We print below our reply (February 23rd 2024, slightly edited and electronically translated) to Bolshevik-Leninist (Australia), in response to a letter BL had written us (dated February 1st). The reading of these two documents explain the end of our fraternal relations with BL comrades, as they prepare for a fusion conference with the Spartacist League Australia, section of the ICL, in March 2024.
Revolutionary Regroupment’s reply to Bolshevik-Leninist (Australia) in face of its fusion conference with Spartacist League Australia
23 February 2024
Dear comrades. We have carefully read your letter to us and to ABRI [Angkatan Bolshevik Revolusioner Internasionalis – Indonesia] dated February 1st. Here we will try to summarise our views on the issues raised. As explained, we are unable to attend your conference in person for logistical and cost reasons. We will respond to BL’s letter and also wish to address the participants of your joint conference with SLA [Spartacist League Australia] at the beginning of March.
You begin the letter by describing the reorientation of BL [Bolshevik-Leninst] in the last period, the change in the positions we had in common and your rapprochement with SLA, and by questioning our characterisation of the ICL. We have something to say about that.
Regarding the ICL, our characterisation that they were degenerated political opponents in terms of programme and regime has been criticised. Interestingly, the current ICL agrees with various elements of this characterisation of their own past, although they are carrying out a much broader revision of the tradition from which they originated, which does not necessarily follow the same lines as our criticisms. They claim to be still investigating aspects of their own bureaucratic past, but have already renounced aspects such as the cowardly expulsion and severing of relations with those who today constitute the leadership of the IG [Internationalist Group] and LQB [Liga Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil].
Let’s repeat a few points that we have noticed about this “new transformation”. The ICL has for the moment stopped treating other groups on the left that claim to be revolutionary as mortal enemies, “traitors”, finding ways to attack them in order to destroy them. We’re not talking here about the obvious right to politically criticise (even strongly), but about the slander and constant hostility that tries to destroy rather than attract the dynamic and revolutionary sections [of centrist organizations]. This is a trait that the IG, for instance, maintains from the degenerated period of Spartacism, despite its more accurate programme on paper. The ICL has now significantly increased its intervention and public activity, including opening up to united fronts and debates, which is also a positive development. Not all the revisions of positions they announced in Spartacist #68 were wrong, as we’ve said on a few occasions.
However, the current ICL believes that they are “inventing the wheel” by proposing a more active tactical intervention, by telling the workers and the vanguard “what needs to be done” instead of mere proclamations and sectarianism against other groups. If this is their intention, they would benefit greatly from studying Spartacism of the 1960s and early 1970s, in which the SL intervened intelligently in trade union struggles, for civil rights, in defence of the degenerated workers’ states and in favour of oppressed nations against imperialism, and with a much clearer and more consistent political position than the current ICL. Especially their trade union interventions (which were drastically diminished in the mid-1980s by the closure of their trade union caucuses) drew great positive attention in winning us over to the tradition of Spartacism, as well as their opposition to the revisionist degeneration of the main branches of Trotskyism.
Even in its best period, Spartacism was never devoid of errors and problematic positions on secondary issues, usually deriving from excesses to demarcate itself against the “Trotskyist” opportunism it was confronted with. However, the current narrative peddled by the ICL about its own past exaggerates – and greatly – the significance of these deviations, as a way of presenting an “innovative” change and justifying each of its new positions around a necessary “break with the past”. The ICL went through a period of long degeneration in the form of bureaucratic and sectarian petrification, which had its greatest characteristic in the “bunker mentality” and the snide and slanderous attacks on groups on the left. This was combined with the constant emergence of opportunistic positions and impulses that the ossified regime did not allow to be corrected, which endowed it with an apparently “random” opportunistic character, marked by inconsistency and strangeness.
The iSt/ICL has gone through various stages in its decade-long evolution, with nuances and contradictions. From a political point of view, in short, it has gone from (1) a group with revolutionary intentions and programme with a sincere desire and some capacity to intervene in reality; (2) a sterile, isolated sect full of hostility to the opposing left that claimed to be revolutionary; (3) the current version, which believes it has discovered some sort of “lost secret” of Marxism in having a more concrete practical intervention, and which draws political conclusions that openly depart from “historical Spartacism” (not just “type 2”, but also “type 1”). This transformation was not mechanical, but gradual and with zigzags, yet with significant turning points that marked the change. There isn’t space here to elaborate on this further, something we can do in a future public document.
We don’t refuse to debate with the new ICL and we would also participate in joint united fronts with them (as well as with other groups from the Spartacist tradition) on issues of common interest to the working class. However, the ICL is not a group that inspires us to approach them for a fusion or regroupment, something that we will develop further in the course of this document. We also think that changes like the one promised won’t happen in a short space of time, especially when cadres who have built the “type 2” group for decades continue not only to be part of the organisation, but are in leadership positions. We will remain observant and, if the opportunity arises, we will intervene in the ICL’s transformation.
BL made a similar transformation within the course of one year
Just over a year ago, BL seemed to share with us the perspective of consolidating a small group with the intention of intervening with a revolutionary programme in class struggles and building an international proletarian revolutionary nucleus. Still within this perspective, you evolved from a scattered “collection of individuals” to having a small nucleus in Melbourne. We were even helping you educate a contact in this perspective, trying to help you produce documents, etc. We collaborated a lot on the production of a common international programme, a document we’re proud of, and we were looking forward to deepen our collaboration, just like with our ABRI comrades.
We have always had difficulties due to being very small and geographically distant organisations, which has made such a perspective full of obstacles. We’ve had moments, both for us and for you, of greater difficulty and less internal cohesion to successfully intervene in class struggles with an intelligent and powerful (“sharp”) tactic against the current leaders of the working class. When this was the case, it was never an accepted situation, but something we always tried to overcome. Our limitations were also felt in our mutual ability to collaborate internationally.
BL seems to incorrectly understand that the difficulties of small groups (which inevitably can’t put into practice most of the positions they defend) means a lack of interest in producing an efficient tactic or in fighting to defeat the current (pro-bourgeois) leaderships of the working class, a point that you repeat ad infinitum in your document in the form of the accusation that we only produce “mere abstract, albeit correct, words”, “empty denunciations”, etc., attributing this to RR, “old BL” and “historical Spartacism”. We realise that BL seems to have always been less capable of more concrete and “bold” tactics and interventions, something that you now project onto us, claiming that RR “doesn’t present any path for the masses to break with the PT” [Workers’ Party] (in Brazil), apart from “abstract statements”.
That’s not how we see it. Throughout our history, we have repeatedly demanded the building of united fronts from organizations on the left, we have participated in some of them to build actions and events that promoted class struggle (while at the same time pointing out our criticisms and clearly defending our positions); we have intervened in bourgeois elections by participating critically in campaigns that maintained a minimum of class independence (such as the [Morenoite] PSTU or PCB [Brazilian Communist Party] on different occasions); we called at various times for self-proclaimed Trotskyist and revolutionary groups to break away from the PSOL [Socialist Freedom Party] as this party turned right and allied itself with the bourgeoisie, as a way of putting pressure on its ranks against the leadership; we built events in which we were recognised as a serious group by others on the left; we intervened in working class strikes when we had the chance, pushing for a break with the PT’s bureaucratic union leaderships, especially among education workers, where we are most concentrated; we also sought regroupment and rapprochement with groups nationally and internationally when we saw the opportunity.
All this can be seen through the documents on our website, and you know it from our conversations over the years of our fraternal relations. We have also always tried to suggest tactics to you and to our ABRI comrades, despite our lesser knowledge of the concrete situation. Every small group has its ups and downs, of course, and this is reflected in the difficulty of presenting a concrete perspective to the working class at times.
Before your own current incarnation, in which it seems that BL has “invented the wheel”, however, your organization also went through a time as a “type 2” sectarian group (according to our analysis of the ICL’s evolution). Let’s remember that a few months ago, you attacked us as entrenched opportunists, connected errors in our trajectory without the slightest criterion, and said that we “betrayed the working class”, “crossed the class line”, “capitulated to imperialism”, etc. because we critically voted for the PSTU (a Morenoite, centrist “Trotskyist” group from Brazil) in the 2022 elections, due to certain positions of theirs. (Our own critical assessment of this issue involves a much more tactical analysis of the usefulness and limitations of such a “critical vote” when we don’t have as many opportunities to talk to the ranks of the party voted for, as well as the insufficiency of our electoral statement of that year).
The sectarian criticisms which you produced, you ended up completely renouncing. Let’s remember that following our stressful and ridiculous meeting with Negrete from the IG, in which we thought we could have a dialogue of rapprochement and he said that we from RR were “a waste of time” and that he “had proof of our betrayals” which consisted of a series of senseless slanders and vitriolic attacks against us, to try to win you over on that basis, you soon after adopted a similar line to theirs on this question of bourgeois elections in Brazil, something that made us imagine that you were getting closer to the IG. Sometime later, you one-sidedly broke relations with us because of these criticisms (which have now been dismissed), and after a few days you went back on your word.
We remember commenting internally at a meeting, when you announced that you were going to build a united front with SL Australia on the anti-AUKUS issue, that this was a positive development, because it meant that you would be doing something in the real world instead of devoting yourselves to writing endless pages and pages against us, in a disproportionate and vitriolic manner, full of grandiloquent accusations about every little mistake we had made in our history. Very quickly, however, we realised that you were being uncritical of the SLA, when we asked you if you were going to raise the criticism of ICL’s Ukraine position at the “Chuck AUKUS Hawks out of Labour” forum in Melbourne, and you said that you were “no longer sure of the position” and therefore would not make that criticism, neither on the issue of the pandemic, nor any other. This was later evident in your uncritical “Greetings” to the ICL Conference, which we criticised as complete impressionism.
In your letter, you boast of your intervention in the “Yes” campaign on the question of Australia’s “The Voice” referendum, the “anti-Albanese Yes campaign”. But we ourselves suggested to you that voting “Yes” and criticising the Labour Party’s intentions was the best idea, or else an abstention in which you explained your position to the vanguard and to the working class. More than one document was written by BL criticising this perspective as a capitulation to liberal sentiment, and arguing that the correct position was to vote “No”, to demarcate yourselves from the Labour Party and the “progressives”. Even abstaining was unacceptable, as it would be a capitulation to such “bourgeois pressure”. What was our surprise when, sometime later, we spoke to you again, and you told us about your new position, which was a complete 180-degree turn from your previous position, in the span of a few weeks, just after you had harshly criticised us about it.
This period you describe in your recent letter as a moment of “sterile rigidity” and say that you no longer claim these written documents. At the same time, however, you also renounce ALL documents produced by BL, including those with our collaboration, and including, it seems, BL’s founding document, “For a Marxist nucleus in Australia” (https://bolshevik-leninist.org/for-a-marxist-nucleus-in-australia/). In other words, like the ICL, you don’t just want to correct sectarian deviations, to overcome the occasional lack of a “sharper” tactic, but to “break with the centrist politics of BL’s history as a tendency”, including all our shared positions over the years, which for you reflect the “failure of RR” and of “old BL” on the question of revolutionary leadership.
In the middle of your letter in which all these questions are developed, you speak of your intention to “maintain fraternal relations” even after the fusion you intend to carry out with SLA. We ask: how, comrades? You will now be in a common organisation with SL Australia and share their positions. We don’t have fraternal relations with SLA or the ICL. We are observing their evolution, but much of what we see we have no agreement with and do not wish to approach them for the purposes of fusion or regroupment.
In view of this, and we did not take this decision lightly, it is clear that faced with this fusion, fraternal relations with BL must be officially terminated. We will not come to regard you as “mortal enemies” or “traitors of the working class” as “type 2” Spartacism certainly would. We don’t want to repeat the degeneration of Spartacism. We are open to different political collaborations and united fronts, etc. But it is simply no longer possible for us to maintain fraternal relations when you have openly abandoned the entire common path that we had built. We have no interest in following the “new course” to which you invite us. Now, finally, we believe that the main discussion documents produced over this last period should be made public, so that the vanguard of the international working class may understand our positions (removing, of course, the parts that involve names or private/sensitive issues).
BL’s new positions in line with the ICL
We have previously written, in our document to you dated 20 September 2023, about most of the specific positions developed in your letter from February 1st. We believe it is an important document to revisit in order to understand our positions. Let’s elaborate a little more on the arguments you raise in your letter.
a) The question of the Labour Party in Australia (and also in Great Britain)
You describe your current policy around the “Chuck AUKUS Hawks out of Labour” campaign. As we explained earlier, we have nothing in principle against this demand, which calls for rank and file or left-wing sections of the ALP to carry out an “experiment” of trying to expel openly pro-imperialist politicians from their party, which would include most of its MPs and even the current Prime Minister of Australia (i.e. something that is clearly not going to happen).
That’s why we warned that it’s a tactic that makes no sense to be long-lasting, because at some point it’s necessary to say to any left-wing rank of the ALP: “You see? The ALP is hopeless, it’s going to continue with AUKUS. You’re the ones who need to break with the party, it’s going to continue to be a pro-imperialist tool”. So far, we haven’t heard anything from BL about this. On the contrary, as you’re preparing to fuse with SLA, it looks like you’re going to join the ALP, since you defend their stance on this issue. You certainly should be active in the unions and at political events, close to any radicalised ranks on the left of the ALP, but calling them to break away, instead of you joining this pro-imperialist party.
In your document, you defend entry into the ALP as a tactic that deepens the demand to “Chuck them out”, and you say that the fact that we are against entry into the Labour Party at this time is “a rejection of the 2nd Congress of the Comintern, when Lenin argued in favour of communists not only joining, but affiliating to the BLP” [British Labour Party]. We recognise entryism as a tactic. We had agreement with the work of ABRI comrades in a centrist socialist youth organisation in Indonesia, for example. We ourselves have always said that the Trotskyists should have done entryism in the PT in Brazil in the years right after it was founded in the 1980s. We claim the Trotskyist movement’s historic tactic of entryism into some social-democratic parties in the 1930s, at a time when these parties took a clear turn to the left after they recruited a large layer of young people and workers dissatisfied with Stalinism. We are not sectarian on this issue. There have been other discussions about the situation in Brazil, for example, in which we talked about cases in which this tactic would be applicable hypothetically.
But applying it to the Labour Party in Australia at the moment doesn’t make sense to us (at least not in a revolutionary way). You make a big fuss about the fact that we said that the ALP is in government at the moment, and say that this couldn’t be communists’ criterion. You agree that this is one of the most right-wing and pro-imperialist Labor governments in history, but you say that “We’re not going to wait for their programme to become more palatable before we fight to break the workers from their misleadership”, including when it is showing “the ugliest social-chauvinist program”. On this basis, one could argue for joining virtually any party, not just social-democratic, but capitalist in general, that has the support of broad sectors of the working class through bureaucratic means.
What we meant is that the ALP, by being in government and leading AUKUS and other clearly right-wing positions, is certainly not attracting any layer of radicalised youth and workers to its ranks (a situation in which the tactic of entryism would be admissible). The British Labour Party in 1920 had in its election campaign demands for socialism, nationalisation of industry and workers’ control and set itself up as the opposition. Of course, it would betray these demands, as it did in the post-war period. But it was completely understandable that workers with revolutionary impulses would join this party, justifying the tactics proposed by Lenin to the British Communists. It’s not a question of wanting a “more palatable programme” before joining, but of going where the most dynamic sections of the working class are actually heading. The ALP is neither opposed to neoliberal austerity, nor to imperialist militarism, nor to the ruling class. On the contrary, it openly serves them.
In this sense, as our strategic objective is to BREAK the Labour Party’s support and working-class base, and not to “fight to transform it” or push it to the left, or improve it by removing the most right-wing politicians (which is the revisionist / Pabloite perspective of “entryism sui generis”), it makes no sense to enter the Australian Labour Party at this time under some tactical justification. You need to convert the “Chuck them out” position into one of “Break with the Labour Party of imperialism”, very soon, something you don’t seem to be preparing to do. You should connect any possible ranks’ impulse to “test” their party (such as an internal referendum to stand against AUKUS) into a campaign for these elements to leave the party in the face of their inevitable failure to reform it.
The same can be said of the BLP, which has recently taken a significant turn to the right. In a recent leaflet, the ICL defended the line “Don’t quit, fight!” in face of politicians to the left [of the current leadership] and their supporters breaking with the BLP’s right-wing turn and pro-Zionist politics. Revolutionaries should be doing just the opposite. It seems to make much more sense to run a pressure campaign on any left-wing sections of the BLP, including those who claim to be revolutionaries, to break away and engage in workers’ united fronts and the building of a revolutionary party, as a tactic to split the ranks away from the leadership of these “left-wing” sections, which are umbilically tied to British Labourism. This tactic employed by the ICL in Britain and Australia seems to have been mechanically copied from its original application proposed in Germany in relation to Die Linke, where it perhaps makes more sense to call for the more openly pro-imperialist elements to be kicked out of the party.
b) The pandemic and the ICL’s line of “Down with lockdowns” and “Lockdowns are reactionary”
As we explained before, “lockdowns”, in the sense of closures of non-essential establishments, schools, etc. are a sanitary measure against a pandemic and could be used in a reactionary or progressive way depending on who controlled it. We have always been against the use of lockdowns to repress or curb protests and the organisation of the working class, as stated above, a line also defended by BL itself at an earlier time.
BL misses the mark when it tries to use this kind of argument and accusation of “liberalism” against us. For us, this is not “a call for them [the lockdowns] to be implemented more humanely, with additional welfare schemes”. It is a proletarian counterpoint to the policy of the bourgeois state, but it does not reject that places could be temporarily closed and social isolation advocated to combat the pandemic. Simply as that.
We have no liberal bias, nor did we join a “national unity against the pandemic” that accepted capitalist rule. Not only did we remain totally critical of the bourgeois handling of the pandemic around the world, but we also stayed active in workers’ struggles as often as we could (while the ICL collapsed). When protests against racism took place in Brazil in the middle of the pandemic, we cited them as an example that the struggles should not stop due to health measures, because it was a matter of workers defending their lives. We took part in workers’ struggles against layoffs and capitalist attacks as well.
So far, you haven’t answered us: would workers, in charge or in power through a workers’ state, defend the possibility of closing down places, and defend temporary isolation measures? If so, then the line and the slogans “Down with lockdowns” and “Lockdowns are reactionary” only create confusion. It would be better to say that the bourgeoisie’s lockdowns prioritised profits and tried to make workers swallow their situation of poverty and precariousness. And it was necessary to fight against this. Class struggle is above the imposition of sanitary measures that represent the “bourgeois solution” to the pandemic crisis. Workers should act in defence of their lives and needs. This does not mean that isolation sanitary measures should all fall.
Despite the absence of actual lockdowns in Brazil and Latin America, we believe that properly implemented measures could have significantly reduced COVID deaths, which have disproportionately affected the working class and the poor. ICL’s position (which BL now defends) is confusing. “Lockdowns” can be understood in different ways in different contexts, as you yourselves have recognised. Lockdowns and safety measures under workers’ control, if well managed, could have been effective against COVID and favoured our class. In this sense, they would have been an additional tool, just like vaccines, the distribution of masks, the transformation of machinery into hospital equipment, the expropriation of profits to combat COVID, etc.
As we have already said, in order to confront the bourgeoisie’s response to the pandemic crisis, it was necessary to challenge their overall management of it, not specific health measures such as isolation or closures of establishments. Under the control of the working class, closure and isolation measures would have been different, but they would still have been used. The ICL’s call for unions, not the state, to determine safe working conditions aligns with this idea of workers’ control over the health measures. This approach is much clearer than blanket statements like “Down with lockdowns”, which can only create confusion.
c) NATO’s war against Russia
In the section on the Ukraine war, you unfortunately produce some of the most absurd and contradictory arguments. We had pointed out the contradictions in the ICL analysis, which was that Russia’s victory would be a “humiliating blow to the US” and would “call into question NATO’s existence”, while at the same time the ICL refused to defend Russia’s military victory, which is Russia’s defence mechanism against NATO’s long-standing onslaught to the East, and which has China as its ultimate target.
The ICL covers up the absurdity of this position with empty phrases that are completely false even to a careful observer, by saying that the war is a “regional conflict for control of Ukraine” – a “regional conflict” that has all the world’s major imperialist powers sending hundreds of billions of dollars in funding and arms! And that “Ukraine is of little strategic value to the US” (well, they don’t seem to agree!). In the end, the ICL says that a Russian victory, despite the effects described, “would be no significant blow to imperialism”. Comrades, this is an inconsequential position that (indeed) capitulates to liberal pressure. Leninists defend nations surrounded by imperialism and attacked by it, even “strong” subjugated nations like Russia, without any support for their bourgeois rulers (and in fact trying to dig their future political grave through our intervention).
In our document from September 20th, we tried to answer your questions about tactics, which we also did in our document on the war, in which we tried to show workers (within the limits of distance and our inferior practical knowledge) a perspective that would combine confrontation with imperialism with political opposition to the bourgeois rulers on both sides. [https://rr4i.noblogs.org/2022/12/27/the-protracted-conflict-in-ukraine-natos-disguised-war-against-russia/] In the part of your document on Permanent Revolution, you claim that the “new BL” and the “new ICL” want to combine the struggle “for national liberation” (which we assume is the anti-imperialist struggle) with the struggle for socialism. But you fail miserably in the most obvious case posed by reality and the “decline of US imperialist hegemony” at this decisive historical moment.
In your letter, you say that “the victory of one would be a blow to the other, and blows to imperialism are a good thing. But every act that is a blow against imperialism does not necessarily advance the interests of the working class, and all Leninists understand that the only way to deal a final blow to imperialism is ultimately through proletarian revolution.” (BL letter, February 1st). These are abstract words. If NATO’s defeat in this conflict would be a blow against imperialism and that’s “a good thing”, how is that not even remotely progressive? The role of the Russian state makes a victory against NATO contradictory, of course, and not consistently anti-imperialist, which points to the limits of Russian nationalism, the predatory interests of the Kremlin, and the need for an internationalist proletarian perspective instead.
But you tell us that “Neither outcome [neither the Kremlin’s nor the White House’s victory] is remotely progressive, and whichever side wins would not strike a progressive blow against imperialism”. A Russian victory would supposedly strengthen NATO’s other allies in Europe and “the only beneficiaries would be the imperialists”. This is a politically defeatist and cowardly position. It means that in the face of imperialist domination, a nation that resists “has nothing to gain”, as this would strengthen imperialism in other territories in response (as long as there is no final revolutionary victory). Apparently, both the military defeat of imperialism and its military victory would be equally beneficial to imperialist interests. This is very reminiscent of the arguments of the (supposedly overcome) “old ICL” on Afghanistan in 2001, when they didn’t call for the defeat of the US invasion, considering it impossible, and delegated the solution of the problem to a future revolution in the imperialist centres, especially in the US. BL goes so far as to say that:
“Even if the conclusion of that war saw NATO broken up, that would not necessarily be a gain for the working class. If it were crushed by the proletarian revolution, then it would absolutely be a gain. But by Russian victory? (…) A break-up of NATO in this situation would probably take the form of Germany breaking away from NATO and entering into a bloc with Russia. This would not be in the interests of the working class, in fact it would be the start of a new world war. This is no ‘lesser evil’!” (BL letter, February 1st).
Comrades, is the ICL section in Germany fighting for the country’s withdrawal from NATO? Should revolutionaries defend the withdrawal of their countries from NATO and the end of this reactionary imperialist alliance that is an enemy of the oppressed peoples of the world? If the answer to these questions is yes, then there is no question of the break-up and end of NATO only being something progressive if it is “smashed by the revolution”. That’s the ideal end, but it’s entirely possible that this could happen prior to revolutionary victories, as a result of pressure from the working-class movement or military defeats suffered by NATO in its adventures. BL would be against this break-up of NATO because this could lead to a Third World War via new imperialist alignments? So, does this mean that BL only defends the end of NATO if this is done by the revolution and does not defend its end by any other means (pressure from the workers’ movement, military defeats of NATO)?
Such a position would be totally inconsistent with Leninism. The defeat of imperialist interests on the battlefield is as much a part of the anti-imperialist perspective of Marxism as workers’ pressure and, ultimately, their open revolutionary struggle. Revolutionaries cannot refuse to defend the end of NATO, the withdrawal of the allied countries wherever they are and the defence of their defeat in their reactionary military onslaughts. Workers are not to blame for a hypothetical imperialist realignment or World War III that could result from the deserved defeats of the US-dominated imperialist coalition. NATO must be defeated. Only the workers can make this defeat consequential and definitive.
d) Permanent Revolution, Spartacism and concrete perspectives
In the long section of your letter that is dedicated to the question of Permanent Revolution, you give what is, in general, a formally correct description of the theory of Permanent Revolution, of the “national bourgeoisie” as an intermediary agency of imperialism in the control of the state of the peripheral nations, which is intrinsically incapable of confronting imperialism and breaking the bonds that tie the oppressed nation to the forms of international domination of capital; the need for revolutionaries to promote a break of the working class with deceitful politicians of the national bourgeoisie, including those who proclaim themselves anti-imperialist (you include Lula in this category, something that would only have been appropriate in the 1980s-90s, not today). At the same time, you consider the “old programme of the ICL”, historic Spartacism, as well as RR’s, “an obstacle to any serious struggle in these countries and condemns the masses to remain entirely wedded to the national bourgeoisie”. Let’s say what we think about that.
Firstly, “historical Spartacism”, at least in its best period, recognised the need for a struggle combining the fight against imperialism with the most heartfelt demands of the working class in a transitional programme in the peripheral (semi-colonial) countries of the capitalist system, including minimum and democratic demands. You need only to read the Spartacist League’s 1966 Declaration of Principles, its other founding documents and many of the articles we translated from the first issues of Spartacist and Workers’ Vanguard to realise this. In fact, the consistent defence of oppressed nations against imperialist interference (which the “current ICL” fails to do in the case of Russia), constitutes one of the essential elements that won several of the founding members of RR away from the Morenoite tradition, which supports forces subordinate to imperialism on several occasions. Spartacism was also much more consistent than its Mandelist, Lambertist and general Pabloist opponents of the time on this.
It is a fact that “historical Spartacism” has fallen into deviations and errors on specific positions, some of which we were never sure about and have already debated internally in a critical way, including informally sharing these issues with BL, as you may remember. This includes the Malvinas-Falklands War, already in a period when the ICL’s sectarian bureaucratic degeneration was advanced (1982). The arguments put forward by the ICL at the time to defend its position of “double defeatism” are inadmissible. They used excerpts by Shachtman (and from his centrist period) to try to question Argentina’s character as an oppressed country (which can be seen in Workers Vanguard’s issues from 1982).
Even in the 1970s, SL documents on the “national question” and interpenetrated peoples were over-zealous in their concern for the national rights of oppressor peoples in situations of geographical territorial intertwining (as in the case of Israel/Palestine and the “Protestant” unionists in Northern Ireland). These are secondary problems that should be corrected and which we do not seek to repeat or emphasise in the tradition of Spartacism that we claim. Despite this, these documents have a correct Marxist analysis on several points, and are an important statement of class independence in opposition to much of the left of the period, which dissolved into the camp of the oppressed nation without questioning the bourgeois leaderships.
We find it curious that the current ICL has revised (in a way that seems progressive to us) its position on the Malvinas-Falklands war, but has not dedicated a single line to the question of its liberal pro-imperialist reaction to the destruction of the US military base in Lebanon in 1983, in which they focussed on condemning the attack as an “atrocity” and calling for the lives of the American marines to be saved, accusing those who called for a firmer position denouncing imperialist militarism of being “defenders of carnage”. (This position has already been raised and discussed ad infinitum by the BT/IBT, as you well know). What does the current ICL have to say about this?
We hope that this perspective of “opening the old files” will have a positive effect on those who claim the tradition of Spartacism in order to revise past positions that are effectively problematic or insufficient, without the constant “fear” that doing so will lead to accusations and grotesque attacks from other groups in this tradition, something that has always caught our attention in the sectarian dynamics involving the SL-IG-IBT. It is necessary to save the best of Spartacism as a tradition of Trotskyism that resisted the revisionist destruction of the Fourth International at a certain time, not to repeat its mistakes or its degeneration.
Another question: You devote a considerable part of this section to criticising the trajectory of “historical Spartacism” itself as useless for breaking the working masses from the bourgeois leaders who project themselves as anti-imperialists (and you take the opportunity to attribute this [uselessness] to RR). What would you change or criticise, for instance, about the positions and intervention of Spartacism on the question of the Allende government and the Pinochet coup in Chile between 1970-1973? This is a sincere question, because the iSt materials from that period are, in our opinion, among the best contributions of Trotskyism on the question of popular fronts and the urgent need for class independence to really achieve the break with imperialism and fight for socialism (something Allende supporters disagreed with or chose to avoid). As a result of their intervention, the Spartacists won over a group of militants and built a Chilean section, which however seems to have been short-lived. This issue also marks a firm stance of opposition to popular fronts, something that most of the revisionist-Trotskyist movement simply abandoned or relativised.
Yet another question: what does the ICL have to say about one of their latest writings on Brazil, in which you defend a position that “Workers have no side in the impeachment of Brazil” (2016) [https://old.iclfi.org/portugues/oldsite/impeachment.html]. Do you continue to defend this shameful abstentionist position? The ICL’s current discourse on Brazil would indicate they don’t, but not a word has been said about it, even though the ICL has approached us for discussions.
BL accuses us of being sectarian and presenting no path for the workers to break from the PT, only abstract words, just like “old ICL”. RR has taken a stand against this judicial-police coup that removed the elected president of the PT, proceeded arrest Lula to prevent him from running in the 2018 elections, and persecuted PT leaders with allegations of corruption. But we did this without capitulating to the pressures by the PT to defend their political project and their former governments. On the contrary, we argued that a break with institutionalism (hopes in the bourgeois Justice system) and electoralism (hopes that the PT could win the following elections) were essential for defeating the coup. This at least presented a path to defeat the right-wing offensive by a deepening of the class struggle and eventual break of the masses who believed in the PT away from it. It called for a confrontation with the ruling class and imperialism (which at that point were fully in favour of the coup). This can be seen in the materials, leaflets and our presence at anti-coup demonstrations and struggles, as well as our campaign to pressure the trade unions led by the PT and its satellites to launch mass strikes (something that didn’t happen).
Meanwhile, the ICL argued that “the workers have no side” and that even to stand against the judicial-police coup was automatically to capitulate to the PT (something you develop in a very wrong criticism of the IG). Answer the question, comrades: who was useless in trying to break the illusions of the masses with the PT? Can the “old ICL” (2016) and RR positions be considered similar (in terms of programme)? Could anyone seriously put RR and the “old ICL” in the same pot on this burning issue in recent Brazilian politics? “Historical Spartacism” of the revolutionary phase stood against coups d’état and judicial-police persecutions, even of front-populist leaders when they faced repression coming from reactionaries, without politically supporting the former. There are many examples of this. What does the “new ICL” have to say? Only a sectarian could equate the position of the “old ICL” and of RR on this issue.
You accuse us of counterposing “national liberation” to socialism, saying that RR “outright rejected” this task of combining the two. If national liberation is understood as the struggle against imperialism, then this is simply not true. Let’s quote from a document available on our website [in which we were precisely debating such a view attributed to us, upheld by the group “Transição Socialista”]:
“Based on the contributions on the imperialist phase of capital written by comrade Lenin and the concept of Permanent Revolution elaborated by comrade Trotsky, we don’t deny that dependent countries like Brazil and Latin America as a whole have elementary democratic tasks to fulfil. After all, unlike other countries, the bourgeoisie managed to consolidate itself in this region without having to carry out a profound destruction of the pre-capitalist relations of slavery, indigenous servitude and the elimination of the old landowning class. On the periphery of the system, capitalism took on much stronger contradictory aspects. Elements such as the distribution of land and the end of imperialist spoliation remain absolutely current, and can only be resolved through the expropriation of capitalists (both national and foreign).” (December 2021)
Something very similar is described in our political programme, which BL comrades know very well because they helped writing it, in the section entitled “Permanent Revolution”. [https://rr4i.noblogs.org/2002/04/04/chapter-10-permanent-revolution/] This accusation is typical of the sectarianism of the “old ICL” and has nothing concrete about it.
It is in this part of the document that BL most accuses us of making “empty denunciations of the national bourgeoisie”, which would make us as worthless as “the opportunists who follow it”. You seem very uncomfortable with such denunciations. You also repeatedly say that they are “words that sound correct but are abstract”. However, there are no concrete tactical propositions in your document beyond that. All that BL tells us is that we must be “the champions of the struggle for national liberation” to prove the consistency of the Marxists in opposition to the incapacity of the national bourgeoisie.
Allow us to say that’s correct, but quite abstract, comrades. We must also be the champions of the struggle for land, housing and workers’ living conditions, the struggle against the imperialists’ pressures and mediations, as well as of the struggle against layoffs (caused by the austerity imposed by imperialism), the struggle against oppressions (especially, in the case of Brazil, police and systematic racism, which needs a revolutionary solution), of the struggle against the removal and for the expansion of democratic rights and against “alt right” movements (such as Bolsonarism) and fascism. In all these arenas, the national bourgeoisie, the conciliator and opportunist parties are useless in offering a way out to the workers other than deepening exploitation and barbarism (presenting at most the “appearance of change”). In fact, one of the things that makes a revolutionary party stand out is its ability to show our class the connection between these issues and the need to break with the conciliator leaderships and the bourgeois state in order to resolve them.
The limits imposed on us are those of a small revolutionary organisation in a huge country with an enormous proletariat. Of course, we are less active and capable than we would like to be, we have fewer forces and resources than are necessary for this historic task. But you will find in our trajectory a series of tactics and interventions that consistently seek to demonstrate the incapacity of the current leaderships, and policies for deepening struggles, demanding the formation of united fronts, pressuring centrist groups to break with class-collaboration parties when they turn clearly to the right, etc. In one of our recent writings on Brazil, we defended the formation of united fronts to defend living conditions (we even got involved in building one of these initiatives in São Paulo, with other organisations, but it was short-lived). We also made this challenge to the political base that supports the PT:
“Many supporters of the PT and of the government say that Lula’s hands are tied because of the conservative nature of Congress. But first of all, we have to be clear that the PT itself is at the forefront of carrying out and maintaining some of these measures that attack the interests of the working class. Furthermore, at no point does the PT launch a confrontation against these reactionary sectors of Congress, the Churches, the Armed Forces, etc. Instead, it has great faith in a long-term collaboration with them.
“If the PT had really been committed to the working class, Lula would have been able to issue decrees and start passing measures of clear popular interest: distribution of land and housing, increases in the minimum wage, nationalisation of factories (many foreign) that are closing down, etc. and call on the people to pick a fight with Congress and the Supreme Court when they go against him. This is exactly what Bolsonaro did at times in order to pass reactionary measures and also get favours for his parasitic allies, testing how far he could “stretch the rope”. However, Lula and the PT follow the path of conciliation with the financial elite and imperialism, not confrontation. This is a demand that we make to this government, but without the slightest illusion that they can follow this path, and precisely so that this be clear to their supporters. (October 2023).
We’ve posed this question to “left-wing” supporters of the PT government on a few occasions, getting the most confused and legalistic answers. How is this “abstract” compared to what BL defends, about “being the champions of the struggle for national liberation”? BL’s attempt to frame us in a kind of sectarianism that doesn’t understand the theory of Permanent Revolution, rejects anti-imperialist tasks on the periphery of the system, and doesn’t fight to confront the current bourgeois or collaborationist leaderships (beyond “correct sounding but abstract words”) is absurd. What should we be doing differently so as not to reproduce this supposedly “abstract” position? Do you believe that revolutionaries in Brazil should affiliate to the PT, as you are arguing is the correct tactic in similar (albeit even more to the right) formations, such as in Britain and Australia?
We end this letter to you hoping that it has helped clarify our positions. We are obviously open to suggestions for tactics (that are not abstract and not opportunistic), to the formation of united fronts in the interests of the working class and we will study the development of BL as you proceed your fusion intentions with the SLA. For our part, we remain convinced that, despite its limits, deviations and occasional errors, we still have much more to learn about revolutionary politics and coherent tactics from the “historical Spartacism” of the 1960s-1970s, in comparison to the “type 2” sectarian degeneration that it ended up producing (and which still has proud imitators among us), and in comparison to the “new ICL” and the “new BL”.
Revolutionary greetings,
Icaro Kaleb
On behalf of Revolutionary Regroupment