The crisis provoked by the unprincipled Cannonite faction aims in essence at the destruction of the International as a centralized world Party. What is at stake in this crisis is not simply the present policy of the International; it is its very existence. The Cannonites have clearly declared in their documents, and still more clearly indicated in their actions, their deep-going hostility to a centralized World Party.
Actually they are fighting in order that each one of them — Cannon, Burns, Bleibreu, the Swiss — may preserve his domain and carry on within it the policy he wishes, without having to submit to the control and discipline of the International movement organized as a centralized World Party.
This is the most certain road to the finish of Trotskyism as the highest expression of the profoundly internationalist character, politically and organizationally, which Trotskyism requires if it is to survive and conquer as the revolutionary Marxist movement of the proletariat and of the world colonial masses.
The 14th Plenum of the IEC is unanimous in its belief that the struggle of the Cannonites aims at the criminal destruction of the International, and that the political differences — painfully concocted *a posteriori* — should not blind anyone to the real meaning of what they are doing.
The International was and is an organism strictly directed by a healthy regime of democratic centralism. As a centralized World Party, it has functioned hitherto far more democratically than any of its sections, and in any case without any comparison with the methods and means employed by Cannon, Burns, Bleibtreu and the Swiss in their own organizations.
The 14th Plenum of the IEC calls upon all the leaderships and all the members to understand clearly that what is involved here above all is a crisis that puts in jeopardy the existence of the International. It appeals to all, regardless of whatever political opinion or difference, to safeguard above all the greatest acquisition of our International movement, its essential strength, *the International as a centralized World Party.*
In the pre-Fourth Congress discussion and at the Congress itself, every tendency has full opportunity to present its views and to fight for their success. The only condition is discipline to the rules of functioning of the International as a centralized World Party.
The 14th Plenum of the IEC calls upon the sections, members and sympathizers of the Fourth International to demonstrate the greatest spirit of sacrifice, more than ever in the past, in order to make possible the functioning of the International and the best possible meeting of the Fourth World Congress.
In this connection, the Plenum decides: that every member, in every section without exception, is asked to contribute the sum of 1,000 French francs, or $3, in the period of January 1 to March 31, 1954; that the leadership of each section undertake in any case to collect a total sum calculated on the basis of such a contribution per member; that upon receipt of this appeal, the leaderships launch a vigorous campaign to collect this sum, and that they assign a leading comrade especially to this task; that they send the funds thus collected to the IS no later than April 15, 1954.
It is especially on this that the holding of the Fourth World Congress depends.
Adopted unanimously