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Ukraine: rogue CWI group deceives
international left International Secretariat, LFI, 22 August
2003
Investigations that the League for the Fifth International
have carried out over the past three weeks reveal that individuals
claiming to be a Ukrainian section of the League are in fact members of
the Committee for a Workers International (CWI). No section of the LFI in
fact existed in Ukraine. In an unprecedented political fraud these people
&Mac246; numbering up to 20 - infiltrated the LFI and pretended over
three years to be members through a series of elaborate lies and
deceptions.
We were alerted to this by an accusations made on a web
discussion group towards the end of July, and by the subsequent
identification, by an LFI member who recently visited Kiev, of a leading
figure in the CWI (Oleg Vernik) pretending to be a member of our
section.
Consultations with the CWI and the International Bolshevik
Tendency enabled us to confirm that a number of CWI members were involved
in an elaborate confidence trick that included a series of meetings with
international socialist organisations both in Kiev and abroad. The
deception took place on a considerable scale, involving attendance at
international demonstrations, other meetings and congresses, meetings held
in Kiev with foreign visitors, the production of publications, writing
polemical articles against other tendencies (including the CWI).
The fraudsters acted in a highly co-ordinated fashion, ensuring
that many of them expressed and expounded the views of the tendencies in
question in a relatively sophisticated manner and with apparent complete
conviction. The number of tendencies deceived in this way, and the
sheer level of activity required to sustain the deception, suggest that
this grouping could have had little time for anything else, let alone
systematic activity in the working class movement. We await a full
explanation as to how the Ukraine CWI, which is formally part of the CIS
section and which profited financially from this scam, could play these
games over three years without sounding the alarm bells with their
leadership in Moscow and London.
In short, over the last period,
when socialists of all countries were mobilising against capitalism and
war, these people busied themselves defrauding anticapitalist and antiwar
organisations.
The only two motives imaginable for such a deception
could be monetary advantage&Mac247; in plain terms theft&Mac247;
or a conscious attempt to discredit revolutionary
internationalism.
The exact reasons for what was in fact a very
elaborate confidence trick must await further evidence&Mac247; since
no large sums of money were involved, at least on the part of the LFI. Of
course the sheer number of tendencies defrauded, could lead to he sums
involved being considerable. Given the difficulties which distance, very
limited resources and language barriers place in the way of common daily
work, such deception is always a possibility. Fortunately it is a
rarity.
We understand that they deny such motives and maintain they
are loyal to the CWI! However nothing can justify taking money from
another organisation within the workers movement under false
pretences.
Any misappropriation of funds contributed by working
class people and socialists is quite simply a crime against the working
class as a whole. It undermines the necessary trust for the collection of
resources and funds for organising and waging the class
struggle.
When people claiming to be "revolutionaries" and even
"Trotskyists" do such things they give a weapon to the class enemy. Even
if they really believe they are serving their own political tendency they
are in fact engaging in criminal adventurism. For short term material
gains they drag their own political banner through the mud, ensuring no
one will ever trust them again.
Of course it is possible that what
we have here was a conscious attempt to discredit the whole idea of
international comradeship and collaboration. What could be the motive for
this? This would serve the interests either of a bourgeois nationalist or
national-centred currents in the workers&Mac226; movement (Stalinism
or Social Democracy). Last but not least there is the possibility of the
intervention of the state itself.
The CWI has said publicly that it
is investigating this. Other tendencies are doing likewise. We will
co-operate with them to expose this fraud fully and completely. The CWI
have suspended them. If the individuals concerned have any shred of
revolutionary honour they will now make a full and complete confession. If
not they, and all their accomplices, should be fully exposed to the entire
Ukrainian and international left. We are willing to play our full part in
doing this.
As a consequence the LFI immediately suspended RV-MRM
and severed all connections with it pending the next meeting of our
International Executive Committee, which alone has the power to expel a
section.
Doubtless those tendencies that have always opposed
attempting to build an common international organisation in general or
claimed it was necessary to "postpone" it until large and stable mass
organisations are built on a national basis, will claim they are
vindicated by such incidents.
Unhappy the "principle" that sees
itself validated by extraordinary acts of criminality! Let us see how such
organisations, each totally adapted to their specific national conditions,
can possibly succeed in developing an international strategy for
revolution.
For our part we will continue to seek to seek out
relationships of political solidarity and common action with militants in
countries not "blessed" with stable capitalist democracy, because only on
this foundation can a truly internationalist organisation be built.
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