The withdrawal of the occupation troops¶
Core Argument¶
Here the text addresses a factional dispute within the Fourth International over the demand for the withdrawal of occupation troops from Europe after the Second World War. The core argument is that the International Secretariat (IS) and its supporters, including Gerry Healy, retreated from a principled internationalist position by refusing to apply the demand for troop withdrawal to the Soviet Union. The chapter tracks the evolution of the resolution through successive drafts to demonstrate this backsliding.
The original British amendment, voted for by Healy but against by Goffe, explicitly called for “withdrawal of all armies from Europe, including Red Army,” linked the changed situation to the end of the Nazi-Soviet conflict, asserted the right of independence for all nationalities including those occupied by Russia, and simultaneously stressed the defence of nationalised property in occupied countries like the Baltic States and Eastern Poland. This amendment was rejected at the International Conference. Upon returning, Healy reversed his position, now opposing the demand for Red Army withdrawal.
The final resolution deleted the earlier democratic slogan calling for “the immediate departure of occupation troops” and transferred the question to a new section, ‘The Struggle against the New Imperialist Peace’. There, the slogan for immediate departure of occupation troops is proclaimed for “every occupied country,” but when listing the oppressor countries — the US, Great Britain, and France “insofar as Germany is concerned” — the USSR is pointedly omitted. The text argues this omission can only mean the IS did not consider the Soviet Union an oppressor nation in Eastern Germany and other countries, and thus the question of Red Army withdrawal did not arise.
The chapter notes that a subsequent IEC resolution in June did include the demand for “withdrawal of all foreign armies, including the Red Army, from occupied territories,” but no statement was ever made accepting or rejecting the original British amendment. The polemic is directed against the IS’s evasion of the question of Soviet imperialism and against Healy’s capitulation, exposing a political retreat dressed up as a sharpening of positions. The historical context is the post-war division of Europe and the need for Trotskyists to maintain an independent, critical stance toward Stalinist Russia while defending the nationalised property of the workers’ states.