[D66] Keir Starmer, Trotskyism and Pabloism

[Antid Oto]

Keir Starmer, Trotskyism and Pabloism.
By
John Rogan
JRogan3000
4 min
View Original
Keir Starmer, Trotskyism and Pabloism.
Deep Entrist or Deep Centrist?

Was Keir Starmer a Trotskyist? Or a follower of Michel Pablo and 
therefore a “Pabloite”? Is there a difference? Indeed, who was this 
“Michel Pablo” and what on earth is “Pabloism”?

Does anyone care?

Well, some people do, including the Mail on Sunday who referred to the 
Labour leadership favourite as a “Posh Trot” in an attempt to expose his 
“radical past”.

Now, let me try and answer some of the questions I put above.
Who was Michel Pablo?

Pablo (aka Michel Raptis) was a leading member of the Trotskyist Fourth 
International (FI) after WWII. The success of the (Stalin-led) Soviet 
Union in establishing a number of client states after that conflict led 
Pablo to the conclusion that Communist Parties were, contrary to 
Trotsky’s beliefs, still capable of leading anti capitalist revolutions. 
The success of Tito and Mao confirmed this, in his view. This led to him 
putting forward an idea of “deep entryism” (entryism “sui generis” (“of 
a special type”)) where Trotskyists would join mass Communist Parties 
and seek to influence their development without revealing their politics 
openly. This idea did not go down well among some and the FI continued a 
process of splits and infighting, a tradition which continues to this 
day among Trotsky’s adherents.

As for Pablo, a summary of his life and politics can be found here (h/t 
Andrew Coates).

Among the highlights was his work in the late 1950’s in support of the 
Algerian National Liberation Front (NLF) when they fought France. After 
the NLF’s victory, Pablo became an economic adviser to Ben-Bella’s 
regime before the latter was ousted. He knew Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, 
Salvador Allende and even, when in exile in France, Ayatollah Khomenei (!).

In 1968, back in Greece, he helped found PASOK along with (ex Trotskyist 
and later Greek PM) Andreas Papandreou. When Pablo died in 1996, he was 
given a state funeral there.

During all the political interventions quoted, Pablo continued to have 
his small band of followers who were in and out of the FI at various points.

Finally, he had his own international organisation — the “International 
Revolutionary-Marxist Tendency” (IRMT).

According to “International Trotskyism, 1929–85: A Documented Analysis 
of the Movement” the IRMT had a conference in 1972 where they dropped 
the pretence to being the World Party of Socialist Revolution and any 
allegiance to Trotskyism.

In Britain, as part of their new orientation (eg worker’s 
self-management, ecology, women’s liberation), they went on to produce 
the “Socialist Alternatives” magazine, copies of which can be found here.
Socialist Alternatives, Keir Starmer and Trotskyism.

Keir Starmer was on the Editorial Board of Socialist Alternatives, wrote 
various articles for them and interviewed leading left wingers including 
Tony Benn MP and Hilary Wainwright (Vol 2 No 1. April/May 1987).

Does that mean that Keir Starmer was therefore a Trotskyist?

Well, it’s all a matter of definition, isn’t it? As can be seen above, 
Pablo’s political trajectory was not what could be called “orthodox 
Trotskyism”. For example, he participated as an adviser in what Trotsky 
would have described as a “petit-bourgeois nationalist government” in 
Algeria. In this case, while the “orthodox” view would be to support the 
NLF against French imperialism, Trotskyists in Algeria would have also 
tried to build an independent revolutionary party to carry out a 
programme of Permanent Revolution (ie a Socialist Revolution). As for 
helping Papandreou establish a social-democratic Party like PASOK, that 
would have been seen as another example of heresy, if not indeed 
outright treachery to the proletariat of Greece.

Nope. It doesn’t stand up. By the time, Starmer got involved with 
Socialist Alternatives, despite Pablo’s past, the IRMT had dumped 
Trotskyism and developed a form of Red/Green politics which was very 
common on the Labour left then and, particularly with the rise of groups 
like Extinction Rebellion, still very much with us. A cursory view 
through the copies available show a magazine with articles which could 
easily have appeared in the Guardian, New Statesman or even Marxism Today.

Indeed, in an attempt to do a humdinger hatchet job on Keir Starmer for 
his “Trotskyist” past, Harry Cole of the Mail on Sunday published a 
pretty desperate piece outlining his opposition to the idea of a minimum 
wage in the 1980’s in contrast to his support now. Unfortunately, for Mr 
Cole “Man changes mind over the minimum wage” isn’t something I think 
will sway either Labour members in the Labour leadership election or 
even voters in a general election. Andrew Coates discusses that article 
here.

In the end, if the Mail et al want to describe Keir Starmer was a “Posh 
Trot” due to his involvement with Socialist Alternatives, it won’t 
really stick. That’s because, while there is much that Conservative 
inclined journalists would describe as outrageously left wing 
(“Prisoners should get the vote!”), there’s no proper Trotskyist 
“smoking gun” to find (“Down with Bennite Centrism! Build the Fourth 
International, World Party of Socialist Revolution!”). That’s because 
there isn’t any.

P.S. For any youngsters out there, a “centrist” in the old Marxist sense 
is a person or organisation vacillating between reform and revolution.
A Word of Thanks.

Thanks very much to Andrew Coates for much of the information I’ve put 
here. Opinions are all mine, of course. Andrew’s website can be found here.

On 25-01-2020 10:02, A.OUT wrote:
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