from Gauche Socialiste and the ASA, Ginette Lewis and Jill Lawless, announced the unification of the two organizations, voted a few hours earlier at a joint congress (see above). Following this, Keith Mann spoke, a comrade from the
Fourth Internationalist Tendency, an American organization linked to the Fourth International. He briefly presented the political situation in the US in the last year of the Reagan presidency, and particularly the contradictory meaning of the Jesse Jackson campaign...
We then heard Hector de la Cueva, a leader of the Mexican Revolutionary Workers' Party (PRT), the strongest section of the Fourth International. The PRT is presently campaigning in the presidential elections, with Rosario Ibarra as its candidate. She is known across the country as a strong defender of democratic rights against arbitrary rule and repression. The PRT is leading its campaign by linking up with workers' and peasants' struggles, to develop a class platform independent from the bourgeoisie and its state....
The final speech was made by Livio Maitan from the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. The comrade didn't beat around the bush, and went head on with the question: Were we right in creating the Fourth International? Answering this question requires not only taking positions on the International, but also on the other currents in the workers' movement, most notably those dominant in 1938: the social-democratic and Stalinist communist parties.
In the first case, their non-revolutionary and pro-capitalist character was already clear for the vanguard of the working class of the 1930s and is becoming more and more obvious nowadays, even for the working masses. But the Trotskyist criticism of the Stalinist communist parties met with great misunderstanding and hostility in the 1930s, even in the working class vanguard, which was under the influence of widespread propaganda of falsification and lies.
Nevertheless, as time passed, the true situation in the USSR became clearer and with it the real nature of Stalinism, nearly unanimously rejected today in the world workers' movement.... The strategic judgement passed on Stalinism at the founding conference of the Fourth International has thus revealed itself to be fundamentally correct.
But, nonetheless, one could ask: Was it worth all the trouble to spend so much energy for results that, after all, remain modest, even 50 years later? We can answer that question by another: What should have been done instead? Remain true to social-democratic or Stalinist parties, hoping in a miracle that never came? Wait for the spontaneous development of new revolutionary parties? Or get to work immediately, with the forces available?...
But the need for a new revolutionary International was established as early as 1938 and its construction remains an essential task to this day. Our internationalist meeting was thus concluded by Comrade Maitan's vibrant appeal to construct and reinforce the Four.h International. *
François Moreau
F I NEWS 188 USA Socialist Action rally THE NATIONAL Committee of Socialist Action recently voted to hold the Third National Convention of Socialist Action in San Francisco on August 4-7.
A special convention rally celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Fourth International will be held on Saturday, August 6.
The initial list of rally speakers Includes Esteban Volkov, Leon Trotsky's grandson; Jake Cooper, a leader of the 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strikes and bodyguard to Trotsky in Mexico; Livio Maltan, a representative of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International; Pierre Broué, director of the Leon Trotsky Institute; and Aura Beteta, former Nicaraguan Consul in San Francisco.
Other speakers from Mexico, Britain, France, Ireland and elsewhere will be confirmed shortly. * BELGIUM Open letter to the PTB ON MAY 1, the Political Bureau of the Socialist Workers' Party (POS, Belgian section of the Fourth International) wrote a long letter to the Belgian Workers' Party (PTB), an ex-Maoist organization. The POS proposed united electoral slates between itself, the PTB and the Belgian Communist Party (PCB), and a discussion on revolutionary unity.
The open letter had a big impact, especially among important trade-union activists, but also in the ranks of the PTB itself. What follows is the last part of this letter, dealing mainly with the question of revolutionary unity.
In a letter from the Central Committee of the PTB addressed to the PCB, these three parties are classified in the following way: the PTB and the PCB are communist parties; the POS, on the other hand, is an "anticommunist"
We do not ihink that this is a reflection of 13 reality. There are clearly two errors in the June 27, 1988 • #144 International Viewpoint
FINEWS PTB's analysis:
• It is not true that the PCB is a revolutionary party that claims to prepare the socialist revolution. It says itself that its goal is "the application of a programme of reforms to advance towards a fundamental transformation [of capitalist society]".
• It is not true that POS was "the anticommunist party" that constantly used "an extreme-right terminology". The truth is that, in the present class struggles in Belgium, the POS defends a programme similar to that of the PTB. The truth is that all through the 1970s, the POS fought against the anti-communist and anti-USSR offensive of Belgium and international imperialism. The truth is that there are two revolutionary parties in Belgium, the PTB and the POS.
According to Marx and Lenin, the essential difference between revolutionaries and reformists is on the question of the state:
Revolutionaries understand that the state apparatus is exclusively a machine for domination in the hands of the ruling class.
• Revolutionaries conclude from this that it is impossible to progressively reform this state apparatus, but that, on the contrary, it has to be dismantled.
• Revolutionaries are convinced that the transition from capitalism to socialism will necessitate the expropriation of the dominant bourgeoisie as a class.
• Revolutionaries count on the extra-parliamentary struggle of the masses for taking political power and understand, from that, the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat during a historical period of transition to socialism.
In applying these four fundamental criteria, we note that firstly the POS is a revolutionary party, and secondly that the programmes of the POS and the PTB are identical on these essential points.
That does not mean that are no important political divergences between the PTB and the POS. The POS strongly insists on the workers' united front and the perspective of a workers' government. That is, a government of the big socialist and Christian workers' movements, without the parties of big capital.
The POS is firmly opposed to political parties manipulating the workers, and is therefore in favour of the largest possible workers' democracy in the unions and strike committees. The winning back of the unions will not be done by the POS alone, but by a large current of the union left, including militants from the socialist and Christian left, from the PCB, the POS, the PTB and the numerous independent and non-organized trade unionists.
The POS insists on the importance of democracy and social equality in building socialism. From this comes, for example, our hopes for the Sandinista revolution, our support for the democratic measures happening under Gorbachev's glasnost, but also our opposition to perestroika with its 14 anti-social and pro-capitalist measures. From this comes our support for Lenin's International Viewpoint #144 • June 27, 1988 policies between 1917 and 1924, and our opposition to Stalinism in the 1930s and 1940s.
The POS considers the USSR, China and Eastern Europe as non-capitalist countries, "in transition towards socialism" , but where a bureaucratic and privileged caste is in power. We therefore support workers and national minorities fighting for real socialist democracy, for example Solidarnosc against General Jaruzelski.
The POS considers the PTB to be a revolutionary party. During the years, our analysis of the PTB has changed.
When the POS held its third congress in 1976, the PTB (at the time still known as AmadaTpo) basically supported Chinese foreign policy and considered the USSR to be "social-fascist and social-imperialist" and as "the main enemy". The whole of the PTB's political line from 1973-1981 was saturated with the idea that the fundamental questions were the third world war and the imminent invasion of the Belgium by the Soviet army. That led the PTB to being politically close to the Belgian bourgeoisie, approving the military budget, demanding the construction of nuclear shelters, opposing Belgium leaving NATO, refusing to support the Nicaraguan revolution (because of Russian influence via the Cubans) and so on.
Notebooks for
At that time we thought and feared that the PTB would sink into a counterrevolutionary and anti-communist stance, as was to happen to many Marxist-Leninist parties in Western Europe. Thus, the resolution at our 1976 congress concluded: "Without a radical political turn in its strategy, its developing sectarianism and, in the last analysis, its degeneration will be inevitable."
The PTB made a gradual strategic turn after 1981. Our eighth national congress in 1986 formally took account of this, noting that "the PTB has developed a considerable autonomy vis-a-vis China and is pragmatically moving towards a revolutionary programme for the class struggle in Belgium". And we envisaged a long-term perspective of a "unified, revolutionary workers' party", , including the POS and the PTB, as well as other political currents.
The PTB's leadership chose to close its eyes to this development, to convergence in the class struggle and to the real Marxist programme that we defend.
For our part we want to say clearly that we continue to be open to unity and collaboration with the PTB and to be in favour of an objective and loyal debate between revolutionary communists, in spite of the violently sectarian attitude of the PTB towards the POS. *
Study and Research
Published by the International
Institute for Research and Education
Plan, Market and Democracy: the Experience of the So-called Socialist Countries Catherine Samary A BALANCE sheet of three models: the USSR 's bureaucratically centralized planning under Brezhnev; the use of the market by the plan attempted in combination with self-management in Yugoslavia, from 1950 to 1965, and without self-management in Hungary under Kadar; and "market socialism" tried in Yugoslavia from 1965 to 1971. Samary concludes with a critical update of the Soviet 1920s debate between Bukharin and Preobrazhensky and an answer to Alec Nove and Ota Sik. NSR no. 7/8, 64 pages, £3, $5. Forthcoming (July 1988): NSR no. 9: The Foundation of the Fourth International Daniel Bensaïd 40 pages, £2, $3.50, 20FF (air mail: add 20%). New subscription rates: 5 issues of NSR: £10, $17, 100 FF (Air mail: add 20%) (indicate with which issue you wish to begin your sub). Cheques to P. Rousset. Postal giros to CCP Paris 11 541 97T. Send to NSR, 2 rue Richard-Lenoir, 93108, Montreuil, France.