Four hundred people gathered in the Conway Hall to hear a debate on the subject of Trotsky. ism today. Ernest Mandel, a leading theoretician of the Fourth International, put the stone of the Communist Party. This meeting was the final meeting in Mandel's tour of Britain; among other places he had spoken at •Glasgow, Hull and Oxford. Mandel spoke first and said that Trotskyism was not an agent of counterrevolution or a defeated tendency. If this were so, the Communist Party would never be debating him. The reason they were doing so was that all over the world Trotskyist ideas were gaining an increasing hold among the new youth vanguard. The Stalinists had hoped to close the debate with machine-gun bullets, but Mandel then went on to talk about the Perma we held a nent Revolution. He said that the Stalinist parties were following a Menshevik policy in nal democratic regime. The cost of this policy could be seen in Brazil and Iraq, and above all, in Indonesia where 500,000 Communists had been slaughtered. The Cuban experience had Trotskyism stood for ideas of the Permanen was the only road to socialism in the underthing which Trotskyism stood for was the revolutionary road to socialism in the advanced countries and against CP reformism. This did not mean putschism or adventurism, but did mean a deep conviction that, regardless of the will of any group, pre-revolutionary situations are periodically created. It was at these times that revolutionary action was possible, and the vanguard and the class itself must be prepared to intervene. Revolutionary demands such as workers control should be injected into the day-to-day struggles of the class so that they did not seem alien impositions in the revolutionary situation. Revolutionaries must make propaganda with these demands even when the situation was not revolutionary. The CP had failed completely to do this, contenting itself with classical reformist tasks and shying away from their duties with the sort of sophistry that Lenin had always condemned. The Trotskyist movement believed in workers' democracy, which was the historic goal still to be achieved in those countries where capitalism had been overthrown. Bureaucratic rule was an object of hatred to the people of those countries and one of the main stumbling-blocks against socialism in the advanced countries. In Czechoslovakia socialism had been reidentified with censorshipship against the working class and this was one of the main crimes of the Soviet bureaucracy today. The Fourth International believed in socialist democracy, the subordination of the planning authorities to the workers, and self-management not just of factories but of the whole economy, and it was this programme which coincided exactly with the wishes of the people of Eastern Europe. Finally, the Trotskyist movement believed in internationalism. The terrible fruits of the in June showed that De Gaulle had a majority? Whenever this was mentioned the CP were shouted down, but elections did have an importance, showing the degree of political maturity of the working class. How would these people have been prepared to support going to the barricades? The CP vote did not even go to the PSU, but in a number of working class constituencies both PSU and CP vote went down. Although the CP had made a number of tactical errors they were 100% correct strategically. This brought one to the heart of one's erspectives for western countries. The Frenc P was proposing the drawing up of a far reaching programme for a left front. The British CP also believes in social revolution, but the essence of a revolution does not consist in going into the streets and erecting barricades, but where it has the CP has been there. In what countries had the Trotskyists succeeded in carrying a revolution through? (At this point there was a shout of "Russia!" from the back of the hall.) Their perspective in Britain was a rehance on the mass strength of the working class and this process would be crowned by political victory at the elections. Once in power they would be prepared to use any means to prevent a minority resisting.
The debate was then thrown open to the floor. Peter Gowan stressed that only parties in practice which followed the road of permanent revolution could make a successful revolution. Trotskyists in Indonesia had pointed this out time and time again, and it was only as a result of so many being massacred that the CP had changed its line. In Vietnam the CP were ompletely unprepared for the French inter ention. In China Mao made a revolutior because he broke with Stalin.
John Palmer said that it was a symptom of the decline of the Communist movement that they were presenting a picture of Lenin deflected against his will from the idea of peaceful overthrow of capitalism. Lenin had accepted Trotsky's thesis of the Permanent Revolution. Workers must be led away from the disillusionment of parliamentary politics. Lenin had said that the workers should accept elections, but on the workers' terms. On one point did he dissent from Mandel's position. One should not parrot the formulations of Trotsky. He believed that the Stalinist ruling class was the agent for the introduction of capitalist crisis into Russia.
Tarig Ali in answer to a previous speaker criticising the degeneration of the French CP since 1956 said that the degeneration began not in 1956 but with the butchering of the that had opposed the growing solidarity move ment with Vietnam at its beginning? When Trotskyists, Maoists, Anarchists could unite on this issue, often in France these comrades carry- into the unions and work militantly. He ing the Vietnamese flag were beaten up by thugs in the French CP Monty Johnstone then summed up. In reply to the accusation of rewriting Lenin, he said that the bourgeois democratic revolution had been completed in February 1917 with the transfer of power from one class to another. As idea of "loyalty to the paper" for missed revolutions, under capitalism the masses were often downtrodden and did not understand socialism. In France and Italy the outbreak of revolution in 1944 would have given Hitler an opportunity to regroup his forces. In Spain in the Civil War the outbreak of hostilities behind the republican lines was welcomed by the Nazis.
Mandel summing up said that it was foolish to attribute the origins of bureaucratism to one man - it was the consequence of a long and complex series of events. On the relationship between Mao and Stalin, Mao from the 1920s onwards had said that Stalin was wrong about China, and continued to do so. On the Russian revolution, the transfer of political power to the bourgeoisie had occurred in February 1917.
Your average journalist has enough general knowledge to be vaguely against the establishment, but in the struggle for socialism he's got about as much kick as Cydrax. But there are militant reporters, feature writers and subs.
More than a hundred of them met on Novem ber 6th at St. Bride's Institute, off Fleet Street, for a discussion on Journalists' Power? called by the Free Communications Group, which publishes The Open Secret.
There weren't enough practical suggestions, and it would have helped if the FCG had managed to round up more printers, but it was a good start. Representatives of Le Monde and Stern outlined their partially successful campaigns for control of their journals.
Sean Geraghy, Secretary of the Engineering and Maintenance Liaison Committee at Long Acre, put the print workers' point of view. He reminded the meeting that while the National Union of Journalists were stuck in a fantasy vorld, printers had already won complete con rol of hiring and firing Unity between print workers and journalists was impossible while journalists continued to attack the interests of the working class. "Not one industrial correspondent in Fleet Street has ever supported a strike," he said.
"Any move for journalists' power would be viewed with some suspicion by the workers on the floor. But if there was an NUJ chapel which would say - we're going to point out the cankers in society and call for support from the floor - there would be some response.
Paul Foot said that there two main reasons for action. First he cited: "The humiliation of individual journalists which exists almost totally, especially in Fleet Street", the hierarchic structure of newspapers and the arrogance of editors - only the Queen and British newspaper editors refer to themselves as "we Second he came to the global and political reasons. The hierarchy of papers really reflected the hierarchical nature of society. He was against trying to create a privileged group of Journausts, agamst me reacuonary leadersmup or the print unions, and against demands which were simply based on getting more than the Whether demands for control worked or not, they exposed the existence of the hierarchy The main activity must be to constantly chalto spread control - first to print workers, then to workers ounce me austr The Free Communications Group should ge recalled meetings of the 4,000-strong Central London Branch of the NUJ, which could only make up a quorum of ten for meetings by drag ging in six drunken sub-editors from the Dail Sketch and four bewildered Tass correspondents. Journalists must break down the old Neal Ascherson attacked "the sort of terror which is bred into all of us ... the thought that it's all terribly difficult and dangerous". But it could be done. "You've got to get into the works, got to get into the voting shares. I can see workers being offered great slabs of nonroting shares." He said there are some editoria boards which say that even to tell the truth about the newspaper industry would be a crime against a democratic society.
Alexander Cockburn said that our first duty was to be a rift in the group, and the rift would come over power. Should you give power to th people driving newspaper vans, to the men driv ing trains carrying newspapers?
It's to be hoped that the argument Cockbur
For the last few months we have been receiving a mass of material related to the struggle in Southern Africa. Much of this material was of a controversial nature and there was no way for us to ascertain its veracity. Last month, however, we received what we regard as an extremely important document. We have had it verified by our contacts in Africa and in London. We are satisfied that the general line taken by this document is correct, though we have not been able to check every small detail. We are printing it below because we believe that it is time that many African militants were told the truth and that the facade of lies which we have all been told was stripped away. In the past The Black Dwarf itself has published articles on Southern Africa which only helped to mystify the situation further. For this we apologise to our readers and • hope that the document below will wipe out the stains of the past. The authors of this document are both guerrilla fighters. We have proof of this, but for obvious reasons they do not wish their names to be known. • The tragedy of the African struggle south of the Zambezi is that many of its "leaders" have quite consciously betrayed this struggle. For them the liberation armies composed of Alrican freedom-fighters have become an industry that produces money for their private coffers. There have been cases where revolutionary cadres have been sent consciously to face the combined strength of Vorster and Smith as they were in the Wankie area in Zimbabwe. When they arrived the fascist militia was waiting for them and they were wiped out. This is only one examole. but it svmbolises the entire policy of ANC/ZAPU. That is why we left.
WHY WE LEFT 'UMKHONTE WE SIZWE' (ANC IN EXILE)
This is to let the people of South Africa and the world know why we took this irrevocable 2: THE ASSAULTS, BEATINGS AND STABBINGS OFFICIALLY SANCTIONED BY THE TAMBO - KOTANE - MODISE GROUP, BOTH IN TANZANIA AND IN ZAMBIA To this day, all over Africa and maybe in Europe as well, there are men and women who bear the scars of these assaults. beatings and stabbings. The reason given for this violence was that "these young men and women were dangerous elements and may have been sent to Tanzania by the South African government to disrupt the cause of the revolution". However, this is not true. The truth is that the entire leadership of the AN is itself not prepared to get back into Southern Africa and be amongst the fighting masses where, alone, the liberation struggle can be meaningful. The men and women who saw through this were victimised and terrorised. They realised that these training camps were no more than a game — as was the Wankie fiasco - to get more funds for private pockets, and the leadership was no more serious ship are not to be found in the camps at all. about a real freedom struggle than Vorster him3. THE MURDERS IN ZAMBIA COMMITTED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THIS GROUP These strong-arm men were mostly Lumumba Institute graduates from Moscow, who underwent military training after completion of their academic studies. Their fanatic faith in the authenticity of the ANC leadership led them to be exploited by the clique to suit its own ends, which was to break the "rebellious" freedom fighters spiritually, metally and physically. The lives of fellow freedom fighters are a cheap commodity to these men. The disappearance ot outspoken compatriots did not come as a surprise to those who had seen through the whole fallacy. The fate of those who oppose the clique is death.
4. THE PHYSICAL AND MENTAL SUFFERING OF VICTIMS OF THE CAMP REGIME Most of the men who perished in Rhodesia, and those that are awaiting prison terms or death in the Rhodesian Central Prison, were 7. THE FAVOURITISM AND NEPOTISM OF THE ANC LEADERSHIP The nephews, nieces, sons, daughters and relatives of the leaders live privileged lives in the camps. There is the son of one of these leaders in the camp who can do anything he wants. If he did not wish to get up for morning exercises, he needn't. The rules and regulations of the camp did not affect him. The food the revolutionaries ate was not his kind of food: he was served otherwise. His father, who is Treasurer General of the Party, would send him a hundred shillings every week. By virtue of his father's position he was greatly respected by the lackeys of the ANC leadership. He would perform camp duties at his own choosing, and all this without reprimand or the disciplinary action waien wowd nave been taken at once at such "reactionary" behaviour on the part of anyone eise.
However, most of the children of the leaderThey are to be found in schools and universities all over the world. The older relatives of the leaders are in positions of power in various party centres the world over, if not in the camps themselves. Not a single one has ever experienced the persecutions and humiliations of the training camps. Not one of them has ever been sent to the borders of Zambia and Rhodesia. Instead, they are sent on scholarships to countries which are "sympathetic to the South African cause". The few that are in the camps are supposed to convince the fighting men men that the kith and kin of the leaders themselves are to be sacrificed in the struggle!
8. THE LIES AND SLANDER AGAINST THOSE WHO OPPOSE THE MOSCOW LINE The aim of the revolutionary movement was to get suncient trammg - mumany - nom any country that could give it, particularly countries in the Eastern bloc and in Africa. The ANC leadership found itself involved "reluctantly" in the Sino-Soviet dispute. Men who had been trained in China were looked upon with scorn and distrust. Whoever spoke against the Kremlin and its policies was branded as a "deviate Maoist and revisionist, or alternatively, "an Imperialist tool", and such persons were marked and termed fifth column elements that were against the liberation of South Africa". 9. THE PERVERSION OF TANZANIAN JUSTICE BY THE ANC CLIQUE SO AS TO DETAIN INDEFINITELY ALL THOSE WHOM THEY FEAR To stifle, and finally eliminate opposition in the camps, particularly in the main Kongwa camp where rebellion was imminent, the clique brought into play the legal institutions of the Tanzanian government. The reason given -when fourteen men were detained indefinitely - was that these men were a potential danger to both the liberation movement (ANC) and the freedom of the South African people. In fact fact, however, these were the men who dared to expose the myth that was the "revolutionary leadership of the ANC, which is in the vanguard of the South African struggle"
With the detention and the subsequent imprisonment of these rebels, the clique was once again able to operate with a free hand. The remaining rebels who numbered eighty or so were kept under perpetual observation and interrogation. The Tanzanian government cannot be blamed for these detentions. It was acting on the distorted evidence which was given by the ANC leadership, and which it was forced to act upon. 10. THE TERRORIST TRIALS BY TRIBUNALS SET UP BY THE ANC CLIQUE TO INTIMIDATE AND BREAK DOWN REVOLUTIONARIES These tribunals don't fall short of Stalinist methods of persecuting and purging those that were regarded as the "people's enemies", and who were, as such, termed "Trotskyites" or "Maoists". These people were in fact dedicated revolutionaries, who wanted nothing else but to see the struggle for liberation taking effect as soon as was possible - in South Africa, not