An overwhelming majority of revolutionary socialists will respond with disappointment and disbelief to your irresponsible decision to evade our clear ofter of discussions on unity and joint work.
This rejection becomes even more absurd when we consider that your organisation has taken the inSpanish, and Swedish sections of the Fourth Interna- alauve i proposing discussions with the French, tional to discuss collaboration. One such between yourselves and the FI (represented by the French, Spanish, and British sections) has already taken place. Your attitude thus appears both bizarre ana mexoncable.
What is most depressing is not the pitiful cocktail of sophistry and trivial gossip to which you resort in order to detena your sectarian positions. It is that your, views on the basis of unity effectively rule out the possibility of building a revolutionary organisation unless there is a monounc accestance or lne Current tactical nine or the swr leadership Your refusal to discuss our specific proposals for joint work must place a big question mark over what you really meant when you made your recent appeal for united action against the Tories.
Faced with the plain fact that your previous excuses lor ignoring our proposals for ioint work and TOST any foundation publicised decisions of our last conference, you are chucco to seraobillg Inrougn tne mies or socialist Challenge in order to compile a 'sensational' dossier of atrocities. Leaving aside the merits or otherwise of specitic letters or articles which have been published in Socialist Challenge, it is undoubtedly the case that there are differences between us.
You say that we 'lie' about your positions on the unilca Tront we insist inal tnere remains a Jekyll and Hyde dichotomy in your practice. filism of the 'steer left' period and the launching of tie All Nazi League part and parcel or tne same approach? We reject the former unequivocally. ANL was a tremendous success and, as you are fully aWal Ce Socialist Challenge editoriallv ('Hats Off to the SW') paid tribute to the SWP. But you have so far not followed a similar approach in the trades For it is here that we need fighting fronts (rather than SWP fronts) which all prepared to struggle against class-collaborationist Line. wcaknesses or te communist farty make such an approach objectively as well as subjec tively necessary today. So disagreements with your tactics on the steel strike are not designed to score petty points, but to chart a course that could unite all steel workers prepared to struggle.
In our opinion your attitude to the Labour Party also suffers from certain defects. Your main reply to those who are groping for socialist politics in the Labour Party is to pose the SWP as an organisational alternative, something which is not only untrue but appears surrealistic given the divisions on the far-left.
Furthermore to regard the Labour Party as a corosc is cically would be foonsh in the ex• treme to exclude for all time to come a tactic which would imply sending all our forces into the Labour Party 11, orac to wii workers "to socialist politics: :
These are important tactical disagreements, all Chris Harman's attempts to make the SWi membership's flesh creep cannot disguise the fact that these are not differences on the fundamental questions that divide revolutionaries from reformists His supposedly 'anti-sectarian' stance therefore amounts to the revolutionaries LIONS Comrade Harman is perhaps genuinely unable to understand that despite these differences meeung regard the SWP as a revolutionary organisation. In his eyes anyone who differs with the current tactics of he SWP in a strike or on a demonstation must b breaking with revolutionary politics.
He therefore finds real ding that we do not share this view. In this case we call understand tHat ne rears any unity would 'end up as a slanging match', which reminds one of an old Russian saying cited by Gogol: 'If your face is ugly carried away is comrade Harman by his hysterical method that he ends up by accusing not just the IMG but, by implication, the great majority of SWP members of opportunism and 'hiding our politics.
In the through a united front grouping open to all who agreed on the basis for carrying the strike forward, the well- but through SWP bulletins which thereby excluded those militants who were members or supporters of hemselves with the SP. By criticising the SPi Lills SWP for failing to hide their identity as revolu- says comrade Harman, we are attacking the tionary socialists But hang on a moment. In everv other industri than steel, SWP members intervene through rank and file formations which, though their actual degree of independence from the SWP may vary, are cer tally not buce as war duleans. ano deciare tha they are open to all workers who agree with their Is the infan- demands. Does this mean that all SWP members outside the steel industry Perhaps there is more of a basis for unity than comThe rade Harman imagines...
The absurdity increases when comrade Harman attempts to argue that the differences between us have widened since the conference - and ends up implying that we cannot unite because we do not agree on what tactics to adopt on an abortion demonstration and on how to evaluate the Russian intervention in Afghanistan. those who are pointing out that there are tempted to conceal these divisions. We do not believe that differences questions should be hidden from readers of our We believe that our conception accords with the theory and practice of classical marxism. Comrade monolithism and theoretical Stalinist impositions on the international movemen. It is undoubtealy tne case, ana naraly surprising, that this garbage has left its impact on most verbally intransigent anti-Stalinist curTul-booced rents. It is best, however. to be aware of the origins of certain party-building practices. Practices which, in Bolsheviks too Ally olel old British sectarian position that should split over secondary post.we still like losing difficulty in understanOur Unions Conference, The makes no reference at all. He hopes steel strike the SWP intervened, not CP and the Labour Party o present or identil KAOWS In posals.
by some SWP comrades for themselves'. did not exist. are maing inell laenuty!
: Party would have to invent him!
If you continue to refuse to united revolutionary organisation on tactics -continue patiently to explain our position.
We know Wing together could only strengthen a pole differences inside the national or international the eyes of wider layers of the movement Your letter does your that absolutism organisation WOrKer.
Britain and internationally.
to give battle to the Tories since, it accepted the concept that minorities were en • titled to representation in branch and district delega tions to conterence, and to their tair proportion oi seats on the leading bodies, consistent with the majority position at conference having a working ma . I hese positions are accepted bv the IMG to day, without our becoming as you claim, a 'federation of factions'. And they were the position of the position means that differences even over secondary questions threaten to turn into splits, and no discussion is possible without slander, accusations against comrades' lovalty or integritv. and a poisonous atmosphere, fuelled by suspicions that the leading cadre will change the rules if ever they look The mass party we need to build will contain differences far wider than those between us. By attempting to miseducate his comrades on this question comrade Harman creates obstacles, not only against the IMG, but against the SWP ever developing into anything but the largest fish in the pond of fringe But while what comrade Harman does say is bad enough, the most irresponsible part of his letter lies in what he does not say. To our concrete proposals for discussions on joint activity around a recalled Defend around unemployment and for united action in the unions and among youth no doubt, that those of his own members who did not see our original letter will not notice that he is trampling on the 'united action against the Tories' line laid out by Tony Cliff in the article to which he refers.
Of course that proposal was aimed mainly at the - and quite rightly too But if the SWP is to escape the accusations of only proposing united action to those organisations advance will refuse, it cannot continue to refuse to discuss united action with the only organisation in the labour movement that has responded to its Derek Robinson was asked at a recent CP meeting This views on the SWP's position on united action. Why should we unite with the Trots,' he asked, 'when they cannot agree among We can truly say that if Chris Harman Derek Robinson and the Communist accept the idea of a lor unal is une meaning of your position on the need for unanimity Worker Socialist Challenge
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Monolithism While on the subject of Afghanistan, it is worth