A brief assessment of ex-American SWPer joining IMT speaking at RSU event!

A BRIEF STATEMENT ON EX-AMERICAN SWPER WHO HAS JOINED IMT SPEECH AT RSU! BY ANTHONY BRAIN


There is a lot of what I agreed with what the RSU speaker said. He has broken from the Barnesites being convinced of the superiority of Trotskyism particularly on questions such as Permanent Revolution and Transitional method. His analysis of Mandela is spot on. The American SWP is no longer a revolutionary party but a rightward moving Centrist force. This is why Barnes had to expel the Trotskyists for this qualitative change from a revolutionary party to Centrist to occur.


The main difference I have with this speaker is his adaptation to IMT politics. This is most clearly expressed when he confuses the relationship between revolutionary parties and Social Democratic parties. He makes a distinction between a revolutionary tendency and a revolutionary party. A Trotskyist force doing entry work within a mass reformist party is still in reality a party because it is winning more forces to a nucleus which will make the revolution.


There is a schema the speaker is that the revolutionary party will only be built in the mass workers parties. This has its roots in Pablo’s Strategic Entryism of a special type policy carried out by the ISFI and carried on after re-unification by the FI majority before they ziz-zaged into adapting to Ultra-Leftism. You are confusing tactics with strategy. The independent revolutionary party exists intervening in all aspects of class struggles. Entryism is one tactic to strengthen the revolutionary party by breaking sizeable layers from reformism. Trotskyists have to become mass revolutionary parties have to win the majority of workers over to the necessity of carrying out Socialist revolutions.


The speaker raises a number of very good Transitional demands. I fundamentally disagree with you that British Militant correctly applied Transitional Demands within the Labour Party. They adapted to Social Democracy by accommodating to a peaceful road of workers coming to power rather than winning millions of workers to the necessity of a revolutionary struggle for power.


Additionally you confuse what Transitional demands are raised by a revolutionary party with demands we pose to reformist leaders to win their base over and advance struggles by workers and oppressed. This mistake flows from not seeing the necessity of independent role for the revolutionary party. This mistake comes from how you formulate the revolutionary tendency in mass workers parties rather than the revolutionary party.


It does not mean that we keep organizational separation from millions of reformist worker who Trotskyists want to win over towards revolutionary politics. This would be a sectarian reaction. That is why Trotskyists defeated the Musteites in 1935-37 who made a fetish of the organizational form of a revolutionary party. The American Trotskyists made one of their biggest gains by breaking thousands of revolutionary youth from reformism and Centrism by entering the Socialist Party. That was only possible through the defeat of Ultra-Lefts who opposed entryism,


The Comintern experiences of building a revolutionary international have a lot of useful lessons. At the first two world congresses they kept its revolutionary integrity by weeding out Opportunist reformists and Centrists. Once the revolutionary cadres were assembled then they orientated to Centrist forces and mass Social Democratic parties to win a majority for the necessity of revolution by breaking with their mis-leaders.