The shortlived Suez adventure of Anglo-French imperialism has thrown into bold relief the new situation facing world imperialism.
This new situation is characterised by:
(1) The decisive shift of power within the Western Alliance to the all powerful United States at the expense of both British and French imperialism.
(2) The growth, development and deepening of the colonial revolution to the point where it has been able to inflict a crushing and humiliating blow on the oldest of the imperialist powers—Britain and France.
(3) The forging of a new internationalism linking the struggle of the working class in the metropolitan countries with the struggle of the colonial peoples against their imperialist masters, and
(4) The rapid changes and fluctuations within the U.S.S.R., Eastern Europe, China and Yugoslavia following the 20th Congress of February, 1956.
Each one of these features of the new world situation bring sharply to the fore the question of power. In the situation of world imperialism today, with its rotten-ripe objective basis reeling from blow after blow—only the decisive subjective factors allow the system to proceed with a pretence of self-assurance. The organisation and preparation of the advance guard of the working class movement for the overthrow of this system remains the principal task of the working class. The continued existence of capitalism depends not on the confidence of the ruling class in its system or its ability to rule, but the cowardice and treachery of the representatives of the working class movements, Social Democrats and Stalinists alike, who have functioned not as leaders of the only class which has the power to rule, but as bureaucrats with their own short-term material self-interests. It is not an accident that the bureaucrats of Transport House single out our Trotskyist comrades for their special attention, nor that French “socialists” arrest our comrades in France, still less that the Soviet bureaucrats remain firm in their refusal to rehabilitate Trotsky and the Left Opposition. Both Social Democrats and Stalinists, reflecting directly or indirectly the fears of world imperialism, see in our movement the threat to their own leaderships, their own bureaucracies. Whether these bureaucrats derive their privileges as part of the capitalist system (in the metropolitan countries) or derive them from the parasitical role in relation to the workers states, does not alter their essentially reactionary role in relation to the arming of the working class for its historic role, the grave-diggers of the capitalist system.
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As imperialism suffers blow after blow, so too, the strength and confidence of the working class and the colonial peoples receive new sources of power. Within such a favourable situation, the opportunities for rapid advance and expansion of the movement become very great.
Events over the last period have only added further evidence to the contention of the Transitional Programme that despite all Social Democratic and Stalinist bleatings to the contrary—the epoch of today is the epoch of the death agony of capitalism.
IMPERIALISM VERSUS WORLD REVOLUTION
The Second World War unleashed a revolutionary wave wider in scope than the wave following the First World War. The repercussions of the decisive property changes in Eastern Europe, the Yugoslav and Chinese Revolutions and the election of the 1945 majority Labour Government are by no means at an end. They were all expressions of the new upsurge, analysed and understood in advance by Leon Trotsky in his polemics with those who took the temporary and transitional power of labour bureaucracies as a reflection of a permanent state of affairs in the U.S.S.R. and the Social Democratic working class and trade union organisations. Despite the absolutely favourable situation in Western Europe following the collapse of the Nazi ‘thousand year’ new order—both Social Democracy and Stalinism flung its weight and power against the potential residing in the working class. In France, Italy and in Britain,—Stalinism and Social Democracy had between them the allegiance of the overwhelming mass of the working class and an important section of the middle classes and poorer peasantry. Within their grasp was the whole fate of Europe. Instead of advancing along the road to power within the framework of a plan for a Socialist Europe, they proceeded to take office within the confines of their own respective bourgeois state apparati. In France and Italy, together with the Christian Democrats they pursued a policy of open class collaboration. In Britain, Social Democracy, whilst carrying through a number of important nationalisation measures and certain social reforms, revealed its true colours in its foreign policy. The policy of Ernest Bevin was the policy of the Foreign Office. The policy of intervention against the Greek Revolution, the policy of alliance with American imperialism, the policy of the cold war against the U.S.S.R. and the colonial revolution.
And yet, despite this historic betrayal of Stalinism and Social Democracy, this post-Second World War upsurge was never finally crushed. On the contrary, the power of the colonial revolution reached its maximum point in the 1948-49 Chinese Revolution, which has changed the face of Asia, stimulating the colonial revolution to new advances and at the same time inflicting a blow to the greedy designs of American imperialism in the Far East.
During the Korean War too, imperialism received a rebuff. Only the containment policy of the Kremlin prevented the North Koreans from obliterating the rotten regime of Syngman Rhee.
In Indo-China too, it was Molotov and Chou En Lai who sold out the hard won victory of the Vietminh (following Dien Bien Phu) to Mendes-France at Geneva.
From Iran to Kenya, from Cyprus to Algeria, from Spain to Argentina—the instability of the old imperialist world has become clearer day by day.
The nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Colonel Nasser in July 1956 was but the culmination of the new stage in the advance of the colonial revolution.
Around this measure, a storm of great dimensions blew up. For upon the success or otherwise of this bold stroke at British imperialism depended the next stage in the relations between the imperialist world and its interests, and the colonial world freeing itself from these very same interests. Could Nasser be allowed to get away with it? This was the question which confronted the British and French imperialists. It was a life-or-death question for the old European imperialist partners in crime. Britain’s hold in the Middle East (via the Anglo-Jordanian Treaty and her Baghdad Pact) was challenged to the very foundations. French imperialism too, was faced with a costly war in Algeria, ferment throughout the whole of the Magreb and economic crisis at home. Moreover, Britain and France found Israel a willing partner to her plan for defeating the hated Colonel Nasser. In reality, of course, it was not Nasser they hated, it was the insolence of the Egyptian Revolution which touched the imperialists to the quick.
What more simple an operation could possibly be conceived than a quick military blitzkrieg against the ‘inferior’ Egyptian Army and a rapid occupation of the Suez Canal in the interests of the maritime powers utilising the Canal? It was too simple.
France, the sick man of Europe, and Britain, the grey-bewhiskered former lion, now toothless in decline, miscalculated. All ruling classes in their period of decay and decline reveal an abysmal ignorance of the real situation. They live in a world long bypassed by history; bypassed today by the might and dominance of the American ruling class. In a series of operations now known as Operation Musketeer, Britain, France and Israel prepared to intervene against Egypt on the flimsy pretext that troops had to be sent to separate the combatants, following the Israeli invasion of the Sinai Peninsula. Instead of bombing the Israeli agressors, British aircraft bombed Egyptian airfields! This was the obtuse logic of Sir Anthony Eden’s excuse for intervention.
Meanwhile after a few day’s hedging, the landing commenced at Port Said, and British and French troops marched towards Ismaila. Israel’s armies were conveniently routing the Egyptians in the Sinai Peninsula. Unfortunately, British and French imperialism had failed to take into account five factors:
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1) The storm of protest and opposition generated within the Labour Party and Trade Unions, with ‘Tribune’ spearheading the opposition.
2) The power of American imperialism.
3) The strength and solidarity of the Arab-Asian bloc.
4) The Soviet threat to intervene.
5) The stupidity and blockheadedness of the Brass Hats at the War Office.
The shock of realisation that the days of the gunboat—at least the British gunboat—are over has yet to be transmitted to all the elements of the old ruling class. The Suez Rebels, with their antiquated anti-Americanism, are as capable of turning the wheels of history back, as the Jacobites were more than two hundred years ago.
British and French imperialism can never go it alone again. This was the lesson which Uncle Sam taught the treacherous Sir Anthony. Moreover, he demanded his head—and got it!
The Bermuda Conference only formalised a situation that had become clear following Sir Anthony’s ‘resignation’. Macmillan had to eat humble pie before the President of the United States. Whilst America had agreed to join the military committee of the Baghdad Pact, she had done so more as a means of constructing a new regional Pact, perhaps involving not only Iraq but Saudi Arabia as well. The recent visit of the Crown Prince Illal of Iraq and Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia to Washington can only be construed as a preview of the Eisenhower Plan for the Middle East. Down with imperialism (British, no relation to the American variety)! Down with Soviet intervention into the Middle East! Down with communism! This is the policy Eisenhower is trying to sell the Arab despots. At all costs, Nasser must be isolated. His insistence that all dues are to be paid to the nationalised Suez Canal Authority is being resisted and pressure is to be exerted on Egypt via her ally, Saudi Arabia. Again American imperialism, hedging on the Gaza Strip question for fear of alienating the sympathies of the Arab-Asian bloc leaders, is caught in a trap of her own making. Both the Israelis and the Egyptians insist on a simple answer to a simple question, is the Gaza strip to be administered by the United Nations (read American imperialism) or Egypt? A simple question demanding a straight answer. Foster Dulles has no straight answer, as it is impossible to act as a mediator between two fundamentally opposed concepts. American imperialism will find the problem of ‘policing’ the Middle East even more difficult than her predecessors. The American Sixth Fleet’s ‘visit’ to the Lebanon will quickly disillusion the Arab world about the intentions of the State Department.
It would be wrong, however, to underestimate the degree of penetration which American imperialism has succeeded in achieving in the Middle East. Thanks to the narrow, empirically based diplomacy of the Soviet Union, with its reliance on mobilising not the Arab peoples against the imperialist aggressors, but on diplomatic alliances and agreements with the feudal despots and native feudal capitalists—American imperialism has once again scored a temporary victory. In the Lebanon, in Saudi Arabia and now in Jordan with the dismissal of the Nabulsi Government, American imperialism has been able to reverse to a limited extent the position of Arab solidarity that arose following the Anglo-French-Israeli attack on Suez. At the Bermuda conference Macmillan was unable to involve American imperialism in the Baghdad Pact structure as a whole, only gaining its adherence to the Military Committee of the Pact. In other words, whilst basically American imperialism lines up with British imperialism against the Soviet Union and the colonial revolution, it nonetheless finds a useful area of freedom of manoeuvre to negotiate with the Arab rulers, who regard British and French imperialism as the main enemy.
The disastrous collapse of British power and prestige in the Middle East following the Suez crisis has also affected the situation in Cyprus. Despite the loud assertions to the contrary, the climbdown over Cyprus followed by the resignation of Lord Salisbury can only be seen as part of the continued pressure of the State Department on British imperialism for a NATO solution to the Cyprus problem. Now that the Middle East is becoming the object of President Eisenhower’s new Plan, Cyprus becomes an object of strategic value to American instead of British imperialism.
British imperialism is in retreat the world over, from Singapore and Malaya in Asia to Ghana in Africa. The American colossus bestrides the continents that once knew only the imperialism of the Old World. The only great difference is this—American imperialism finds the continents of Africa and Asia in the grip of a revolution that aims not at substituting one imperialism for the other, but at undermining the very basis of all imperialisms.
While the old Empires crumble, American imperialism rushes in to fill the vacuum. Vice-President Nixon’s visit to Morocco, his greetings to the people of Ghana from Eisenhower, are all part of the reinforcement of American global economic and military strategy. Manipulating to the best of their ability the leaderships of the various nationalist and colonial movements in Africa and Asia, American imperialism pushes aside Britain and France, at the same time attempting to head off the successful conclusion of the colonial revolution. In North Africa for instance, the French settlers complain bitterly at American dabbling with the Algerian armies in their attempt to push the French out of the Magreb. Again, in Britain, the Tory right expresses its hostility to the continual American pressure on the vestiges of British power and influence in no uncertain terms.
THE EUROPEAN COMMON MARKET
The European Common Market is partly an American device for further penetration of the European economy and partly an attempt to strangle the working class of Britain and France.
The German economy has been re-established by masses of American investment. Since 1950, its growth has been extraordinary: in 1950 her share of world exports was 7.3%. In 1956 it was 16.4%. In the same period, Britain’s share fell from 25.7% to 19%.
Due to this investment, German industry is modern and it is underselling Britain all over the world, even in markets favourable to Britain like Argentina since Britain is the best customer for Argentine goods, taking approximately twice as much of her exports as Germany. Yet in 1956, Germany sold more than twice as much to Argentina as Britain.
In Europe in 1956, Britain’s net deficit was £96m while Germany’s favourable balance was enormous. In one month alone, November 1956, her credit balance with EPU was $133m—in that month Britain’s debit balance was $66m.
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The French are aware of the purpose of the European Common Market and are resisting the whole idea and may even ultimately reject it. In the meantime she has demanded, as the price of her adherence, the inclusion of her colonial empire and that investment in her African colonies by the other members of the Common Market shall be $312m. In other words, the remaining 5 states in the scheme must embroil themselves in France’s colonial wars and must invest heavily in the continued future domination of these countries as the French price for their adherence—if they do adhere.
Further, it was not at all accidental that Macmillan’s idea of associating British economy in a Free Trade Area with the Common Market—except for agricultural products—and bringing both the Dominions and Colonies into the scheme was cooked up in Washington. It was his answer to the pressure being put upon him by the Americans to take Britain into the European Customs Union. Now, of course, if he continues with the Free Trade Area it will put Empire Preference on an equal footing not only with the Six European Common Market countries, but with the French colonial countries, plus Tunisia and Morocco as well.
That is one aspect: U.S. capital hopes to dominate European capitalism through its close partnership with German capital in the rebuilt German industry. On the other hand, the European capitalists hope to establish themselves on a competitive basis during the 15 years over which the scheme will be introduced. During this period the British and French capitalists also hope to whittle down the gains of the postwar period and to bring about welfare conditions approximating to those of West Germany and Belgium.
Despite the obvious difficulties facing the capitalists it is not enough to sneer at the idea of a European Common Market with an associated Free Trade Area. The idea has got to be fought and exposed as part of the bourgeois strategy in the class struggle to down the working class. The fact that, as well as the difficulties mentioned there is also an internal struggle between the different national bourgeoisies going on—U.S.-German on the one hand and British-French on the other with Italian-Dutch-Belgian- Luxembourg tending towards the U.S.-German side—does not at all mean that the whole idea is utopian. It is no more or less utopian than the aim of dominating the capitalist world by the U.S., in fact it is part of that aim.
In short, it will fail only if the European working class, together with the American, succeeds in the struggle facing it for political emancipation from capitalism. But if the working class was definitively defeated in the next period such a scheme, modified according to the strengths of the participating capitalist states, could quite well succeed.
The conclusion, therefore, is that the European Common Market with an associated Free Trade Area must be looked upon as something to be fought, as a bourgeois weapon for smashing working class standards of living in general and in defeating the struggle for a Socialist United States of Europe in particular.
The difficulties in the way of a bourgeois success in such a project should be taken merely as the measure of the crisis that faces the bourgeoisie in the period ahead.
THE ROLE OF THE U.S.A.
The absolute military and economic superiority of American imperialism in the capitalist world remains unchallenged. Its overwhelming preponderance so recently demonstrated in Bermuda and during the Suez crisis, grows in inverse ratio to the decline of European capitalism. It is, today, not only the banker, arms contractor and strategist of the ‘Free world’ it has also assumed the role of supreme arbiter, thanks to its control of the United Nations.
“In order to study world economy it is necessary, first of all, to study American economy,” these words of the founder of our movement retain for us their topicality and profound meaning in the present analysis of the mutual relations between America, the Soviet Bloc, Western Europe and the colonial and semi-colonial world.
The fate of West European economy, more than ever before, is inextricably bound to the vicissitudes of American economy. The rehabilitation and boom of European economy, while it has modified this relationship, has not changed it fundamentally. On the contrary every blow delivered by the colonial revolution to the metropolitan countries increases this dependence, enhances the role of U.S. imperialism and forces it to intervene in its own interests, in the ‘privileged preserves’ of the former colonial powers, Dien Bien Phu, the Suez Crisis, the present crisis in Jordan and the declarations of Vice- President Nixon in West Africa illustrate the real objectives and motives of U.S. foreign policy and its growing role as undertaker to British and French imperialism.
The feverish, unplanned and unprecedented growth of American productive forces coincides with the general crisis and decline of world capitalism. The uneven and combined development of world capitalism which has blessed America with the greatest productive plant in the world, with enormous capital reserves, a huge internal market and extremely high level of labour productivity has, at the same time created the conditions which prevent the full and effective utilization of these potentialities.
One-third of the world market has withdrawn into the anti-capitalist orbit. The colonial world already divided and re-divided amongst the old colonial powers seethes with revolt, making dollar investments unsafe and unusable. In Latin America, an American ‘Sphere of Influence’ for decades, the struggle against ‘Yankee Imperialism’ has acted as an effective deterrent to further dollar penetration. In Central America the U.S. government has to indulge in a massive demonstration of military, naval and aerial might in order to prevent the expropriation of American ‘sovereignty’ over the Panama Canal!
Furthermore, America’s ambitions for world domination under the almighty dollar are frustrated by the presence of a powerful anti-capitalist enemy—the USSR which has deprived her of the monopoly of the H-bomb and possesses an approximately equivalent military strength. The existence of the USSR, revolutionary China and the satellite states constitutes a threat to the expansion of U.S. capital.
In its infancy, American capitalism could afford to propound the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ which expressed the needs of a capitalist system based on a rapidly expanding internal market and the free flow of labour and capital from Europe to the States. Conversely, the ‘Eisenhower Doctrine’ today expresses the insatiable demands of a decaying capitalism trying to expand in a rapidly shrinking world market.
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REARMAMENT, BOOM AND INFLATION
American imperialism has so far been able to postpone the inevitable crisis and depression of her productive system by the creation of an artificial market in armaments and through the stimulus of credit and monetary inflation. The primary reason for the unprecedented fifteen year boom in the U.S. is the vast government expenditure on arms amounting to 20% of the national income or $41 billion per annum. It is this factor which has sustained and stimulated the growth of private capital investment, the retooling and rationalisation of U.S. industry and the consequent technological revolution.
A supplementary cause for the boom, directly related to the arms drive has been the industrialisation of the Deep South as well as the capital exports to the governments of Europe and Asia and the direct military expenditures of the U.S. government in Europe.
Despite the appearance of superficial prosperity U.S. economy shows unmistakable signs of an impending crisis. The productive forces beat incessantly against the barriers of private property relations. This is most glaringly revealed in the agricultural sphere where huge farm surpluses accumulate annually and cannot be exported for fear of depressing world agricultural prices. As a result the U.S government spends $5½ billion per annum to support farm prices—an amount almost equal to half the annual farm income.
In industry too, signs of a gathering recession are evident particularly in the auto-industry and in housing construction. Sales in March ’57 (an important month) in the auto industry have been 8% fewer than the same time last year. As a result April-June production schedules have been cut by 11% below the first quarter (6½% more than originally intended). This lag in car sales is more important than it seems because the car industry reached a peak year in ’56 and record amounts were spent on plant and equipment to take advantage of the expected boom in 57. This boom has not yet materialised.
In building, for the first time since 1951, housing construction has gone below the 1 million mark and will continue to move down. Added to this are the signs—slight but growing—of inventory reductions in basic raw materials such as copper and paperboard.
The most significant pointer to date is the information revealed by the Exchange and Securities Commission and the Commerce Department. The survey of the ESC&CD forecast a 37½ billion dollar investment for 1957. However actual spending has been lower than expected and in all probability will decline in the last half of ’57. Moreover even if this figure is realised the physical volume of production will increase by much less than the total nominal growth.
Anticipating a downward trend in the economy the U.S. government has attempted to offset it by increasing Federal, State and local government expenditure by $2%/, billion—about half goes to the armed services.
THE WORKING CLASS
Increasing expenditure on arms will mean inevitably an increasing inflationary pressure resulting in higher prices, higher taxes and a cut in real wages for the American working class. Already private indebtedness has reached the astronomical figure of $124 billion!
Since the investment boom has begun to decline the U.S. industrialists are left with the alternative of reducing costs of production and increasing the exploitation of labour to a much greater degree than before or reconciling themselves to an immediate stagnation and decline of corporation profits.
The offensive against the unions typified by the attempt to discredit the Teamsters’ union through the Dave Beck inquiries and the passage of numerous anti-labour laws in the state legislatures confirms the aggressive intentions of Wall Street.
The past and present trend of U.S. economy indicates clearly that the stage is being set for great economic and political struggles which in their magnitude, their intensity and their scope will dwarf the sit-down strikes of the 1930s.
The massive American working class with the finest and strongest union organisation in the world is potentially the most decisive force on our planet. It is the only power capable of disarming the power drunk bourgeoisie of America and preventing a relapse of all humanity into a radio-active barbarism. If it lacks at present the consciousness of its own historical goal, namely the socialist transformation of the USA, this is due mainly to the reactionary, corrupt bureaucracy of the AFL-CIO which continues to adhere to the capitalist foreign and internal policy of the Democratic Party.
The break-up of the two-party system and the creation of a labour party based on the unions is a vital necessity for the further advancement of the working class. This task will undoubtedly be facilitated by the process of regroupment and discussion evoked by the 20th Congress and the Hungarian events in the vanguard of the working class movement. It will also receive an added impulse from the anti-union offensive of big business and the attempts of the Southern Bourbons and their northern colleagues to smash the resurgent Negro movement for integration.
THE NEGRO STRUGGLE
Every social crisis rouses the most oppressed and backward strata of society. This is particularly true of the Negro population in the U.S. Their struggle for integration and equality is a reflection within the powerhouse of capitalism of the worldwide struggle of the colonial peoples for freedom and independence. Moreover their struggle is integrally linked with the struggle of the American workers for emancipation. In this sense the present struggles in the Deep South are but heat-lightning flashes of the bigger struggles to come.
Subjected to the worst forms of economic, political, social and cultural degradation, the Negro population which is overwhelmingly proletarian in composition will play the role of detonator in the powder keg lodged in the foundations of American capitalism. Rejected by the Republicans, deceived by the Democrats and disillusioned by the trade union bureaucracy, the Negro masses have expressed their hostility to the Jim Crow states through militant and independent action. The post-war era has witnessed the creation of a powerful Negro movement—the NAACP under petty bourgeois reformist leaders.
The industrialisation of the South where two-thirds of the Negroes live, has given a new impetus to the creation of a unionised Negro working class and an articulate Negro urban petty bourgeoisie. It is this that has strengthened the NAACP and sharpened the struggle for Negro equality. This struggle rose to a new level when the Federal Supreme Court ruled segregation in schools and universities illegal. Since then the movement has snowballed from education to transport and from transport to housing. Confident in its ultimate victory and conscious of its collective strength the Negro movement threatens—with its projected ‘March on Washington’ to become a truly national movement, embracing the whole Negro community.
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THE COLONIAL REVOLUTION—A NEW STAGE (1)
The Suez crisis also played an important part in raising the colonial revolution itself on to a new stage, a new plane. The nationalisation of the canal is one of the most important conquests of the colonial revolution to date. In significance it is not to be separated from the challenge of the Chinese Revolution, the heroic struggles of the Korean peoples, or the collapse of French imperialism at Dien Bien Phu. The nationalisation of the Suez Canal gave an impetus to the whole scope of the colonial revolution from the Middle East to Indonesia and to Panama. Britain was even temporarily expelled from the Pact of her own creation—the Baghdad Pact. Despite American counterpressure it would be superficial to assume that imperialism can restore the situation to ante-status quo in the Middle East. Even Jordan where King Hussein has attempted to re-assert the authority of the Court over the Nabulsi Government brought into power by the turn of events following Suez, the Baathists, National Socialists and Stalinists have given notice to King Hussein that they will not support his arbitrary action of dismissing the elected government of Jordan.
The Suez crisis also brought to the fore the total incapacity and bankruptcy of the Arab rulers and despots, parasitic growths and leeches on the Arab peoples. Faced with the Israeli thrust towards Sinai, the much-vaunted Arab unity of Syria, Jordan and Egypt soon revealed itself as a bluff and a sham. Egypt had to face a modern well-trained Israeli army backed by the French Military Staff in total isolation. Again following the Suez debacle, the rulers of Egypt, Syria and Jordan under the pressure of the situation agreed to a Federation of these countries as a counter-weight to the Iraqui dominated Baghdad Pact powers on the one hand and the State of Israel on the other. Like the much publicised unified military command, the Federation discussions reflected not the earnestness of the Arab rulers in preparing the ground for a unification of the Arab States in the Middle East but the enormous pressure set in motion by the Suez crisis. The Federation of Egypt, Syria and Jordan is basically utopian. Without including the Jews, without involving the technical skills and advanced techniques of the West, above all without mobilising the Arab peasantry, the dispossessed refugees, the oil workers of Aramco and the young, fresh proletariat of Cairo and Alexandria, all talk of federation expresses only the weakness of the position of the Arab rulers. Israel as a capitalist Zionist state, as an outpost of imperialism has to be removed through joint action by Jewish and Arab workers and farmers, irrespective of artificial frontiers. It can be removed in no other way.
The first Israeli defeat of the Egyptian Armies in 1948 led to the military coup against the Nero of Egypt, King Farouk. The second defeat of 1956 will undoubtedly liberate the working class and peasantry from any illusions that Nasser, King Hussein or Kuwatly have the power to exorcise the Israeli threat or even inflict a decisive and final defeat on world imperialism.
The Suez crisis has thus had a contradictory effect on the colonial revolution. On the one hand it has given a new confidence to the Arab peoples in their historically just and legitimate struggle against world imperialism. On the other hand it has exposed the bankruptcy of the Arab rulers and despots. It is in this context that the Trotskyist movement is absolutely justified in insisting that without the effective leadership of a Marxist tendency grounded in internationalism the colonial revolution cannot finally triumph.
THE COLONIAL REVOLUTION AND INTERNATIONALISM (2)
Suez brought to the attention of the world movement yet another important aspect of the development of the colonial revolution. It was this. Trotsky has placed on record his fundamental conviction that the colonial revolution could succeed only as part of the world revolution. This conviction challenged alike by the Stalinists and Social Democrats safe in the haven of their ‘socialism in one country’ or ‘socialism by easy stages’ received a powerful vindication during the Suez turn of events. The movement witnessed a great upsurge of the colonial revolution radiating out from the Suez Canal to countries as far off as Indonesia and Panama. The whole attention of the colonial and semicolonial world was gripped by the spectacle of Egypt taking on the imperialist powers. The Algerian people witnessed the ignominious ‘Dunkirk’ of Anglo-French imperialism with a confidence that the same fate awaited the colons in Algeria and the rest of North Africa. In Indonesia, the leftist government immediately cancelled its debts to the former Dutch imperialists. And in far away Panama, friction arose between the Panamanian Government and the American Panama Canal authorities. Within the United Nations, the Afro-Asian bloc reflected in a distorted fashion the international scope of the defeat of imperialism and the provisional victory of Egypt.
This was one side of the internationalism of the colonial revolution. The other side was not less important. It was the internationalism that linked the struggle of the workers in Britain to the struggles of the colonial peoples against imperialism that characterised the new stage of the colonial revolution.
For the first time in the history of British imperialism, with the doubtful exception of the Boer War—British imperialism went to war without the support of social democracy and its trade union supports. This was not due to a change of heart on the part of Gaitskell or Cousins, it was the pressure within the Labour Party, Trade Unions and the country as a whole which forced Gaitskell along the path of an ‘anti-war’ opposition to the Tory Government of Sir Anthony Eden. The election of Bevan as Treasurer of the Labour Party at the Annual Conference of the Labour Party was the first nail in the coffin of the right-wing bureaucracy. The Suez war, the mass demonstrations in the streets was the second nail.
The opposition of the Labour Party and Trade Unions to the Suez War, in a situation with a ruling class divided was one of the principal factors in calling a halt to the imperialist adventure and thus assisting the work of the Egyptian revolution.
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Again, although in France, the unity of the French working class and the Algerians has been retarded for a number of reasons—not least of which is the effect of Mollet’s socialism and Thorez’ communism—the reports of desertions of conscripts from the French Army only add to the picture of a new internationalism being forged out of the class struggles in the metropolitan countries and the colonial revolutions abroad.
This internationalism forged in these struggles has underlined the necessity for tying up the demands for immediate withdrawal of all imperialist forces from the colonies with the demand for a new Labour Government based on the class struggle, conscious of a perspective of workers power. Internationalism becomes, by this means, a reality.
THE COLONIAL REVOLUTION—THE FAR EAST
In the Far East, the polarisation of the colonial revolution versus imperialism continues. The absolute incapacity of even the most ‘progressive’ and ‘socialistic’ of the Afro-Asian bloc leaders, e.g. Nehru, Soekarno and Bandaranaike to proceed even along the path of the bourgeois-democratic revolution or along a path of radical agrarian reform has been fully confirmed. In India, the problem of Pakistan, carved out of the Indian economy, and dependent on the Baghdad Pact and the support of Western imperialism for its very existence—remains. In Indonesia, despite frantic efforts by the bourgeois-nationalist parties to establish a political and economic stability, Indonesia remains a disunited and unstable unit. The recent left-opportunist moves of Soekarno are but desperate efforts to find stability. In Ceylon, following the sweeping victory of the MEP under Bandaranaike on the crest of a mass revolt against the corruption of the old UNP—disillusionment is spreading far and wide. The MEP promised to nationalise the tea plantations, in fact, it has been shelved. Again, the communalist policies of the MEP have served to stir up trouble and discontent between the Sinhalese and Tamils, the Sinhalese and the Indian minority. ;
The existence of a powerful Trotskyist party in Ceylon is therefore of the greatest importance in this explosive situation. Coupled with the victory of the Indian Communist Party in the Province of Kerala (on the southern coast of India)—Trotskyism will undoubtedly find an avenue to the genuine communists in India and throughout the Far East. In India with the CP victory in Kerala, the Congress Party of Nehru is faced with an alternative leadership. But it must be said, with no real alternative policy, Stalinism in India is, therefore, faced with its biggest crisis. To simply act as gendarmes of the Delhi government would rapidly alienate not only its mass support, but also its base in the Party. On the other hand, to break with ‘National Frontism’ means to break with Moscow. The decisive factor here, of course, will be the experience gained by the 20 million population of Kerala and the transmission of this experience into the Communist Party rank and file in an absolutely favourable situation with a Ceylonese Trotskyist movement on its front door.
THE SOVIET UNION AND THE 20TH CONGRESS
Against this background of world imperialism in advanced decay, the colonial revolution on a new higher plane and the militancy of the working class of the West—the 20th Congress falls into place.
The repercussions of the 20th Congress are by no means over and its effects will remain so long as Stalinism continues to dominate the workers’ states and the Communist movements.
At our last Conference, the analysis we made of the situation retains all its validity to-day. We said: (1) The Soviet bureaucracy aware of the development of the capitalist crisis, the growth of the proletariat within the Soviet Union itself and the growing contradictions within the Soviet bloc seeks to bolster up its crumbling positions by a left turn. Rebuffed in its overtures to imperialism and rejecting the methods of Stalin, the bureaucracy seeks to forge a front with the colonial bourgeoisie and with social reformism. (The Crisis in the Communist Party—p. 7) (2) Throughout the world Stalinist movement, as in the Soviet Union the situation is in flux and capable of rapid developments. We are entering the period of the break-up of Stalinism. The shell has been cracked and the various tendencies inside are entering into their own motion. The 20th Congress released a stirring of ideas and discussions not seen since the expulsion of the Left Opposition. (International Resolution—p. 10)
The 20th Congress reflected the explosive power lodged in the Soviet proletariat coming on the scene of Stalinist Russia. The Soviet bureaucracy hoped to buy time in the face of the mounting opposition from a politically articulate working class by disassociating itself from the crimes of Stalin and even Stalinism. In reality, the bureaucracy unleashed a process which the Soviet proletariat will complete. Complete by expelling the bureaucracy from the seats of State power.
The contradictions within the USSR have reached the boiling point. The over-centralised bureaucratic planning comes into increasing conflict with the needs of a planned economy. The supercentralisation and bureaucratisation expressed only the Stalinist attempt to build ‘socialism in one country’. In reality, as the 20th Congress has sharply brought out, as well as in the attendant Krushchev revelations concerning the plight of Soviet industry and agriculture—the lop-sided and uneven development of the different branches of Soviet Industry, have imposed on the USSR a gigantic overhead burden on her industrial growth. The over-emphasis of heavy to light industry, industrial production to production of consumer goods, has added to and not minimised the problems of the planners. Again, the crisis of Soviet agriculture reflects the same distortions of Soviet economy. Forced collectivisation under Stalinism, without regard to the possibilities has resulted in a situation where Krushchev was forced to admit in 1953 that the number of cattle in the USSR in that year was 8 million less than in 1928 (at the beginning of the Five Year Plan).
On top of all these problems, the bureaucracy has been up against the problem of the oppressed nationalities, the deported nationalities. Slowly but unmistakably, the full extent of Stalinism’s brutality, not only to the Chechens and Volga-Germans (deported in 1941) but to the Jews has come to light. The attempt by the bureaucracy to ‘repair’ the damage revealed only its extent.
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POLAND AND HUNGARY
To the bureaucrats, the anti-Stalin revelations meant one thing, the protection of the bureaucracy from the political revolution. To the masses they meant something else, something fundamentally different and opposed. The political revolution not against Stalin but against the bureaucracy of which he was the supreme expression, shaper and moulder. The peaceful evolution of Soviet society might have been adduced by a few dupes taken in by the first provisional and transitory stages of the Polish revolution. These stages reflected only the uneasy relations between the Soviet bureaucracy, the Gomulka regime and the Polish workers and peasants. The withdrawal of Gomulka from his October positions up to and including the reinstalling of the Natolin Stalinist group in the leadership has only emphasised the makeshift character of the compromise between the Polish October Revolution and the Soviet Army. Gomulka balances uneasily between the workers and peasants who brought him to power, the Soviet Army protecting the bureaucracy’s interests and undoubtedly in the present situation, a section of the Roman Catholic Church.
In Hungary, however, the situation got out of hand. Literally, or almost literally, the whole of Hungary rose up in arms against the monstrous regime of Rakosi and his successors. The Hungarian bureacracy was too late to check the uprising by a Polish-type compromise. Workers Councils were set up and in epic struggle the workers of Hungary took on the might of the Soviet Army. The peaceful changes within the Soviet bloc appeared to be not so peaceful after all. The Kadar regime revealed itself in all its brutal frankness as a regime of terror not against reaction but against the working class and poor peasantry.
In the words of Peter Fryer: ‘The present Hungarian State is nothing more than an instrument for the domination of the Hungarian people by a bureaucracy that acts as proconsul for the Soviet leaders. The Kadar government, which according to one Yugoslav commentator rests on “military occupation and police terror” has not more claim to represent the Hungarian workers and peasants than Britain’s satraps in Cyprus or Kenya can claim to represent the peoples they oppress and murder. The terrible thing is that what Kadar and his colleagues do, they do in the name of communism,’ (Hungary and the Communist Party—p. 340.
EASTERN EUROPE, CHINA AND THE USSR
In the USSR to-day a year or so after the 20th Congress, we are now witnessing a hardening out of the bureaucracy. The true. face of the bureaucracy was not seen in Poland but in Hungary. In Hungary, the working class saw the bureaucracy with the mask off. And in the USSR to-day, the process begun with the anti-Stalin revelations is being halted, slowed down or at least checked. The same Khrushchev whose fulsome praise of the great Stalin in 1934 won him a place in Stalin’s inner circle, revealed the horror of the Stalin regime in 1956 at the 20th Congress. And this very same Khrushchev less than a year later, was forced to return in part at least to the Stalinism he denounced with such vitriol. He was quoted as having said that all Soviet leaders were Stalinists when it came to ‘fighting the imperialists’ (The Times—Jan. ’57).
Khrushchev of 1934 was the same Khrushchev of early °56 and late ’56. Khrushchev continued to express the interests of the bureaucracy in ’34 and in ’56. What had altered only was the different situations confronting the bureaucracy in its period of rise and in its period of breakup. Khrushchev saw the end result of his 20th Congress speech in the Hungarian Revolution. He had to beat a hasty retreat to his former Stalin positions albeit modified.
It was no accident that the puppet bureaucracies. of Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Bulgaria and Albania should have regarded the whole 20th Congress revelations as an irresponsible and indecent exposure of Stalinism. Even less securely based than the Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR the satellite bureaucracies depended in the majority of cases on the might of the Soviet Army alone and they acted as powerful factors in forcing the Soviet bureaucracy back in the direction of the Stalin era. After the Hungarian Revolution, the Siroky’s and the Gheorgiu-Dej’s were even more anxious than the Khrushchev’s and Molotov’s to call a halt to the ‘irresponsible’ denunciation of Stalin. ‘The Sunday Times’ reports that Rakosi himself stubbornly resisted the 20th Congress turn, even suppressing ‘Pravda’ in his desperate efforts to turn back the wheel of history.
Yet another factor in the re-Stalinisation was the role of the bewildered and shaken parties of France, Italy and Britain. Undoubtedly the 20th Congress was an embarrassment to their own clique leaderships, based on fraud and deceit. Without a Soviet army at hand, the 20th Congress revelations could but lead to a complete shattering of the relations of the old CP leaderships and the rank and file. The Pollitt’s and Thorez’s added their puny voices to the call for a halt.
Although it is true Chou En Lai ‘aided’ the Polish October Revolution he provided Moscow with the best conceivable mask for its treachery in Hungary—the authority of the Chinese Revolution and the colonial revolution. All this, in exchange for certain economic concessions from the Soviet bureaucracy.
The Yugoslavs too, played a double role during the Hungarian Revolution. Whilst disapproving at various stages of the Soviet intervention at no time did they provide the minimum assistance to the Hungarian workers. Their concern was the concern of their own self-interested Yugoslav bureaucracy. Their principal fear was a return to the Stalin era of total isolation of Yugoslavia from the USSR and Eastern Europe.
The 10-year sentence passed on Professor Harich in E. Germany confirms only the general hardening in the bureaucracy. However, it would be an oversimplification to assume that this will continue in a straight line. The recent concord signed between the Yugoslavs and the French CP is certainly not a sign of the hardening out of the situation. A full return to the Stalin era is excluded not because of the general trend within the bureaucracy at the moment but because the stability of the Stalinist world has been irrevocably shaken by the 20th Congress. In any circumstances, the policy of concessions or repressions can only heighten the crisis of the Soviet bureaucracy.
The Soviet Union, second most powerful industrial country in the world, with its 50 million strong working class has survived the horrors of the Stalin era. The smalltime bureaucrats who sit collectively in Stalin’s place, sit on a powder-keg, the potential of the Soviet working class.
The rapid construction of a Bolshevik-Leninist cadre of the new generation of Oppositionists within the USSR, Eastern Europe and China remains the principal task facing the world movement. Resting on the great traditions of the October Revolution, the working class of the workers’ states will raise themselves to the positions of political power overturning the bureaucracy ’s domination and restoring the Soviet state to the policies of Lenin and Trotsky.
[p. 51]
In Hungary, we witnessed the concrete expression of the political revolution in a degenerated workers state, in its first stages. The building of a Party internationalist in outlook, alone remains the problem for the Hungarian working class.
Parallel with, and interacting one with the other, the social revolution in the West will assist the political revolution in the USSR, Eastern Europe and China. Each revolution being component parts of the world revolution and inseparable from each other.
THE SUEZ CRISIS, WAR AND THE SOVIET BUREAUCRACY
The Suez war gave the movement a glimpse of the shape of things to come given a conflict between imperialism and the colonial revolution, imperialism and the USSR.
War has remained implicit in the international situation since 1949. This does not mean that it has always been imminent at any particular point in time from then to the present. In Korea, Indo-China and in Algeria, imperialism revealed its basic policies of halting the advance of the colonial revolution by force, by the use of its armed might.
The brink of war revelations of Dulles, confirmed only the dangerous situation that existed at the time of the Korean war—during the crossing of the 38th Parallel. In early 1954 too, the world was at the brink over Formosa. In the autumn of 1956 the world went over the brink. Thanks to the strength of the colonial revolution and the opposition at home, the Suez adventure was stayed.
Our position remained and remains intransigent. We were for the unconditonal victory of the Egyptian national liberation struggle against imperialism. We were for the victory of the Egyptian armies. We were for the defeat of our own bourgeoisie.
Even though the Soviet intervention in Hungary might have gravely complicated the straight issues, we remained intransigent in defence of the USSR from imperialism, despite the Soviet bureaucracy. Our defence of the USSR was determined not by the designs or policies of the bureaucracy, but the needs and requirements of the world revolution. Had imperialism seen fit to intervene during the Hungarian Revolution in defence of the Nagy government, we would have been for the victory of the Red Army against the armies of intervention.
The Soviet bureaucracy’s role was determined not by the real, historic needs of the USSR, but by the narrow requirements of the caste privileges on which it rests. In reality, the bureaucracy inflicted the greatest possible damage to both the colonial revolution and the working class parties by its assault on the Hungarian Revolution. The bureaucratic defence of the USSR revealed itself only as a godsend to imperialism. The bureaucracy fed on the imperialist crime at Port Said, the imperialists fed on the Stalinist crimes in Budapest.
The Kremlin talk of volunteers for the Egyptian armies to assist Nasser in defeating the invasion forces was seen as so much wind. The bureaucracy’s assistance to Egypt was even less than its assistance to the North Koreans, which it contained.
The bureaucracy itself, is unable in the final analysis, to defend the conquests of the October Revolution. Its elimination is absolutely necessary to ensure that the defence of the USSR is linked up with the struggle of the working class for power in both the metropolitan and colonial countries.
THE H-BOMB, IMPERIALISM AND THE KREMLIN
The hydrogen bomb tests currently being prepared have only brought into focus the real position in which mankind is placed. Either the continued existence of the capitalist system with its 3rd World War preparations, its bomb tests and guided missiles, or the replacement of this system by social revolution.
Society as a whole is now faced with the Frankenstein monster created by the continued existence of capitalism. In all walks of life, the question of life or death is being posed. Only the dupes can fail to realise that mankind is literally on the brink, not only because the gigantic armaments programmes continue as an ever-present warning that the Third World War is being prepared, but also because in the very preparation for this War, the possibility of mass poisoning by radioactive material from the fallout during the H-bomb tests is present. Whilst it is true that the Pacifists, Quakers and Stalinists have cottoned on to this mass revulsion. against the tests, it would be too simple to dismiss the anti-bomb propaganda as a stunt without basis. It is absolutely necessary for the movement to give a class character to this anti-war, anti-bomb feeling throughout the country. It is necessary to demand that the H-bomb tests be immediately stopped and that this demand be addressed not only to the imperialists but also to the Soviet bureaucrats.
The Labour Party and Trade Unions in this country must be pushed to take up a principled position on the H-bomb tests. It must pledge itself to stopping them immediately, when it comes to power again. More important, it must call for a Conference of all working class political and trade union organisations to prepare an international campaign against the tests, and against the 3rd World War preparations.
This does not at all come into conflict with our defence of the USSR from imperialism. We have emphasised again and again, that the bureaucracy’s defence and our defence are poles apart.
The only effective defence of the USSR, China and the other workers’ states from imperialism is not to follow the imperialists in their ‘bigger and better bangs’ but by mobilising the workers throughout the world against the H-bomb test, manufacture, etc.
The perspectives of our movement are not fatalistic and pessimistic. War is not inevitable, given the mobilisation of the working class and colonial peoples against it. Suez demonstrated that it is not a simple matter to bludgeon the workers once again into war. The heightened class consciousness of the Labour movement brought to a halt the Suez adventure and certainly more adventures are on the order of the day.
The struggle against war, against the H-bomb tests, is identical with the struggle against capitalism.
Trotskyism has never wavered on this fundamental issue. The new period opening for our movement makes certain the triumph of Marxism, and the conquest of power by the only class which has the power to change society—the working class.