THE BANE of the left currents in this country that claim a "Trotskyist" heritage has always been their inabinty to work oula clear principled basis on which to determinc waeter or not uncy can work inside a common, democratic cenWalsL ortalsaLn The consequence has eiter been the constant petty fragmentation of the left, or the formation of unprincipled amalgams that either rapidly split apart or develop in confused and opportunist direcLons.
The latest example is provided ceve ooments -inl lne shias Revolutionary Communist Group (KCG), which emerged from the International Socialists two years azo. Best known on the lett for its insistence on agreement on a whole range of detailed questions - tacical and theoretical as well as proamatic — as a precondition for united scuon. ine Keu Icadership has recently expelled a group of its leading members.
unese people is one of 'great national which the RCG cadership says 'almost overnight nanifested itself in our organisation'. How such a deen programmatic deviation from the principles of the working class could suddenly emerge within the ranks of its central leadership the RCG majority does not say.
But when one reads closer the truth starts to appear: the concrete manifestation of this 'great natlonal cuauvimismn was a altrerence between majority Hmony croupie ovcr unc acucs of the RCG at the recent trade union conference organised by the Anti-Apartheid Movement. we have a really classic case of the method of these groupings -magnification of a tactical difference into an issue of principle.
A statement issued by the expelled minority argues that much more basic questions are involved - essentially the adoption of new perspectives for the RCG which involve an adaptation to the Communist Party. The minority may be correct; there is no doubt that the DuDnC DOsIHons Ol une show a real credulity towards the claims of the Communist Party of hIrica. ane capitulation to Stalinism in that part of the world.
RCG leadership could not dress such a programmatic issue up as a tactical dispute to justify the expulsion without turning itself into a laugning stock berore ine Keu members and the revolutionary left as a whole. were i nor ror is established uona memods minority are equally responsible. and this Moreover this rampant adaptationism is simply the other side of the coin to the abstract conversion of every question into a 'principle' Here to which the RCG minority continue to cling. It was this which left the RCG without clear guidelines as to now to develop polncal relations and a viable perspective given nc uy size ane tnc ummensions of the task facing the working class vanguard in this country.
The fight that the IMG has been waging over the past period on these questions is one of the few serious efforts to overcome this nistorica weakness majority revolutionary left.
whole need to adress themselves to unis acoate u mnev are nor to outright condemn themselves to an endless repetition of the sort of experience the RCG minority has just gone opment in every possible wa in electrons political and organisafor which the arv bary Labour Party.
will not be achieved by o tRe brusI The far left as a look to them for a lead.
HarV. (Red Weekly.
Weeklv, 25 N
bur.. We need more democracy,