Discussion on Lambertists
Mike Calvert
discussing the Lambertists. One poster put some stuff from What Next
on the board, so here is the stuff that I have access to currently . I
wrote the first piece that appeared in What next magazine, number 14.
I used a pseudonym because I was feeling silly. I do not know who the
other articles were written by, I guess they were all pseudonymous
too. I will post up the other five pieces when i get the time.
Mike
TOWARDS AN ASSESSMENT OF LAMBERTISM
Published in What Next? magazine
By Frank Wainwright
WHILE BELIEVING that What Next? is a good journal with a
valid contribution to make and a valuable role to play in the
development of Marxism today that does not mean that I do not have
disagreements of a quite serious nature with it. One such disagreement
is with the journal's failure to deal adequately with the politics of
the Lambertist current.
My purpose of this piece is not to uncritically defend the politics of
'Lambertism' (as it is commonly known, after the historical leader of
this current, Pierre Lambert), but rather to offer an alternative
perspective to the usual apolitical bile that pours from the mouths of
Phil Hearse-now a political renegade in exile in Mexico- or Earl
Gilman, as well as those former members of Lambert's own group such as
Andre Langevin or Pierre Broue-who while a noted Trotskyist historian,
dumped the Fourth International years ago!
Whilst there are millions of workers and militants in
this country who have never heard of the Lambertists, there are
nonetheless many so-called revolutionary socialists around who are out
to smash them. One must ask the question why?' Why do certain people
in this country fear the Lambertist current so much? What is it that
causes a problem for so many British leftist groups?
Although it is clear that the theoreticians of the
Fourth International/International Centre of Reconstruction (FI/ICR)
in Paris are quite capable of defending themselves, they are not in a
position to argue with the left here, as their main theoreticians are
based in France and in the USA. Sometimes they send their emissaries
from France to meet with the trade unionists and MP's that they are
engaged in united front work with, and their small numbers dictate
that it is almost impossible to engage in debate with the British far
left.
It is far more important to have an orientation to the
labour movement than to the Diaspora of the fifty different Trotskyist
sects. However, this means that slanders against the Lambertists are
allowed to gain currency within the far left in Britain, because the
FI/ICR does not consider such small groupings worthy of their
attention.
A recent study' entitled This Strange Mister Blondel,
published by Bartillat Editions and written in the name of one
Christophe Bourseiller, purports to dish the inside dope' on the
Lambertists. The book, which is meant to be about Marc Blondel, the
leader of the CGT-Force Ouvriere trade unions, was reviewed in
Workers' Liberty by Martin Thomas, who used it to mount his own attack
on the FI/ICR. In the same journal an anti-Maastricht rally organised
by the Lambertists in London in 1997 was reported by Colin Foster
under the sneering title The Circus Is Coming to Town'.
There also needs to be a response to the pieces carried
previously in the pages of What Next? by Bob Pitt in issue No.4, by
Martin Sullivan in No.5, and by Earl Gilman/Jack Davis in No.11 all of
which are heavily critical of the Lambertists.
If the FI/ICR ignores such attacks in the journals of
the British far left, it is because it has more important opponents to
deal with. In France the FI/ICR section has in recent years been
savagely attacked on at least four occasions. The first was by Pierre
Broue‚ in 1987. Then Munir and Samir Mansour attacked it in 1993
over its positions in relation to Palestine something with direct
ramifications, as Munir was a prisoner in Ramlah jail and his family
was financially supported by the FI/ICR at the time. The third recent
attack was also in 1993, by a Morenoist faction within the FI/ICR led
by Pedro Carrasquedo, who denounced Lambert quite savagely in the
leftist press for his opposition to ETA's bombing campaign in the
Basque country. And the most recent attack was by Bourseiller in the
book mentioned above.
The attacks on the FI/ICR in What Next? really pale into
insignificance in comparison with assaults like these: direct
political assaults involving forces with a material basis in society
and the class struggle, rather than those in the pages of a small
circulation, infrequent discussion journal read by Trot-spotters and
people in the discussion circle business in London. The French section
of the FI/ICR has some 4,000 members, and the broad Workers Party
(PT), of which it forms the core, has about 8,500 members. The French
USec grouping, the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire, which continually
attacks the Lambertists, has a good 2,000 members. We are talking
about organisations that are considerably larger than anything
currently existing in Britain.
The one thing that should be said of the Lambertist
current is that they are growing and developing a network based on the
Transitional Programme. How can people criticise them for that?
Especially small sects of two or three people! The Lambertists are not
building a cult of mystical influence' as Bourseiller and Martin
Thomas claim they are.
The International Liaison Committee, the body set up in
1991 by the First Open World Conference held in Barcelona, seems to be
growing at a quite rapid pace and is possibly the largest regroupment
of its kind since the Movement for Socialism (MAS) in Argentina. The
1991 World Conference was attended by representatives of significant
forces embarking on a process of wide regroupment at an international
level. These forces included expelled leaders of the Brazilian
Communist Party, representatives from the Soviet Union, Palestine, the
USA, most European countries and other places where the FI/ICR had a
presence. It included many forces not close to the FI/ICR. This
process has broadened and deepened and a Fourth Open World Conference
is taking place in San Francisco in March 2000.
There has been a significant growth in the last eight
years in the numbers attracted to the projects of the Lambertist
current. This is a fact-not an opinion! They have recruited a large
number of militants and fractions that are breaking from the Stalinist
and Social Democratic milieu not least recently on the issue of
opposition to Maastricht and around the welfare state strikes in 1996.
Only in January 1999 there was a conference in the northern area of
the Pays de Calais on this very issue.
The Lambertists have also recently begun to produce a
regular newsletter or bulletin of the partisans of the Fourth
International. This has begun with a number on the Labour Party and
the 1997 general election, followed by one on the Northern Ireland
Peace Accords and a third on the need for a working class solution in
the Balkans.
The Fourth Internationalist Bulletin on the Labour Party
contains a very reasoned defence of why militants should work within
the Labour Party a much more positive approach than that of many
leftist groups in Britain today. The piece explains the position of
the Lambertists in the aftermath of the election of the first Labour
Government in 18 years. It analyses the rise of Blairism and goes as
far as explaining how they see the development of a potential split
in the British Labour Party. The document goes on to explain how such
a split in the Labour Party can open up huge opportunities for worker
militants but also what the role of Trotskyists should be in relation
to it. It defends positions similar to the ones articulated by some
people associated with this magazine, among others, in seeing the
importance of the trade union-Labour Party link.
Although the analysis was written a year or so ago, it
clearly stands in stark contradistinction to those who have jumped off
the edge of the political world into the fantasy island of the
so-called Socialist Alliances. It underlines the important point that
comrades who are committed to building an open organisation and
comrades inside the Labour Party organising to defeat Blairism should
not put up artificial barriers against collaboration.
The Lambertists may or may not be all the things their
critics in other organisations such as the USec say they are it may
be that they did or didn't do all the things their enemies accuse them
of! In any case, political currents can change they are not set in
stone. Like people, they develop with experience. Indeed, themselves
have written a number of healthy critiques of Lambertism.
There is a need to reassess the place of Marxism in
today's world not in the contemptuous manner in which Blair speaks
of the traditions of the Labour Party, but in a way that will take us
all forward in the current period. One must assess what it is that the
far left seeks to achieve in the conditions before us today.
Is our task to be one of abstract propagandism ... a la
Militant circa the 1980s? When they were confronted with the realities
of power on a local level they flunked it big time (just look at the
debacle of Liverpool). Or, do we seek to construct a world-wide party
based on the transitional method that is capable of helping the
working class to resist the hammer blows being rained on it by the
capitalist class? The war in the Balkans clearly illustrates for us
that the choice facing humanity is one of socialism or barbarism. You
can follow the new realist path of New Labour into the realm of
barbarism or resist.
Those on the far left who continue to bury their heads
in the political sand, quoting from the great texts but keeping their
banners bright and sparkly clean, will achieve nothing. We cannot
advance without trying our best, within the limited resources we have
compared to the capitalists, to build mass socialist organisations in
every country. No one said this was going to be easy!
Whatever happens to the far left, and those who talk
good socialism or write good theory, the working class finds ways and
means to resist. In this respect, organisations come and go, and in
the last 60 years a lot have gone. Surely our role as Marxists is to
try and orientate ourselves within the actually existing labour
movement-as it is, not as we wish it to be- putting our policies on
the basis of working class democracy and letting the working class
movement decide: "The emancipation of the working class will be the
task of the workers themselves."
FRANK WAINWRIGHT
LONDON
**********************
REPLY TO FRANK WAINWRIGHT
LAMBERTISM-THE TRUE STORY-1
I have just finished reading your correspondent Frank Wainwright's
latest offering to the subterranean discourse in the pages of your
journal.
Contrary to what he says, there are many people in this country who
know precisely what the FI/ICR, or Lambertists, are capable of. I
clearly disagree with this stout defence of their devotion to the
cause of the working class and have on many occasions thought of
putting fingers to cyberspace, but never got round to it.
Personally, I never had very much time for the political guru's that
he quotes and mentions, and certainly am no fan of the likes of Phil
Hearse. Nevertheless, the types lauded by Wainwright:: Daniel
Gluckstein, Alan Benjamin and others are no better-possibly worse.
The fact that Wainwright states that he likes your magazine must be a
real comfort to you all.
Where I tend to agree with Frank is that there is a need to dump out
all the garbage. When he attacks the rumour and scandal mongerers who
talk of alliances with Force Ouvriere (FO) bureaucrats and joint full
timers he is right: those on the left must prove it or shut their
mouths.
All sorts of leftists have opportunist relations with Social Democrats
and Stalinists--look at Gerard Filoche aka Matti-in the French LCR and
his dalliance with Julian Dray, and hence with Francois Mitterand. The
fact that the PCI are linked to Force Ouvriere can be debated out
politically but should not be used as a form of slander or gossip.
These are serious issues we are discussing here.
Wainwright is also correct to attack those such as the infamous
"author", Christophe Bourseiller. This "author" of a book that
purports to tell the tale of how Marc Blondel rose to power within the
FO Confederation, in fact spends no less than some 300 pages plus
denouncing Pierre Lambert. This is not a discussion, it is a
falsification and belongs in the said Stalin School of Falsification.
Those like Martin Thomas and Colin Foster of the AWL in Britain who
give our author credit should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
I have been in and around the far left in this country for some 25
years plus. I have been a member of the IMG and other socialist
currents, but Wainwright's piece is certainly worthy of Lambert or
Gluckstein's own hand-and I should know as I was in that tendency for
some time.
The only really worthy work done by Lambert's groupings have been done
by the section in Algeria where the Workers Party(PT) has been
building opposition to the government and fundamentalist opposition in
the midst of a bloodbath/carnival of reaction. In the USA, there has
been some good work done by the Socialist Organizer grouping around
the Labour Party question.
The real role of the PCI should also be told. The slandering of Pierre
Broue among others. The building of fake workers parties on minimum
programmes. Their use of the term "constituent assembly", their
obsession with the European Union, their very fake European Workers
Alliance (EWA), their support for democracy with its class content
extracted, their refusal to fight the bureaucracy for control of the
unions, their obsessive anti-Stalinism--now turned upside down on its
head!
Their obsessiveness with internal security, the belief that everyone
is out to get them-reminiscent of Gerry Healy-and their obsession with
building themselves and not any real united front as Trotsky meant it!
Internationally, they have tried to break up the Morenista tendency in
the early 1980's following a bloc with them in 1980. In 1990-91 they
took a number of leading cadres out of the US tendency, Socialist
Action. Now they have turned their attention onto the French CP. All
these factors-and many others-show their opportunism of forty years
since the day Lambert conspired to overthrow the leader of his then
tendency, Marcel Bliebtrieu, in order to become leader of what is now
known as the Lambertist sect.
Lambert has now "reconstructed" his FI. He has built a huge apparatus
around his "International Liaison Committee of the Workers and the
Peoples" (catchy-eh!). He has his US section-at last-led by his pals,
Alan Benjamin and Ralph Schoenman. He is on his way!
We in Britain must not let him get his feet under the table of the far
left. He will wreak havoc on the left, disaffected and weak though it
is! It could set the left back some fifty years indeed!
The British far left has had three major sects: the SLL/WRP, the
IS/SWP and finally the RSL/"Militant" tendency. We don't need
Lambert's own peculiar form of opportunism and sectarianism.
MIRANDA McVEIGH
LONDON
************************
REPLY TO FRANK WAINWRIGHT
LAMBERTISM-THE TRUE STORY-2
Dear Editor,
In the last edition of What Next? (number 14) entitled "Towards an
assessment of Lambertism", I would like to make the following remarks
as a former supporter of that political current.
Frank Wainwright is clearly a camp follower of Pierre Lambert, either
a real one or a sympathiser/fellow traveller.
His assessment suffers in many areas. I just want to take up a
handful:
-his lack of critical balance
-the "exposure" of Earl Gilman
-the glossing over of the Lambertist dishonest method
-his dismissal of polemic with other leftists-a la Lambertismo.
Wainwright claims "my purpose is not to uncritically defend the
politics of Lambertism, but rather to offer an alternative
perspective."
I believe that Wainwright does just what he claims not to do. He
defends the twists and turns of the Lambert current internationally
with abstract references to the International Liaison Committee, the
growth of Socialist Organizer in the USA, the development of the
British Section and the anti-Maastricht work. An 'insider' or somebody
who had the 'inside dope' at least, could only write this.
Wainwright dresses the Lambertists in the clothing of some very honest
politicians out to build an international political current on the
classic Trotskyist mould--this is false. They are a dangerous
political sect with a large budget and some unhealthy methods. I
should know, I was in the SLG for many years.
Wainwright, on a minor issue, dishonestly exposes, an American ultra
leftist who produces single handedly a journal called The Old Mole, in
California. However, he may have a good reason for wanting to remain
pseudonymous and its wrong of Wainwright to de-cloak him for all to
see.
If Wainwright is so concerned with political honesty, he should reveal
to all and sundry that the SLG, under the explicit direction of
Lambert and Demassot, sent two people into the Militant only to bring
them out into a blaze of glory and Labour Briefing. Trotsky spoke of
the ethics of entrism into the social democracy and Stalinism--not
into other leftist groupings,. This was known in limited circles as at
the time but if the Lambertists and their camp followers are baying
for fair treatment then they should think carefully about that period
too.
Wainwright mentions the far left several times, but as with all
Lambertists disdains to enter into dialogue with them. he refers to
pieces in What Next and Workers Liberty but doesn't take up the
substance of their political critiques in any way at all.
I would like to challenge Wainwright, John Archer, and anyone else
they can throw up-for example, Mike Calvert, as Archer's young
protege-to a debate with any ex-Lambertist we can find on their
political heritage. I am sure this can be established under the good
auspices of comrade Pitt and What Next?
It is my contention that the Lambertist current, both in this country
and internationally, is characterised by poortunism. I could write for
hours on this matter. Lambert et al always deal with important issues:
class independence, democratic demands and the fight for workers
parties everywhere. But they need a clear programmatic response.
Lambert, Gluckstein, Wainwright, Archer-and Calvert, who is still
clearly a Lambertist-are politically incapable of this. from day one,
Lambert's tendency has been marked by its apolitical and
syndicalist-opportunist origins. The concept of a revolutionary
programme was never understood by them as aguide to action-it has
always been a mantra.
The French working class repeatedly turned its back on Lambert's
projects. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the French
revolutionaries, many of whom have been seriously disarmed by Lambert
and Gluckstein.
Their mix of verbal orthodoxy, apparent non-sectarianism, and a vast
apparatus that is capable of magic shows, spat out, demoralised and
burned up layer after layer of French cadres.
The role of Lambert as a street trader hawking his beguiling wares
around the revolutionary stage is in need of being destroyed.His
politics do not resemble those of a revolutionary movement, and the
more that his claims to orthodoxy become seen for what they are-a
farud-the sooner his growing influence will wane.
The lack of left splits from the PCI/CCI is an indication of the grip
that the bureaucracy has over this apparatus. The experience of the
WRP in this country shows how even the most fossilised and ossified
cliques can be smashed. I only hope that this little piece helps to
expose Lambert and his camp followers in Britain-insignicant little
cult though they may be-so that nobody else his beguiled by his wares
today.
TOM HALLSWORTHY
LONDON
**********************
TROTSKYISM AND SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
I am replying to the ongoing debate in the pages of your journal on
the subject of Lambertism and all things associated with it. It is
clearly the case that a public discussion is needed.
Back in 1988 the PCI published a long piece on the state of French
politics in the FI/ICR journal International Tribune. The article
attacked the political line of the LCR and of several ex-members like
Julian Dray, at that time an aspiring parliamentarian. This was
followed by a debate between the leadership of the FI/ICR and the
tendency associated with Gerard Filoche in the LCR.
The LCR was then already on the road to the left of the left as they
themselves called it. They were chasing after the CPGB/ "Weekly
Worker" renovateurs and refoundateurs, building alliances with the ilk
of Pierre Juquin and others in trying to build a new party. Filoche
and Mountafray (Matthieu) criticised this political course, and many
within the International Socialist Group such as Hudson and Clarke,
denounced their French comrade, Alain Krivine both internally and in
public. They articulated the viewpoint that the USec majority was hell
bent on a course of self destruction.
In an article published in International Tribune in January 1989,
Filoche and Matthieu also argued with the leaders of the PCI. They
stated that the French PS had not changed its nature and that the PCI
were wrong to abandon their previously held conception on the united
front. Filoche pointed out that the PCI and his tendency, the TUO, had
been the only two tendencies to hold a correct line in the 1981
elections of calling for a Mitterand victory and a PS/PCF government.
For their part, the editors of IT defended their line of standing for
the presidency and for building a new Workers Party--sound familiar or
what? Since then the PCI has attempted to systematically build a
workers party to the left of the Socialist Party, just as the left
groups in this country seek to do now.
My point is to illustrate to comrades how even in France, where the
political culture of the workers and the students is much higher than
here, it is a course that has taken years and years to bear any fruit,
at all. Even then, it has only yielded 5 MEP's elected on the joint
LCR-LO slate in 1999 and a few councillors. The most successful
leftists remain those like Dray and others who chose to go through the
PS and organise themselves as a distinctive tendency, though this is
characterised by an adaptation to reformism.
Filoche ended up co-authoring a book with Dray entitled the "Buglers
of Maastricht" in which he defends the capitalist EU. It shattered his
tendency within the LCR in two, half staying in the LCR with Matthieu
and the others following Filoche into the SP. They now form the
footsoldiers for the Gauche Socialistes tendency. Filoche is the
editor of their publication, Democratie et Socialisme, and sits on an
Editorial Board including Dray, Harlem Desir, former PCI leader
Melanchon, Lienemann, and Alexis Corbiere-former youth leader of the
JCR-Egalite, as well as other notables from the former "Trotskysant"
milieu.
My suggestion is that comrades should heed these lessons. They should
not turn their backs on the Labour party but fight to preserve its
class character, and the struggle goes on to preserve this link.
However, whilst building a left current within the Labour party,
comrades should be aware that to follow the Drays of this world leads
to adaptation to social democracy.
We also need to keep our eyes on the fact that the left has come
together for the first time in thirty odd years to form the London
Socialist Alliance. even though it remains an electoral front and
nothing more as yet, that's an important step forward, showing that
comrades can collaborate together in a meaningful manner in spite of
the disparity of size etc.
These first signs of unity are not to be sneezed at, and as Blair
implements his right wing policies of eroding the union-LP link and
Proportional Representation things will change. There will come a time
when there is a need to stand candidiates against the LP where it is
viable and to have comrades both inside and outside the LP. This is
the tactic that Trotsky advised of us in the 1930's anyway, and those
comrades cannot go on reciting the mantra of total entrism as if it is
the key to building a party of 10,000 plus.
In this respect the group around Ted Grant-Socialist Appeal-is dead
wrong.
There is no time to leave the Labour Party that is right or wrong.
It's an imperfect world that we live in. Comrades must think about
working both inside and outside the Labour Party along with the rest
of the far left. This is the basis on which an effective unity can be
built.
HENRY BALFOUR
LONDON
B. R. Ashley
Now, that was informative; thank you very much! I had no idea, after
a year posting here, that Broué had broken with Lambert -- and I had
seen no mention of de Massot in nearly twenty years. Bit of old home
week! However, Diamond ought to be able to see from this how I got
the idea that my old comrades could be seen as "accommodating" to the
labour bureaucracy.
By the way, how is that old polemicist Stéphane Just? Is he still in
the current?
BRA
Einde O'Callaghan
>
> mike.c...@unisonfree.net (Mike Calvert) wrote in message news:<a8c09116.01092...@posting.google.com>...
> > I have only just joined, but I saw that David Walters and others were
> > discussing the Lambertists. One poster put some stuff from What Next
> > on the board, so here is the stuff that I have access to currently .
>
> Now, that was informative; thank you very much! I had no idea, after
> a year posting here, that Broué had broken with Lambert -- and I had
> seen no mention of de Massot in nearly twenty years. Bit of old home
> week! However, Diamond ought to be able to see from this how I got
> the idea that my old comrades could be seen as "accommodating" to the
> labour bureaucracy.
> By the way, how is that old polemicist Stéphane Just? Is he still in
> the current?
>
message in order to make your comment of 8 lines? Have you never heard
of trimming your post? I suspect that most people won't have even
bothered to scroll down to your comment at the end.
Some of us have to pay for our on-line time and behaviour like this
clogs up Usenet.
Einde O'Callaghan
B. R. Ashley
posted these through Google. In future I shall refrain from wholesale
reposts.
Hmm. My browser just told me "the publisher of that page kept you
waiting for more than a minute ... " so I'm going to hit the send button
again. My apologies if this posts twice.
B. R. Ashley
posted these through Google. In future I shall refrain from wholesale
reposts.
Mike Calvert
David Walters is much better placed than I to talk of the Lambertists.
I have not been in the group since 1997.
I was a member of the British section from 1991-1997 along side John
Archer who died recently. He was a good freind of mine.
I will post an obituary of him that I wrote up on the internet fairly
soon. It also appeared in a recent edition of What Next alongside a
more recent piece by me on his memorial meeting that was held in
April.
Stefan Juste died in 1997 and was expelled in 1984, I think. His
crime: believing the Fourth International/ICR sold out by going the
way of the open world conference. It was that that persuaded people
like myself and Ralph Schoenman and others to join in the first place,
but his group produces a little journal called "Fighting for
Socialism" or CPS in French. They have a website, but the address is
not to hand.
I believe if you type in Combattre Pour les Socialisme, it may come
up.
Mikey
BRoss...@interactive.rogers.com (B. R. Ashley) wrote in message news:<fceee312.01092...@posting.google.com>...
Mike Calvert
Mikey
Einde O'Callaghan <einde.oc...@planet-interkom.de> wrote in message news:<3BB12046...@planet-interkom.de>...
Tim Vanhoof
> Was it strictly necessary to repost all 425 lines of Mike Calvert's
> message in order to make your comment of 8 lines? Have you never heard
> of trimming your post? I suspect that most people won't have even
> bothered to scroll down to your comment at the end.
>
> Some of us have to pay for our on-line time and behaviour like this
> clogs up Usenet.
>
> Einde O'Callaghan
Not had your coffee yet, Einde? ;-)
Einde O'Callaghan
>
> I am verey sorry that the original was that long too!
>
whole documents here. My problem is really when people repost the whole
of a long document and then make a short comment at the end (or even at
the beginning - you still have to scroll down to see if they have
anything else to say). It's quite simple with modern browsers to snip
out all the bits you don't want to comment on, leaving only those you
do.
Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
Einde O'Callaghan
It was 2.30 a.m. and I was tired and grumpy. I suppose I should have
gone to bed. ;-)
How are things down your way?
Einde