Talking Gutter

A further interesting example of Fyson's wild attack was his accusation that "Peter Franks is a gutless bastard who always backs down." Fyson was pressed for an example of Peter Franks' alleged cowardice several times — he refused to give even one.

More importantly however it should be noted that Fyson is not only a bad mannered person but a disreputable and unscrupulous politican. It is a fact that I had never heard the Socialist Action League actually call the leaders of the Vietnamese people "Stalinist misleaders" in those precise words, although the implication has been made plain many times in the course of their sectarian "antiwar" antics. However, this semantic deficiency was remedied when I recently spoke to Russell Johnson who agreed to speak on behalf of the S.A.L.

"The Vietnamese Communist Party has not broken with Stalinism" Johnson informed me. Now, Trotskyites regard Stalinists and Maoists as misleaders by definition. But Johnson went further and pointed out that the S.A.L. and Y.S. "Disagreed with much of the politics of the Vietnamese leaders" — giving the example of their call for recognition of the rights of Vietnamese landowners." (i.e. the uniting of all patriotic elements in the struggle against the main enemies — U.S. imperialism and its Vietnamese puppets.)

Because of its fixation with an ideology shown up many years ago as an objective weapon of the bourgeoise, the S.A.L. is doomed to a future of sectarian isolation, distortion of the present struggle and tacit support of imperialist oppression. It is for this reason and this alone that their ideas and activities are opposed by progressive people and organisations.