April 21, 1954
Dear Comrade Leslie,
I want to draw your attention once again to the situation in Britain in the struggle against Pabloism.
You are aware from my previous letter of the background to the dispute. Under orders from Pablo, Lawrence joined hands with Braddock and other centrists and attacked our group publicly. For this act of indiscipline he was suspended. Pablo then organized a split and in twenty-four hours, without consulting anybody, he christened a rump group of demoralized people his "section." A few days leter he published a public attack on myself in his "La Verite des Travailleurs" (December) and all we had done was to protect our work in the L.P.
That was in November of last year. Since then there has been a constant struggle under the worst possible conditions. Pablo's split was timed as a strategic blow against our six and a half years of entry. The Editorial Board consisted of Lawrence, myself, Braddock and S. (both confused politically on the question of Stalinism). For several months now I have been a minority of one on that Board in a constant struggle against an organized attempt to push the paper toward Stalinism. During that time I and our comrades have had to sit back and watch open Stalinist agents such as Human Levy (the defender of Lysenko and the Moscow Trials) monopolise our paper — not only that but Mrs. Goffe, a close personal friend of Lawrence wrote into the paper specially congratulating Mr. Levy. Just think what the Old Man's reaction would have been to this type of thing. You know how he estimated the intellectual apologists of the Moscow Trials; you know that Levy was for years their chief man at the London School of Economics, and now we have Pablo's "chosen people" opening up the pages of a paper constructed out of great sacrifice by our comrades and your comrades (Mike and Tony) to be defiled by Stalinists. And not only that. Mr. Levy today under King Street instructions runs a book club. Lawrence permitted him to write almost half a page boosting this club — and why? you may ask. Very simple. The orthodox Trotskyists also run New Park Publications for the purpose of boosting and selling the works of the Old Man and our movement. Lawrence gave Levy a boost to counteract our influence. Just check your Outlook files on this.
Now this sort of thing was not only confined to the paper. It extended into the printshop. Here, Lawrence and Braddock and myself were the directors and once again we were in a minority. Having joined forces with the centrists, the Pabloites then began to drive the shop into bankruptcy. They kept their people (three in all) full time on the paper doing nothing except factional work against us. As a result, a debt of £900 accumulated at the shop and we were steadily going broke. They didn't give a damn because it was the money of our comrades which purchased the machinery and general equipment.
[p. 178]
Right from the start therefore, Pabloism in Britain emerged as a sabotaging unit working to objectively aid Stalinism. Our paper sales went down from 6,000 to 4,500 a week. By temporarily isolating myself on the Editorial Board and in the printshop they thought they would smash orthodox Trotskyism. Their whole strategy was part of carefully prepared plan. Having been completely repudiated by the overwhelming majority of the group, they struck at the nerve centres of our work at the points where we had alliances with centrists, and it was precisely these alliances which were a big obstacle for Stalinist work inside the L.P. left wing.
The British Pabloists were not really interested in the fight inside our group. This only lasted a few weeks. Right from the word go they meant to cut loose and blast the work we were doing in the L.P., and Pablo, Clarke, and their Germainist dupes backed this to the hilt.
We set out to unravel this treachery in two stages. Firstly we concentrated in a real campaign of recruiting new forces from around the paper. We have now made 28 new members, and there is at least 12 more being prepared at the moment. This almost offset the 35 which went to Pablo and placed us in a very favourable numerical group to group position. Alongside this we went to work in a more open than previously Trotskyist way to swing the readers groups of the paper in our direction. We used Comrade Cannon's "America's Road to Socialism" to good effect here, as well as circulating Fourth Internationals and Militants amongst key people. This brought excellent results. In Leeds the largest readers group in the country, the Pabloists wound up with one of themselves and one Stalinist out of 30 shareholders. Lawrence went there and informed some left wing youth that we were working on dollars supplied by American Imperialism (note again the familiar Stalinist technique). We went there and routed him politically. As a result we raised our membership from 8 to 14. Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and Nottingham readers groups all followed Leeds and Pabloism became completely isolated. The same held true in London.
Whilst this was going on we opened up negotiations with Braddock and Lawrence over the business. This was only possible because S. the trade union General Secretary gradually woke up to what was going on around him, especially the business questions, and he backed a settlement which would place the ownership of the shop definitely in our hands. These negotiations lasted over 10 weeks and on two occasions after Lawrence saw Pablo in Paris they almost broke down. In fact they stood up because of one fact alone and that was we were forced to repay Braddock most of the money he had put into the business originally. Like all centrists, politics may be all right, and Pabloism not so bad, but the pocket book is considerably more substantial.
During these 10 weeks they continued to provoke us on such questions as the Levy issue. We refused to be provoked and restrained our people everywhere. Our group worked silently but at top pressure. Issue after issue of the paper went from bad to worse, but we held our sales in the localities knowing that it was a matter of time before we took over. We are very proud of our people here. As Doric can tell you they disciplined themselves to first of all taking the printshop and then preparing for the paper struggle. At last we got the legal agreement giving us full control of the shop and so ended stage one.
We now opened up the struggle for the paper. In a group to group contest for new shareholders and votes, our people romped home with 155 new shares valued at £1 each — the Pabloites produced 20 and 58 transfers from previous holdings. We smashed them here by almost two to one. When the management Committee of the paper met, we had six and they had five. With our majority which was only possible because S. came over to us, we blocked every move they made, and set the date for the Annual Shareholders meeting which is on May 15. The Pabloites at last were driven into a corner and then began the most vicious stage of the fight;
Immediately following this management committee Lawrence went to S. and told him that he was being "taken for a ride by the Trotskyists." He immediately informed us, and then it became clear to all what we were really dealing with. When a man with 14 years in our movement made such a declaration you can only come to one conclusion and that is that you are dealing with a traitor.
Lawrence then proceeded to suppress letters from our comrades attacking the Stalinists for attacking the paper.
Last Wednesday morning at 8 o'clock he turned up at the printshop with one of his followers who worked for us as a machine minder. When I drew attention to the fact that he was not complying with decisions of the Editorial Board, without warning he swung a blow at my face bursting blood from my nose. His henchman started to interfere, but by then Mike came to the rescue, and pulled a knife on Lawrence. I immediately took it from him and Lawrence was put out of the office by the other printers. This terrible incident could have been serious, as it was all that happened was a bleeding nose for me and a black eye for Lawrence's assistant. We can produce a signed affidavit by non group printers describing the incident as above.
Lawrence then sent his man to the Printers trade union of which he is a member, and he denounced young Mike as a man who pulled a knife. All this was done in an effort to get Mike's ticket taken away from him. At the moment this matter is in abeyance and Mike has been summoned before the union committee.
Side by side with these incidents Braddock publicly resigned from the Editorial Board and behind the backs of the board his letter and one from Lawrence is published in a desperate attempt to scuttle the paper. All this coincides with an attack on the paper by the Stalinists. Braddock stops all financial support for the paper. He goes to the bank behind our backs and tries to withdraw his security for a £500 overdraft with which we run the shop. In other words we have one conscious act after another helping the Stalinists.
You are aware that we are not weaklings in our group. We have had many faction fights in the past, but never acts of physical violence. The only people we had these with were Stalinists — nobody else, and it is not an accident that the Pabloites run true to form. I would like to say one word about violence. In our group we have some hard people — we have only to say the word and many things can happen, but we won't because we are Trotskyists. However, we will defend ourselves in the future and steps have been taken along these lines. Pabloite Stalinist scum will no longer stalk around using their fists and rushing to right wing union leaders.
[p. 179]
Now in the midst of this "civil war" along comes Germain's proposals for a "commission" to investigate us all — to see if we are "bona fide." Please Comrade Leslie, forgive me if I speak with a little feeling about this political trickery and duplicity. If there is going to be commissions set up we've got some ideas. Let us set one up to investigate Pablo and Lawrence. For our part we will submit absolutely cast iron proof on the matter I have just mentioned.
The members of our section know all about Pabloism and its logical end Stalinism, and we will have no truck with Pablo committee traps. We have only one answer to make to Pabloism in Britain and that is to smash them politically and organizationally, and nobody is going to talk us out of this.
This "commission" proposed by Germain does not answer any of the proposals contained in Jim's letter and your request for the Congress to be postponed. It seeks to involve you and Colvin in a scurvy attempt to involve us in sidetracking maneuvers. All the while Germain figures this thing out, the British Trotskyists are engaged in a life and death struggle with Pabloism for existence. This has been the same two-faced policy which has been characterised this treacherous tendency from the beginning. They talk about democratic centralism and discussion, and at the same time stab you in the back.
We look to Ceylon comrades in this critical stage of the fight to provide real leadership. Your paper and internal material receives the widest circulation here. It is read with great interest by all comrades, because you are a vital part of the world orthodox Trotskyist movement. We know that you will stick by your original proposals and not be sidetracked into fake commissions. We stand by Cannon's proposals contained in his letter to you. We will act on these in conjunction with our comrades everywhere.
We know, and sincerely hope you will stand firm with us in this matter.
Fraternally, Burns