The Workers
International League FAQ
Programme of the International (May 1970)
(Much has changed since this document was
first produced, and we have continually refined and updated our
perspectives and analysis in subsequent books and articles.
However, the historical value of this document, especially those
parts concerning the history of the internationals, the rise of
proletarian Bonapartism, and the post-WWII period retain their full
force and value)
http://www.socialistappeal.org/faq/program_of_the_international.html
THE 1st & 2nd INTERNATIONALS
Without an international perspective, programme and policy, it is
impossible to build a movement which can face up to the tasks of
transforming society. An International is a programme, policy and a
method, and its organisation is the means for carrying that through.
The need for the International flows from the position of the
working class internationally. This in its turn has been developed
by capitalism through the organisation of world economy as one
single indivisible whole. The interests of the working-class of one
country are the same as the interests of the workers of the other
countries. Because of the division of labour established by
capitalism, the basis is laid for a new international organisation
of labour and planned production on a world scale. Thus, the
struggle of the working class on all countries forms the basis for
the movement towards Socialism.
Capitalism, through the private ownership of the means of
production, developed industry and smashed the local particularism
of Feudalism. It broke down the archaic customs dues, tolls and
exactions of Feudalism. Its great creation is the national state and
the world market. But once having accomplished this task, it itself
has become a fetter on the development of production. The national
state and private ownership of the means of production hamper the
development of society. Production possibilities can only be fully
utilised by abolishing national barriers and establishing a European
and World Federation of Workers' states. These, with state ownership
and workers' management, are a necessary transition stage on the
road to socialism. It is these factors which dictate the strategy
and tactics of the proletariat, as reflected in its conscious
leadership. In the aphorisms of Marx 'the workers have no country
and therefore 'Workers of the world unite'.
It was with these considerations in mind that Marx first organised
the First International as a means of uniting the advanced layers of
the working-class on an international scale. In the First
International were British Trade Unionists, French Radicals and
Russian Anarchists. Guided by Marx, it laid the framework for the
development of the Labour Movement in Europe, Britain and America.
In its day, the bourgeoisie trembled before the menace of Communism
in the form of the International. It established deep roots in the
main European countries. After the collapse of the Paris Commune,
there was an upswing of capitalism on a world scale. Under these
conditions, the pressures of capitalism on the labour movement
resulted in internal quarrels and factionalism. The intrigues of the
Anarchists received heightened impetus. The growth of capitalism in
an organic upswing in its turn affected the organisation
internationally. Under such circumstances, after first moving the
headquarters of the organisation to New York, Marx and Engels
decided that, for the time being, it would be better to dissolve the
International in 1876.
The work of Marx and Engels bore fruit in mass organisations of the
proletariat in Germany, France, Italy and other countries as Marx
had foreseen. This in its turn prepared the way for the organisation
of the International on the principles of Marxism, which embraced
greater masses. Thus in 1889, the Second International was born. But
the development of the Second International largely took place
within the framework of an organic upswing in capitalism, and while
in words espousing the ideas of Marxism, the top layers of world
social democracy came under the pressure of capitalism. The leaders
of the Social Democratic Parties and the Trade Union mass
organisations of the working class, became infected with the habits
and style of living of the ruling class. The habit of compromise and
discussion with the ruling class became second nature. The
negotiation of differences through compromise moulded their habits
of thought. They believed that the steady increase in the standard
of living, due to the pressure of the mass organisations, would
continue indefinitely. The leaders raised themselves a step higher
above the masses in their conditions of existence. This affected the
top layers of the Parliamentarians and the Trade Unions. 'Conditions
determine consciousness' and the decades of peaceful development
which followed the Commune of 1870, changed the character of the
leadership of the mass organisations. Supporting Socialism and the
dictatorship of the proletariat in words, and espousing
Internationalism in phrases, in practice the leadership had gone
over to the support of the national state. At the Basle Conference
of 1912, with growing contradictions of world imperialism and the
inevitability of world war, the Second International resolved to
oppose by all means, including general strike and civil war, the
attempt to throw the peoples into senseless slaughter. Lenin and the
Bolsheviks, together with Luxembourg, Trotsky and other leaders of
the movement, participated in the organisation of the Second
International as the means for the liberation of mankind from the
shackles of capitalism.
In 1914, the leaders of Social Democracy in nearly all countries
rallied to the support of their own ruling class in the First World
War. So unexpected was the crisis and the betrayer of the principles
of Socialism, that even Lenin believed that the issue of Vorwaerts,
the central organ of the German Social Democracy, containing the
support for the war credits was a forgery of the German General
Staff. The International had ingloriously collapsed at its first
serious test.
THE 3rd INTERNATIONAL
Lenin, Trotsky, Liebknecht, Luxemburg, MacLean and Connolly and
other Leaders were reduced to leading small sects. The
Internationalists of the world in 1916, as the participants of the
Zimmerwald Conference joked, could be gathered together in a few
stage coaches. The unexpectedness of the betrayal led to the
position where the Internationalists, isolated and weak, tended to
be a little ultra-left. In order to differentiate themselves from
'Social Patriots' and 'Traitors to Socialism', they were compelled
to lay down the fundamental principles of Marxism - the
responsibility of Imperialism for War, the right to
self-determination of Nationalities, the need for the conquest of
power, separation from the practice and policies of reformism. Lenin
had declared that the idea that the First World War was a 'war to
end wars' was a pernicious fairy-tale of the Labour bosses. If the
war was not followed by a series of successful Socialist
Revolutions, it would be followed by a second, a third, even a tenth
world war till the possible annihilation of mankind. The blood and
the suffering in the trenches to the profit of the millionaire
monopolists would inevitably provoke a revolt of the peoples against
the colossal slaughter.
The principles achieved their justification in the Russian
Revolution of 1917, under the leadership of the Bolsheviks. This was
followed by a series of revolutions and revolutionary situations
from 1917 to 1921. However the young forces of the new
International, which was officially founded in 1919, were weak and
immature. As a consequence, though the effect of the Russian
Revolution was to provoke a wave of radicalisation in most of the
countries of Western Europe and the organisation of mass Communist
Parties, they were too weak to take advantage of the situation. The
first waves of the radicalisation saw the masses turning to their
traditional organisations and because of the inexperience, lack of
understanding of Marxist theory, method and organisation, and due to
their immaturity, the young Communist Parties were incapable of
taking advantage of the situation. Thus capitalism was able to
stabilize itself temporarily.
In the revolutionary situation in Germany in 1923, because of the
policies of the leadership, which went through the same crisis as
the leadership of the Bolshevik Party in 1917, the opportunity to
take power was missed. After this American Imperialism hastened to
come to the aid of German capitalism for fear of 'Bolshevism' in the
west. This prepared the way for the degeneration of the Soviet
Union, because of its isolation and backwardness, and the corruption
and rotting away of the Third International.
In 1923 we had the beginning of the consolidation of the Stalinist
Bureaucracy and its usurpation of power in the Soviet Union. A
similar process to that which had taken place in the degeneration of
the Second International over the decades, took place in a short
period of time in the Soviet Union. Having conquered power in a
backward country, the Marxists were prepared confidently for the
international revolution as the only solution to the problems of the
workers of Russia and of the world. But in 1924, Stalin came forward
as the representative of Officialdom which had raised itself above
the level of the masses of the workers and peasants.
Where 'Art, Science and Government' had remained their preserve,
instead of the ideas of Marx and Lenin of the participation in
Government and the running of industry by the mass of the
population, the vested interests of the privileged layers came to
the fore. In the autumn of 1924, Stalin in violation of the
traditions of Marxism and Bolshevism, for the first time brought out
the utopian theory of 'Socialism in one country'. The
Internationalists under Trotsky fought against this theory and
predicted that it would result in the collapse of the Communist
International and the national degeneration of its sections.
Theory is not an abstraction but a guide to struggle. Theories, when
they secure mass support, must represent the interests and pressure
of groupings, castes or classes, in society. Thus the theory of
'Socialism in one country', represented the ideology of the ruling
caste in the Soviet Union, that layer of Officialdom who were
satisfied with the results of the revolution, and did not want their
privileged position disturbed. It was this outlook which now began
to change the Communist International from an instrument of
international revolution into merely a border-guard for the defence
of the Soviet Union, which was supposed to be busily constructing
Socialism on its own.
THE LEFT OPPOSITION
The expulsion of the Left Opposition in the Communist Parties which
stood by the principles of Internationalism and Marxism, now took
place. The defeat of the British General Strike and the Chinese
Revolution of 1925-1927, prepared the way for this development. At
this stage it was a question of 'mistakes' in the policies of
Stalin, Bukharin and their henchmen. It was a question of their
position as ideologists of the privileged layer and the enormous
pressures of capitalism and reformism. These mistakes of leadership
had doomed the movement of the proletariat in other countries to
defeat and disaster.
Having burned their fingers in trying to conciliate the Reformists
in the West and the Colonial bourgeoisie in the East, Stalin and his
clique zig-zagged to an ultra-Left position, dragging the leadership
of the Communist International with them. They split the German
workers instead of advocating a United Front to prevent Fascism
coming to power in Germany, and thus prepared the way, by paralysis
of the German proletariat, for the victory of Hitler. The
degeneration of the Soviet Union and the betrayal of the Third
International in its turn prepared the way for the crimes and
betrayal of the Stalinist counter-revolution in the Soviet Union.
Apart from the nationalisation of the means of production, the
monopoly of foreign trade and planned production, nothing remains of
the heritage of October. The purge, the one sided civil war in the
Soviet Union, had their counterparts in the parties of the Communist
International. The victory of Hitler and the defeats in Spain and
France were the results of these developments. From 1924 to 1927,
Stalin had based himself on an alliance with- the Kulaks and 'Nepmen'
in the Soviet Union, and the 'building of Socialism at a snail's
pace'. At the same time, abroad Stalinism stood for a 'neutralisation'
of the capitalists, and a conciliation of the Social-Democrats as a
means of 'warding-off' the threat of war. The defeat of the Left
Opposition in the Soviet Union, with its programme of a return to
Workers' Democracy, and the introduction of five-year plans, was due
to the international defeats of the proletariat, caused by Stalinist
policies.
From grovelling before the Social Democrats, and other international
'friends of the Soviet Union', the Communist International swung
over to the policies of the 'third period'. The slump of 1929-33 was
supposed to be 'the last crisis of capitalism'. Fascism and Social
Democracy were twins, and these 'theories' paved the way for the
terrible defeats of the international working-class.
At the same time, the policies of the Left Opposition in Russia won
over the most advanced elements in the most important Communist
Parties in the world. The Lessons of October, a work by Trotsky,
dealt with the lessons of the abortive revolution of 1923 in
Germany. The general programme of the opposition at home and abroad
was answered by expulsions not only in the Russian Party, but in the
main sections of the International. There was a rise of opposition
groups in Germany, France, Britain, Spain, USA, South Africa and
other countries. The programme of the opposition at this time was
one of reform in the Soviet Union and the International, and the
adoption of correct policies as against the opportunism of the
period of 1923 to 1927, and the adventurism of the period from 1927
to 1933.
These splits, as Engels had remarked in another connection, were a
healthy development in the sense of attempting to maintain the best
traditions of Bolshevism and of the ideal of the Communist
International. The crisis of leadership was the crisis of the
International and of all mankind. Thus, these splits were a means of
maintaining the ideals and methods of Marxism. In the first period
of its existence, the Left Opposition regarded itself as a section
of the Communist International; although expelled, and stood for the
reform of the International.
The masses, and even the advanced layers of the proletariat, only
learn through the lessons of great events. All history has shown
that the masses can never give up their old organisations until
these have been tested in the fire of experience. Up till 1933, the
Marxist wing of the International still stood for the reform of the
Soviet Union and the Communist International. Whether they would
remain viable organisations would be shown by the test of history.
Thus tenaciously the opposition maintained itself, although formally
outside the ranks, as part of the International.
It was the coming to power of Hitler and the refusal of the
Communist International to learn the lesson of the defeat which
doomed it as an instrument of the working-class in the struggle for
Socialism. Far from analysing the reasons for the fatal policy of
Social Fascism, the sections of the Communist International declared
the victory of Hitler to be a victory for the working-class, and as
late as 1934 continued the same suicidal policies in France, of
united action with the Fascists against the 'Social Fascists' and
the 'Radical Fascists'. Daladier, which if successful would have
prepared the way for the Fascist coup in France in February 1934.
THE 4th INTERNATIONAL
This betrayal and the terrible effect of the Hitler defeat led to a
reappraisal of the role of the Communist International. An
International which could perpetrate the treachery of surrendering
the German proletariat to Hitler, without a shot being fired and
without provoking a crisis within its ranks, could no longer serve
the needs of the proletariat. An International which could acclaim
this disaster as a victory could not fulfil its role as a leadership
of the proletariat. As an instrument of World Socialism, the Third
International was dead. From an instrument of International
Socialism, the Communist International had degenerated into a
complete and docile tools of the Kremlin, into an instrument of
Russian Foreign Policy. It was now necessary to prepare the way for
the organisation of a Fourth International, untarnished with the
crimes and betrayals which besmirched the Reformist and Stalinist
Internationals.
As in the days after the collapse of the Second International, the
Revolutionary Internationalists remained small isolated sects. In
Belgium they had a couple of MPs and an organisation of a thousand
or two, in Austria and Holland, the same. The forces of the new
international were weak and immature, nevertheless they had the
guidance and assistance of Trotsky, and the perspectives of great
historical events. They were educated on the basis of an analysis of
the experience of the Second and Third Internationals, and of the
Russian, German and Chinese Revolutions and the British General
Strike, and of the great events which had followed the First World
War. In this way cadres were to be trained and educated, as the
indispensable skeleton of the body of the new International.
It was this period, taking into account the historical isolation of
the movement from the mass organisations of the Social Democracy and
Communist party, that the tactic of 'entrism' was evolved. In order
to win the best workers, it was necessary to find a way of
influencing them. This could only be done by working together with
them in the mass organisations. Thus beginning with the ILP in
Britain, the idea of entrism was worked out for the mass
organisations of Social Democracy. This, where they were in a state
of crisis and moving towards the left. Thus, with the developing
revolutionary situation in France there was an entry into the
Socialist Party. In Britain the entry of the ILP, then in a state of
flux and ferment after breaking from the Labour Party, was followed
by entry by many of the Trotskyists, on Trotsky's advice, into the
Labour Party. In the USA there was an entry into the Socialist
Party.
In the main, the pre-war period was one of preparation and
orientation and selection of cadres or leading elements to be
trained and steeled theoretically and practically, in the movement
of the masses.
The tactic of entry was also considered as a short term expedient,
forced on the revolutionaries by their isolation from the masses,
and the impossibility of tiny organisations getting the ear and
finding support among the mass of the working class. It was for the
purpose of working among the radical elements looking for
revolutionary solutions, who would in the first place turn towards
the mass organisations. But always under all conditions the main
ideas of Marxism should be put forward and the revolutionary banner
i.e. the ideas of Marxism, maintained and defended. It was a
question of acquiring experience and understanding, of combating
both sectarianism and opportunism. It was a means of developing a
flexible approach, with the implacability of principle, as a means
of preparing the cadres for the great events which impended.
The defeats of the working class in Germany, France and in the civil
war in Spain, the defeats of the immediate post-war period, which
were entirely due to the policies of the Second and Third
Internationals, in their turn prepared the way for the Second World
War. The paralysis of the proletariat in Europe, in conjunction with
the new aggravated crisis of world capitalism made the Second World
War absolutely inevitable. It was in this atmosphere that the 1938
founding conference of the Fourth International took place.
TROTSKY'S PERSPECTIVES
The document which was adopted at the conference itself is an
indication of the reason for its foundation. The Transitional
Programme of the FI is linked to the idea of mass work, which itself
is geared to the idea of the Socialist Revolution through
transitional slogans, from today's contradictory reality. As
distinct from the minimum and maximum programme of the Social
Democracy is put the idea of a Transitional Programme, transitional
from capitalism to the socialist revolution. This is an indication
of the consideration of the epoch as one of wars and revolutions.
Thus, all work has to be linked to the idea of the Socialist
Revolution.
The perspective of Trotsky was that of war, which in its turn would
provoke revolution. The problem of Stalinism would be resolved one
way or another. Either the Soviet Union would be regenerated through
political revolution against Stalinism, or the victory of the
revolution in one of the important countries would resolve the
situation on a world scale. With proletarian revolution victorious,
the problem of the Internationals of both Stalinism and Reformism
would be solved by events themselves.
This conditional prognosis, although revealing a fundamental
understanding of processes in class society, was not borne out by
events. Due to the peculiar military and political events of the
war, Stalinism was temporarily strengthened. The revolutionary wave,
during and following the Second World War in Europe was this time
betrayed by the Stalinists in a worse fashion than the revolutionary
wave following the First World War was betrayed by the leaders of
the Second International.
The International remained, as it must even up to the present day,
on the principles worked out and evolved in the first four
Congresses of the Communist International and the experience of
Stalinism, Fascism and the great events up to the Second World War.
Trotsky's idea in pushing for the foundation of the Fourth
International in 1938 was because of the collapse of Stalinism and
reformism as revolutionary tendencies within the working class. Both
had become enormous obstacles on the path of the emancipation of the
working class, and from being a means for the destruction of
capitalism had become incapable of leading the proletariat to the
victory of the Socialist Revolution.
The question of new parties and a new International was a question
of the immediate perspectives which lay ahead. A new world war in
its turn would provoke a new revolutionary wave in the metropolitan
countries and among the colonial peoples. The problems of Stalinism
in Russia and the world would thereby be solved by these
revolutionary perspectives. Under these conditions it was imperative
to prepare organisationally as well as politically for the great
events which were on the order of the day. Thus, in 1938 Trotsky
predicted that within ten years nothing would be left of the old
traitor organisations, and the Fourth International would have
become the decisive revolutionary force on the planet. There was
nothing wrong with the basic analysis but every prognosis is
conditional; the multiplicity of factors, economically, politically,
socially, can always result in a different development than that
foreseen. The weakness of the revolutionary forces, indeed, has been
a decisive factor in the development of world politics, in the more
than thirty years since Trotsky wrote. Unfortunately, the mandarins
of the 'Fourth International', on its leading body, without
Trotsky's guidance and without Trotsky's presence interpreted this
idea of Trotsky's not as a worked out thesis but as literally
correct. (See note 1)
POST-WAR DEVELOPMENTS AND THE ROLE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
'LEADERS'
The War developed on different lines to what even the greatest
theoretical geniuses could have expected. The process has been
explained in many documents of our tendency. The victories of Hitler
in the first period of the war among other factors, was due to the
policies of Stalinism in the preceding period. The attack on the
Soviet Union, and the crimes and bestialities of the Nazis (Fascism
is the chemically distilled essence of Imperialism as Trotsky once
explained), without any check or balance from the working class in
Germany, prostrate and without rights in front of the Nazi monsters,
meant that the workers' and peasants in the Soviet Union saw as an
immediate task, not the cleansing and restoration of workers'
democracy in the Soviet Union through the political revolution, but
the defeat of the Nazi hordes. As a consequence for a whole
historical period, Stalinism was temporarily strengthened.
The war in Europe resolved itself largely into a war between
Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany. Anglo-American Imperialism
miscalculated the perspective completely. They had visualised that
either the Soviet Union would be defeated, in which case they would
then knock out a weakened Germany and emerge as the world victors,
or that the Soviet Union would be so weakened in the course of the
bloody holocaust on the eastern Front, that they would be enabled to
dictate the course of world politics, world diplomacy and world
redivision according to their whims and desires.
Trotsky's calculation proved correct in the sense that the Second
World War was succeeded by an even greater revolutionary wave than
after the First World War, but the masses of the different countries
of Europe where, after Russia was attacked, the Communist Parties
had played the major role in the resistance to the Nazis, rallied to
the Communist Party and also in many countries to the Social
Democrats. Already at this stage, the outline was given of the
collapse of the leaders of the nascent International in the disputes
which began to take place.
In 1944 it was necessary to re-orientate the movement in order to
understand that a lengthy period of capitalist democracy in the West
and of Stalinist domination in Russia was on the order of the day.
In the documents of the Revolutionary Communist Party, it was made
clear that the next period in western Europe was that of
counter-revolution in a democratic form. This was because of the
impossibility of the bourgeoisie maintaining their rule in Western
Europe without the aid of Stalinism and of Social Democracy.
The International Secretariat (ISFI) equivocated, the American
Socialist Workers Party and some of the other leaders temporised on
the question and argued that on the contrary the only form of rule
which the bourgeoisie could maintain in Europe was that of a
military dictatorship and Bonapartism. Incapable of understanding
the turn which had taken place in historical development, they could
not understand that Stalinist Russia emerged strengthened out of the
war, and that far from Imperialism being on the offensive, it was
Imperialism that was on the defensive.
The alliance of Anglo-American Imperialism and the Soviet
Bureaucracy, was dictated by mutual fear of the Socialist Revolution
in the advanced countries of the world. At the same time the
revolutionary wave sweeping over Europe and the World, made it
impossible for Anglo-American Imperialism, at a time when it was at
its strongest in relation to Russia, and Russia at her weakest, to
take advantage of the situation by an intervention on the scale even
of that of 1918. They were impotent because of the revolutionary
wave. Not understanding the changed relationship of forces, and the
meaning of the enormous tidal-wave of revolution, the resolution
drafted by the ISFI for the World Conference of 1946 even declared
that 'diplomatic pressure alone' could 'restore capitalism in the
Soviet Union'!
THE CHANGED RELATIONSHIPS IN EASTERN EUROPE AND CHINA
With complete lack of perspective in relation to Western Europe,
their position on the theoretical problems facing the movement in
relation to Eastern Europe, was even worse. They did not understand
the impulse given to the revolution by the advance of the Red Army,
an impulse which was then used by the bureaucracy for their own
ends. After using it, they then strangled the revolution. It was not
a question of the Stalinists capitulating to capitalism under these
conditions, but carrying through the revolution and then
refashioning it in a Stalinist-Bonapartist form.
The 'alliance' between the classes in Eastern Europe was like that
in Spain of the Popular Front, an alliance not with the capitalists
but with the shadow of the capitalist class. But in Spain they
allowed the shadow to acquire substance. The real power in
Republican Spain was handed to the capitalist class, but in all the
countries in Eastern Europe the substance of power, the army and the
police, were held by the Stalinist Parties, and they only allowed
the shadow of power to the coalition allies.
The Stalinists used the revolutionary situation in all these
countries; where the ruling class had been compelled to evacuate
with the Nazi Armies as they retreated, because of fear of the
revenge of the masses, for their collaboration with the Nazis. As
the Nazi Armies retreated, the state structure collapsed. The army
and the police fled or went into hiding. Thus the only armed force
in Eastern Europe was the Red Army. Balancing between the classes,
the Bonapartist clique proceeded to construct a state not in the
image of Russia of 1917, but of the Russia of Stalin. A state in the
image of Moscow 1945 was created.
These new historical phenomena, although foreshadowed in Trotsky's
writings, were a closed book to the so-called leaders of the
International. They declared the countries of Eastern Europe to be
State Capitalist, while Russia, of course, still remained a
degenerated Workers' State. Such a position was incompatible with
any Marxist analysis. For, if Eastern Europe, where the means of
production had been nationalised and a plan of production had been
produced, was capitalist then it was absurd to maintain that Russia,
where the same conditions of bureaucratic dictatorship were in
existence, was any sort of Workers' State. The conditions were
fundamentally the same.
Thus, both for Western and Eastern Europe, these 'leaders' were
incapable of understanding the perspectives and of basing the
education of the revolutionary cadres on them. Important forces in
France and in other countries were frittered away in the arguments
over these questions.
But their record in relation to the second greatest event in human
history, the Chinese Revolution, was if anything worse. Not
understanding the peasant war waged by Mao Tse-Tung and his
followers, and not calculating the world relationship of forces,
they were content to repeat at this time ideas which they had taken
from Trotsky's work but not understood. The declared that Mao was
endeavoring to capitulate to Chiang Kai-Shek, and that there was a
repetition of the revolution of 1925-27. In the first place, the
civil war was being waged on the question of land, and the constant
offers of peace by the Chinese Stalinists were on the basis of land
reform, and the expropriation of 'bureaucratic capital', a programme
which it was impossible for Chiang to accept. They had not
understood that as a consequence of the experience of China since
the 1925-27 revolution and the complete incapacity of Chinese
Bourgeoisie to solve the problems of the Democratic Revolution; of
the national unification of China and the struggle against
Imperialism, as revealed in the war against Japan - that new
perspectives were opening out.
On the one hand, there was the passivity of the working class in
China and on the other, the peasant war, which was on the lines of
those which had developed in China many times previously in the
course of the last millennium. There was also the paralysis of
imperialism due to the revolutionary wave following the Second World
War. All these factors gave the possibility of a new direction of
events. In 1947, in a document analysing the position in China, (in
reply to David James) the RCP foreshadowed the steps which Mao would
take in the event of victory in the civil war, a victory which was
inevitable under the circumstances.
At that time the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party were
declaring that China stood before fifty years of 'capitalist
democracy'. They had their alliance with the so-called 'national
capitalists', but Marxist analysis would not take this very
seriously. Power was in the hands of the Red Army. Thus, we
predicted that on the model of Eastern Europe, Mao would balance
between the classes, and in the changed conditions, nationally and
internationally, would construct a state in the image of that where
Stalin had finished and not where Lenin had begun. Thus, right from
the start of the revolution, China was heading towards a Bonapartist
workers' state. The leaders of the International Secretariat and of
the Chinese section maintained that Mao was capitulating to
capitalism and to Chiang-Kai-Shek. Even after the complete victory
of the Chinese Stalinists the ISFI did not understand its
significance, but declared that China like Eastern Europe, was State
Capitalist, although they did not define the term.
They then declared for grandiose revolutionary perspectives in China
and in Eastern Europe. Mao would not be able to maintain his
'capitalist rule' for long. In Eastern Europe the 'State Capitalist'
regimes were in a state of immediate crisis, which would lead to
their overthrow. They did not understand that, leaving aside events
in the main capitalist metropolitan countries or a victorious
political revolution in Russia, that for a decade or two at least,
the regimes in eastern Europe and in China, would remain firmly in
control.
They continued to repeat that the world war was going to solve the
problems of the revolution, and in the case of one leader, as the
war had not solved the problems, he maintained that 'the war was
still on'. After the war they immediately declared monotonously,
that there was going to be an immediate outbreak of a new world war,
each succeeding year onwards from 1945, a nuclear war was going to
bring Socialism. In diluted form, even today, they repeat this idea.
At each crisis of Imperialism, or between imperialism and the Soviet
Bureaucracy, they get out the tom-toms and beat out the same hoary
message. To this day, they have not understood that the problems of
war in the modern epoch is a problem of the relationship between the
classes; that only definitive defeats of the working class in the
main capitalist countries, particularly America, can lay the basis
for a new world war. (See our documents on the question, in
particular 'World Perspectives').
EASTERN EUROPE AND THE STALINIST STATES
As always, the hammering that their ideas received on the basis of
events, coupled with their refusal to analyse their mistakes, merely
pushed the ISFI into opposite and worse mistakes; from declaring
China and Eastern Europe capitalist states, they now passed to the
opposite extreme.
After the National Bureaucracy in Yugoslavia under Tito, came into
conflict with the Russian Bureaucracy they now discovered that
Yugoslavia was a 'relatively healthy workers' state'. Not
understanding the nature of the conflict, in which critical support
should have been given to the Yugoslavs, they began to idealise
'hero Tito' and to declare that the new International could arise on
Yugoslav soil.
Having been forced to change their characterisation of China from a
Capitalist State to that of a workers' state, they declared that
China too was a 'relatively healthy workers state'! They did not
take into account the conditions and the way in which the revolution
had taken place in China. The immeasurable backwardness of China in
comparison with Russia, the fact that the working class had played
no independent role in these great events, and, therefore had
remained passive; that on a world scale, for a whole historical
period, even though temporarily, capitalism had succeeded in
stabilising itself in the west and that the Socialist Revolution was
not imminent in the metropolitan countries of the west, meant that
therefore, the Chinese Stalinists and the Chinese Bureaucracy had an
even greater stranglehold on the Chinese State and the Chinese
people than even the Russian Bureaucracy had obtained. For the
Socialist Revolution, it requires above all, the conscious
participation of the working class in the revolution, and after the
revolution the conscious control and democratic participation of the
workers in the running of industry and the state by the working
class. To this day those 'leaders' have not understood this problem
and still regard China and Yugoslavia as 'relatively healthy
workers' states', which merely require reform, similar to that of
the Russia of 1917-23, and not at all political revolution, defined
and understood by Trotsky.
Thus they reinforced the errors of their previous position by
violating some of the fundamental ideas of Marxism, but now at the
opposite pole. They repeated this process like the Stalinists before
them: at every great turn of events, zig-zagging from one position
to another, and never using the Marxist method of analysing events
from their original standpoint, correcting the errors and preparing
the way for a higher level of thought on this basis. Each change in
line, each change in tactic, abruptly brought forward like tablets
from on high, to be given in resounding speeches and documents to
the faithful. It is this, among other factors, which was one of the
main causes of the complete incapacity to orientate correctly to the
development of events. Such an honesty of purpose can be obtained
only by those confident of themselves, of their ideas, and of their
political authority. Only by such means can cadres of the
revolutionary movement be educated, built and steeled for the great
task which impends before mankind.
Having maintained that the whole of Eastern Europe and China were
some peculiar form of State Capitalism which was never defined,
analysed or explained they now went off at a 180 degree tangent:
without explanation and analysis, purely impressionistically they
did a complete somersault. The Yugoslav regime having broken with
Stalin because of the vested interests of the Yugoslav bureaucracy,
they discovered in Tito a new saviour for the Fourth International.
Yugoslavia was transformed into a 'relatively healthy workers'
state'.
Instead of seeing on the one hand, of course, the need to give
critical support to the struggle of the Yugoslav people against
national oppression by the Russian Bureaucracy, but at the same time
explaining the vested interests of the national bureaucracy in the
split, they idealised the latter. Whereas in Russia a political
revolution still remained necessary (this must have been for some
remote historical reason because Trotsky said so. They didn't
explain the reasons. Deutscher managed to make the transition and
discover that political revolution was not necessary in Russia). In
Yugoslavia the ISFI now discovered that a Socialist revolution had
taken place during the war and the post-war period.
As a consequence of this, whereas the Socialist revolution in Russia
had been isolated, the revolution in Yugoslavia, because of the
revolution in Russia, had not been isolated. The ISFI said the
reason for the development of Stalinism in Russia was the fact that
it was the only country where the revolution had been triumphant:
now that the revolution had been expanded, there was no question of
a similar deformation taking place. Therefore, they concluded
triumphantly, there could be no repetition of Stalinism in
Yugoslavia, and consequently, in Yugoslavia there was a healthy
workers' state with minor deformations. They proceeded to organise
international work-teams to render assistance to 'building
socialism' in Yugoslavia.
Their propaganda was as uncritical and laudatory as the Stalinist
propaganda for visits of youth teams 'to build Socialism in Russia.'
The whole episode is an indication of the sociological 'method' of
this tendency. Mandel and Co. put forward the same argument for the
so-called 'cultural revolution' in China, and of course, to this day
for Cuba. In the first place it was the backwardness of the Soviet
Union together with its isolation, and the defeats of the world
working class which was responsible for the rise to power of the
Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia. But once having come to power, the
bureaucracy itself with the state power in its hands, becomes an
independent factor in the situation. The Stalinist Bureaucracy in
Yugoslavia was no different in fundamentals from that in Russia. The
Tito clique began where Stalin ended. At no time was there workers'
democracy such as that of Russia of 1917-23. The movement in
Yugoslavia during the war was mainly a national peasant war of
liberation. The state which was constructed was a one party
totalitarian regime in the image of Russia with the perfected
Stalinist apparatus.
Yugoslavia was a very backward country. Consequently in the
Yugoslavian state apparatus were incorporated the elements of the
old ruling class, in diplomacy, in the Army and the rest of the
state apparatus.
This was the same process, of course, as that which had taken place
in Russia. But without the check and control of workers' democracy,
there could be no question of a healthy workers' state. A movement
towards socialism in a transitional economy requires the conscious
control and participation by the working class. Thus under these
circumstances, like conditions and causes give and must give the
same results. Leaving aside this or that peculiarity, the
fundamental features of the regime in Yugoslavia were no different
from those of Stalinism in Russia. It was a complete revision of
Marxism to suggest otherwise.
To this day, all those tendencies which took up this position have
not re-evaluated their theoretical attitude in the light of events.
From Pablo, through Posadas, Healy, Mandel and Hansen, no attempt
has been made to re-evaluate their theoretical errors. Consequently
the most weird combinations of ideas manage to jog together in their
writings. Healy finds it quite consistent to characterise Cuba as
State Capitalist, while hailing the so-called new version of the
Paris-Commune in the Cultural Revolution in China. The 'Voix
Ouvriere' (now 'Lutte Ouvriere') tendency in France, still remaining
on the position of the IS of 1945-47 after 35 years of events, still
finds it compatible to say that Russia is a degenerated workers'
state, while Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia and Cuba are capitalist
states. ALL OF THESE TENDENCIES DECLARE SYRIA AND BURMA TO BE
CAPITALIST. The United Secretariat itself, through all its zig-zags,
pays the penalty of a lack of theoretical honesty by compounding the
mistakes of the past.
Thus, to this day, they remain cloudy on the question of whether a
political revolution is necessary in China and Yugoslavia, the
majority believing that these are 'relatively healthy' workers'
states, and so no political revolution is necessary, but only
reform.
DEVELOPMENTS IN THE STALINIST STATES
During the course of the last quarter century, this tendency has
lost completely its theoretical moorings. Caught by surprise by the
development of events, they have always reacted empirically and
impressionistically, capitulating to the immediate reality without
seeing the future development, inevitable under the circumstances,
of groupings and tendencies. Not only in relation to Tito in
Yugoslavia, which arises from the incorrect analysis and lack of
understanding of proletarian bonapartism, but also in relation to
all the big events in the countries of the Stalinist bloc. The
movement in 1956 in Hungary, which took the form of a complete
overthrow of the bureaucracy and the beginning of a political
revolution in general, they supported - not to have done so would
have meant abandoning any pretence to stand in the tradition of
Trotskyism. But this did not prevent them from lumping the movement
in Poland taking place at the same time, in the same category as the
Hungarian Revolution.
They did not see that in Hungary there was almost the complete
destruction of the so-called Communist Party and the beginning of an
organisation of a new workers' movement. The Hungarian workers,
after the experiences of Stalinist totalitarianism, were not
prepared to tolerate for a single moment, the construction of a new
totalitarian Stalinist state during the course of the revolution.
In Poland events developed somewhat differently. The national
struggle against the oppression of the great Russian Bureaucracy was
derailed by a section of the Polish bureaucrats onto national
Stalinist lines. Not understanding this, the leaders of the ISFI saw
in Gomulka the representative of 'democratic communism'. They did
not see that he represented that wing of the Polish bureaucracy
which wanted to establish itself as 'master in its own house' and
relatively independent of the Russian Bureaucracy. That there was no
fundamental difference between them and the reformist wing of the
Russian bureaucracy was not clear to them. No more than Kruschev did
they really wish to renew the basis of the revolution, or turn
towards Russia of 1917. What was more to the point, that they were
opposed to the attempt to install socialist democracy in Hungary.
Therefore the potential political revolution in Poland was derailed
on national Stalinist lines. Like his national Stalinist brothers in
Russia, the Polish bureaucrat could only swing from repression to
reform and back again while maintaining the Stalinist apparatus
intact. The ISFI saw in Gomulka the beginning of a complete change
in the situation in Poland, as they had illusions in the de-Stalinisation
in the Soviet Union. At each stage in events, they have looked to
some sort of Messiah to save them from isolation and lack of mass
forces. Each time they have been doomed to disillusion and
disappointment.
Not content with having burned their fingers with Maoism, the split
between Russia and China, which caught them by surprise, -
nevertheless resulted in a refurbishing of the illusions of Maoism.
They dusted out the 'secret' idea that China was a healthy workers'
state with minor blemishes, a state requiring merely reform and not
overthrow. (See note 2) Mao was to be the new saviour. They
completely misinterpreted the meaning of the 'cultural revolution'
in China.
Trotsky had already explained that proletarian Bonapartism sometimes
rested on the workers and peasants in order to purge the worse
excesses of the greedy and rapacious bureaucracy. In the
introduction of the 5 year plans in Russia, for a period Stalin
leaned on the workers and peasants, and even engendered enthusiasm
among the workers for what they considered to be socialist
construction. But this did not alter the character, methods and
policy of Stalinism. This did not change the character of the state
regime. Making a scapegoat of individuals, or even a section of the
bureaucracy, far from changing anything fundamentally merely
reinforced bureaucratic rule. Thus Maoism and the 'cultural
revolution' did not change anything fundamentally in China.
Mao, resting on the basis of workers and peasants stuck blows at
sections of the bureaucracy which had accumulated privileges and a
material position far in excess of what the weak productive forces
in China could maintain. The differentiation between workers and
peasants and bureaucratic layers had reached such an extent as to
provoke enormous dissatisfaction among the workers and peasants.
Thus if the workers and peasants were to be harnessed for the tasks
of producing heavy industry, nuclear arms and a reinforcement of
production in China, it was necessary, if only temporarily, to cut
down on these privileges. But the 'cultural revolution' was
organised from the top, from the beginning to the end. To talk of
new versions of the Paris Commune in Shanghai, Peking and the other
cities of China, was to bespatter with mud the tradition of the
Commune and the Russian Revolution. The inevitable end of this
experience, as with Gomulka in Poland, was the reinforcement of the
power of the bureaucracy in China. On this road there was no way out
for the Chinese or Polish masses. The ISFI's constant search for
some means whereby, as if by magic, the problems would be resolved,
has always been a symptom of petit-bourgeois utopianism, which
replaces Marxist analysis by hysterical hopes in this or that
individual or tendency.
The capitulation to various brands of Stalinism or utopianism at
each stage in the development of events did enormous harm to the
creation of a viable movement. Thus in Italy, it was the 'Trotskyists',
or to be more accurate the so-called leaders of the 'Trotskyists',
who helped in the formation of a large Maoist movement of 100,000
members. Enthusiastically and uncritically republishing the works of
Maoism and distributing them within the Communist Party, they
created the basis for Maoism in Italy. The leaders of these
tendencies made special trips to the Chinese Embassy in Switzerland
to get this 'precious' material. The consequence of this uncritical
acceptance of Maoism is that they won hardly a single member from
the 100,000 but, on the contrary, have lost members to the Maoists!
Thus the penalty for theoretical confusion, particularly for a weak
tendency, always paid in full. Even worse is the confusion and
demoralisation which is sown among their own ranks. The task under
these conditions was, while offering a friendly attitude to the CP
rank and file, those tending to Maoism and those against it, at the
same time offering sharp criticisms not only of the opportunist
pro-Moscow wing but also to the ignorant and cynical position of the
Maoists, beginning with the leaders in Peking.
COLONIAL REVOLUTION - ALGERIA
Discouraged by their lack of success (mainly due to objective
circumstances, partly due to false policies) they put the
responsibilities for this, as always in such conditions, on the
shoulders of the working class. The workers had become corrupt and
Americanised through prosperity, they said in effect. Their policies
indicated that this is what they believed. They therefore looked for
a new talisman which would renew and revive the fortunes of the
International and the working class. This they found in the Colonial
Revolution.
The recent documents of our tendency have explained the significance
of the Colonial Revolution and the developments within it. It is
sufficient here to say that the upheavals in the so-called Third
World arise from the impasse of capitalism and imperialism to
develop the productive forces in these areas to the maximum extent
necessary and possible. But given the world conditions, the
existence of strong Bonapartist workers' states, and the balance of
forces between imperialism and non-capitalist countries, the
developments in these areas have taken a peculiar pattern. Under
these conditions, it is more than ever necessary to maintain with
implacable determination the ideas of Trotsky on the Permanent
Revolution, to learn from the experience of China, Yugoslavia and
Cuba and to maintain a separation from all the tendencies,
bourgeois-nationalist, petty-bourgeois-nationalist, Stalinist and
reformist.
In Algeria they tied themselves almost completely to the banner of
the FLN, although their position was better than that of the
Lambertists (OCI in France), and Healyites (WRP), who supported the
MNA which, starting from a position somewhat to the left of the FLN,
ended up as an agency of the French imperialists. To give critical
support to the FLN was correct, but to subordinate completely the
work of their section to the Nationalist Movement, could only mean
that the weak forces under their control would be lost in the war of
liberation. While maintaining full support for the just struggle for
national independence from French Imperialism, at the same time it
was necessary for the Algerian Trotskyists to maintain the position
of Internationalism. Only thus could the struggle for national
liberation, be linked with the struggle of the working class in
France, and the possibility of a Socialist Algeria linked to a
Socialist France. The treachery of the Social Democrat and Stalinist
organisations in France, which led to the Algerian Revolution taking
a nationalist orientation was no reason to abandon the worked out
ideas of Marxism-Leninism on the question.
It should have been clear, that at best after the victory over the
French, it in itself an enormous step forward, it would be
impossible to construct a workers' democracy in a country like
Algeria. The result would be either a bourgeois or a proletarian
version of Bonapartism, with hardly any industry, with a population
decimated by war, no strong indigenous working class, with half the
population unemployed and without a revolutionary class party. All
these factors, without the aid above all of the French and
international working class, meant that there could be no real
solution, apart from the removal of Imperialism, for the Algerian
people.
The illusions that they disseminated about workers' control in the
abandoned French agricultural estates showed a complete lack of
theoretical grasp on this question. Workers' control by its very
nature, must proceed from the industrial workers and not from the
half peasant, half agricultural workers' associations which took
control because the French managers had fled. At best these were
primitive versions of glorified co-operatives and not examples of
workers' control and workers' management. By their very nature they
were temporary structures without any real future. Given that the
Socialist Revolution did not extend to the advanced countries they
were doomed as an interesting curiosity of social development,
indicating the instinctive strivings of the agricultural
semi-proletariat, as there had been many such movements at a time of
mass awakening in many countries in the past.
The coup of Boumedienne in July 1965 came as a surprise to them,
although one way or the other, a similar development of events was
inevitable in Algeria. In all the colonial countries where the
struggle for the expulsion of imperialist overlords has been
successful, similar processes have taken place. Although political
independence has been gained, economically they still remain
dependent on the industrialised countries. This of course marks an
enormous step forward in the development of the colonial peoples.
Nevertheless, national independence with imperialist dominance of
the world markets on the one side and the strength of the Stalinist
Bonapartism on the other, has meant that new problems of formidable
character are posed before these peoples. The native bourgeoisie are
incapable of solving these problems. Thus in the former colonial
territories of Africa, in semi-colonial areas of Latin America, and
in most of the countries in Asia, military regimes of one sort or
the other have taken power. The crisis of these regimes has forced a
move either towards proletarian or capitalist Bonapartism.
While putting the emphasis on the colonial revolution as a solution
to the problem of the Fourth International, at the same time blindly
they have not understood the dialectic of this process. The whole
development of the colonial revolution has taken a distorted form
because of the lag of the revolution in the west (America and Japan
are included in this). The weakness of the Marxist-Leninist forces
due to the historical factors sketched previously played an enormous
part in this process. It in turn meant that with the ripeness of the
colonial world for social evolution, this has taken all forms of
weird aberrations. It was the duty for the Marxist leadership to
recognise the process and to give leadership to the young and weak
forces of Marxism in the colonial world. Instead of this, the ISFI
(in spite of the lessons drawn by Trotsky from the experience of the
Communist Party with the Kuomintang in China, the rich experiences
of Yugoslavia, China, Russia, and the countries of Africa) failing
to draw the necessary conclusions, bowed down before the mighty
Colonial Revolution. It is better to participate than to oppose. But
to merge indistinguishably with the petit-bourgeois nationalists, to
capitulate to middle class utopias, was to dissolve the vanguard in
the nationalist miasma.
LATIN AMERICA - CUBA
The complete lack of Marxist method in their approach is indicated
by their attitude to the Cuban Revolution. The Cuban Revolution, the
ISFI say, is an example of Marxist method. In reality, the army of
Castro was gathered together on a bourgeois democratic programme and
consisted in the main of agricultural workers, peasants and lumpen
proletarian elements. Castro started off as a Bourgeois democrat
with the United States as his model society. The intervention of the
working class took place when the struggle was in its final stage,
when Castro was marching on Havana - the workers called a general
strike in his assistance. The fall of Havana meant the collapse of
the hated army and police of the Batista regime. Power was firmly in
the hands of Castro's guerrillas.
The development of the
regime towards the destruction of capitalism and landlordism did not
take place as a result of a thought out, conscious process. On the
contrary, it was the mistakes of American Imperialism which pushed
Castro on the road of expropriation.
With 90% of the economy owned by American Capitalists, the American
ruling class imposed on Cuba a blockade at a time when Castro was
carrying out only bourgeois-democratic reforms. The monopolies which
controlled Cuba opposed the taxes which Castro wished to impose in
order to get the money for his reforms. Although these taxes were
lower than the taxes they paid on the mainland, they furiously
objected and appealed to Washington for support.
As a reprisal to the
blockade, the Cuban regime seized American assets in Cuba. This
meant that nine tenths of agriculture and industry was in the hands
of the state, so the Cuban regime then proceeded to nationalise the
remaining tenth. They had the model of Yugoslavia, China and Russia,
and established a regime in that image. At no stage was there
workers' democracy in Cuba. The Bonapartism of the regime is
embodied in the rule of Castro and the meetings in the Square of the
Revolution where the sole contribution of the masses is to say 'Si'
to Castro's exhortations. Cuba has remained throughout, a one party
state, without soviets and without workers' control of industry or
the state.
Consequently, more and more it has become bureaucratised. This was
inevitable, given the isolation of the revolution and the way in
which the revolution has developed. The workers' militia has been
disarmed and differentiation between the bureaucrats - especially
the higher bureaucrats - and the working class is steadily
developing. The development of a state apparatus above and
independent of the masses proceeds apace.
Behind the scenes, Castro is
attempting to negotiate an agreement with American Imperialism for
recognition and aid: and an agreement is probably inevitable in the
next period. This will end the 'revolutionary appeals' which Castro
directs to Latin America. Cuba, will more and more in the thoughts
of its leaders be bounded by the narrow shores of the island in the
relations with the nations and classes of the world.
As it is, the Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia gives aid of a million
pounds a day, without which the regime could not survive. For a
regime of workers' democracy, the bureaucracy of the Soviet Union
would not give one kopeck. It is only because the regime, in its
basic outline, becomes more and more like that of all the other
Bonapartist workers' states, that the bureaucracy can permit itself
the luxury of fraternal aid to Cuba.
Given a wrong theoretical starting point, one error can only be
piled upon another, Thus, the USFI is completely blind to the
processes taking place on the island. They refuse to face up to the
issue of the inevitable degeneration and decay of the regime on
totalitarian lines, and persist in their reactionary dream of a
Cuba, an agricultural and backward Cuba, moving towards Socialism.
Apparently, only minor reforms are needed for Cuba to be a model
workers' democracy! There is no question of a political revolution
which would mean the control of industry and the state by the
workers, but again of mythical reforms which would install a
workers' democracy. Control of industry and the state by the working
classes can be gained by persuading Castro that this is necessary!
On the other hand they argue in the most obscure fashion that this
already exists, in fact that Cuba is more democratic than the Russia
of 1917-23. In reality, if Castro were to even attempt such actions,
he would be removed by the bureaucracy. Apart from the fact that
without any ideological background, Castro believes that the type of
regime he is building is 'Socialism'. He could not play the role
that he does without ideological blinkers. But the sectarians
without the pressure of the interests of the bureaucracy,
nevertheless succumb to this variant of Stalinism and voluntarily
don the blinkers themselves.
To this day, as with the experience of the entire quarter century,
this tendency has learned nothing and forgotten everything. In Latin
America, they repeat the mistakes in Algeria and in a different form
the estimation of China, Yugoslavia and Cuba. Now Bolivia has become
the magical means by which the world situation can be transformed.
They merge with the petit-bourgeois guerrillas in an attempt to
repeat the experience of Cuba. Castro, the 'unconscious Trotskyist',
the new messiah of Marxism, is the example that they wish to
emulate. Not taking into account the change in circumstances, the
different conditions, the awareness of the ruling class, and of
Imperialism, they support such adventures as those of Guevara, who
attempted artificially to inject guerrilla war amongst the peasants.
The heroism of Guevara
should not blind us to his theoretical bankruptcy. To endeavour to
repeat in the countries of Latin America the policies of Castroism
in Cuba, is to commit a crime against the international working
class. The literature of Marxism is full of explanations as
to the role of the different classes in Society: that of the
proletariat, the peasantry, petty bourgeois and bourgeoisie. To
them, apparently, this is a closed book. Marxism has explained that
in the colonial revolution it is the proletariat that has played the
leading role. The proletariat is forced together co-operatively in
the process of production. They are compelled to combine to protect
themselves against the exploiters. It is because of this that the
proletariat can be the only force to achieve the Socialist
Revolution.
But even the proletariat is only material for exploitation until it
becomes not a class in itself but for itself. This consciousness is
developed with the experience of the class and in its struggle for
better conditions. Even here the party and leadership of the working
class is needed. The peasants, the petit-bourgeois intellectuals and
the lumpen proletariat can play no independent role. Where
petit-bourgeois intellectuals and ex-Marxists organise the struggle
on the basis of a peasant war, the level of consciousness, because
of the nature of the struggle, can only be of a low character. If,
nevertheless in Yugoslavia and China, the peasantry, the
petit-bourgeoisie, and the lumpen proletariat organised in the
armies of national and social liberation, could push aside rotted
semi-feudal regimes, it is only because of the historical process
that we have already explained in many of our documents.
It is true that Lenin had visualised the possibility of tribal
Africa passing straight to communism. But this could only be with
the aid and assistance of Socialism in the advanced countries. It
could not be on the basis of their own resources. The material
conditions for Socialism do not exist in any of the colonial
countries, it is only when taken on a world scale and with the decay
of the world system of capitalism that the basis is laid for the
Socialist Revolution in the backward areas of the world. These self
styled 'Marxists' turn the lessons of Marxism upside down. They
adopt the policy of the Narodniks and the Social Revolutionaries in
Russia. Unconsciously they adapt their ideas as to the role of the
different classes in society. For Bakunin the peasants and the
lumpen proletariat were the most revolutionary class in Society.
This conception arose from the whole method and theory of the
anarchists. With this also went the idea of individual propaganda by
the deed, i.e. of terror and of individual expropriations.
GUERRILLAISM AND MARXISM
It is in this whole milieu and with the even greater discrediting of
the Communist Party and the Reformists in Latin America, that the
programme of guerrilla war in the countryside and even worse, of
'urban guerrillas' has been developed. Young, weak forces of
Trotskyism, disorientated by the zig-zags of the past 25 years, have
been flung into this mess. In Latin America they should be teaching
all the advanced elements among the intellectuals, students and
above all, the working class, the fundamental and elementary ideas
of Marxism. The movement for national and social liberation in Latin
America, in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Guatemala and the
other countries in Latin America can only come from a mass movement
of the working class and peasants. Desperate duels and kidnappings,
bank raids etc., will only result in the extermination of young
brave and sincere forces without avail. It is not for these elements
to fight in a combat alone with the forces of the ruling class, of
the army and the secret police, without reference to the real
struggle for the overthrow of the corrupt cliques of the oligarchy
and of the police.
It might seem harder, and in a sense is harder, but only by
organising the working class, above all, in the struggle for
national and social liberation can a Socialist Revolution be
achieved, which would develop on healthy lines. Because of the
multiplicity of historical factors and the peculiar world
relationship of class forces, theoretically it cannot be excluded
that a peasant guerrilla war might be successful, but then the model
would be not that of the proletariat as a leading force of the
revolution, leading to the victory of 1917, but at best of China and
Cuba.
A mass of movement of the proletariat is entirely possible in these
countries. The general strikes in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay in
the recent period are proof of this. A revolutionary Marxist
tendency must build with these perspectives, with the preparation of
a mass insurrection as the climax of the movement in the cities.
This could lead to the victory of the Socialist Revolution which
under these conditions would rapidly spread to the whole of Latin
America.
It is on the lessons of the Russian revolution that the cadres of
the proletariat must be taught and developed, not to follow the
examples of the Chinese, Cuban or Yugoslavian revolutions, but on
the contrary that of Russia in 1917. The idea of Marx of the
proletarian revolution in the cities, with the assistance of the
peasant war in the rear; that must be the ideal for which they
should work. The main task in these countries is to patiently
explain the leading role of the proletariat in the struggle for
workers' power and socialism.
It is on the lessons of the Russian Revolution that the cadres of
the proletariat must be counter-posed to the capitalist state. As
against military police dictatorship, the battering ram of the
organised working class must be counter-posed. Once convinced of the
necessity, the proletariat will acquire the necessary arms. The
army, which is pitted against them, composed in the main of
peasants, would split in the face of the mass movement and come over
to the side of the Revolution. The peasant army could be won with
the programme of the agrarian revolution and the national revolution
against imperialism which is emblazoned on the banner of the
proletariat.
To capitulate to all the pressures of despairing petit-bourgeois
anarchism is to betray the mission of Marxism. The task of the
Marxist is to polemicise, in however a friendly a fashion against
the idealists, however sincere, who are leading themselves and the
revolution into a fatal cul-de-sac. Against the methods and policies
of anarchism an implacable struggle must be waged. Far from doing
this, these besmirchers of the tradition of Trotskyism have adopted
bag and baggage, the ideas of the theoretical adversaries of Marxism
and their degenerate descendants, instead of the clear class ideas,
rooted in the centuries of experience of the class struggle and of
the national liberation movement.
It is not in the tradition of Marxism to support a movement of
peasant war separate and apart from the movement of the working
class, which is decisive. The efforts and work of Marxists would be
largely concentrated in the cities and among the proletariat. Always
of course, under all conditions, the struggle of other oppressed
classes must be supported by Marxists.
The argument for peasant guerrillas at least has a semblance of
sense considering the experience of the last 30 years. But even in
this event, the task of Marxists is not merely to overthrow the
capitalist regime, but to prepare the way for the socialist future
of mankind. The destruction of capitalism and landlordism in the
colonial countries is an immense step forward which raises the level
of all mankind. But precisely because of the helplessness of the
peasantry as a class to rise to the future Socialist tasks, it
nevertheless can only succeed in raising new obstacles in its path.
The victory of the peasant war, given the relationship of forces in
the world and the crisis of capitalism and imperialism in the
underdeveloped countries can result in a form of deformed workers'
state. It cannot result in the conscious control by the workers and
peasants of industry, agriculture and the state, because in the
ex-colonial and semi-colonial countries, the material basis for
Socialism has not been created. Insofar as the possibility exists of
such peculiar combinations, it is because of the world ripeness of
productive forces for Socialism. The necessary technique, productive
capacity and resources are there on a world scale. This is what
makes possible, not only a healthy dictatorship of the proletariat
in the colonial areas, but also the perversions of China,
Yugoslavia, and Cuba. But where the revolution was carried through
in a distorted form or, in the case of the Russian Revolution, in a
healthy form but under conditions of backwardness and isolation, the
retrogression of the dictatorship into Stalinist-Bonapartism means
that the proletariat and the peasantry of these countries raise
above them a privileged elite and a state machine independent of
workers and peasants control. This means they would have to pay with
a new political revolution before being able to begin the transition
to socialism. In China, Yugoslavia, Cuba and Russia, the proletariat
will have to pay with a political revolution before the beginning of
the withering away of the state and coercion can take place. All
these problems are linked with the problem of world revolution.
In Latin America, the bowing down before the alien theories and
watering down of the basic ideas of permanent revolution, means an
abandonment of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism. It means an
abandonment of the entire Marxist tradition. Under conditions of
great difficulty in Latin America, Asia and Africa, not to maintain
the basic ideas of Marxism is to be lost in the swamp of
petit-bourgeois nationalism, of anarchist utopianism, of Stalinist
cynicism and lack of-belief in the power of the proletariat. Above
all it is an abandonment of the perspective of world revolution on
which our Marxist internationalism is based. The abandonment of
internationalism for the petit-bourgeois deed is the abandonment of
the programme of Trotskyism.
In Latin America, the proletariat, especially in Brazil, Chile,
Argentina, Uruguay and Mexico, is powerful enough to play the
leading role in the revolution. It is here that the forces of
Marxism must be concentrated. Intellectuals and students breaking
away from their middle class traditions, and understanding the
impasse of capitalism and imperialism, must be educated in this
spirit. It is only in a struggle against all other tendencies that
Trotskyism can prepare the necessary cadres, especially among the
advanced workers, to lead the revolution to success.
In the first place, a firm critique of the bureaucratic development
in Cuba and of the flamboyant excesses of Castroism must become part
and parcel of the ideological re-equipment of the revolutionaries in
Latin America. While defending the achievements of the Cuban
revolution and emphasising its positive sides, at the same time its
negative features as far as the advanced workers and youth are
concerned, must also be brought out. Only thus can the infantile
leftism of Castroism in Latin America be combatted successfully.
MASS PARTIES, ENTRISM, METHODS OF WORK
On the problem of entrism, the policies of the US tendency are no
more based on principle than any other part of the ideological
baggage. In Britain, they raised the question of entry in the
immediate post-war period because they saw at that time, the
conditions of slump and the existence of a strong and developing
left wing within the Labour Party! As against Trotsky's conception
of winning over the advanced elements by standing for firm political
principles, they adopted the policy of trying to win over the
advanced elements without an intransigent political programme. They
watered down their programme in order to find a means of adapting
themselves to the left reformist leaders.
At no time did they maintain the clear programme of Marxism, but on
the contrary, adopted the programme of adaptation to reformist
individuals who represented no one but themselves. They adopted what
they called a policy of 'deep entrism'. Mixing up objective and
subjective factors, and in no way taking account of the process of
development of mass consciousness, they explained to their members
that they would organise the mass left wing. If it was a question of
organising a movement purely on the basis of tricks, manoeuvres and
tactics, then the Stalinist perversion of Marxism would be correct.
Leaving aside the incorrect policies, even with correct strategy,
politics and tactics, the development of mass consciousness is not
an arbitrary one. It follows its own laws, which are dependent on
the molecular process of developing consciousness on the basis of
experience and of events. The attempt (partially successful) to
paint themselves as left reformists (in adaptation to the milieu)
did result in their becoming to a large extent 'left reformists'. In
the long term such policies are disastrous, and lay the seeds for
the recoil in the direction of ultra-leftism - both arising from,
one the one hand, the incapacity to stand on firm principles; on the
other hand, to see the objective situation as it is, and to marry
the subjective factor with the objective developments of events;
Events by themselves, of course, will not solve the problem of
growth: and on the other hand, the Marxists will only grow stronger
insofar as there is an understanding of the objective processes and
an orientation of the tendency on the basis of the real movement of
consciousness among the advanced workers. The left wing, as a mass
tendency, will develop firstly on left reformist and centrist lines.
The revolutionary forces can play a part in the development of the
left wing, but with the mass movement, it is the muddled left
reformists and centrists who will come to the top. Inevitably they
will form the leadership in its early stages, and only the test of
experience plus Marxist criticism will lead to their replacement by
Marxist cadres.
To this day the 'leaders' of the international have not understood
the ABCs on this question. In Britain, they constantly proclaimed
immediate world war every year. Echoing the opportunist propaganda
of the Labour leaders in the General Election of 1951, they declared
that the victory of Churchill would mean world war! Thus, instead of
raising the level of the workers they could reach, they merely
succeeded in confusing them. Again in 1951, it was a question of
Socialism or Fascism in Britain within twelve months. One would
imagine from reading their material, and that of their then
erstwhile disciples, the Socialist Labour League (now Workers
Revolutionary Party), that they had never read the material of
Trotsky and other Marxist theoreticians as to the movement of class
forces.
It is not a question at any particular moment of the ruling class
deciding to go by car instead of by train; rather it is a question
of the relationships in the middle class, working class, and the
ruling class itself.
Not only in Britain, where they never assimilated the lessons from
their experiences, but wherever they have operated the tactic, they
have failed dismally in the objects they set themselves.
This was because of the long economic upswing of the major
capitalist countries which led during the quarter century to a
renewal of Social Democracy in such countries as Germany and
Britain, and of Stalinism in such countries as France and Italy. Due
to their theoretical impasse, and the objective situation itself,
the ISFI evolved a theory of general entry into the Social
Democratic and Communist Parties, whichever was stronger. This was
the correct tactic under the conditions. But unfortunately, as in
Britain, they operated an opportunist tactic. In the Communist
Parties in France and Italy, they adapted themselves to Stalinism,
without putting forward a firm revolutionary Leninist line. Even
under difficult conditions it should have been possible to contrast
the policies of the leadership with those of Marx and Lenin.
Entrism was imposed by the objective situation and the weakness of
the revolutionary forces, but they operated it in a purely
opportunist fashion. As a consequence in France and Italy, no great
gains were made, and they left the Communist Parties with virtually
the same numbers as they entered. As always they zig-zagged from an
opportunist adaptation to the leadership to an ultra-left position,
thus blocking a road to the rank and file. In the Social Democratic
Parties, they capitulated to left reformism; in Germany, Britain,
Holland and Belgium. This could not give any results, so they in
effect passed a resolution that these parties no longer existed as
mass workers parties, and adopted completely ultra-left policies in
relation to them. Unfortunately, the Communist Party in France and
Italy and the Social Democracy in other countries still maintained
the support of the overwhelming majority of the working class, and
as a result, hardly noticed the displeasure of these ultra-lefts and
hardly noticed that they had left.
KEYNESIANISM INSTEAD OF MARXISM
In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War they were guilty
on practically all questions of an infantile ultra-left attitude.
They denied the possibility of an economic boom of post-war European
and world capitalism, which was inevitable given the policies of
Stalinism and Reformism which laid the political premises for a
revival of capitalism. They declared that the economy of the
capitalist countries could not be reconstituted. We were told that
we were faced with the post-war slump in which capitalism was
incapable of finding a way out! They ridiculed our argument when we
quoted Lenin to point out that if not overthrown, capitalism always
finds a way out. When their claims were falsified by events, they
then solemnly pontificated "Marxistically" that there was a
'ceiling' on production, that ceiling being the highest level which
capitalism had reached in the pre-war period. Alas for our
self-styled Marxist economists the 'ceiling' was soon burst open by
the rise of the world economy.
They declared it was impossible for American imperialism to render
aid to its rivals. How could America prop up her rivals, they
laughed ironically; were the capitalist philanthropists to bolster
up their competitors? In other words they had not the faintest
conception of the relationships of forces between the classes and
nations, of the relationship of forces between Russia and America.
Their economic analysis at this period was on the level of
Stalinists of the 'third period' of capitalism in the 1930s.
New periods, new gods. In the following years, as a result of the
empirical crushing of their crude 'theories', they now did a new
somersault. Not that their analysis had been wrong, but obviously
capitalism had changed. Secretly, they believed that the Marxist
analysis of crisis was no longer relevant. Not daring to declare
this openly, for fear of being denounced as revisionists, they
accepted nevertheless the basic postulates of Keynesianism that
slump could be avoided by state intervention and deficit financing.
This can be demonstrated by reference to their main economic
documents over a period of two decades. It is clearly stated in
their 1965 World Congress document The Evolution of Capitalism in
Western Europe and the Tasks of Revolutionary Marxists that "If this
boom continues through 1965 and the first half of 1966, it is
probable that no general recession will occur in western Europe. If,
on the contrary, a recession breaks out in the USA in 1965 or the
beginning of 1966, it is probable that this would coincide with a
general recession in Western Europe, and that for the first time
since the Second World War, synchronising of the economic cycles of
all the important capitalist countries would occur. Even in the
latter case, however, it would only be a recession, and not a
serious economic crisis like that of 1929 or 1938. The reason for
this, amply considered in previous documents of the International is
the possibility which imperialism has to 'amortize' crisis by
increasing state expenses at the cost of continually lowering the
purchasing power of money." (Page 3, our emphasis)
This position today is universally repudiated by the serious
bourgeois economists. The USFI did not explain the development of
the economic upswing, but on the contrary, adapted themselves to the
pressures of bourgeois 'theoreticians'. (For a fuller explanation,
see Will there be a Slump? and World Perspectives). They will change
their position on this too, now that these ideas are completely
discredited. They were caught completely by surprise by economic
events, and consequently adapted themselves to all the currents of
Social Democracy, Stalinism and even the bourgeois currents of
thought in a completely eclectic mish-mash, which they passed of as
Marxist theory.
THE PROBLEMS OF WAR
In our documents in the post-World War Two period, we had explained
that there was no question of an imminent inter-imperialist world
war, or an immediate world war directed against the Soviet Union,
because of the revolutionary wave following the Second World War.
The bourgeoisie in Europe could only consolidate itself by the
concession of democratic rights and as a consequence, allowing the
existence and reinforcement of powerful mass organisations of the
working class. Consequently, the political preconditions for an
assault on the Soviet Union or on the Chinese revolution did not
exist. At the same time, within a few years from the ending of the
Second World War, due to the enforced de-mobilisation of
Anglo-American troops by the pressure of the soldiers and of mass
opinion at home, the relationship of forces, so far as conventional
forces in Europe were concerned, had changed drastically in favour
of the Soviet Union.
With 200 divisions mobilised, as against a little over a quarter of
that in the hands of the western powers, if it came to a
conventional war in Europe the Russians would sweep through far
faster than Hitler's forces swept through France, and occupy the
whole of Western Europe. With a crushing superiority in tanks,
planes and guns, the forces which the western forces could mobilise
would be swept away in a matter of days in Germany, and a matter of
weeks in France by the Warsaw Bloc armies.
In Asia, China was the greatest military power on the mainland, and
here too, given the power of revolutionary or semi-revolutionary
war, by winning over the peasants, the Chinese forces could sweep
through Asia as well. As a result, the world balance of forces had
changed drastically to the disadvantage of Imperialism. Having
learned nothing in the school of Lenin and Trotsky, these worthy
strategists could only go on repeating the cliche that 'Capitalism
means war', which a 12-year old schoolboy having read the works of
Lenin would have understood. But this formula does not tell how, and
when, and under what conditions world war would break out. As a
guide to strategy and tactics, this tells us nothing. Especially in
the modern era, war is not only a question of the relationship
between the powers, but above all a relationship between the
classes. It is only with a bloody and decisive settlement with the
workers that world war would be possible.
The defeats of the workers in Germany, Italy, France and Spain, and
the destruction of their organisations prepared the way for World
War Two. Since the Second World War, the power of the workers has
been enormously enhanced and imperialists have correspondingly to be
wary.
It is true that local wars against the colonial revolution and
between minor powers have taken place every year since the Second
World War. Similarly, after the First World War, there was a war
every year till the final holocaust of 1939.
In addition to all the other factors, there is still the problem of
nuclear and other terrifying means of destruction. The capitalists
do not wage war for the sake of waging war. but in order to extend
their power, income and profit. The idea of war is not to annihilate
the enemy but to conquer him. To destroy the enemy and to be
destroyed yourself is no gain. To destroy the working class, which
nuclear war would mean, would be to destroy the goose that lays the
golden eggs. Mutual destruction would mean also the destruction of
the ruling class.
Consequently it is only totalitarian fascist regimes, completely
desperate and unbalanced, which would take this road. And here again
it is a question of the class struggle. The bourgeois will not
lightly hand over their fate to new dictatorial maniacs like
Mussolini and Hitler. In any event, before they could do so, it
would require the bloody defeat of the working class.
Thus to work with a perspective of world war in reality meant not
only a lack of understanding of all the multiple social and military
forces involved, but was a programme of the profoundest pessimism.
To imagine war would solve the problems of the Socialist Revolution,
was to be as light minded as the Stalinists in Germany, who imagined
the coming to power of the fascists in Germany would prepare the way
for Socialism. In reality the outbreak of world war would signify a
decisive defeat for the working class. A nuclear holocaust would in
more likelihood mean the mutual annihilation of countries and
classes. At best, handfuls of survivors might succeed in creating
some form of slave state and begin again the necessary development
of the material productive forces, that with the working class, are
the absolutely necessary pre-requisites of Socialism. The Posadists
have merely drawn to an extreme the ideas of Pablo, Hansen, Mandel,
Healy and Co.
In any event, they were incapable of seeing the contradictions which
still exist between the interests of the imperialists themselves.
The Western European capitalist powers, including Britain, were not
interested in the victory of an ideal capitalism or that of American
Imperialism, but of their own vested interests. A world war would at
best mean the destruction of Western Europe, as Korea and Vietnam
have been destroyed by American bombing. Therefore, these
Imperialist powers had no interest in a war they could not win,
which would be fought over their territories, and which even in the
most favourable case would only be for the benefit of American
Imperialism.
Conventional war, for the Americans would be a daunting prospect.
Starting at Calais and working across the Continent to Shanghai,
Calcutta and Vladivostock would be an impossible task. Nuclear war
for the first time would mean war on American soil. It would mean
destruction of their home base - of the cities and the industrial
power of America. Thus the theme of 'war-revolution' was not only
reactionary but a fantasy as well. The position of this tendency
showed a complete unawareness of the real social factors in relation
to war, a problem which they have not understood to this day. At
each crisis, at each conflict between the Soviet Union and American
imperialism, they raised the howl of "imminent Armageddon".
In reality, both the Vietnam war and the Korean war, as well as the
other wars of the post war epoch, were localised and limited by the
deliberate arrangement between imperialism and the Chinese and
Russian bureaucracies. For the whole period, imperialism has been on
the defensive against incursions of the colonial revolution and the
strength militarily, industrially and strategically of the Soviet
Union and the Soviet bureaucracy.
ULTRA-LEFTISM AND STUDENTISM
Having gained little result with their version of the policies of
entrism, they now swung over to an ultra-left course in the
capitalist countries in the West. Not having drawn an honest lesson
from the experience of entrism in the Social Democratic and
Communist Parties, they now advanced to the policies of ultra-leftism
in Germany, France and Italy. However, they managed to combine this
with a measure of opportunism. The Wilson Government was the advent
of a 'left Social Democratic government', one of their supporters
wrote in Britain. His views were warmly defended by their supporters
in Britain and not repudiated by them. Events were soon to
disillusion them in this respect. At the same time, they succeeded
in finding a fundamental difference between a Wilson government in
Britain and Willy Brandt's government in West Germany.
Eclecticism could not go further. Differences between individuals
are not important, even if there were any important differences
between Brandt and Wilson. In Britain, conducting an opportunist
policy in the Labour Party, on the part of their protagonists, was
only a step to barren adventures on the Left.
In Germany, they refused to work with the mass Social Democratic
youth, turning their attention instead to the student movement. This
was a tactical question, mistaken but nevertheless tactical. A
certain amount of attention should have been paid to the students,
but with the main purpose of educating them to understand the need
to turn towards the Labour movement. The working class in Germany,
like their brothers in Britain has to go through the experience of a
Social Democratic government in order to understand that reformism
cannot solve their problems. The German working class, which has
been thrown backwards by the experience of Fascism, and the policies
of reformism and Stalinism, can only be educated with revolutionary
ideas through testing their leaders by the experience of reformist
governments.
Again, potentially valuable elements among the students were mis-educated
by the USFI pandering to their prejudices, instead of undertaking
the necessary work of Marxist education. This in turn means that at
a later stage they will become discouraged and drop out. The
tendency being to blame the working class for what are in effect
their own shortcomings. In this, as in all things, this tendency
managed to get the worst results from the experience. In Germany a
main task should have been to get closer to the Social Democratic
workers, especially the youth. A task which they are incapable of
carrying out because of their failure in the past.
Not only in Germany, but in France, Italy, America and throughout
the world, this tendency has indulged in what could be called
Studentism. The progressive aspect of the student break from
bourgeois ideology, which has become a world phenomenon, was of
course to be recognised and utilised for the purpose of bringing the
best of the students to the ideas of Marxism. Above all it should
have been explained to the students that this phenomenon was a
symptom of the social crisis of capitalism. It is a symptom of the
move towards the left which in general is assuming a world scope. In
colonial countries, in advanced capitalist countries, and in the
Bonapartist workers' states, the same phenomenon can be observed.
It is the barometer of gathering social crisis, but unless it gains
roots within the trade union and working class movements, it is
doomed to be sterile and ineffective. Unless the students can gain
the discipline of Marxist ideas and Marxist methods, the movement
will become sterile, and degenerate into various forms of Utopianism
and anarchism. Students can form a valuable leaven for the
dissemination of revolutionary ideas, but only on the basis of
Marxist ideas, and an understanding of the limitations of students
and their role in society.
The May 1968 events in France provide a new, and perhaps decisive
test, of all tendencies in the revolutionary movement. The acid test
for revolutionaries is revolution. In this crucible, the gold of
revolutionary ideas will soon be separated from the baser elements
and alloys. Having denied the possibility of revolution in the west,
for a whole historical period, they were naturally caught by
surprise by events in France. Having started from the standpoint of
profound pessimism as to the potential of the working class in the
countries of the west, they passed to the most irresponsible ultra-leftism.
The complete failure to understand that for a further historical
period the Communist Parties will have a decisive role dooms them to
complete sectarianism. To imagine that all the processes of the
revolution, beginning to unfold in France would receive their
denouncement within a matter of weeks or days, was not to understand
the ABCs of revolution. The weakness of the revolutionary forces as
a factor in the situation, they had not understood; nor the need to
get close to the masses of the Communist Party. Instead, the need to
ingratiate themselves with the wild and woolly ideas of the student
left, led them to make a whole series ultra-left gestures and moves.
The boycott of the elections and the boycott of the student
elections which followed, was sheer irresponsibility which could
only play into the hands of the Communist Party leadership, which
had the overwhelming majority of the working class still supporting
it.
The fact that the Communist Party would recoup its losses as an
alternative to the Gaullist Party, they did not take into
consideration. They have not prepared to this day their supporters
for a new and inevitable period of Popular Frontism, to which the
bourgeoisie will resort as a means of breaking a new offensive on
the part of the working class. However, our tendency has analysed in
full the development of the revolution in France, which is only in
its early beginnings, so there is no need to repeat the ideas here.
It only need be added that all the tendencies of the revolutionary
left in France are on the decline at the moment, because of their
failure to analyse and understand the ebb and flow of change in the
revolution; that periods of calm, even of reaction, will prepare the
way for the revolutionary mobilisation of the masses and renewed
offensive on the part of the revolution.
Events indicate that not only in France, but in other countries
where the Communist Party is the main party of the working class,
only a mass split within the ranks of the Communist Party can
prepare the way for a development of a mass revolutionary
alternative party. In the countries where Social Democracy is the
dominant force, similar considerations apply. The historical
experience of the last five to seven decades indicates the
correctness of this analysis.
The issues at their 1965 World Congress at which they expelled the
Marxist opposition have been sufficiently documented. This showed
their incapacity to tolerate a genuine and honest Marxist tendency
within their ranks. The refusal to discuss, or to tolerate a Marxist
wing within their forces, in an indication of the real processes
within this organisation, and its organic tendency towards petit
bourgeois sectarianism, utopianism and opportunism.
The history of the Ceylonese organisation provides an instructive
lesson in what happens when the lessons of each period are not drawn
by a revolutionary tendency. It was the only mass organisation of
the Fourth International and the mass party of the working class in
Ceylon. But precisely because of that it was prey to all tendencies
of degeneration, to the pressures of hostile class forces to which
mass organisations are subject. The incorrect policies over 25 years
of the so-called international leadership meant that as far as
Ceylon was concerned, they had no control over the MPs or the
leadership. Being small groupings over the greater part of the
world, they could only posses a political rather than an
organisational authority. Being bankrupt at these, their feeble
attempt at organisational gestures could only be treated with
contempt.
It precipitated support for an immediate split when the Lanka Sama
Samaja Party took an opportunist position in relation to a coalition
government in 1964 which would only isolate the revolutionary
elements and render them impotent and ultra-left. The consequence
has been reinforcement of the position of the LSSP and decline and
splits in the section that split away. The immediate task of any
grouping inside or outside the LSSP should have been to face towards
the mass organisation of the workers, in this case the LSSP itself.
However, political authority can only be gained over a period of
years and decades by demonstrating the correctness of the ideas of a
revolutionary leadership, of its method, of its analysis. But of
course, this is something that is conspicuously lacking. They tried
to replace this real authority, a genuine authority, by means of
administrative measures, which merely resulted in a series of
humiliating and debilitating splits.
THE NEED FOR MARXIST THEORY
At their 1965 USFI Congress they put forward a 'new' theory, that of
capitalism and a 'strong' state. This was an extension of their 1945
theory of Bonapartist states being on the order of the day in
Western Europe - that capitalism could no longer allow the existence
of democratic rights, and that therefore only dictatorial regimes
could be established in Western Europe. They revived this theory,
which was never officially repudiated in the past, with a new
version of the 'strong' state. In France, Germany, Britain,
everywhere, the Bourgeoisie were going to replace democracy with a
Bonapartist regime.
This analysis did not take into account the strength and power of
working class organisations, the changed relationship of forces
between the classes, the vacillation of the petty bourgeoisie, and
under these conditions, far from the bourgeoisie being able to
impose their will on society, society had a tendency to swing to the
left. The attempt to impose Prices and Incomes policies has tended
to break down in the main capitalist countries. Far from the state
assuming dictatorial powers, apart from Greece (for special
reasons), the tendency has been in the other direction.
In some countries there has been a tendency towards mass
radicalisation, but nowhere has the bourgeoisie found it possible to
impose their rule by means of installing a military police state.
The movement of the students towards radicalisation, on which they
place such great hopes, is a movement in the opposite direction. The
only recent 'strong' state in Europe, that of de Gaulle, was blown
away by the first real movement of the mass of the working class. In
any event, the Bonapartism of de Gaulle was the most democratic form
of Bonapartism that has ever existed. Not accidentally. Its weakness
was an expression of the enormous power latent in the working class.
The very development of industry has in its turn meant an enormous
reinforcement of the power of the working class. Before there can be
a move towards decisive reaction, there will have to be a bloody
settlement with the working class. But this in its turn would mean
posing the fate of the bourgeoisie as a stake in the struggle.
Consequently it will be with extreme reluctance that the bourgeoisie
will take this road. Nowhere are there strong fascist organisations,
as existed in the pre-war period, especially in the 1930s. After the
experience with the fascist maniacs, it is only with extreme
reluctance that the bourgeoisie would put themselves in the power of
fascism.
On the other hand, a 'strong' state in its Bonapartist form is not
capable of maintaining itself for any length of time without a mass
basis. Hence, on the order of the day are perhaps reactionary
methods and laws on the part of the bourgeois state, but not a
military police dictatorship. Throughout the bourgeois world, in the
twilight of capitalism, it is not 'strong' states but extremely weak
and paralysed states that the working class and the revolutionary
movement has to face.
The whole tactics of the so-called 'extra-Parliamentary opposition'
in Germany, France, Italy and Britain, are manifestations of verbal
opposition. They are indications of middle class and anarchist
ideas, rather than those of Marxism. The task for students and
radicals generally is first to educate themselves with the sober
ideas of Marxism, instead of the rantings of revolutionary
romanticism, and then get closer to the masses. The capitulation of
the USFI to this verbal radicalisation is an expression of a
complete lack of understanding of the dialectic of the class
struggle and the methods of class awakening. The task is at one and
the same time to maintain theoretical intransigence with flexibility
of tactics in order to get closer to the working class. The whole
history of this tendency is an inglorious one.
We are now thrown back to a position near to our starting point, of
small groupings, struggling against the stream of opportunist
tendencies. Historically, the Marxist movement has been thrown far
back by isolation from the mass movement.
In one respect we are fortunate, historically. If instead of tiny
sects they had organisations of 10,000 - 50,000 members in France,
America and other countries, enormous damage would have been done in
the mass movement, by the ultra-left course of this grouping and the
various groupings around it. It would have been like the policies of
the Comintern in its ultra-left phase in the '30s, when the
policies, the light minded attitudes towards the mass organisations,
resulted in isolation from the working class. The victory of Hitler
in Germany was prepared in this way. In its own way, the antics of
all the tendencies in France has enormously facilitated the
regaining of prestige and power over the working class of the
Communist Party leadership and reformists. In other countries,
insofar as they have had any effect at all, they have helped
successfully to isolate the students from the Labour Movement.
The theoretical crudities and the fundamental political errors of
the clique claiming to represent the International can be traced
from the period after the war. Had they conducted an honest self
criticism of their errors at this time, and made a thorough analysis
of their mistakes and the reasons for these mistakes, they could
have built the movement on firm foundations. But having burned their
fingers by repeating what they thought were the recipes of Trotsky,
these cooks decided that the 'Cookbook of the Revolution' was no
good, and proceeded to unceremoniously dump the teachings of the
great masters through the window. They abandoned the theoretical
ideas of Marxism and proceeded purely on the basis of empiricism and
impressionism.
Our task, nationally and internationally, remains basically the same
as it has been for the last two generations. That task is the
defence and extension of the basic revolutionary ideas of Marxism.
The reason for the degeneration of the sects, the most important of
whom are those gathered round the banner of the USFI, lies in the
historical development of our times. The pressure of Capitalism,
reformism and Stalinism, in a period of capitalist upswing in the
west, the temporary consolidation of Stalinism in the east, and the
perversions of the colonial revolution, as explained in the
preceding material, were causes of the degeneration of all the sects
claiming to be the Fourth International.
But an explanation is not an excuse. Necessity has two sides. In
preceding history, the degeneration of the Second and Third
Internationals, due to objective as well as subjective factors, did
not justify the leaders who had abandoned Marxism. It did not
justify either reformism or Stalinism. Similarly, there is no
justification for the crimes of sectarianism and opportunism which
have been committed by the leaders of the so-called Fourth
International for more than an entire generation. It is one thing to
make an episodic mistake. Mistakes will be made by even the most
revolutionary and far-sighted tendencies. But continuous repetition,
a continual zig-zagging between opportunism and ultra-leftism,
ceases to be a mistake and becomes a tendency. It is this tendency
whose history we have analysed. A tendency which like the Stalinists
and reformists before them, refuses to analyse its mistakes in order
to correct them.
A tendency of this kind can never rise to the tasks posed by
history. They will continue interminably with splits and manoeuvres,
with dictates that they have no relation to any genuine authority
gathered on the basis of political experience. A tendency of this
character can never carry on the traditions of Bolshevism, the
traditions of Trotskyism. They are the manure of history, which, not
being ploughed into the fields cannot bear revolutionary fruit, but
left in the open has begun to smell somewhat. Many of the younger
elements may succeed in breaking away from this poisonous milieu and
assist in building the new International. For a mass revolutionary
tendency, it is necessary to have not just the tradition, method and
policies of Marxism. It is necessary also to have the current of
history with the tendency. Thus it was with the Bolsheviks.
However for a small revolutionary tendency it is essential, an
absolute necessity to maintain the basic ideas, while adding to them
consciously and openly on the basis of experience. Without this, it
is the death of a tendency as a revolutionary force. If such a
tendency cannot learn from the experience of events, it is doomed to
remain a sect and to provoke further defeats and disintegration of
the movement. From the point of view of history, there is absolutely
no excuse for the continual succession of errors of the USFI.
Mistakes are grievous, failure to rectify mistakes, fatal.
Lenin and Trotsky meticulously corrected even to the minutest detail
any theoretical errors in order to maintain the sharpness of theory
as the cutting edge of Bolshevism. A tendency like that of the USFI
can never rise to the tasks posed by history. The Stalinists and the
reformists have mass organisations. The Marxists have revolutionary
theory which historically they will transmute from a small quality
into a revolutionary quantity. With neither mass organisation nor
Marxist theory, there can be no future. This tendency is doomed
historically. At each stage in the development of events the British
Marxists have acted generally in a correct manner. As far as the
basic problems are concerned, the documents can be published and can
stand as a contribution to Marxism over a period of 25 years.
The failure of the forces of Trotskyism to build a viable
International can be understood on the basis of the experience of
the epoch. At one and the same time, revolutionary and
counter-revolutionary, with the proletariat faced with formidable
obstacles in the shape of Social Democratic and Stalinist
organisations, it was inevitable that great difficulties should lie
in the path of creating mass revolutionary tendencies.
The new period opened out by the French Revolution begins an
entirely new stage in the development of the proletariat. Mass
initiative and mass action will put to the test the mighty
organisations of Stalinism and Social Democracy. In these events,
the mass organisations will extrude a revolutionary or
quasi-revolutionary wing, but they are doomed to a whole series of
catastrophic splits both to the left and to the right. During the
course of this experience, the workers will put to the test, not
only the reformists and Stalinist mass organisations, but the
variety of sectarianism and centrist tendencies - the Maoists,
Castroists, Guevaraists and other tendencies which have proliferated
because there has not been a mass pole of revolutionary attraction.
Events will politically expose the inadequacies and ineffectualness
of all the varieties of reformism and Stalinism. The fresh forces of
the new generation, not alone among the students, but far more
important, among the working class, will seek the revolutionary
road.
On the basis of events, mass revolutionary tendencies in the
countries of the west, where Stalinism is the main current, will be
formed in the Communist Parties, and where the reformists are a mass
tendency, within the Social Democratic Parties. The period which
Trotsky confidently foresaw in the immediate pre-war period, now
opens out in different historical circumstances. The ideas of
Marxism, which we have maintained for an entire generation, will
begin to have a class audience.
Nationally and internationally, the ideas of our tendency can gain a
mass support over the epoch. Our struggle to build the movement will
have its effect internationally. Our task consists in building a
viable tendency in Britain, which will have the resources and the
authority to get a hearing among advanced elements throughout the
world. It is impossible to detail the ways in which this will be
done, but with initiative and elan, we can succeed in spreading the
influence of our tendency.
In the dark days during the First World War, the Marxists were
reduced to tiny handfuls but on the basis of events, they carried
through a victorious revolution in Russia in 1917 and prepared the
way for the building of mass revolutionary parties. Historically,
the Bolsheviks maintained a rigidity of revolutionary ideas because
of the influence of Lenin and Trotsky. With adverse historical
currents, the ideas were swept away. In a new historical epoch the
ideas will once again, reinforced by the rich experience of the last
quarter century, gain a mass audience. The other tendencies claiming
to be Trotskyist, will be put to the test. They will be reduced to
ashes in the fire of events.
Capitalism on the one side in the developed and in the
underdeveloped world, will find itself in an impasse. On the other
hand, Stalinism more and more reveals its incompatibility in the
non-capitalist countries with nationalisation and a planned economy.
This impasse of the bourgeoisie and the Stalinist . bureaucracy, is
reflected in the barrenness of their theoreticians economically and
politically. The collapse of the Stalinists into warring national
groupings in the countries where they have power and the countries
where they are in opposition, indicates the bankruptcy of Stalinism.
Reformism on the other hand has demonstrated its baleful effects in
the countries where the reformists are in the government, as well as
in the countries where they are in opposition. The domination of the
Labour Movement by these tendencies has extended its corrupting
influences also to the small and weak tendencies of Trotskyism. For
them there is no way forward, but on the basis of the great
revolutionary ascent which lies ahead, youth will be attracted to
the ideas of Trotskyism. The Bolsheviks in 1917, although no
revolutionary International existed, carried out their revolution in
the method, ideas and with the name of the International. They were
internationalists through and through. The greatest international
task of the Revolutionary Marxists in Britain is the building of a
powerful revolutionary tendency imbued with the principles and
traditions of internationalism, which can assist in the building of
a viable tendency internationally.
HOW WILL THE INTERNATIONAL BE ORGANISED?
Lenin and Trotsky had the occasion to point out many times that if a
mistake were not corrected, it could become a tendency. The analysis
of this document shows that for 25 years, the USFI has staggered
from one mistake to another. From one wrong policy to its opposite,
and then a higher level of mistakes back again. This is the mark of
a thoroughly petit bourgeois tendency. As far as this grouping is
concerned, at least its top leadership, this has now become organic.
The whole outlook has been moulded by the mistakes of a quarter
century, and become part and parcel of their methods of thinking, of
their habits of work, and their whole outlook. Even to dignify this
tendency by calling it centrist would be a compliment.
In the case of the 2nd International, which is a mass movement, its
degeneration can be explained by the pressures of society, of the
history of the latter part of the 19th Century and the beginning of
the 20th. But it is also explained by the separation of the
leadership by the rank and file and their remoteness from the mass
base.
The 3rd International began from the most revolutionary mass
tendency that the world has ever seen, an international and
revolutionary mass tendency. In a revolutionary epoch (at one and
the same time, revolutionary and counter-revolutionary) the
degeneration of the International, leaving aside the question of the
Russian Party, has been explained in many documents as the result of
the pressure of the bureaucracy and its raising itself above the
masses. Internationally, the degeneration of the 3rd International
began with the refusal to learn from and analyse the lessons of
events, and to correct the mistakes of the Stalinist leadership.
This, among other factors, was not the least important.
Trotskyism, the most revolutionary and honest tendency in history,
began its work above all with an analysis of this process. Starting
without the broad masses, it could only succeed as a revolutionary
tendency by a serious attitude to theory and events. This was the
lesson from the works of Lenin, and perhaps even more so in the
works and activity of Trotsky during the period of theoretical
decline and degeneration. Having abandoned this precious heritage
and without the corrective of mass revolutionary pressure, the USFI
and other tendencies like it, became irresponsible. Questions of
theory were not seriously considered, but became part of the
arbitrary humours and whims of the leading clique. Twenty five years
of this process has indicated that they are organically incapable of
transformation organisationally and politically in the direction of
Marxism.
It would be a distasteful task to document the organisational
manoeuvrings of this Zinovievist tendency. Lenin contemptuously
called the 2nd International a Post Office and not an International.
This clique cannot even be dignified as a Post Office.
Organisationally as well as politically, they are completely
bankrupt.
How then will the International be built? We have pointed out many
times that in Britain the movement will only be built on the basis
of events. This applies with just as much force to the question of
the International.
In many documents we explained how events will bring crisis to the
mass Social Democratic Parties and to the mass Stalinist Parties.
Events west and east will play their part. But above all, it is the
development in the key industrial countries in the world that will
be decisive. A new period is opening up in the history of capitalism
in the west, and Stalinism in the east. The May events of 1968 in
France and the present turmoil in Italy are only a beginning. The
outline of the crisis in the relationship between the classes, not
only in Europe but in Japan and America as well as other important
centres, is already showing itself at the present time.
Under the hammer blows of events, the development of mass centrist
groupings in the Stalinist and Social Democratic Parties is
inevitable. Mass splits from these tendencies will be on the order
of the day in the coming decade or two. Events in Russia can
transform the situation internationally. Similarly, for America and
other industrial countries of the west. With the developments of
mass centrist groupings with large numbers of workers groping for a
revolutionary lead, this will be a favourable milieu or a hot house
for the reception of Marxist ideas. We must try and reach these
elements internationally with the ideas and methods of Trotsky.
It is from these mass forces developing within these organisations
that the mass forces of the International will come. Great events
will make our ideas and policies more acceptable among these strata,
especially the workers. To reach these elements will be an important
part of our work in the future.
Events will also make the younger and more intelligent elements
within the other tendencies claiming to be Trotskyist, amenable to
our ideas. Many of the younger elements will be won over under these
conditions.
It will be the Spanish Revolution all over again, but with an
organic crisis of Stalinism and reformism which events will bring to
the surface. The working class is far stronger, international
reaction far weaker, thus preparing the basis for an offensive by
the workers. Then with a period of defeats and reaction of one form
or another, as well as important gains and successes, there will be
an even greater surge forward by the workers, the way will be
prepared for the creation of mass Centrist tendencies.
The Russian Revolution developed over nine months; this above all
because of the strength of Bolshevism. The Spanish revolution
developed over six to seven years. A lengthy period of revolution,
because of the weakness of the revolutionary forces, is most likely
as the example of France has already shown. It is in this lengthy
process that the possibility is given to intervene. The
revolutionary elements in the mass Centrist parties that would
develop, would be looking for consistent revolutionary ideas,
policies and methods of work.
It is this which makes it vital and emphasises our need to continue
and expand our international work. We must develop and broaden our
work among contacts, groups and even individuals that we can reach
in other countries. Our criticisms and the contrast with the policy
of other tendencies should give us the possibility of winning a
base. Thus, this remains an important part of the activity of our
tendency, nationally and internationally.
However, an important part of the international work consists of
building a viable tendency in Britain. That is why the question of
headquarters, press and professionals is of such vital importance,
not only in our national but our international work. The main
argument of the USFI and others has never been a criticism of our
theoretical ideas, but a denigration of our work. Who are they? What
have they built? They are incapable of building a tendency; such was
the main line of the poison which they injected among young
comrades, especially behind the scenes. A building of a viable and
powerful tendency in Britain would demonstrate in practice not only
the correctness of our ideas, but also our methods of work and of
organisation. Their slanders would be refuted in practice. The
collapse of the RCP dealt a blow to the movement nationally and
internationally which we are now in the process of repairing.
Bolshevism grew internationally through the success of the October
Revolution. This in its turn was dependent on the organisation of
the Russian Party as well as the theoretical ideas and policies of
Lenin and Trotsky. We are faced here with a similar process, taking
things in proportion of course, in that we have yet to stand up to
the test of history and to build a mass tendency.
Far more than in any other period of history, the ground is being
prepared for revolutionary explosions in the industrially developed
countries, and not the least in Britain. On the basis of
revolutionary developments, ideas will be seized eagerly by workers
groping towards Marxism. Intervention under these conditions in
revolutionary situations in other countries can be very fruitful.
In one way, we are more prepared than in the past for such
interventions, because we already have comrades who already speak
the main European languages. Their services will undoubtedly be
required more and more in the coming epoch. But it is also a
question of money and resources. We have many criticisms of the
American SWP, but on the basis of the revolutionary tide which is
now in its early beginnings in the United States, and although
principally among the students at the moment it has been reported
that the SWP has sixty professionals in New York alone!
For the minimum tasks nationally and internationally, we need at
least a dozen professionals. We can say that with our modest
successes, the real history of the tendency is just beginning; but
with our own press, our own premises and more professionals, we can
really turn in a far more serious way to the development of our work
on an international scale. With resources of this character, we can
begin the publication of a detailed analysis of the policies of the
other tendencies for the special purpose of influencing people
abroad. We can commence the publication, not only in English, but in
foreign languages, of this material and our own analysis and
theoretical documents. We can conduct serious work. Thus the task of
drawing together the elements that will form a new international
goes hand in hand with the building of our own tendency.
May 1970
NOTE 1
As late as 1947, in a conversation with J. Stuart (Sam Gordon) then
one of the leaders of the ISFI, while endeavouring to explain the
changed conditions one of the leaders of the British Section was
stopped by him saying "Ah, yes, it's only 1947 now, there is still a
year to go of Trotsky's prognosis." The whole events of the war and
the post-war period had been lost on him and his fellow thinkers of
the ISFI.
In 1938, there had been the foundation of the Workers International
League. This had been as a consequence of the expulsion of a group
of comrades from the Militant Group on an organisational issue.
Later that year the WIL had refused to participate in an
unprincipled fusion between different groupings, some entrist, some
non-entrist, with the deliberately ambiguous formula of unity on
both tactics, which was calculated as the WIL stated, to produce a
paralysis of the new organisation and the certainty of a split. It
was a formula to unite three organisations into ten. This was
subsequently confirmed by events. JP Cannon, who was instrumental in
getting this 'unity', and the leaders of the American SWP, pursued a
vendetta against those who led the WIL.
At the 1944 founding conference of the Revolutionary Communist
Party, their supporters solemnly declared that with the fusion of
all Trotskyist elements there were now no political differences.
Consequently, they declared that their 'Internationalist' faction
was dissolved. This was greeted with hoots of laughter at the
conference which gained indignant protest from the representative of
the International. This did not prevent the American and
International representative, Phelan (Sherry Mangan) that same
evening from having a secret meeting with Healy and other leaders of
his clique, at his hotel, to decide how best to get rid of the RCP's
anti-internationalist leadership which must be destroyed!
The RCP, of which the WIL was the principle component made rapid
gains, due to, among other reasons, the support of the war-time
coalition by the Labour, Stalinist and trade union leaders. It
pursued flexible tactics, and with correct methods and policies,
succeeded in gaining a modest but important support in all the
principle industrial areas of the country. At its height, it was an
important component part of the working class. The reason for its
collapse is not the subject of this document, but will be dealt with
when the history of British Trotskyism is produced.
Here it should be pointed out that the WIL, although it was not
present at the 1938 founding conference of the Fourth International
had been invited to send delegates but had been unable to do so for
financial reasons. Nevertheless, it sent a statement which was
falsified by Cannon in order to get the rejection of sympathetic
affiliation. Despite the fact that it was outside the International
formally at the time, Trotsky did not attack it but on the contrary
sent a letter of congratulations for the introduction to his
pamphlet on the Lessons of Spain and the acquiring of a small
printing press.
On organisational matters, the International has been bedevilled
with a heritage of Zinovievism and clique factional politics, of
horse deals, of 'keyman' politics, of which Cannon among others,
despite his gifts as a workers' leader, was guilty. Always methods
of this sort arise because of theoretical backwardness and in the
last analysis, of incorrect policies. The task of a leadership,
nationally and internationally, is to convince by discussion and
experience. It is useless to wave the big stick of organisation.
In the days of Lenin and Trotsky, even with the immeasurable
political authority that they had internationally, they always
endeavoured to discuss theoretical questions, and to win people over
by convincing them rather by imposing their policies. Since the
death of Trotsky who always emphasised the need for a clean banner,
the methods of Zinovievism have crept into the politics of the
tendencies claiming to represent the Fourth International. However
this document is not intended to deal with organisational questions
so much as with the fundamental political divergences from the ideas
of Marxism that have taken place in the last three decades.
The RCP and its forerunner the WIL provided object lessons on how
organisational questions should be tackled. The RCP participated in
the Labour Movement with flexible tactics. Under the given
conditions, conducting its work under its own flag, but nevertheless
facing always to the mass movement. The full history of the RCP and
its achievements will have to be written. The leadership of the
American SWP and of the International pursued the clique politics
even to the extent of using the pressure of the resource that they
possess, to ensure the acceptance of their ideas. Thus in a small
way, continuing the policies of Zinovievism in this respect too.
NOTE 2
At the 1965 USFI World Congress, the Marxist opposition challenged
the following formulation in their document The Development of the
Sino-Soviet Dispute and the Situation in the International Communist
Movement:
"In China the struggle against the bureaucracy and its regime, and
for proletarian democracy, cannot be won except through an
anti-bureaucratic struggle on a scale massive enough to bring about
a qualitative change in the political form of government" (Page 8)
We demanded to know whether or not this meant that the International
held the position that the political revolution was necessary in
China before there could be the beginning of the movement towards
Socialism. Maitan, for the 'majority', answered that the old
International Secretariat (himself, Frank, Mandel and Pablo)
believed that the political revolution was not necessary while the
American SWP held that it was. The formulation of the document was
therefore a 'Compromise'. Note: the American SWP, along with Healy
and Lambert, split from the ISFI in 1953. In 1963 the American SWP
rejoined the ISFI, which was renamed the United Secretariat of the
FI (USFI). Pablo himself split from the USFI in 1964.
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