WHAT'S ON WOMEN AGAINST IMPERIALISM: at ine women s Top on 26 June, several women dis ishp between patriareny, imperial Pm St, EC2. Any La All. Tues 20 July, 7.30pm Lion Sa. London WC1. Fri 16 July. 7.30pm. 5. Conway Hall, Hec , etc. 23p line p&p) from Woman, 97 Caledonian Road, London N.1.
OME TO the Summer School for IMG members: 2 lug - 1 Sept. About E20 in all. including room and soon. Book now as places li imited! Will be t nal Centre, 97 Caledonian Road, London N.1. LIFTS OFFERED in minibus to Morocco reaving 24 Were Box RING 5, 97 Caledonian Fe. Lo to Not. BENGALI FRIENDS in Europe and elsewnere, to Bengali books and "Srani-Dal-Biplab' (Fourth Inte national paper) contact: Bengali, c/o Internationalen, Box 3214, 10365 Stockholm, Sweden.
RED BOOKS comprehensive list.of titles now availsend sae for copy to nian Rd. Ni RACISM In the 1 neeting, Thurs 15 July, 7pm, St Brides Institute, Brid ane foff Fleet St). Speakers i Race Today', Upali Cooray and NUJ members tt*tttttt*tttttttttttttttttt A number of advertisements for WHAT'S ON arrived late and could not be included. We remind our readers that the deadline is 10.00 am Monday morning.
New from The group which produces the Marxist Bulletin in London is a very small organisation. Indeed it is one of the smallest groups claiming adherence to Trotskyism in Britain. However it has an importance exceeding its numbers for two reasons.
Firstly, the Bulletin group is part of an international current. the Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the cour nernazona err whos best known leader is Pierre Lambert and whose largest affiliated organisation is the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste in France.
Secondly, this international organisation has approached the Fourth International for a political discussion in which it has stated that 'it goes without saying the Transitional Programme and workers democracy ane on me oasis or a Droad and complete international discussion which alone can create ine grounds 1o1 defining clear political positions and accomplishing practical tasks in the reconstructed Fourth International, we are prepared to abide by democratic centals As all attempts to unify Trotskyist forces on a principled basis are to be welcomed, it is therefore to be regretted that the comrades or me ocke In Britain have taken the opportunity in the latest issue or Marxist bunem to launch a series of wild attacks on ine Fourth International in general and the IMG in particular. .... is a gulf groups. If you think that another organi..whose part of the revolutionary left, then it follows inevitably from this that the aim must be to unify these revolutionary forces. To maintain organisational separation on the basis not of a class line but of tactics or estimates of this or that particuiar situation is complete dead-end sectarianism, and any organisation which does it is scientifically speaking a sect position must be maintained.
while it has many disagreements on partiworkers socianst League, Iremanonal Communist League, and the supporters of the Chartist newspaper, nevertheless recognises these as revolutionary organisations. It therefore seeks clearly to unify its forces with these organisations Take as another example a current such as the Militant. The supporters of tnis paper belleve it may de possible to have a peaceful transition to socialism in Britain through a Labour government passing an 'Enabling Act. This current of course stands for the full nationalisation of the economy and support of militant struggles against the capitalist НАТІЗЧЕ3Я 02530* sation is a revolutionary organisation and Thus the International Marxist Group, organisations. cular issues with organisations such as the CONTENS First Annual Conference or ine surelin group A nepor DiscussIon on rortuga Introduction New Defeat for the Counter Revolutior The IMG and the Portuguese Revolution LEON TROTSKY IntrOGUCLIOT rascism and Democratic Slogans DooK neview irotckviste and the Entry Tactic-Part Two A discussion article by Alan Bridges and Appendix Letters addressed to class, but its basic position on the capitalist state and the lack of necessity of revolution mean that it must be clear y charactersed as a centris. current Revolutionaries do not seek to unify with centrists in the same way as with revolutionaries but to polarise such organisations between reformists, hard ened centrists, and revolutionaries. The issue of whether to do this by unity or by remaining outside is a purely tactical one; there is absolutely no principled need to seek unity as with revolutionary Finally, of course, there are reformist organisations. The aim of revolutionaries towares mese is sunDy to wi worker from reformist positions and, by defininon, it is quite out of tne question to transform a reformist organisation.
Unfortunately some groups do not think out clearly the meaning of what they are saying when they give characterisations of other organisations. Thus. 101 example the International Communist League attempts simultaneously to say that the International Marxist Group is a revolutionary organisation and to reject the perspective of fusion of its revolutionary forces with those of another organisation it characterises as In so doing the ICL reveals either that iris a sect uservie organisanona. separation on less than principled bases; or that in fact it is merely breathing hot air when it calls an organisation part of the revolutionary left, and that it has not thought through the consequences of such a characterisation at all.
In other cases false characterisations are advanced to justify acting like a sect A classic case nere is me revomnonar Communist Group, which claims that every far left organisation other than itself is centrist. This absurd position - leads it to maintain that the politica differences which separate it from other revolutionary organisations in Britain are much greater than. ior example the political differences between Burnham and Trotsky in the tamous taction struggles in the Socialist Workers Party in the unlea sates - where Trotski did not consider that the political differences involved justified organisational separation Glaring If we now turn again to the British comrades of the OCRFI, we can see aunte cleany une warme contradicuon in their position. On the one hand they approach the Fourth International for discussions, even talking of accepting democratic centralism on the basis of a full democratic discussion; yet simultaneously they continue to talk of the Fourth International as 'destroyed by Pabloism", separated by an unbridgeable gap from the Transitional Programme, But it is out of the question to approach for serious discussion people who are the destroyers of the Fourth International', and it is absolutely im permissible for revolutionaries to talk of accepting, even on the basis of a full discussion, democratic centralism with people who are capitulators to Stalinism The aim towards any forces really guilty o such crimes is to destroy mel and not engage in a principled discussion with them. By approaching the Fourth International for discussions, the comrades of the OCRIT in fact acknowledge that the Fl are not capitulators to Stalinism, destroyers of the Fourth International and so on. Yet in words the comrades unfortunately continue to advance the same old and contradictory characterisations.
Wild It is to be hoped that the comrades of the Marxist Bulletin group will rapidly see the hopeless contradiction they havi got themselves into, and that they will prepare inemseives nottor a discussior with counter-revolutionaries but for a serious debate amongst revolutionaries They in fact already begin to acknow ledge the falseness of their own formulas by their very approach for discussions with the Fourth International.
The IMG, which stands resolutely for the unification of all Trotskyist forces, wants through the United Secre tariat of the Fourth International to engage in serious debate with the comrade of the OCRFI and therefore of the Marxist Bulletin group. We are not put off from this by wild and exaggerated charges when in fact these charges are refuted bv the actions of the very sam comrades wno make them But we cannot help pointing out the contradictions in the comrades positions, calling on them to resolve them by bringing their characterisations into line with their approaches, and thereby persuading them to drop the stupid positions advanced in the last issue of NEXT WEEK: the International Communist League (ICL)