Revolution & Truth Homepage

Revolution & Truth
Homepage

This Website contains material that I consider to be of historical importance, both to my own political evolution, and to the history of the revolutionary movement in the aftermath of the Stalinist degeneration of the USSR. While I no longer regard myself politically as an 'orthodox Trotskyist' in the sense that will be obvious was the case at the time this material was written, nevertheless, I believe that the fundamental thrust of its arguments on revolutionary strategy to combat Popular Frontism are correct, and transcend their relatively narrow origins in the ultra-orthodox Trotskyist milieu in which they were elaborated. The journal Revolution & Truth no longer exists as a discrete entity, myself having transcended many of the somewhat terminological (rather than substantial) differences that were argued at length in issue no 2 of Revolution & Truth against the CPGB's Bolshevik-type maximum-minimum programme conception. Nevertheless, much of this material casts considerable light on one of the key problems, that of the building of artificial sectarian barriers between leftist organisations and masses of socialist-inclined workers, that have damaged and indeed crippled the ability of the revolutionary left to gain real mass influence, merely reinforcing the hold of the fundamentally counterrevolutionary social democratic and Stalinist leaders over the masses. In this sense, the material on this website represents part of the solution, not part of the problem, of overcoming the period of reaction that recent working class defeats have brought about. For further relevant material in this regard, readers are referred to the CPGB's website www.cpgb.org.uk.

Ian Donovan, February 2001

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

This is the homepage of the new revolutionary Marxist journal Revolution & Truth, whose first issue was published in May 1998. Revolution & Truth is not, as yet, the journal of an organisation, though the aim of the journal is to fight to convince those who aspire to Marxism of the distinctive views of the editor/ publisher. The editorial viewpoint is that of anti-revisionist Trotskyism, solidarising with those internationally who have sought to preserve the programme of the classical Fourth International in the post World War II political situation, in the face of a series of political events that have taxed the theoretical abilities of would-be orthodox Marxists. The unexpected outcome of the second imperialist war, for instance, with the strengthening of US imperialism and particularly of the Soviet bloc, caused a large section of the Trotskyist movement in the 1940s and 1950s to despair of the project of building a movement based on their own revolutionary programme. This gave birth to the liquidationist movement sometimes known as 'Pabloism', whose essential thrust was that would-be Marxists should conduct 'deep entry' into Stalinist and Social Democratic parties in order to pressurise their leaderships to adopt a 'roughly' revolutionary programme.

Revolution & Truth solidarises with those who fought against the stream of this liquidationism, from the International Committee of the Fourth International, founded in 1953, led by the US Socialist Workers Party, which belatedly sought to oppose Pablo's liquidation of the Fourth International into Stalinism and Social Democracy. R&T also solidarises with the Revolutionary Tendency of the US SWP, which in the early 1960s fought against the SWP leadership's capitulation to the very revisionism it had fought a decade earlier, by its uncritical embrace of the Cuban leadership around Fidel Castro. R&T thus solidarises with the early Spartacist League, which produced the best all-round critique and understanding of post-war 'Trotskyist' revisionism, elaborated most classically in the article Genesis of Pabloism published in Spartacist in 1972.

However, R&T also believes that many of the responses of those who fought against this revisionism were often badly flawed. The degeneration of Gerry Healy's British Socialist Labour League/Workers Revolutionary Party is of course well known. Likewise, the present-day Spartacists are an extremely discredited force, and stand in little real need of 'exposure' to those many leftists who have had the misfortune to encounter them. R&T more or less critically solidarises with those, such as the International Bolshevik Tendency and more recently, the Internationalist Group, who stood in however an incomplete way (and in the case of the Internationalist Group it is pretty incomplete!) against the lunacies of modern-day Spartacism.

The paradox of the Spartacists is that they are both odious, and at the same time appear to virtually uniquely uphold orthodox Marxist positions. Thus they bring extreme discredit on orthodox Trotskyism as a political programme. The various splinters from them have either come up with explanations for this paradox that are pretty well apolitical (the IBT) or decades too late (the Internationalist Group/League for the Fourth International). In the opinion of the editor/publisher, Revolution & Truth is unique in that it has solved this paradox, and placed the degeneration and break of the Spartacists from Marxist orthdoxy in a political context, that is both congruent with the facts, and coherent in terms of a political analysis.

Given the IBT's loud proclamations about the degeneration of the original Spartacist tendency, the response of their leadership to the critique of the post-1970 Spartacist tradition mounted by the author of this statement was instructive. All their alleged superior revolutionary integrity was thrown to one side, as they flew to the defence of the Spartacists. But the IBT leadership's method of doing so was not open political debate. Rather, they instructed their followers not to debate with the heretic, at least until the lead-up to the next IBT international conference (which is years away), with the feeble argument that Robertson's positions are 'settled' in 'our tradition' and it would therefore be improper to discuss them. No doubt comrade Logan will be leaping to Tony Cliff's defence the next time he sees fit to use the same argument as to why political discussion is improper in his organisation! Given the past role of comrade Norden also, in the shameless manipulation and falsification of Trotsky's views on Popular Fronts (dealt with at length in the main article) it does not take a great leap of the intellect to imagine Robertson, Logan and Norden employing their varying literary capacities in a united effort to defend their common falsification of Trotskyism. Or else in instructing their followers not to debate such 'irrelevant' matters.

R&T makes no apology for the focus of this introductory statement on the history and record of the Spartacists. For would-be Marxists, an honest and coherent accounting for the history of our movement is the precondition of any future move forward. In particular, the editor/publisher believes that the analysis of the political degeneration of the Spartacists advocated here is of comparable importance to Genesis of Pabloism for those who seek to advance the programme of genuine, orthodox Trotskyism in today's world. It will be of interest to those outside the Spartacist tradition (and repelled by contemporary Spartacism) who nevertheless are dissatisfied with the inadequacies of the existing ostensibly revolutionary left. "He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it."

Revolution & Truth Pamphlet Series no 1 (Published February 1999):