Alan Woods IMT/RCI still believes in the reformist utopia of a “peaceful road to socialism”

 

By Michael Pröbsting, Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 17 September 2024, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

Alan Woods “International Marxist Tendency” recently renamed itself to “Revolutionary Communist International”. For decades this organisation operated as “left-wing opposition” within social democratic or bourgeois-populist parties. Now they want to found everywhere new “Revolutionary Communist Parties”. Such a development would be very welcome if it would represent not only a change of name but also a change of program and strategy. However, as their founding manifesto already revealed, the famous saying about the royalist Bourbons fully applies also to the IMT/RCI: They have still nothing learned and nothing forgotten. ^[1]

 

A recently published article about the history of revolutionary struggles in Bangladesh demonstrates this clearly. Dealing with the 1971 War of Liberation, the IMT/RCI claims that if the leaders would have had better intentions, they could have peacefully created a workers government!

 

“In West Pakistan, the left-wing populist leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of the Pakistan's People Party (PPP) had leadership of the movement. If Bhashani and Bhutto had led an insurrection to seize power, there could’ve been a peaceful transition of power and a workers' government formed on the basis of workplace committees, spread across the whole of Pakistan.” [2]

 

Let’s leave aside the nonsense about a “workers' government” as such a government would have had to be a “workers' and peasant government” since both Pakistan as well as Bangladesh had a majority of peasants at that time (and today the peasantry still represents a large proportion of the labour force). More fundamentally, this quote reflects the long-standing reformist program of the IMT/RCI.

 

Alan Woods – the long-time leader of the IMT after the death of Ted Grant – has always argued the pacifist idea that the working class could take power peacefully and via parliamentary elections.

 

“A peaceful transformation of society would be entirely possible if the trade union and reformist leaders were prepared to use the colossal power in their hands to change society. If the workers leaders did not do this, then there could be rivers of blood, and this would entirely be the responsibility of the reformist leaders. (…) it would be entirely possible to carry through the socialist transformation peacefully, and even through parliament, provided the trade unions and Labour Party were led by Marxists.” ^[3]

 

In a more recently published introduction to Lenin’s “State and Revolution”, Woods repeated this utopian strategy.

 

“The labour movement represents an enormous power with the potential to change society. Powerful union organisations exist that would be more than capable of overthrowing capitalism if the millions of workers they represent were mobilised to this end. The leaders of the trade unions and reformist parties have in their hands a power that can bring about a peaceful transformation of society. But, if the trade union and reformist leaders are not prepared to use that power, that could lead to a violent outcome in the future, and this would entirely be the responsibility of the reformist leaders.” [4]

 

It is particularly cynical to write such a statement in the introduction to Lenin’s book in which he explained in much detail exactly the opposite, that capitalism can not be overthrown in a peaceful way! “The supersession of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution.“ ^[5]

 

 

 

The bourgeois state machine

 

 

 

Our current – the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) – has always emphasised that a socialist revolution can not take place peacefully (or even via parliamentary elections!) because a ruling class will never give up its power without force. The power of the bourgeoisie rests on massive wealth, resulting from economic exploitation, as well as a huge bureaucratic-military state machine. Furthermore, the bourgeoise does not rule in isolation but has allies among sectors of the middle class and the labour bureaucracy. It will mobilise all these resources if it faces an insurrection of the workers and oppressed. ^[6]

 

It is also incredible that the IMT/RCI forgets that the bourgeois state with its huge machinery – built top down without any democratic control from below – serves and can only serve the capitalist class. The bourgeois state – with all its departments from police and army, prison system, parliament, justice, etc. – exists and can only exist to implement the class interests of the bourgeoisie and enforce them against the resistance of the working class and oppressed. To imagine that such machinery could serve the working class on its road to socialism by winning elections means nothing but repeating the dangerous illusions of social democratic and Stalinist bureaucrats who have advocated the “peaceful road to socialism” since many decades.

 

History has demonstrated that the opposite is the case. The Bolsheviks had to wage an armed insurrection and three years of civil war in order to defeat the bourgeoisie and their imperialist backers. Even limited revolutions like national liberation struggles or uprisings against dictatorships against imperialist powers can not succeed without violence against the oppressors as historical experience – from China, Korea, and Vietnam to Nicaragua, Syria and Palestine – has demonstrated. [7]

 

 

 

Bhutto – a “left-wing populist” or a bourgeois authoritarian ruler?

 

 

 

It is even more idiotic to proclaim that reformist bureaucrats or even bourgeois politicians (like Bhutto) could carry out a peaceful transformation to socialism! These people defend capitalism, and their parties have been inextricable linked with the bourgeois state machine via numerous positions in parliament, municipalities, the state bureaucracy, the armed forces, business deals, etc. Why on earth should such bourgeois and reformist parties destroy their basis of existence?!

 

The above-mentioned quote from the IMT/RCI article on Bangladesh reveals also that this organisation continues to whitewash bourgeois politicians. Throughout its whole history, Alan Woods and his supporters have claimed that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a “left-wing populist leader”. They stated that “the Pakistan People’s Party was founded on a very revolutionary programme” and worked within this party for decades. [8]

 

As we did show somewhere else, Bhutto was a bourgeois political who served as minister in the military dictatorship of General Ayub Khan. He was co-responsible for the reactionary wars against India in 1965 and against Bangladesh in 1971. He created an authoritarian and corrupted capitalist regime which brutally suppressed the Baloch people until he was overthrown himself by another military coup in 1977. [9]

 

The IMT/RCI’s ridiculous statement that Bhutto was a “left-wing populist leader” and that he could have “peacefully created a workers' government” shows that, despite its change of name, this organization carries on the old reformist method.

 

If the comrades of the RCI want to fight for the program of authentic revolutionary communism, they need to get rid of the pacifist and reformist heritage of Alan Woods’ IMT. On such a basis, they could play an important role in the building of new World Party of Socialist Revolution. The RCIT would strongly welcome to collaborate with these comrades in this task!