YIELDS AGAIN TO IMPERIALIST PRESSURE
By Joseph Hansen
To most of the world, the crisis over Vietnam appears to-.be one of the most dangerous humanity has faced since the end of World War II. It may be the beginning of.a chain reaction leading to a nuclear holocaust. The key to the entire international situation, it has led to the sharpest differences at the moment in the Sino-Soviet dispute; it has brought the Cuban revolutionary leaders to a new level in emphasizing their independent position; it has precipitated a crisis in ruling circles in the United States; it has touched off a great wave of protests in all countries, not least of all among the American people. Revolutionists everywhere have sought to rise to the occasion, voicing and mobilizing the ost effective possible opposition to the warmongering course of American imperialism,
There is one rather singular exception to this universal reaction to Johnson's "escalation" of the war in Southeast Asia -- the leadership of the British Socialist Labour League. Although their policies are generally quite ultraleftist, -in this case they have display~
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ed none of their usual frenetic excitement. In fact they are models of phlegmatism,
Their first reaction, when President Johnson ordered American planes to undertake "reprisal" bombings in North Vietnam February 7 and 8, offered promise of a reasonable facsimile of the revolutionary socialism which they claim to adhere to.
In The Newsletter of February 13, for instance, an article of a column and a half by Cliff Slaughter appeared under the attractive title "Hands off Vietnam!" It could be argued that it was a serious editorial mistake to shove this to one side of the front page, .giving it only secondary importance,* but at least it was a beginning in the right direction.
The slogans recommended by Slaughter were "No Secret Diplomacy! Demonstrate to Stop the U.S. Bombing Attacks! Stop the Labour Government's Support for the War in Vietnam! Withdraw all British and American Troops from Southeast Asia}! Hands Off the People of Vietnams" These were correct, although one might wonder at the reasons for placing "No Secret Diplomacy!" at the head of the list in view of the actual situation at the time,
An additional article by Sarath Kumar appeared on page three. We will return to this,
In the February 20 issue of The Newsletter, the space devoted to the Vietnam crisis was much reduced, which is perhaps understand= able from the viewpoint of routine journalism since the single article dealing with the subject was nothing but a report of a speech given by Cliff Slaughter in which he repeated what he had written in the previous issue,
In the February 27 issue, the editors of The Newsletter pushed the Vietnam crisis farther down the front page into a third= or fourth-rate position. The readers were offered a statement by the "International Committee," a joint organism of the Socialist Labour League and the French Verité group.** This statement, which is. brief
*The main headline read "CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE." This referred to the failure of the capitalist press to report a lobbying demonstration of 1,000 aged persons and members of the Young Socialists for an immedi-~ ate rise and back-dating of old-age pensions.
**The majority of the International Committee of the Fourth International joined with the International Secretariat in 1963 at a Reunification Congress that brought the majority of the world Trotskyist movement together after a ten-year split. The SLL and the Verité group rejected an invitation to participate, refusing to even send observers. They alleged that outside of themselves most of the international Trotskyist movement had gone "centrist." They then set up a rump "International Committee,"
but not too bad, ends up with the following slogans: "Hands Off the Vietnam Revolution! Withdraw All U.S. and British Troops, Warships and Military Aircraft from Southeast Asia Immediately! Stop: Bombing of North Vietnam} End the British Labour Government's Support for U.S. Imperialism! No Secret Diplomacy! All Support to the Revolution in South Vietnam!"
These slogans, again, are good ones; the removal of "No Secret Diplomacy!" from first place being a commendable change. It is to be wondered why the half of the "International Committee" represented by the Verité group have not yet seen fit to publish the statement, Perhaps they were not in agreement with shifting the rank of the slogan "No Secret Diplomacy!" Or it could be that they decided to publish nothing until the whole crisis is over, when it can be analyzed in an atmosphere more conducive to calm, judicious and scholarly thought.
We now come to something truly scandalous. The March 6 issue of The Newsletter does not carry any article whatsoever on Vietnam on the front page. And no articles on page two, or page three or four (which are all there are in the weekly organ.of ‘the SLL).
What happened? Did the meeting of the "International Commit- | tee" prove paralyzing to everyone on the editorial staff and the whole top leadership of the SLL? Or was this a consequence of directives issued by the "International Committee"? It is noteworthy that one of the slogans recommended by Cliff Slaughter, "Demonstrate to Stop the U.S. Bombing Attacks!" did not appear in the list of official slogans issued by the "International Committee."
But this was the week U.S. imperialism dropped its mask about "reprisal" bombings and launched war on North Vietnam. The SLL leadership had nothing to say about the open move by the White House to start another Korea, a move aimed squarely at the Vietnamese revolution, the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union!
The scandalous silence was continued in the next issue. This was the week the U.S. ended all pretense about only limited involvement in South Vietnam. The SLL leadership, these ultralefts who boast about. their "Leninism," had nothing to say about the landing of the first contingents of U.S. Marines in South Vietnam!
In the current (March 20) issue of The Newsletter, a feeble twitching on the subject is observable, A routine article attacks the "Sham fight by 'lefts! on Vietnam." This is not about the shameful silence of the SLL leadership but about the weak opposition displayed by such figures as Sidney Silverman. The article ends with a paragraph repeating the slogans issued by the "International Committee," The author, Robert James, is to be congratulated for his diligence in getting them in the same order as the official statement,
Thus it must be recorded that the most militant and timely statement to come out of Britain on the crisis in Vietnam, the most
ably presented denunciation of the betrayal of the Wilson government in its policy in the Congo and Vietnam, was made by Bertrand Russell in a speech February 15 -- and this despite Russell's well-known adherence to the nostrums of pacifism, [See World Outlook March 12, ] The Newsletter did not even mention Russell's fighting declaration, Still less offer extracts or the complete text. Let not the pages of the ultraleft Newsletter be sullied by anything like that!
It is obvious that for all their ultraleftism, the leadership of the Socialist Labour League have conceded to the imperialist pressure in one of the gravest crises of the post World War II period,
How is this seeming contradiction to be explained?
It is simple. In their own way, the leadership of the SLL are reflecting the attitude of the Wilson government.
In foreign policy, Wilson chose to act the crawling lickspittle of the Pentagon and the White House, He has publicly given his stamp of approval to Johnson's course in Vietnam. But to make his betrayal appear plausible to the British workers, Wilson is compelled to do two things: (1) argue that the Pentagon is merely defending itself from the "attack" of North Vietnam; (2) spread the impression that the danger is not very grave and that he is taking "secret" steps to fix things up through diplomatic channels. He must try to keep the British workers from waking up to the danger.
While he has not succeeded very well in putting over his brazen defense of Johnson's "escalation" of war, he has scored with the second part of his line. The mass media in Britain have collaborated wholeheartedly in the monstrous conspiracy. They play down the dane ger; they play up the "secret negotiations." To read the British papers or to listen to the British radio, you would never know that Johnson is taking the world along the brink of nuclear war,
Instead of trying to break through this conspiracy, The Newsletter is participating in it.
The source of the pressure on the editors of The Newsletter could not be clearer. In the little they have written in a perfunctory way on the Vietnam crisis, if they mention the danger of another world war, of a nuclear holocaust, at all, they never single it out, never explain it, still less develop it, not to speak of lifting it to the level of a campaign, —
In the only analysis worthy -of the name offered up to this late date by The Newsletter, the article by Sarath Kumar in the February 13 issue, the danger of a nuclear war even appears to be dismissed.
Kumar's article, which makes some correct points about the policies of the Soviet and Chinese bureaucracies, appears to envision that the most likely outcome of the Vietnam crisis is a sell-out by Peking
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and .Moscow which the U.S. will pick up, thus ending the matter, The perspective Kumar sees is: "The stage is set for some »ribe-giving and taking." Se ce .
What this far-from-Marxist analysis leaves out -~ aside from the real aims of U.S. imperialism -- is the colonial revolution. Even if it is granted that both Moscow and Peking are equally willing to sell out the Vietnamese revolution, including seeing North Vietnam smashed militarily, do they actually have control over the Vietnamese revolution? Andwhat about the repercussions of such a raw betrayal throughout the colonial world? —
Here we come to one of the great flaws in the international position of the SLL leadership. They downgrade the colonial revolution. They are so convinced of their estimates on this question that they even made it a key issue in splitting from the majority of the former International Committee, holding that the recognition accorded - by the majority of the world Trotskyist mavement to the importance of the. colonial revolution is a sign of "centrism,"
We have now been provided with an instructive example of the consequences of the SLL position. By depreciating the colonial revolution, they are led to concede greater possibilities than are open to Peking and Moscow in meeting the demands of American imperialism. By believing it possible for the two bureaucracies to get away with a crass sell-out in Vietnam -- and that this will satisfy the ravenous appetite of U.S. imperialism! -- they come to the position that the danger of a chain reaction in Vietnam, leading to another world war, is not too great. In brief, their course of action shows that they accept Wilsonts view of the. reality as not inaccurate, whatever they may think of his policies, and that they therefore believe the whole question of American aggression in Vietnam is not as important as, say, the struggle for immediate higher, back-dated old-age pensions in Britain. Ultraleftism thus displays its opposite side, opportunism.
This is not the first time the SLL leadership have conceded to imperialist pressure since they split from the majority of the International Committee and isolated themselves from the world Trotskyist movement. A flagrant instance occurred during the Congo crisis. One of The Newsletter's featured writers echoed the imperialist propaganda about the Congo freedom fighters shooting "helpless white and coloured women and children."
When Ernest Germain called attention to this despicable buck-ling to imperialist pressure [see World Outlook January 8 or The Militant January 18, 1965], the editorial staff of The Newsletter reacted in characteristic fashion. A letter was published from a reader, W.Hunter, noting correctly that to talk as the author had about the Congolese revolutions was "to yield to imperialism." This was followed by a note from the guilty author confessing his error. And with that the unpleasant subject, like other things filed under the rug
at SLL. headquarters, was mentioned no more. As for Ernest Germain! He was singled out for what easily rates as the most energetic cam paign undertaken by The Newsletter in the recent period. The main danger faced by the British workers today, clearly, is the "centrism" of this "treacherous" figure.
Left unanswered is the question of how it was possible for the editor of The Newsletter not to notice that one of his main contributors, dealing with no less an important subject than the American- Belgian-British aggression in the Congo, had yielded to imperialism, Apparently the National Secretary of the Socialist Labour League thought it was sufficient to offer up a small scapegoat, the guilty author, and let the much more guilty editor go scot-free,
There is not the slightest indication that a serious examination of SLL positions was undertaken to determine how such yielding to imperialist pressure in the official organ of the Socialist Labour League could have occurred. No lessons were drawn about the dialectical interrelationship of theory and practice and how a gross error in practice is a certain indication of something decidedly rotten in theory. The unspeakable method of singling out a scapegoat was sufficient, it appears, to meet the norms of the SLL.
_ The consequence was that within weeks another and even worse case of yielding to imperialist pressure occurred. The Newsletter followed up its buckling in the Congo « crisis by buckling in the crisis over Vietnam,
It is to be hoped that readers of The Newsletter as alert as W.Hunter will now write to the editors, demanding a change in course, We hope that this occurs and that the pressure will have some influence on the leaders of the SLL. Even at this late date, we should be most happy to see them open up a campaign against American aggression in North Vietnam, with particular attention to the real role of the Wilson government.
But it would also seem to be high time that members of the SLL began inquiring as to what is wrong in the positions of their leaders that can bring them into the parade behind Wilson, shuffling along in a paralytic way with their bedraggled ultraieft banners,
DE GAULLE BETS ON HANOL
General de Gaulle, who has shown that he is ‘not unfamiliar with President Johnson's * favorite game of poker, seems to feel that the odds are against the U.S. in Vietnam. De