AGAINST MONOLITHISM
This issue of International marks the appearance of a new Editor and editorial team. We are confident that it will also mark the regular quarterly appearance of this journal. A few words in relation to how we perceive our tasks are therefore in order.
It is essential to start from an understanding of the situation which we confront in the sphere of ideas. Despite the fact that British social democracy still remains supreme as the unchallenged voice of the British working class in national politics, there have been a number of important developments which have altered the intellectual landscape as compared to the Forties, Fifties and early Sixties. The radicalisation which took place in Britain and the rest of Europe following May 1968 created the basis for a new resurgence [illegible] outside and to a large extent independent the traditional apparatuses of the working class movement. The ideological weaknesses of British social democracy and its intelligentsia were further reinforced by the combination of a [illegible] continued success of New Left Review and the [illegible] spawned, New Left Books [NLB]; the growth of Pluto Press and the appearance of the History Workshop Journal and the Bulletin of Socialist Economists are further indicators of the fact that in certain fields [History and Economics, to be precise] British Marxism is more developed than its continental counterparts. The laws of uneven development extend also to the field of theory. In the face of these developments the response of the organised far left has been woefully inadequate. The journal Labour Review, which played a useful role in the Fifties, has disappeared; and its sponsoring organisation, now known as the Workers Revolutionary Party, has abandoned even the pretence of developing Marxist theory and is instead engaged in other pursuits which [illegible] left as a whole into grave disrepute within the workers movement. Another journal which showed a great deal of promise in the early Sixties, International Socialism, has transformed itself into a monthly party-building magazine for its organisation, now known as the Socialist Workers Party. A group of militants expelled from the latter organisation a couple of years ago produced a journal called Revolutionary Communist, which also, despite our disagreements with some of its content, displayed great potential. Following [illegible]
It is rather ironical that one of the most lively journals of discussion and debate today does not belong to any of the groups of the far left, but to the Communist Party of Great Britain. Marxism Today has initiated a number of important discussions and debates. Despite our political and theoretical differences with the tradition which it represents we have to, in all honesty, remark that in recent years this journal has had more public debate than the journals of the Trotskyist organisations. This is a fact that can no longer be brushed aside or patronisingly dismissed by generalised references to the 'superiority of our tradition'. It has to be acknowledged and encountered. The article by Patrick Camiller we print in this issue is a recognition of this reality. Its harsh tone is explained by the provocative character of Monty Johnstone's anti-Trotskyism — a clear sign that even the 'liberal' wing of the CP still retains its Stalinist theoretical heritage on crucial questions.
The recent attacks on Trotskyism by large sections of the capitalist press, aided and abetted by ex-communists such as Mr Max Morris [nostalgic for the 'heroic period' of Stalinism — the Thirties — and desirous of reliving it even for a brief moment before collapsing into oblivion] and by aspiring leaders of the Labour Party such as Shirley Williams, make the task of clarifying our ideas even more vital. We intend to do this in International under the banner of 'Against Monolithism'. The future of the international working class movement is far too important to become the monopoly of any one group, however large or small. For us the battle of ideas is a vital part of our tradition. It is our main strength: for what gives us our importance, modest though it is, is not our numerical strength but the ideas for which we fight and which we attempt to put into practice. Monolithism in thought inevitably leads to a monolithism in practice, and organisations basing themselves on the theoretical gains of Trotskyism are not immune to this development. The history of British Trotskyism is a tragic confirmation of this assertion. We therefore intend to avoid vulgar polemics or slanders. Our pages will be open to real debate and we hope that many readers who are not members or even sympathisers of the Fourth International will contribute to this journal.
In this issue we publish the concluding section of an important text by Denise Avenas. Avenas is a militant of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR), the French section of the Fourth International, and she writes regularly in both the theoretical journals of the Ligue, Critique Communiste and Critiques De L'Economie Politique, both of which can be obtained from Red Books, 182 Pentonville Road, London N1. The work of Avenas needs to be studied together with that of another militant of the Fourth International, Norman Geras. His The Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg has recently been published by NLB and is vital for understanding the issues involved in the great theoretical debates which preceded the Russian Revolution, and how some of them were resolved. The last chapter in Geras's book, 'Bourgeois Power and Socialist Democracy: On the Relation of Ends and Means', is particularly relevant in the light of recent attacks on Trotskyism.
We are also reviving a section entitled 'From the Archives' which used to appear in the journal Fourth International during the Fifties. The function of this is to reprint old texts from the archives of the workers movement which, in our opinion, are either of pedagogic value or relate to many of the discussions which are taking place today. Brian Pearce's short article on the attitude of Trotskyists during the Second World War belongs to the former category and answers many existing misconceptions. It also enables us to take a self-critical look at our own past in a changed intellectual atmosphere, and we shall not be upset if Pearce's comments inaugurate a new discussion on the theme. In subsequent issues we shall be printing excerpts from a debate between R.P. Dutt and J.T. Murphy on revolutionary strategy in the Twenties, as well as some previously unpublished articles by the old Bolshevik leader Christian Rakovsky. Those of our readers engaged in research of various sorts will probably come across a great deal of interesting material in the course of their work and we hope that they will submit relevant extracts of it for publication in this section.