the Amsterdam international, with the exception of the more conscious rightwing elements. will be compelled under corresponding conditions to assume the leadership of the advance of the masses, in order to confine these advances within narrow limits, or in order to attack the workers from the rear when they overstep these limits we know that in advance and openly warn the vanguard about it.
This, therefore, was Trotsky's con the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy was not the main enemy.
role was occupied b the im ruling classes But the was the chief defence of the imperialist bourgeoisies. The working class had to united with the SECUS of the bureaucracy. But at the same time they had to understand, and 'warn' against, the bureaucracy's role.
Lenin outlined it in another context. He wrote: 'unity • is.. • relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is absolute.' Put in terms of the bureaucracy it is necessary for working class political currents to enter united action not only with rank and file but with of the • bureaucracy. Not to do so is infantile lettism. But even within that united ac tion, that 'relative unity', there is an absolute contradiction between the interests of the working class and that of the bureaucracy.
Put in concrete terms, it is necessary ficipate in a strugsie led by a Goldiar, for the working class a Dean, or a Jarvis, demand that they But even within that struggle a Golding, Dean or Jarvis sabotages it. In particular at crucial moments they turn 'from cowardly fellow travellers of the masses into open VOCI betrayers.' That is why, even when involved in united action with a Golding, a Dean, or a Jarvis it is necesary to 'warn' against, and organise against, their role. Similarly when supporting positions of the Soviet bureaucracy, such as the Gorbachev missiles proposals, it is still necessary to by the Soviet bureaucracy as a whole in The main enemy is a Reagan, a Thatcher, a Baker, and those whose interests they represent. But to fight thera it is necessary to fight their defenders Hammond Kinsock Golding, Jarvis or Dean. That is Tod sky's analysis of the bureaucra?