Trotskyism sides with every single counter-revolutionary movement - Harpal Brar
In the aftermath of the triumph of revisionism at the, 20th Party Congress of the CPSU, and under its direct stimulus, bourgeois-nationalist tendencies within the working-class parties, acting in close coordination with the imperialist agencies and broadcasting media as well as the church, came to the fore in some of the Peoples Democracies. In a number of places – most notably Hungary – these led to counter-revolutionary uprisings. Everywhere in these upheavals directed against socialism and the rule of the working class, the Trotskyites were, as was to be expected, on the side of imperialism reaction, counter-revolution and clerico-fascism. The XIth World Congress of Trotskyites paid homage to the CIA-Vatican inspired and led Hungarian counter-revolution in the following glowing terms:
"The Hungarian revolution of October-November 1956 went the farthest on the path of a fully-fledged anti-bureaucratic political revolution." (Imprecor, Nov. 1979).
James Burnham, the American Trotskyist, and Trotsky's trusted henchman until 1940, openly advocated, from 1950 onwards, the US policy of 'liberation" of captive nations" – a policy of destabilising People's Democracies in eastern Europe.
When the extreme revisionists in Czechoslovakia, under the leadership of Dubcek, impatient with the slow speed of 'reform' aimed at restoring a capitalist economy and a multi-party bourgeois democracy, started the, so-called Prague Spring they euphemistically declared that their aim was "to free Marxism from Stalinist and bureaucratic distortions" and to "formulate the humanist vocation of the communist movement." The meaning of these apparently attractive slogans became all too clear during 1989, by which time the liquidation of the Communist Parties in Poland and Hungary, the dismantling of what remained of socialist planning of the economy in those countries, and the plunge into capitalism and bourgeois democracy, under the tender mercies of imperialism and its spiritual arm, the Vatican, had become obvious. Dubcek, in a letter to the Party leadership, pleaded with them not to condemn reforms in Poland and Hungary. So did his colleague, Jiri Pelikan, who called upon the "democratic movement in western Europe [to] develop a dialogue with Solidarnosc... in Poland, with the Democratic Forum ... in Hungary, with Charter 77... in Czechoslovakia", that is, with the forces of capitalist restoration. Then, in 1968, as well as subsequently in the late 1980s and the beginning of the present decade, the Trotskyites, true to form, were to be found on the side of counter-revolution.
The Trotskyist, Petr Uhl, was one of the most active members of the anti-communist Charter 77. On 15 October 1988, the luminaries of Charter 77 and other opposition groups signed a Manifesto of the Movement for Civil Liberty which, inter alia, demanded "economic and political pluralism," – freeing of business from "the yoke of centralised bureaucracy," "complete reestablishment of private enterprise in... commerce craft industry, small and medium business," and "the integration of the Czech economy... in a natural way with the world economy, based upon the international division of labour" – that is, a manifesto for the restoration of capitalism and bourgeois democracy. While declaring himself to be in sympathy with this manifesto of the velvet counter- revolution, Uhl did not judge it opportune. to append his signature to it, even criticising it as "liberal democratic" and "totalitarian." The conclusion? Instead of denouncing it and disassociating himself from it, he welcomed the manifesto because of the inclusion in it of "the demand for worker's control in the big firms," of the kind that abounds in the imperialist countries with its humbug of a share-owning democracy.
After the success of the counter-revolution and the implementation of the above manifesto, Uhl stated:
"One might discuss the extent to which Trotsky's theory of the political revolution has been justified. I think that it is in Czechoslovakia that the reality is nearest to this theory."
He goes on to add by way of an explanation of this 'political revolution' and the composition of this anti-communist coalition: "so long as people can say they are against communism, Stalinism and bureaucracy, then everybody is in agreement" (Imprecor, no. 304, 1990, p. 26).
And further: "There were those who saw in Charter 77 a step in the direction of political revolution – of whom I was one; others saw in it a means of propagating the word of Christ. It was a veritable laboratory of tolerance." (Imprecor, no. 300, 1990, p. 8).
Comrade Ludo Martens, Chairman of the Belgian Party of Labour (PTB), in his book The Velvet Counter Revolution which I recommend to any reader desiring a detailed account of these events, justly remarks in this regard
"To overthrow and destroy socialism (whether it be a strong and vigorous socialism or an eroded and sickly socialism), the clerico-fascists reactionary nationalists, the agents of the CIA and social democrats all stick together and needless to say they show great 'tolerance' towards those pseudo-socialists who back up their political agitation with repeated quotations from Trotsky" about the so-called anti-bureaucratic, political revolution, which turns out, as it was always meant, to be no more than another expression, wrapped up in 'left' verbiage, for the simple restoration of capitalism Thus has Trotskyism arrived at its "political revolution" against "Stalinist bureaucracy"!!
The Belgian Trotskyist, Ernest Mandel, greeted the events of 12 January 1990 as: "the sudden access of hundreds of millions of men and women from the Eastern countries to political life." (Imprecor, no. 300, 1990, p. 8). The meaning of this meaningless hyperbole was made clear by the selfsame puffed-up and pompous Trotskyist gentry a mere ten months later, on 23 November 1990: "According to Petr Uhl there are probably only a few thousand, even a few hundred militants from Civic Forum at the regional and local level."
Further: "The student movement which largely inspired the events of November 1989, no longer exists." (Imprecor, no. 319, 1990, p. 4).
In Czechoslovakia, the "access to political life", over which Mandel waxes so lyrical, happened at a time when the masses were following the counter- revolutionary Civic Forum, under the leadership of Havel, a notorious CIA agent. This is what Pavel Pechacek, head of the Czech section of the CIA-financed Radio Free Europe, has to say in this instance:
"We have always played important role. According to the leader the student revolt in Bratislava, it was Radio Free Europe which lit the fuse. We always had close contacts with Havel, Camogursky and Dienstbeir, who today are members of the new government but who for years worked for us as independent correspondents."
These were the people – the Havels and Pechaceks – who "awakened the masses to political life" in Czechoslovakia. Knowing full well that the Civic Forum stood for restoration of capitalism, that Vaclav, Klaus, head of the Civic Forum Since October 1990 and one of the principal advisors to Havel, is not Only on record expressing his admiration for Milton Friedman and Hayek the two bourgeois economists most admired by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, former President Of the USA and former Prime Minister of Britain respectively, but also his commitment to "a market economy, without qualification" – knowing all this Mandel told a Belgian financial paper on 21 March 1990:
"The transition to a completely western model is possible, but this is not the case in countries like the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia" (De Financieel Ekonomische Tijd, 21.3.90).
Knowing all this, why did the Trotskyists go along with the Civic Forum? Their innate hatred of socialism and communism is the answer. This truth is blurted out by the dim-witted Uhl, who explained that his support for the Civic Forum and Havel was motivated by a desire to get rid of the remnants of the socialist system!
After several political somersaults and mental contortions, the Trotskyist Uhl finally, and not unexpectedly, carved for himself a nice little niche in the 'new bourgeois Czech state, as the head of the Czech Press Agency, a position to which he was appointed in February 1990, from which to propagate the wonders of capitalist restoration and the "access to political life" set in train by this restoration – 'anti-bureaucratic revolution' if you like.
From jabbering away about worker's control only the previous day, Uhl had little difficulty in getting on with the job of informing the masses that the Czech state represents society:
"It a generally understood that, if we depend on the State, we support the government which is not exactly the case. Of course we must 'respect' the government but if there is a conflict it would be up to a parliamentary committee to make a decision, because parliament represents the State more than the government does Our task is to propagate news abroad about Czech society This is the concern of the Czech State because it represents Czech society for the moment." (Imprecor, no. 304, 1990, p. 27).
If this drivel amounts to anything at all it amounts to the worst form of parliamentary cretinism, according to winch the, Czech parliament and bourgeois Czech state are synonymous, and since, according to this Trotskyist imbecile, the state represents society, it is "our task to propagate news abroad about Czech society."!! This is the beginning and end, the sole meaning of the much-trumpeted Trotskyist "anti-bureaucratic, political revolution." Nothing could be clearer than this.
The Belgian Trotskyist Mandel and the French Trotskyist Broué crudely defend counter-revolution
Mandel, notorious for his anti-Marxism and vulgar economism, had for more than two decades held the view that in the absence of a violent counter-revolution capitalism could not be restored in the socialist countries. Proceeding from this erroneous premise, he has all along advocated multi-party democracy (democracy for all). Since, according to his reasoning, there was no danger to socialism and the real enemy lay in 'bureaucracy', through multi-party democracy socialism would acquire a democratic character. Towards the end of 1989, in regard to the counter-revolutionary movement in Timisoara, which resulted in the overthrow and foul murder of Ceaucescu and his wife, Helena, Mandel surpassed even the lying imperialist media in denouncing the "hideous Stalinist crimes in Timisoara" – crimes which turned out not to have been committed after all. The bourgeois media's inflammatory figures of 70,000 to 100,000 dead in Timisoara, and the horror stones about mass graves, turned out to be totally fabricated. The correction, of only 700 deaths, most at the hands of the army rather than the Securitate, was made in half-inch columns relegated to inside pages.
In regard to the counter-revolutionary movement in the German Democratic Republic Mandel declared.
"I am delighted over what's happening in Berlin. The anti- socialist movement is really weak." Welcoming this "revolution," – he went on to exclaim. "Everything Trotsky ever hoped for could now become reality." (Dans Humo, 21.12.89).
In Trotskyist, as indeed in imperialist circles, whereas Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Trotsky are revolutionaries, Stalin and the Bolshevik party that he led are counter-revolutionaries!!
It is worth while reproducing the views of Mandel, considered to be the theoretician of the Trotskyist IVth International, on the counter-revolutionary Programme of capitalist restoration embodied in Gorbachev's Perestroika. During an interview he gave to a journalist of New Times he was asked:
"Is it not true that Mikhail Gorbachev stated that Perestroika is a true new revolution?"
To which Mandel replied: "Yes, he does indeed and again this is very positive. Our movement has defended this thesis for 55 years and was therefore labelled as counterrevolutionary. Today people, both in the Soviet Union and in a large part of the international communist movement, understand better where the real counterrevolutionaries were." (no. 38, 1990, French edition).
Again, in the same Belgian financial paper already referred to, Mandel expresses himself on this question in the following terms:
'The reformer Yeltsin represents the tendency which wants to reduce the gigantic state apparatus. Consequently he follows in Trotsky's footsteps." (21 March 1990).
These wonderful admissions from the Trotskyist Mandel, for which we thank him heartily, only make our job of exposing Trotsky's anti-communism and anti-Bolshevism, easier. For once, Mandel is absolutely correct. Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Trotsky do have the same ideological and political physiognomy – they all stand for capitalist restoration.
This same despicable Mandel had earlier described the arch reactionary monarchist, Sakharov, as one of the "radical and progressive left" and the bourgeois-nationalist Sajudis of Lithuania as belonging to "the radical democratic and nationalist popular movement"!! (Imprecor, no. 285, 3 April 1989).
Without exception, all the Trotskyists everywhere supported the counter-revolutionary brainchild of the CIA and the Vatican, Solidarnosc in Poland, cheering its rise and accession to power – again in the name of Trotsky's "anti-bureaucratic political revolution,"
The French Trotskyist Broué, already referred to, for his part applauds the counter-revolutionary movements of eastern Europe which two years after the publication of his Trotsky came to head the capitalist-restorationist regimes, and correctly attributes to Trotsky the following version of "political revolution."
"The demands appearing in these movements of workers and youth reconstitute those that defined the program of political revolution' as Trotsky sketched it: democracy, freedom for parties, destruction of the bureaucratic apparatus, 'free 'trade unions, electoral freedom and the right of criticism ending infringements on human tights, punishing those responsible for crimes, winning the democratic rights of speech, assembly, demonstration, as well as the appearance of a free – and hence stimulating -press." (op. cit. p. 943).
The American Trotskyist ICL's sophisticated defence of counter-revolution
Of course the correct and candid representation by Messrs Mandel and Broué of Trotsky's 'political revolution" against "Stalinist bureaucracy" is highly embarrassing to the Spartacists of the ICL, who are forever presenting a sanitised version of Trotskyism in an effort to gain for the latter some credibility in the eyes of progressive workers in order to be able to carry out all the more successfully the propagation of counter-revolutionary Trotskyism and the theory of permanent hopelessness. That is why they fly into a rage against Mandel and Broué's straightforward admissions of the simple truth.
What is the ICL's own position? While it may appear to an unwary or superficial observer that they defend the gains of socialism and socialist construction, and workers' states, this is not the case. They are second to none in maligning the former socialist regimes, especially the Soviet regime from 1923 to 1953, which they have always denounced as "bureaucratic", needing to be overthrown by a "political revolution." In unguarded moments, however, dropping their usual mask, they reveal the reactionary essence of their Trotskyist political line. In an article written in November 1992 for the sole purpose of presenting a sanitised version of Trotskyism, the truth literally oozes out, despite themselves, in the following lines:
"The idea that 'socialism' could be built in a single country (and a backward one at that), surrounded by imperialist enemies, is a nationalist perversion of Marxism.
"Stalin's dogma of 'socialism in one country' was the ideological afterbirth of a political counterrevolution which DEFEATED Leninist internationalism and brought to power a nationalist bureaucratic caste."
Was the idea of socialism in a single country really a "nationalist perversion of Marxism " was it really "Stalin's dogma" and "the ideological afterbirth of a political counterrevolution which defeated Leninist internationalism and brought to power a nationalist bureaucratic caste"? If what Spartacist says is true, would it be worthwhile for them, or for anyone else, to defend the gains of this "nationalist perversion"? The Spartacists of the ICL only had to ask this question to realise that they were giving away their whole game, of appearing to defend socialism in words while undermining it in deeds. Are the Spartacists really so ignorant of Lenin's writings as not to realise that this "nationalist Perversion" of socialism in one country was not "Stalin's dogma," but Lenin's? He and he alone must get the credit (or discredit) for the authorship of this 'dogma'. The Spartacists ought not to be so ignorant, for they claim that they are Leninists and make the same claim for their guru, Trotsky. Let them then read Lenin's 1916 article Military Programme of Proletarian Revolution, and his article on cooperation at the beginning of 1923, just as Trotsky was writing his anti-Leninist, counter-revolutionary pamphlet New Course. And let them read the following lines taken from Lenin's 20th November 1922 speech to the Moscow Soviet:
"We have approached the very core of the everyday problems, and that is a tremendous achievement. Socialism is no longer a matter of the distant future, or an abstract picture, or an icon. Our opinion of icons is the same – a very bad one. WE HAVE BROUGHT SOCIALISM INTO EVERYDAY LIFE and must here see how matters stand. That is the task of our day, the task of our epoch. Permit me to conclude by expressing confidence that difficult as this task may be, new as it may be compared with our previous task and numerous as the difficulties may be that it entails, we shall all – not in a day, BUT IN A FEW YEARS – all of us together fulfil it whatever the cost SO THAT NEP RUSSIA WILL BECOME SOCIALIST RUSSIA." (V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 33, p. 443 – Emphasis added).
After this, if the Spartacists have the courage of their convictions, they ought to accuse Lenin of the "dogma" they attempt to pin on Stalin's shirt sleeve; they ought to lay the blame for this "nationalist perversion" at the doorstep of Lenin rather than depositing it at Stalin's.
SWP Trots welcome the demise of communism
The largest British Trotskyist Organisation, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), having cheered every counter-revolutionary movement in eastern Europe from the CIA-Vatican inspired Hungarian uprising to the capitalist restorationist Solidarnosc and the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia, greeted with frenzied glee the demise of socialism in the USSR. Its organ, Socialist Worker, declared joyfully- "Communism has collapsed. Now fight for real socialism." (31 August 1991). It went on to cheer the toppling of the statues of Sverdlov, Dzerzhinsky, and other "former Communist Party icons"; it even considered it opportune to carry a picture of the statue of the great Lenin down and to declare "Communism has collapsed... It is a fact that should have every socialist rejoicing."
The SWP went as far as to argue that Yeltsin's victory had brought "the workers of the USSR closer to the spirit of the socialist revolution of 1917, not further from it."
Well, since the Berlin wall came down on 9 November 1989, what has this 'death of communism' and the fight for 'real socialism' brought in its trail? Exactly what imperialism had been desiring and working for over decades. Exactly what every intelligent observer, not consumed by anti-communist hate, expected it to be. The market forces have been let loose over the unhappy peoples of eastern Europe and the former USSR. Everywhere there is rising unemployment, contraction of production, catastrophic rates of inflation, national strife, rising racism, anti-semitism and fascism, increased crime, drug trafficking, prostitution, black market and hunger. There has been an astronomic rise in the prices of basic necessities such as food, accommodation, electricity and clothing. In other words, all the freedoms have been unleashed that are associated with a free market economy and the Trotskyite "political revolution" against "Stalinist bureaucracy."
In the former German Democratic Republic, for instance, between the beginning of 1990 and the end of 1991, the economy contracted by 20% as entire industries were shut down. In the first half of 1990, industrial output fell by a huge 40%; in the second half of the same year by another 40%! By the spring of 1991, a third of East Germans had either lost their jobs or were put on short time. From 270,000 in July 1990, unemployment jumped to 1 million by the end of 1991 and 1.5 million in 1992.
In Poland, 2 million workers, representing 15% of the workforce, are un-employed, and, while real wages have fallen by 30% the cost oil living has risen by 40%.
The picture is the same in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, where industrial Production has fallen by a fifth.
In the USSR, which had a giant economy before 1985, industrial production is down by 40% since then; the rate of inflation stands at a staggering 2,500%; the currency is in ruin, with the rouble, which used to have a value higher than the US dollar, now having a rate of exchange of 800 roubles to the dollar (March 1993).
The same goons of the SWP who with such lurid delight greeted the "death" of "communism" as the beginning of the fight for "real socialism" two years later on bemoan, in the manner of innocent virgins, the fact that the changes are hurting the workers. Writing in the Socialist Worker of 9 November 1991, they say:
"Wealth, freedom democracy – This, the media claimed, was the future for east Germany as the Berlin Wall came down on 9 November 1989.
"In the weeks which followed Czechoslovaks, Bulgarians and Romanians threw off their Stalinist rulers too. Poles and Hungarians increased the pressure for reform
"Two years on and those same politicians, commentators and pundits are silent. Not one of their predictions has come true, none shows any prospect of coming true.
"...the market economy has not led to prosperity, simply deepened the misery."
On the contrary. Every prediction of bourgeois politicians and media has come true. Capitalism is being restored, and this process, as was known to everyone (including the dim-witted Trotskyists whose "anti-bureaucratic political revolution" against "Stalinism" and "the command economy", shorn of all its 'left' verbiage, amounted to this capitalist restoration), can only take place amid misery and ruin for the masses of workers and an extraordinary enrichment of the few. The movement involving the demolition of all central planning and the introduction of private property cannot but express itself in shocks, jolts and dislocation which are hurting the working class of the former socialist states.
It is indeed the SWP gurus who, if they had any sense of shame and a gram of socialism in them, ought to be quiet at the very least, since it is their darlings, Lech Walesa and his Solidarnosc in Poland, Havel and his Civic Forum in the Czech Republic, Boris Yeltsin in Russia, etc., all leaders of the Trotskyist "anti-bureaucratic revolution", who are introducing the wonders of 'democracy' and the free market'. Instead of wisely keeping quiet, Socialist Worker, having summarised the results of introduction of the market economy in eastern European countries, goes on mildly to complain:
"Yet this, and the misery being suffered in east Germany and Poland, has not stopped Russia's President Boris Yeltsin proposing a programme of rapid and widespread privatisation and the quick removal of food and rent subsidies."
But it would appear that they are not happy with the results as yet, for they believe that the newly established bourgeois regimes have not been thorough enough in destroying all the traces, instruments and institutions connected with the previous regimes in the former socialist states:
"And not a week goes by without revelations proving the hated Stasi, the Securitate, the Hungarian AVO and all the other riff raff which once enforced the Stalinist regimes, are still around"!
The above sentence, apart from revealing that their hatred is most reserved for the socialist regimes, is also a clever attempt to fool the simple Simons, who swell the rank and file of Trotskyist organisations everywhere and who have a weakness for catchphrases, into believing that the former regimes in eastern Europe were Stalinist, i.e., Leninist. In the preface of my book Perestroika, The Complete Collapse of Revisionism, referring in this context to the Trotskyites, revisionists and social democrats, I said:
"This revolting gentry – in particular the counter- revolutionary Trotskyites – have been gloating with delirium over the alleged collapse, in Eastern Europe and the USSR, of Stalinism. Just the contrary. What has collapsed is revisionism, and its inevitable degeneration into ordinary capitalism. What is called 'Stalinism' by these despicable creatures is only Leninism in practice. When Leninism was practised in the USSR, as it undoubtedly was during the three decades of Stalin's leadership of the CPSU, it achieved world- historic feats on all fronts – economic, social cultural, diplomatic and military – which is precisely the reason why the very name of Stalin has become the target of so much abuse on the part of the bourgeoisie and its 'hired prize-fighters'. So what has collapsed is revisionism even though in order to confuse the proletariat the sly and yet unthinking and uncouth Trotskyites using the word 'Stalinism' as a swear word rather than as a political characterisation, have been applying it to the very revisionists who entertain mortal haired of Stalin." (pp. viii-ix).
In the end when all is said and done, Socialist Worker is well satisfied with the achievements of the counter-revolution in eastern Europe, and ends with the following smug, not to say smutty, conclusion:
"What Socialist Worker said in November 1989 remains true today: 'what really wonderful about the new movements in eastern Europe is they raise the possibility of a society which is better, freer and more democratic than that which east or west at the moment'."
In other words, what a wonderful thing it was to have replaced the former socialist regimes with bourgeois regimes and free market economies, the consequences of which Mr Alan Gibson, the writer of this article in Socialist Worker, so dementedly and in such self-annihilatory a manner, bemoans!!
The same SWP, which in August 1991 had with great counter-revolutionary zeal declared that Yeltsin's victory had brought "the workers of the USSR closer to the spirit of the socialist revolution of 1917", now declares, through the column of the despicable John Molyneux, that "it is precisely the viciously anti-working class nature of Yeltsin's free market reform, that makes him aspire to dictatorial powers in order to impose his Programme. Consequently no socialist should now support Yeltsin." (Socialist Worker, 10 April 1993, "Russia: should we take sides?")
Such is the logic of the counter-revolutionary gentry of the SWP: support for Yeltsin's counter-revolution in August 1991 on the pretext that his victory brought the USSR proletariat "closer to the spirit of the socialist revolution of 1917" and opposition to Yeltsin in April 1993 for his attempt to put into effect the declared programme of the very counter-revolution over which the SWP waxed so eloquent!!
Nothing could reveal better the hideous social-democratic face of the SWP than the fact that the same Socialist Worker, which felt elated at the death of communism, suffered a deep "depression" and "post-election demoralisation" in the wake of the fourth consecutive electoral rout of the Labour Party. Bleated the Socialist Worker: "The election result was a disaster for everyone who wants a better society."
The crudity of SWP's defence of capitalism and its representatives compelled even the Spartacists of the ICL, another counter-revolutionary Trotskyite organisation, to make the following correct observation:
"An organisation [i.e. the SWP – HB] which found a cause 'that should have every socialist rejoicing' in the victory of Yeltsin's counter-revolutionary forces that have brought poverty, mass unemployment and misery to the masses of the former Soviet Union, while finding a cause to make socialists' sob in the defeat of Neil Kinnock's scab-herding Labour traitors, obviously has a pretty twisted weathervane..." (Workers Hammer July/August 1993).
And further down in the same article, continued the ICL: "Capitalist counter-revolution in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union has meant untold misery for the working masses of those countries – poverty, homelessness and starvation – and made an onslaught of bloody nationalist fratricide. Europe – East and West – faces massive unemployment, the ominous rise of anti-Semitism, racist and fascist terror, attacks on women's fights… Now that the unifying thread of anti-Sovietism no longer mutes their rivalries the imperialist ruling classes are trying to tighten the screws of exploitation on the proletariat at 'home'. At the same time, they try to sell the lie to the working class and oppressed that 'communism is dead' that any attempt to overthrow this system of exploitation and oppression is condemned in advance, useless, even criminal.
"The SWP presents itself as a fighting alternative. If there were any justice in this world, these Third Camp renegades should feel ashamed to even try to show their face in public! From Poland to East Germany to Moscow, they were among the foremost cheerleaders for the forces of counter-revolution that are now devastating Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union. While most of the rest of the left followed suit howling along with the imperialist wolves in championing any and every anti-Soviet 'movement' the SWP not only supported some of the darkest forces of reaction but offered them as a model for the struggle against Stalinist 'totalitarianism.'
"So, for example, following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan the Cliffites heralded the CIA-funded Islamic reactionaries who are now drowning any shred of social progress in that country in blood. Socialist Worker (4 February 1989) enthused that a 'Mojahedin victory will encourage the opponents of Russian rule everywhere in the USSR and Eastern Europe'! By rights the SWP should now be pleased that just such 'opponents of Russian rule', i.e., vicious nationalist reactionaries, fascist terrorists, women-hating clericalists, have been unleashed by capitalist counterrevolution." (ibid.)
The SWP may be organised independently, but in terms of its programme and political and ideological physiognomy it is indistinguishable from the social-democratic Labour Party – as indeed are all Trotskyite organisations, which everywhere act as an anti-communist militant wing of social democracy.
The hypocrisy of SWP's fake anti-Labour stance is exposed by another Trotskyite, Sean Matgamna. Writing in the Socialist Organiser of 19 November 1992, from a perspective which would have the SWP within the Labour Party to help build the 'left' within it, this is how he tears the mask of false anti-Labourism, from the hideous face of the SWP:
"In the 1979 General Election the SWP while proclaiming itself 'the socialist alternative' to the Labour Party declined to put up candidates, backed the Labour Party!... It fell to Foot in a much-quoted interview in the London Evening Standard, to express the SWP's dualism, the approach which left the political labour movement to the right wing in all its crassness. He said: 'For the next three weeks I am a strong Labour supporter. I am very anxious that a Tory government shouldn't be returned, and I shall be going around to meetings we are having telling everyone to vote Labour' (9 April 1979)."
Concludes Mr Matgamna: "In his role of SWP ambassador to the bourgeoisie and the media Foot often blurts out the truth about the SWP's politics without the usual 'socialist' obfuscation and phrase-mongering, Michael Foot's nephew Paul is thus a useful man to have around."
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