Not so wise after the event

Scan page 12

I TOLD you so,' is always the least popular attitude for socialists to strike in the aftermath of a betrayal or defeat for the working class.

No matter how accurately a Marxist organisation may have pinpointed in advance the weaknesses or treachery in an existing mass leadership, all too often a major setback makes it difficult or impossible to persuade the workers concerned to examine these lessons and draw the same conclusions.

How much more irritating, therefore, to find groups in the aftermath of the Grenada defeat suddenly developing criticisms of the weaknesses of the New Jewel Movement which they never attempted to raise or oppose before the invasion.

The classic example of this is of course Socialist Action, which, together with its predecessor Socialist Challenge carried repeated and undiluted eulogies of the New Jewel Movement and its activities in Grenada. • While their "comrades' in the American Socialist Workers Party went completely over the top, embracing Castro's Stalinist politics, attacking Trotskyism, and looking to Castro, Bishop, the Sandinista leadership and Two pamphlets summing up the ideas of Socialist Organiser.

Stand' - 20p plus 15p postage. 'How to fight the Torjes' - 10p plus 15p postage.

Or the two together, 45р including postage. Fron Socialist Organiser, 28, Middle Lane, London N8.

ORGANISER Socialist agi Te we stand Labourt Socialist the Join Party Fight ORGANISER for socialist Policies! the Communist Party of El Salvador as the nucleus of a 'New International' , Socialist Action nevertheless echoed much of the SWP's uncritical adulation of Bishop.

Now, however, as the hunt goes on for Bishop's body, and Reagan masterminds the installation of a puppet government, Socialist Action (November 4) has at last come out with a mealy-mouthed criticism of the NJM.

In a centre page what appears to be an comment declares:

'...Whatever the disagreements that have come out in recent weeks within the New Jewel Movement, and within the People's Revolutionary Government, there can be no excuse for the bloody consequences of the disagreements.

"The Cuban condemnation is absolutely correct. The lesson is that real proletarian democracy is not an optional extra for a revolution but a crucial component.

'Despite the positive gains of the revolution, there was no real democracy within the NJM and only a consultative feature, op's speech. BRENT YCND public meeting: 'Hands off Grenada, hands off Nicaragua'. Speakers from national YCND, Cuban Embassy, Grenada High Commission, Nicaraguan Embassy. Tuesday November 15, 7.30 at the Moonshine Theatre, Victor Rd (off Harrow Rd), NW10. 7-7.30: tape of Maurice Bish'THE Thorn in the Rose -the politics of Clause Four, a revolutionary Marxist critique'. By Brian McKenna. Produced by 'Socialist Student' (Glasgow). 30p per copy: by post 50p, or 80p for 2 copies, £1.25 for 3, £2 for 5, £3.95 for 10. From process with the population as a whole. The NJM does not possess the structures of internal democracy by which disputes may be resolved.?

(page 8)

Now they tell us! From this astonishing exercise in locking the stable door after Reagan's marines have bolted through, we deduce (1) Socialist Action's view - that there was no proletarian democracy in the NJM; (2) that, by implication, there is proletarian democracy in Cuba!

Yet experience has shown that when the NJM bandwagon was rolling forwards, Socialist Action was quite happy to turn a blind eye to its lack of democracy.

And indeed the model followed by the NJM leadership was very much that of Castro's July 26 Movement, which was catapulted to power in 1959 by the abrupt collapse and abdication of the Batista dictatorship, and which from the very outset avoided and opposed the establishment of proletarian democracy either within the Cuban state as a whole or within the bureaucratic fiction of the Cuban 'Communist Castro's method involves skilful combination of personal charisma and populist 'Socialist Student' (Glasgow) c/o 29 Bowmont Place, Halfway, Cambuslang, Glasgow.

LABOUR group for human rights in Sri Lanke: public launch meeting coming soon.

Speakers invited: Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Tariq Ali, Jeremy Corbyn.

Date to be fixed. Contact: 42 Sickert Court, London N1.

LONDON Labour Campaign for Gay Rights meets every four weeks at Marchmont Community Centre, Marchmont St, WC1, at 6pm. Next meeting Sunday December 4. • contact Mike 659 2938, Bob 341 0666. appeal to 'the population as a whole' , linked to a 'Party' and a 'National Assembly' whose functions are simply to rubber stamp decisions taken by the top dozen Cuban leaders.

Bishop's fulsome admiration for Castro (an admiration shared by some of his rivals) is spelled out beyond doubt on the facing page of the Socialist Action spread - in a speech delivered in Havana in 1980, and reproduced now without criticism or qualification.

Now, at last, Socialist Action gives its advice and draws lessons. Now they even lecture the Grenadian workers!

Their words are in fact a telling indictment of all those currents which tail-end popular mass movements and subordinate their own paper criticisms to a falsely understood concept of 'Unity'.

If the masses had been allowed a real legislative and decision-making role, then the US threat of invasion, a real threat for four and a half years, might never have become actuality' Only by rejecting the sirencalls of Castroism and fighting for an independent Trotskyist perspective can such errors be combatted: Socialist Action has once again learned too little, and tells us all too late.

Gay YS meets at the same place, again every four weeks. Next meeting Novem ber 20. Contact: Martin 263 9484.

Gay NUR just forming.

Launch meeting soon, open to all lesbian and gay railworkers. Contact c/o 119 Southwyck, Coldharbour Lane, London SW9.

Lesbians in the Labour Party: next national meeting Saturday November 26, 2pm in County Hall, London SE1. Creche avallable. Contact: Saran Roelofs, c/o Gays The Word bookshop, Marchmont St, London WC1 CLASS FIGHTER conference, 26-27 November in South London. Two days of workshops, videos and discussion on perspectives for Class Fighter. For details write to 214 Sickert Court, London N1 or phone Jane on 263.9484.

Southwark/Lambeth. Next meeting, Tuesday 22 November. James Dunkerley on 'Central America after Grenada' • 7.30pm at Lansbury House, 41 Camberwell Grove, London SE5. (The meeting on union leadership with Alan Thornett has been postponed to December). Socialist Organiser London educationals. 1. Fridays, 6pm, at the London School of Economics, East Building, first floor, room E196.

November 18: Cuba and Central America. To follow: State and Revolution; The Russian Revolution; The USSR and Stalinism; Ireland; Why is the Left divided? 2. Sundays, 8pm, in Southwark (phone 609 7459 for details).

November 13: Black nationalism. To follow: Rise and fall of the Benn movement; Castroism. 3. Half-day school in Hounslow, Sunday December 4, 12noon to 5pm, at Hanworth Labour Hall.

Politics of SO, The parliamentary road', The Alternative Economic Strategy; The working class and revolutionary politics.

Details: 898 6961. 4. Discussion series on imperialism, Thursdays 7pm at 214 Sickert Court, N1. November 10: Multinationals and the EEC. To follow: The New International Division of Labour, Lenin on imperialism; The economics and politics of 3rd World development, Is the USSR For details of preparatory reading etc. contact 609 7459, 278 1341 or 354 1050.

----- pull-quotes -----

How to fight the Tories Thezo Where