The discussion arose from our interpretation of a period – imperialism - which according to Lenin was the final stage of capitalism -an incorrect evaluation which we compounded by declaring it to be the 'death agony of capitalism'. But it also contained the fundamentally correct declaration that capitalism had ceased to be a progressive form of society, and that the transformation of society was on the historical order of the day-the practical struggle for Socialism, the tactical application of this being the concept of the transitional programme. By this I mean not a set of demands fixed for evermore in concrete, but demands based upon the specific circumstances and an understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of capitalism with the object of raising the consciousness and the struggle of the working class to the level of dual power.

Basically the PMP was the application of the transitional programme to a period of universal war and militarism as the concept applied to the struggle for the hearts and minds, as well as the actions, of the millions of people who were drafted, or were going to be drafted, into the military machine. It centred around the demand for compulsory military training for the working class under the supervision of elected officers at special training schools funded by the state but under the control of labour movement institutions. As a corollary, the related fields-the nation as a whole-made the concept deeper and broader than the various concepts evolved during the First World War for its final object was the overthrow of capitalism, unlike as in World War One when the possibility was hoped for at best.

Whilst the concept was broadly raised in the 1938 Transitional Programme, Trotsky gave it the sharpest and clearest expression after the tall of France. Using the collapse of French imperialism as a propaganda weapon to show the rottenness of imperialism, it was a weapon for raising the class struggle in and through the armed forces. The state, as Engels had postulated, is in the final analysis armed bodies of men. Furthermore, the armed forces themselves are the most narrow, rigid and bureaucratic of the structures controlled by any ruling class, and the capitalist class is no different. The struggle for the breakdown of capitalist control of the armed forces is, therefore, the essence of the struggle for power in wartime. Raising democratic and revolutionary demands side by side with a fundamental exposure of the nature of the war made the Proletarian Military Policy a major part of the transitional programme.

The struggle was first and foremost in the original bourgeois democratic countries, even though the struggle for the armed bodies of men was equally necessary in the Fascist countries, though its manner and form would be determined by circumstances, the difficulties involved, etc. Secondary to all this was the question of the Soviet Union's involvement in the war, but I will not deal with this as it has been discussed elsewhere, except to repeat that whilst being important it was still secondary to the application of the PMP.

It is true that Trotsky foresaw the almost total elimination of bourgeois democracy inside the countries prosecuting the war. It is equally true that during the war, whilst there was large scale elimination of bourgeois democratic rights, various elements of them remained, depending on the relationship of class forces in each country. In France bourgeois democracy was almost totally destroyed (as Harry Ratner showed in a earlier edition of this journal), whereas in the USA state power was applied somewhat more liberally. As Trotsky was murdered by Stalin in 1940 he could not take into account the modifications in the policy that were obvious and necessary. Nevertheless, the Proletarian Military Policy was the basic cornerstone of the transitional programme during the war. It posed a policy, not of 'maybe', 'perhaps, or 'possibly', but a definite policy for the socialist revolution.

With the death of Trotsky the Socialist Workers Party in the USA, the flagship of the Trotskyist movement, took over the promotion of the PMP. The most important policy statement of it was that given by James P Cannon on 28 September 1940 at the SWP plenum conference. Whilst it was a powerful statement, in my opinion it suffered from two major defects. Firstly it equated the application of the PMP simply with trade union activity in a new field, and secondly, the fall of France was not seen for its programmatic value but as an implied concept for the role of the American capitalist class.

It was against this background that the dispute on the PMP took place within the WIL. The articles in Youth for Socialism and Workers International News were similarly slanted in the direction pointed out by Cannon, ie, equating the role of the British capitalist class with that of the French which, afraid of the working class, was counter-revolutionary defeatist. This slurred over the definite line of demarcation between defencism and revolutionary defeatism, i.e, on the real character of the war. Fundamentally the position was correct, but the demands and the posing of the question were such as to create confusion.

This is not the first time that this sort of confused thinking had arisen. Lenin, in reviewing and criticising as well as praising Rosa Luxemburg's The Junius Pamphlet, says:

'Junius, however, whilst brilliantly exposing the imperialist character of the present war as distinct from a national war, falls into the very strange mistake of trying to drag a national programme into the present non-national war. It sounds almost incredible, but there it is.

It was this confusion (in our opinion) that laid the basis for the polemic. The opening shot was a small, two-sided quarto sheet criticism of the articles in the group journals written by Millie Lee and myself, but the major polemical exchange was between Jock Haston, the Minority spokesman, and Ted Grant and Gerry Healy representing the Majority view. The argument about democratising the armed forces, such as officers coming from the working class being educated and trained by institutions under the control of the trades unions and other working class organisations, was accepted by both factions of the WIL, but it was blurred by the Majority argument that the capitalists of Britain were afraid to arm the workers. This was in a period when patriotism was at its height and German troops were on the other side of the Channel.

The argument brought into focus the role of the Home Guard, for Haston pointed out the possible dual role of the Home Guard against both the German imperialists and the working class in Britain if the latter attempted to carry out a revolutionary struggle of any sort. He gave examples of employers using the Home Guard of their own factory against trade unionists who were too active. Because of the lop-sided position of the propaganda that they issued, the Majority tended to pooh-pooh both the arguments and the facts.

However, because the development of events was beyond their control, the issue itself passed into the realms of history. Firstly, the hot flush of the fear of German invasion dissipated, particularly after the invasion of Soviet Russia. Secondly, linked to this, a small but growing number of workers were beginning to struggle both against their working conditions as well as for pay. Though very small, we were the only organised force prepared to support them in this struggle, with the Labour Party being part of the official machinery, the Stalinists being cheer-leaders for increased production, and the rest of the Trotskyists being fragmented and basically inactive. This growing involvement in industrial struggle, small though it was, helped to blunt the differences, and a compromise solution was reached.

As for the Proletarian Military Policy, which I consider to have been basically correct, two factors operated against our ability fully to apply the policy. First, and fundamentally, despite some growth we were unable to become a major force in order to apply it. Secondly, the centre of the bloodshed of the war shifted to the Eastern Front-the British Army, for example, suffered far fewer casualties than in the First World War.

Yet the importance of the polemic about the PMP went beyond the policy: it was it symbol of the independence and growing level of maturity of the WIL. When we first turned out Workers International News we used to have a crack, which was basically true, that we only had two writers - Leon Trotsky and Ralph Lee. By the time the polemic arose Leon Trotsky had been murdered, and Ralph Lee had gone back ill to South Africa. In this context other tested comrades began to emerge as leaders, although they were still strongly influenced, and to some extent dominated, by Cannon's SWP.

The basic organisational structure began to emerge at this time, its organisational character being determined by Haston who, unlike either Healy or Grant, was a democrat in the organisational sense of the word. Already, as the polemical documents about the PMP showed, the Majority tried to 'edit' the articles of Haston.

I was called up into the army in May 1941 and took no further part in this discussion.