Preface

Preface 'One more word to the opponents of Social- Democracy. They gloat and grimace over our dis- HUlL putes; they will, of course, try to pick isolated passages from my pamphlet, which deals with the failings and shortcomings of our Party, and to use them for their own ends. The Russian Social- Democrats are already steeled enough in battle not to be perturbed by these pinpricks and to continue, in spite of them, their work of self-criticism and ruthless exposure of their own shortcomings, which will unquestionably and inevitably be overcome as the working class movement grows.' IV I Lenin, Preface to 'One Step Forward, Two Steps Back' Collected Works Vol-7, p206) Splits, heated debates and polemics have fallen into disrepute amongst sections of the left today. At the same time, the fragmentation of the left serves as a striking reminder of its political impotence. However, the problems facing revolutionaries go deeper than organisational disunity: the current plethora of groups on the left is an expression of the ideological fragmentation of the movement. Those who see only organisátional barriers to revolution neglect the necessary stage of ideological clarification that is vital to the movement today. Though splits are an expression of the ideological weakness of the movement, they can also lead to the growth of political clarity about the methods necessary to build a revolutionary party. If this clarity is achieved the movement is strengthened overall. _ The articles in this, the first issue of Revolutionary Communist Papers, arise from the split in the Revolutionary Communist Group. In November 1976, three members of the RCG's Political Committee were expelled from that organisation. In the next week almost half of the membership was expelled with them.

The political differences at the heart of the split in the organisation had not been openly debated; a majority faction of the Political Committee chose to resolve them by organisational means. The decision of the majority faction to split the RCG expressed an abandonment of the group's founding principles. The Revolutionary Communist Tendency was founded to confront the tasks that the RCG had originally set itself. Our first task has been to conduct a full and open discussion around the questions posed by the split. The first issue of Revolutionary Communist Papers is the product of this 1 discussion, and reflects the general orientation that has been adopted by. the Revolutionary Communist Tendency in the period since the split.

retrograde The • for the Marxist articles A step movement - a reply to Cde Yaffe, and Stalinism, the Communist Party and the RCG's new turn are replies to two documents of the majority faction. These documents. (A Turning Point by Cde Yaffe, and The CPGB: a comment on Comrade Turner's article by Cde Dornhorst) were written for a discussion in the RCG which was cut short by the majority faction. We have published them unamended to ensure that the RCG's new political standpoint is made known to the movement. Cde Yaffe's document was accepted by the majority faction as a perspective for the RCG at the Political Committee meeting which precipitated the split. Although it did not have the status of a position of the majority faction, Cde Dornhorst's document provided a theoretical basis for A Turning Point. The articles of reply penetrate beneath the tactical differences which the majority faction has presented as the reason for the split. Through examining the political questions which were in dispute - internationalism, solidarity work, and Stalinism - they demonstrate that it was the fundamental question of party-building which was at stake. replies to the opportunist A retrograde step conception of party-building that is expressed in Cde Yaffe's turn to the CPGB. It was this turn which led to the majority faction's decision to instruct RCG members not to intervene at an Anti-Apartheid Movement Conference on South Africa. The chauvinist arguments advanced by CPGB members from the platform. were not to be challenged by the RCG. This was the first time that the RCG had allowed chauvinist views to be put forward at a political meeting without attempting to counter them. It is no accident that this issue acted as a catalyst for the split in the RCG, since it expressed in a clear form all the underlying differences between the majority and the minority. The PC minority (JH, CD, and FR) who argued the need to combat the CPGB's chauvinist views was branded by the majority faction as 'sectarian' and 'chauvinist'. These charges are a thin veil for the majority faction's political adaptation to the CPGB - an adaptation that follows from the RCG's rejection of the task of training a political vanguard in the working class. The method of party-building struggled for by the RCG in the past is reasserted and taken forward through this critique. A retrograde step ... clearly argues that the training of a vanguard capable of defending the independent interests of the working class demands of revolutionaries an emphasis upon revolutionary propaganda and ideological struggle.

Stalinism, the Communist Party and the RCG's new turn addresses itself to the theoretical basis of the RCG's new perspective. Cde Dornhorst's article is an example of the narrow, pragmatic approach taken by the majority faction to theoretical work. The RCG's theoretical workgroup on Stalinism had begun a critique of the programmes of the official communist movement which would show the connection between the Stalinism of today and the Stalinism of the past. Cde Dornhorst's approach is a complete break from this. His article is intended to show that the current differences

in the CPGB may give rise to centrist currents. Cde Yaffe's argument that the task of revolutionaries is to intervene directly in the internal debate of the CPGB rests on this premise. In motivating the dissolution of become academic'. The "immediate perspective' has in mind is an intervention aimed at splitting the CPGB through a series of opportunist overtures to it.

Our reply to Cde Dornhorst takes up his method of analysis and shows its departure from Marxism. It draws out the connection between this incorrect method and the RCG's opportunism towards the CPGB. In doing this, it provides a starting point for understanding Stalinism and its contemporary form.

Our decision not to deal with the slanders, charges and manoeuvres of the majority faction is a deliberate one. To have replied to Cde Yaffe's numerous charges of a subjective and organisational character would have served to obscure the political questions at stake. The charges of theft and of physical intimidation brought subsequently by the majority faction have been shown up as mendacious in a number of public statements published by the Revolutionary Communist Tendency In the replies published here we have addressed ourselves only to the most urgent lessons of the split.

We challenge the majority faction of the RCG to reply to 'our articles and to debate publicly the political difference with us. The Revolutionary Communist Tendency has begun the crucial task of rebuilding the marxist tradition in the working class. The next stage of our discussion will be directed towards laying the political basis. for a revolutionary propaganda group. Through the Revolutionary Communist Papers the results of this process of clarification will be made available for discussion in the movement. As the deepening crisis confirms our conviction that the greatest barrier to revolutionary clarity is the opportunist trend that dominates the movement, we hope that others on the left will be drawn towards discussion of the ideas presented here.

Revolutionary Communist Tendency March 1977