LRCI/ PTS Another opportunist block?

[LCMRCI <global@xxxxxxxxx>]

 ANOTHER ROTTEN BLOC?
WORKERS POWER/LRCI AND PTS ARGENTINA FUSION TALKS

Different self-claimed trotskyists currents are under fusion talks: Militant
Labour with USec, LIT with WRP Workers Press.
In January 1996 the League for a Revolutionary Communist International
(LRCI), decided to expel Poder Obrero, their Bolivian section, without
giving it the chance to appeal or have a political discussion. At the same
time it decided to enter in fusion discussions with the Argentinean Workers'
Party for Socialism (PTS).              
Before the LRCI broke with most of its comrades in the   Southern
Hemisphere, it had decided to have discussions with several currents. But
the PTS was never mentioned at all as a possible target. Immediately after
the LRCI leaders suspended or expelled all its Latin American members they
decided to rush into the PTS. The first Workers Power (Britain) paper in
1996 printed a joint statement between the PTS and the LRCI. Under the title
"Towards a Revolutionary Regroupment!" both currents decided to "evaluate if
there is a sufficient basis to form a Liaison Committee".

The origins of Morenoism and the PTS
The PTS comes from Nahuel Moreno's International Workers League (LIT).
Moreno was an old Argentinean centrist. In the 1940s he considered that
nationalist movements that had confrontations with US were "fascists". In
the 1950s he made a 180 degree turn and decided to dissolve his organisation
into them. He joined the parties of Peron in Argentina and Belaunde in Peru.
In  the 1960s Moreno, after siding with Peron's friend Batista against the
Cuban revolution, became an open Maoist and Castroite and advocated the
substitution of a Bolshevik party and a soviet insurrection strategy by
peasants unions and a inter-class people's war and government.
In the 1970s he fused with some social democrats and advocated the creation
of Second International-type parties around a strategy of parliamentary
"socialist" majority governments. In late 1970s he broke with the United
Secretariat and fused  with Lambert's International. Like the LRCI, Lambert
had abandoned its main Latin American work and, as a way to cover that
split, he jumped at Moreno's offer of marriage and created the "Parity
Committee". This unprincipled bloc only lasted two years. In 1982 Moreno
broke with Lambert and created the LIT. Immediately after he died the LIT
started to go into a crisis. The PTS in 1988 was its first split out of more
than six resulting ruptures.
The PTS created the LIT's International Faction with two other small groups
in Mexico and Chile. The PTS criticised the LIT around two issues. First,
the LIT said that the centre of world revolution was in Argentina and the
PTS said it was in Eastern Europe. Second, the PTS opposed the re-creation
of a popular frontist bloc with the CP. The PTS initially     supported the
creation of the "Peoples' Front with the Workers' Peronism and the Left"
(FREPU) around the CP and  some Nationalists, but after it was dissolved,
the PTS was      against the re-foundation of this alliance.
The PTS started a process of  PARTIAL but INCOMPLETE rupture with Moreno.
The PTS retained many things from Moreno. For it the fundamental revisions
of Moreno were made in the 1980s, and the LIT "which in the beginning was a
regroupment to resist the revisionism's most rough expression was step by
step being degenerated after 1983" (Cuadernos de Tribuna de los
Trabajadores. No 1. 1995).  The PTS has progressive critiques of Moreno's
idea to substitute the party for a revolutionary front and about his
stageist conception of a "democratic revolution".
Nevertheless, they never criticised Moreno and the LIT for their extreme
Stalino-phobic positions. The LIT was created around support for a
Walessa-led Solidarnosc government in Poland, and support for the Afghan
CIA-backed landlord clerical armed bands against the popular front
government and the USSR. The victory of Walessa and  the Mujahedines, helped
the process of destruction of the workers' states and of advance of
capitalist counter-revolution.  To cover his Stalino-phobia, Moreno
developed the theory of a single counter-revolutionary front which includes
US imperialism, Stalinism, Lula (in Brazil) and Castro.
The LRCI always criticised this position because it led to a
misunderstanding of serious differences and conflicts      between the
different counter-revolutionary forces, and   because it put Stalinism in
the same camp as imperialism.    That is why for Moreno every nationalist
movement against     Stalinists regimes was against imperialism.
The PTS repeated a similar method. The centre of world revolution is in
Eastern Europe against the counter-revolutionary world bloc. The PTS refuses
to believe that in the former "Socialist bloc" there is a process of social
counter-revolution. Instead it believes it is a process of political
revolution that is undermining the capitalist "new world order" and that we
are living internationally in a much more revolutionary time than in the
1930s crisis. When Yeltsin imposed a capitalist counter-coup and dissolved
the USSR the PTS said that it opened up a world revolutionary mass
offensive.

Convergence?
The declaration says that "there has been a convergence of programme and
perspective during the last years between the two organisations". This is an
illusion. In some positions the PTS is to the left to the LRCI. For example,
the PTS made a big campaign against the Argentinean Altamira's Workers Party
which refused to see US imperialism as the main enemy in Haiti.
The LRCI, taking the opposite view, said that in case of   confrontations
between a military resistance or guerrilla war against US invasion, it would
not defend them against the US. In Cuba and the workers' states the PTS is
not in favour of the freedoms for parties that don't defend the gains of the
 social revolution. The LRCI is not only in favour of freedom    for
capitalist parties but even in favour of united fronts  with them.
In Bosnia the LRCI and the PTS said that they agree in     supporting the
Muslims. Nevertheless, for many weeks both     organisations tried to
produce a joint declaration and they    failed. The PTS couldn't agree with
advocating a dual defeatist position when NATO bombed the Serbs. The PTS
supported the Krajina Serbs against Croatia while the LRCI      had three
positions at the same time and was in favour of    asking Croatia to support
a "multi-ethnic Bosnia". In Bosnia the PTS always supported the Bosnian
Muslims. The LRCI, initially correctly, said that this was a wrong position
because every side in the communal war was restorationist    and tried to
oppress other ethnic groups. They said that they   would be prepared to
change side only if imperialism supported the Muslims and Croats against the
Serbs. When this finally happened, the LRCI reversed its position. The LRCI
supported the military victory of the imperialist allies and asked the world
powers to send money, "international volunteers", "missiles, aircraft, tanks
and military trainers" to their Bosnian proxies.

World Revolutionary Period?
The LRCI and PTS claim that they have fundamental agreement in "the
characterisation of the process opened up in the years 1989-91" and "a
convergent definition on the    actual character of the states of Eastern
Europe". This is a    complete deception. Both currents agreed in FORM that
there is a world revolutionary period and that all the former "socialist"
countries, with the exception of Eastern Germany, survive as workers'
states. Nevertheless, they have serious disagreements in the CONTENT.
For the LRCI this is a revolutionary period because imperialism can no
longer develop the productive forces, while for the PTS it is because of the
mass revolutionary upsurge. The LRCI has a completely contradictory
position. At the same time that it says we have been living, since 1989, in
a more  revolutionary period that the one that produced the Eastern
European, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Cuban social revolutions, the LRCI
considers that we are in a counter-revolutionary "phase".
The LRCI leaders in 1994 wrote that the working class in most of the third
world countries was in process of destruction. This mixture of economic
fatalism with pessimism in the class struggle is reflected in a passive
propagandist attitude towards the proletariat. The PTS, on the contrary,
condemns every body that could think that we are not under a clear world
pre-revolutionary situation. In Latin America, while the PTS is very
optimistic about the mass movement, the LRCI said that the workers movement
suffered a decade of defeats, whose worst defeat was the strategic one of
Bolivia.
The LRCI thinks that in Eastern Europe there are still workers' states
because all the capitalist law of value doesn't yet apply to their
economies. The PTS considers that the reason why they are not capitalist
states is because the workers organisations are growing and that only a
violent  counter-revolution could destroy them.
Both analyses are wrong. They ignore the fact that a big proportion of these
former "socialist" states have for six or seven years openly capitalist
regimes that overthrew the state machinery and legal system that defended
the planned economy and are destroying the planned economy and promoting
private property everywhere. In these countries we have to fight for social
revolutions instead of political revolutions.
The LRCI's rightward direction results from its capitulation to the
radical-liberal middle class in the imperialist countries who have illusions
in "democratic" imperialism. That is why the League rejects its former
positions and now rejects Lenin and Trotsky's defencism towards the
non-imperialist nations that are in confrontations with imperialism. The PTS
trend is to think that Stalinism is   part of the same counter-revolutionary
camp as imperialism     and that both are part of the same "Yalta order".
That is      why the PTS has a more consistent Stalino-phobic position.
In 1990 in Azerbaijan and Rumania the PTS sided with the nationalists and
liberal movements while the LRCI critically supported the Stalinist
repression with the aim to prevent these organisations from taking power and
overthrowing the planned economy.
On the national question both currents have serious   differences. The PTS,
like Moreno, is in favour of a "black     republic" in South Africa and for
a possible black republic     even in the USA. The LRCI correctly said that
a South  African black republic could mean only a black government in a
capitalist society.
On electoral tactics the PTS is engaged in an electoral front with the LIT.
For the LRCI this could only be an opportunist propaganda bloc. The PTS has
the position of     advocating "Trotskyist" fronts, while the LRCI preferred
to     vote for the French Mitterand government after 14 years in     power
instead of giving critical support to the 1.6 million workers who voted for
a self-proclaimed Trotskyist candidate.

The Fourth International (FI).
Both currents recognise that they have a different strategy for building an
international party. Nevertheless, this is not a simple disagreement that
can be minimised as a minor difference like they are trying to do. The
declaration says that "Like the LRCI, the Internationalist Faction insists
that the Fourth International adopted clearly centrist positions at its
Third Congress in 1951 and was transformed into a centrist movement by
1953."  This is not the traditional position of the LRCI which says that the
FI became centrist after its 1948 congress and that since 1951 the FI and
all its fragments were centrist. The PTS, on the  contrary, thinks that the
"anti-pabloite" International    Committee (IC) was a progressive bloc
against revisionism.
The PTS considers that the SWP (USA) made positive    contributions in the
creation of the IC and later of the     Lenin-Trotskyist Faction inside the
USec, and that Moreno      made also positive steps when he supported the
SWP, and when he made new factions against the SWP (USA), Mandel and later
Lambert. While the LRCI thinks that the revolutionary continuity was broken
in 1951, the PTS thinks that the SWP(USA) and Moreno established a kind of
inconsistent continuity.
That is why both currents have irreconcilable differences in their
strategies for the construction of the international party. The PTS is
promoting the creation of the unification of the trotskyist international
left in a "anti-revisionist bloc" of all the forces committed to reconstruct
the FI. The LRCI thinks that a new revolutionary international should be
created around itself. This is also the first time that the LRCI entered in
joint serious fusion discussion with another international current. Usually
the LRCI method is to try to approach to a group in order to absorb it or to
create a faction inside.  Why this rushed marriage?

A three-way liaison?
The Declaration says that both currents agree that "the    Trotskyist
Manifesto" and "Estrategia Internacional 4-5" are    "materials which in
general both currents agree to be of a      principled character". However,
"Estrategia Internacional 4-5"  is a document which advocates a "return to
the call that the PTS is making towards the MAS with the aim to constitute a
Liaison Committee between the two parties as an starting point for the
reconstruction of Argentinean trotskyism on a principled basis."
The MAS is the LIT's main section. So it seems that the PTS is not only in
favour of a liaison committee with the LRCI but also with the biggest
centrist degenerate "fourthist" current in Latin America. A united party
with the LIT could only be an unprincipled bloc.
     The leaders of LRCI by "unanimity" endorsed that position. How could
they declare that "Estrategia Internacional 4-5" is of a "principled
character"? Perhaps the LRCI leaders didn't see that phrase, which is a
heading of one of its articles, or perhaps they didn't read all that PTS'
journal.  The PTS read the Trotskyist Manifesto and the majority of the LRCI
programmatical documents because for many years the Latin American comrades
dedicated very much efforts in translating them.
But there is not single PTS journal translated into English and the LRCI
before the agreement didn't translate a single document from that party. How
can the IEC members endorsed "unanimously" a document which they could not
all read, yet deny the right the right of the Latin Americans members of the
LRCI to create a tendency because they didn't translate a document that was
adopted after they had already written their platform?
Before the last congress the LRCI's IEC was a body that could contradict the
International Secretariat monopolised by British Full-timers and academics.
In the IECs usually the Latin American and New Zealand delegates had a bloc
that comprise 5 of its 22 members as a left opposition. Now the
International Secretariat is achieving its aim to transform it into a sort
of rubber stamp. The IEC, can now vote "unanimously" to expel the opposition
and  "unanimously" back a document which reveals principled differences over
how to build an international.
Both currents have a different understanding of what is democratic
centralism. The PTS always fought to be   readmitted in the LIT as a faction
and it is in favour of      allowing internal differences to be published
outside. The     LRCI, on the contrary, doesn't want to tolerate
international   tendencies. When they were trying to create an international
  faction, the LRCI leaders suspended one comrade in New  Zealand, and later
another in Britain. They intervened in the NZ section, labelled its
oppositionists a "secret faction", sacked its only full-timer, and removed
one leader.  The LRCI leaders, instead of  recognising the right of the
Latin American members to create a tendency and to translate their document,
suspended the author of that document, refusing his right to come to an IEC,
intervened in the  Bolivian section and threatened all those in the tendency
with   expulsion.

Where are they going?
In the last years several European "Trotskyist" currents tried to create
opportunistic rapprochement with different currents that come from
Argentinean Morenoism. In 1980, the Lambertist international, after breaking
with its main Latin American work, jumped into Moreno and, despite serious
differences, they created a "Parity Committee" which only lasted two years.
Lambert tried to cover his split and     Moreno tried to use this fusion to
beat the Usec, which they    left. Later, Moreno provoked a factional
dispute and recruited all the Lambert's MP's. When the LIT split, the
British WRP-Workers Press started a fusion process with the PTS. The WRP-WP,
after it created a faction inside the PTS, broke and moved towards a fusion
process with the LIT.
The LIRCI, a group around Ramos' Spanish PORE, was created in mid-1970s as a
very sectarian organisation who thought that every body else were
revisionists and centrists and that they, with only a hundred people in the
planet, were the only reconstructed "Fourth International". After they split
in mid-85 all its factions started a process of opportunist unification with
currents that they previously attacked as "pabloites". Ramos fused with the
LIT's right wing.
What will happen with this latest fusion process? Until now the LRCI is
using this as a "smoke screen" to cover its internal crisis and the PTS is
trying to open a bridge to Europe. When different members inside the LRCI
tried to create an international opposition, the LRCI leaders accused them
of being an "unprincipled bloc".  Yet if both suitors in the current liaison
hide their political differences and decide to create a liaison committee
this would be a REAL unprincipled bloc.
The LRCI don't have any more a left opposition and it has a leadership that
constantly revises its programs and  positions from the top. Many things is
possible to spec. We asked the LRCI and PTS members to push for a
high-political way to deal with the differences. We demand the PTS to take a
position about the LRCI splits and about its bureaucratic regime. We demand
both organisations to allow us to participate in that debate and to publish
our criticism in their internal bulletins.

Reprinted from Class Struggle
Journal of the Communist Workers Group/ New Zealand section of the Liaison
Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International (LCMRCI)




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