The aim of this report is not to repeat what is contained in the resolution we will be voting on but to indicate the place the discussion now occupies in the Fourth International. The context can be outlined both in terms of the political questions that arise from a critical reassessment of our previous analyses and in terms of our current need to present our program on this point in a better way.
Ninth World Congress Resolution on Latin America
The resolution adopted at the Ninth World Congress stressed that armed struggle was a reality in Latin America. That contention was based on both an assessment of the depth of the social struggles and an analysis of the relationship of socioeconomic forces established between the classes (the relative social weight of the proletariat, the weakness of the national bourgeoisie, etc.). Two main consequences flowed from this reality. Any significant upsurge in the class struggle that is not quickly brought to a halt by the bourgeoisie and drained of its momentum poses the political question of violent confrontation. From then on the activity of the masses is dominated by the fact that repression looms over the horizon.
The revolutionary vanguard is thus very quickly confronted with the need to define its own political and organizational tasks in this context— though its forms may vary— for a long period of time. This thesis has been confirmed by history over the course of the last five years in Latin America, including in countries where the most significant "democratic openings" occurred (Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile, etc.). The evolution of the present situation in Argentina indicates that it too will not escape this process. The reality of armed struggle remains a question determining the options open to revolutionary Marxists. This is what is emphasized in points 1 and 2 of the resolution presented to this congress.
The Ninth World Congress also urged the sections to intervene in the revolutionary current that emerged after the victory of the Cuban revolution in order to reshape it politically through common action and win over a section of it to our program and movement.
The PRT (Combatiente) [Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores—Revolutionary Workers party] posed a special problem. Although it was a section of the Fourth International, it had yet to be fully won over to Trotskyism (see the Argentine resolution on this). Does the overall failure to integrate the PRT(C) into our movement and the split that ratified this failure call for a general condemnation of the entire proposal to establish contact with the new revolutionary generation in Latin America? No— but it does enable us to define more accurately the way it should be applied. An example, even though it is from Europe, will help shed some light on the question - the fusion of the Basque organization ETA-VI [Euzkadi ta Azkatasuna- Basque Nation and Freedom] with the LCR [Liga Comunista Revolucionaria— Revolutionary Communist League], a Spanish sympathizing organization of the Fourth International. ETA was initially a nationalist formation that was much further from Trotskyism than the Castroist current or the Argentine PRT(C). The evolution of the ETA militants began with an understanding of the limits their original orientation imposed on their development. The Trotskyist current emerged through contact with the Spanish LCR and the French Ligue Communiste [Communist League], and, through these organizations, with the Fourth International. Its emergence culminated a process of political clarification that was already under way in the ETA and resulted in a leap forward in the formation of a Trotskyist organization in the Spanish state. The example of the LCR/ETAVI provides a useful illustration of the validity of our general plan for building the Fourth International. Furthermore, this example is far from unique (note the re cent affiliation of the GRS [Groupe Revolution
Socialiste— Socialist
Revolution
Group], the new Antilles section of the Fourth International). At the same time, however, it enables us to illustrate the two conditions necessary for carrying out this plan: the capacity of the Trotskyist organization and militants to organize a programmatic debate with the centrist currents that have begun to evolve, and their capacity to carry out joint actions with these currents. The failure to measure up to these two conditions in Argentina is what prevented us from definitively winning over a significant current of the PRT(C) to our movement. The existence, in spite of our weakness, of groups that have emerged from the PRT(C) and have resolved to continue building an Argentine organization of the Fourth International testifies to what it would have been theoretically possible to accomplish. The task today is to draw up a critical balance sheet of our previous orientation in order to point up why these conditions were not met. The aim is not to call into question the overall political basis on which the Ninth World Congress worked out its orientation for Latin America. But this critical review of the past is important for a full understanding of the present resolution.
The weaknesses, ambiguities, and errors of the Ninth World Congress resolution on Latin America stem mainly from three sets of problems: a. Organizational weaknesses that were not overcome. The Ninth World Congress set our movement, more firmly than in the past, on a course toward political action corresponding to the new international situation. In Latin America, this was characterized by an unprecedented effort to respond to the concrete problems posed for both the vanguard and the masses by the sharp and violent character of the confrontation with the bourgeoisie.
But this effort to "transform" our move ment politically implied a deepgoing modification of the way it functioned as an organization—both on the level of the sections and the international center. We did not succeed in changing our methods of functioning as quickly as the new political tasks we had assigned ourselves demanded. Consequently, our Latin American sections and the United Secretariat were unable either to initiate the political debate in time or work closely enough with the PRT(C). For this reason, the United Secretariat and each section of the International must now put special emphasis on this organizational transformation. b. The Ninth World Congress orientation for Latin America was marked by a number of weaknesses and errors of political analysis.
The main ones concerned the analysis of the Castroist current, the evolution of the Cuban state, and the emergence of a new equilibrium in continental class struggles marked by a greater significance of the urban sectors. These errors resulted in an undeniable overestimation of our perspectives (closely linked to the hope that the Castroist current and Cuba would play a much more significant role than it actually did), and in an extreme centralization of these perspectives around rural guerrilla warfare.
These weaknesses and errors of analysis were serious because they concerned some of the central problems under debate with the Latin American vanguard, including the PRT(C).
This is why the Tenth World Congress is opening a discussion on the evolution of the Cuban state. c. A general programmatic weakness of the International in a very important do main, that of choosing the forms of armed struggle and integrating them into our revolutionary strategy.
Marxist thought in this and other areas has to a great extent been rendered sterile by Stalinism, which has broken the continuity linking us with Bolshevik traditions. In addition, the weakness of our forces prevented us from taking up the development of this question with the same success we have had in other domains. It was no accident that we returned to this fundamental question in the context of the Ninth World Congress and the need to determine an orientation for Latin America. This flowed from a political turn to ward intervention in a continent where the class struggle concretely posed the questions of armed struggle to the vanguard and the masses.
This relative lack of a living theoretical tradition of armed struggle and the narrowness of our political experience (though there was some in Europe—the resistance— and in Latin America) made the Ninth World Congress resolution on Latin America very abstract and dangerously hasty. That was the source of "elliptical formulations" that tended to "telescope" the different stages of struggle — formulations that we have criticized in the discussion.
The aim of the present resolution is to return to these questions, beginning with an effort to systematize and develop our orientation with regard to the place and the forms of armed struggle in our strategy for Latin America.
What Is Under Discussion in the Present Debate? We attach great significance to this question. For us, the point is not merely to take stock of our previous orientation, for the problem remains a burning question. The Latin American far left contains two broad currents representing two symmetrical deviations on the role of armed struggle in the revolutionary strategy for seizing power — a "militarist" current and a so-called "massist" or spontaneist one. We have to present and explain our own positions and distinguish our revolutionary Marxist current from the other currents, including our position on armed struggle.
To understand the function of the present resolution we should go back once again to the context of the current discussion. The majority tendency has no intention of promoting either a "focoist" strategy or a terrorist orientation, as the minority would have one believe. On the contrary, as the resolution presented to this congress illustrates, our entire orientation reflects and clarifies the need to subordinate the party's decisions on the question of armed struggle to its transitional strategy for seizing power. Moreover, this is not a debate about one preferred form of armed struggle (i.e., rural guerrilla warfare). On the contrary, our orientation brings out the variety of forms armed struggle can take- and the different ways of arming the proletariat— depending upon the various possible political situations; in contrast with the Ninth World Congress resolution it calls attention to the role of the revolutionary crisis in the arming of the masses.
This is not a debate over the "techniques" of armed struggle. It is an eminently political debate over the vanguard's particular responsibilities in solving the problem of arming the proletariat and the popular masses in order to seize power. In this report I am not going to take up questions that have already been dealt with at some length in the discussion (the Bolivian experience, etc.). In order to illustrate general applicability of the debate I will take only one example— Chile and the circumstances surrounding the resistance to the military coup. It is clear to everyone that this was a case in which there was no question of a "focoist" orientation (i.e., the organization of rural guerrilla nuclei), "terrorism" (i.e., assassinations of UP [Unidad Popular- Popular Unity] governmental figures), or of a generally "militarist" perspective.
As far as all Trotskyist militants are concerned, there was a clear necessity to organize an urban and regional insurrectional uprising in the face of the danger or first sign of the coup. Despite this very general area of agreement, important differences remain regarding the analysis of what the role of the vanguard was in this situation. Behind the specific debates one can readily see what is really at issue in the discussion— a discussion that this World Congress must bring to a conclusion.
What then were the tasks of revolutionary militants in anticipation of the coup? The first priority was obviously to defend and broaden the proletariat's political and organizational autonomy, and on this basis strengthen its alliance with the working peasantry (from which flows support to the slogans of nationalization under workers control, expropriation of the large landholders, spread and national centralization of the embryonic organs of dual power then in the process of emerging, etc.). The point, therefore, was to hasten the working class's political break with the reformist leadership and to put forward an alternative political leadership on a national scale.
But was that enough? We do not think so. A comparison will help demonstrate this, a comparison with Spain in July 1936. The revolution did not win in July 1936 in Spain. But the situation was quite different from that of Chile in September 1973; for one thing the fascist coup had been defeated in the greater part of the Spanish territory. If that had been the case in Chile (for instance, in the regions of Valparaiso and Santiago), the national and continental situation would have been profoundly different from the one that emerged from the general success of the coup. That does not mean, however, that the struggle would have been over. The example of Spain brings that point home. But the struggle would have taken place on an infinitely more favorable basis than it does today, and not only for the Chilean workers.
The question of why Chile suffered such a heavy defeat is therefore of great importance. What lessons are to be drawn regarding the role of revolutionary militants? Those who feel it is enough to reply that since the revolutionary party had not been built, revolution was not on the agenda, are sidestepping the question. For it cannot be said that the Spanish far left (CNT, POUM) [Confederacion Nacional de Trabajadores—National Confederation of Workers; Partido Obrero de Unlficacion Marxista—United Marxist Workers party] was qualitatively more developed than the far left in Chile. And it certainly cannot be said that general conditions were less favorable in Chile: The objective weight of the Chilean working class was relatively strong, and the workers had benefited from three years of the Popular Unity government, during which a very large number of workers committees had been established (the cordones, etc.). The peasant movement too had accumulated a number of experiences in struggle. A process of political differentiation was taking place among the masses. And in the beginning, at least, the ruling classes were equally divided.
Likewise, if one compares, in the Spain of July 1936, the areas where the coup succeeded and those where it failed, it can be seen that the intervention of general factors does not provide a sufficient explanation: The workers stronghold fell almost without a fight.
What proved to be decisive was the intervention of the vanguard. Everywhere in both Spain and Chile, the masses reacted spontaneously to news of the putsch. But they also reacted everywhere in an essentially defensive fashion, occupying "their" factory, "their" neighborhood. In both cases the masses had been disarmed by a reformist government. In Spain, wherever the coup was defeated, this occurred on account of the intervention by revolutionary militants who, with whatever arms they had in their possession, knew how to put forward objectives to the mobilized masses (the armories, encirclement of the barracks, etc.). It was the intervention of the vanguard that enabled the masses to break away from passive reaction and go over to the counteroffensive. And this occurred even in regions where the reformist leadership remained at the head of the workers movement. The MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria —Movement of the Revolutionary Left] (the main organization of the Chilean far left) was unable to carry out what the militants of the CNT and POUM accomplished in many areas of Spain. This is probably the product of a difference in the history and class struggles of the two countries. An insurrectional tradition— and thus cadres who had already been tested, and masses who had already accumulated experiences of struggle— already existed in Spain.
The lesson to be drawn from the comparison of Chile in 1973 with Spain in 1936 is clear. The bourgeoisie does not wait until the masses have finished breaking with the reformist leadership before it reacts. Once it reacts, everything takes place in a few days at best; more likely in a few hours. The revolutionary vanguard must know how to sweep over the reformist leadership in order to present objectives to the masses. And it must know how to present objectives that are not only political but are also related to the military tasks of the insurrection.
For the Latin America of today the lesson is even clearer that the bourgeoisie and its army have learned a great deal and have made careful preparations. The Chilean coup is a model of the type. The degree of preparation required of the masses and the vanguard is therefore greatly increased.
What then are the tasks of revolutionary Marxists in a situation similar to that of Chile before September 1973, specifically in reference to the question of arming the proletariat (and taking into account the whole range of other political tasks)? At least four can be cited:
1. Carrying out beforehand a systematic campaign of political education around the themes of arming the proletariat (from self-defense to militias), against legalist illusions, and against the bourgeois army. Here, just as around other transitional themes, the Marxist vanguard must play an active role in formulating slogans, publicizing them, and generalizing concerete experiences (for in the end, it is through this analysis that the masses be come educated). This is what makes the question of arming the masses one of the key questions in the revolutionary party's political activity once a tumultuous mass upsurge is under way.
2. On the basis of this work, consistent propaganda and organizational activity must be carried out inside the bourgeois army. The example of Chile reconfirms that this work can only be carried out on the basis of a relationship of forces grounded in the effective capability of the masses to confront the bourgeois army. Work in the army should begin as soon as possible. It can succeed only on the basis of well-established work outside the army that is not limited to peacefully organizing the masses; militias and workers committees must already be in existence if the rank and file of the army is to come over to the proletarian camp. Opposition to the coup existed in the army, and it even seems to have been rather broad. It was physically crushed without resistance.
3. The revolutionary party must be capable of carrying out its own intervention and it must have its armed detachments. It should not only be able to assure the protection of itself and its militants, but should also be capable of facilitating the masses' concrete experiences, maximizing their effect, and deepening them, as well as carrying out significant political actions at the chosen time to speed up the process. In addition, it must be capable of enrolling the masses when decisive confrontations begin.
4. In a general way, the question of timing becomes a key factor. In no case is it possible to count on the bourgeoisie being paralyzed for a length of time sufficient to enable the masses to undergo "naturally" the full experience of the bankruptcy of reformism, if only because the bourgeoisie has the benefit of international support. From this flows the decisive role of revolutionary militants in the whole period of preparation for the insurrection. At the decisive moment, this question be comes even more important. There is no longer time to hesitate. All the circumstances and conditions involved in sweeping over the reformist leaderships and in carrying out the political and military tasks of the uprising must have already been anticipated and thought out. "Insurrection is an art," Trotsky used to be fond of saying. That is something we should not forget.
Stressing these tasks of the revolutionary vanguard is not, we repeat, aimed at sidestepping the debate on the other forms of struggle. It is aimed at throwing some light on the fundamental point under debate. Because the orientation thus defined is different from both militarist orientations and tail-endist, spontaneist orientations.
It differs from militarist orientations — of which the PRT(C) of Santucho is the most sophisticated example - by concrete ly illustrating the central role of organs of dual power in arming the masses, the importance of the moment of revolutionary crisis and the link between carrying out the tasks of arming the proletariat and the revolutionary Marxist program as a whole.
It is profoundly different from the perspectives proposed by the international minority (and in particular by the Argentine PST), which are very close to those of the spontaneist current on the question of the insurrection.
For the minority, the arming of the proletariat is the "natural" product of revolutionists' general political activity and requires no prolonged and specific intervention on the part of the party. "Minority violence" is in principle contradictory to "mass violence" and thus should be denounced. The only violence permitted is violence coming from the mass move ment, carried out in its name, and by its organizations. The term "minority violence," which they say must be denounced in principle, is also attached to actions that scarcely merit the term "violence" (such as breaking the windows of a U. S. embassy in the name of a revolutionary political organization in the course of a movement against the imperialist war in Indochina. . .). The revolutionary militant must march with the masses, at the same pace as the masses— masses who, "when the time comes," will know how to find ways to arm themselves.
The minority refers to the lessons of the guerrilla defeats in Latin America. We will draw them. But they themselves forget to draw the lessons from guerrilla warfare that helped bring about victories (from China to Cuba, including Vietnam); nor do they draw the lessons of the defeats of the "insurrections" in Bolivia, Chile, etc., over the last few years. They show signs of the most insipid tail-endism toward the mass movement— and in point of fact toward its reformist leaders— and of total spontaneism in regard to arming the proletariat. We believe in the spontaneity of the masses— otherwise we would have no hope for the socialist revolution. But we do not believe in being unprepared for insurrection and revolution. As for the third tendency, it seems to adopt the minority's tail-endist way of approaching this question. They differ only in offering an amendment calling for the existence of an "armed (but inactive) wing" of the party until the day when "the masses themselves" arm themselves. The importance of the inactive "armed wing" is reduced to furnishing, when the time comes, well-trained (how?) "revolutionary officers" for the proletariat. For the third tendency, the politics of the PST are simply "not very clear" because the PST is silent about the existence of this "armed wing." The silence will have lasted until the end of the debate, and it is not by accident: It is the product of legalistic politics.
The Tenth World Congress Resolution
The resolution presented to the Tenth World Congress does not try to present an overall continental strategy based on a precise evaluation of the evolution of the class struggles in Latin America. Its aim is more modest; its purpose is different from that of the Ninth World Congress resolution.
Its aim is to begin, on the basis of a critical balance sheet of our past orientation, the work of conceptualizing and formulating the party's tasks in relation to armed struggle. In other words, its purpose is to eliminate the "elliptical" character of the formulations of the previous world congress, to show in a more systematic way the form that armed actions of the party take in relation to the evolution of the political situation, the class struggle, and the party itself. This resolution continues the work of programmatic development begun in this area at the Ninth World Congress. That is what has led us to define more fully the content of the concepts involved and to give a more balanced assessment of the role of rural guerrilla warfare as it was de fined five years ago, and to do so in terms of an analysis of the shift in social struggles under way in Latin
America.
It is at the very least somewhat strange to assert that the resolution presented to this congress tends to generalize guerrilla warfare to encompass all forms of struggle in Latin America, and tends to extend this orientation to the whole rest of the world. First, because this resolution specifically emphasizes the limits to actions of the strictly guerrillaist (rural or urban) sort. Second, because it is in point of fact a continental resolution, not a world one.
A Continental Resolution
In my remarks I made comparisons with some European examples (ETA-VIand July 1936 in Spain) because it is possible to draw useful lessons from them. But the resolution on armed struggle in Latin America is perhaps based more on the differences between continents than on their similarities.
The first difference is stated in point 1 of the resolution. Everywhere in the world the revolution will undoubtedly be violent, and every revolutionary party must there fore set itself specific military tasks. But at the moment the violent confrontation be tween the masses and the bourgeoisie be gins, the forms this confrontation takes will differ greatly between the colonial and semicolonial countries on the one hand and the imperialist countries on the other, for the social structure in these countries is vastly different. The social weight of the proletariat is much weaker in the colonial and semicolonial countries, as is the socio-economic base of the bourgeoisie. It is this particular relationship between the classes that explains the rapidity with which any serious upsurge in class struggles provokes a confrontation. The difference between the colonial revolution as a sector of the permanent revolution and the "classical" proletarian revolution is shown here as well. In what Latin American country would the bourgeoisie be able to assimilate and derail a struggle as broad as the one in May 1968 in France, through essentially political means and wage concessions? That is, however, what the French bourgeoisie did; the army (though on alert) remained in the barracks and the police intervened only at the beginning and end of the movement. Three militants were killed, but that time the army was not directly used (although the threat of an intervention was employed).
So, are we talking about a resolution that is valid for the whole of the colonial and semicolonial world? No! Latin America has a social structure and a tradition of class struggle that differ in too many ways from those of the other continents dominated by imperialism to permit the use of an identical approach. A document on armed struggle in Southeast Asia or Black Africa would not be exactly like the one for Latin America.
An example will clarify this point: the comparison with Vietnam enabled us to criticize the conception held by the PRT(C) and the ERP [Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo - Revolutionary People's Army] highlighting the differences. Prolonged revolutionary war on the Sino-Vietnamese model requires the creation and develop ment of liberated zones based on a resistance economy and an embryonic state apparatus that can only exist in a country with an economy that is still essentially rural. The socioeconomic base of a liberated zone (not to mention problems of a more specifically military character) does not exist in a shantytown. Developments in urbanized Argentina cannot be the same as those in rural Vietnam. In other words, for Argentine revolutionists the emergence of liberated zones can only be conceived within a perspective of continental, or at least subcontinental, struggle. However, this perspective implies the existence of a continental or subcontinental civil war encompassing significant rural regions. In other words, this orientation was not applicable in the last few years.
The Vietnamese national liberation army was not based solely on the formation of liberated zones. Its development was also coordinated with the outbreak of revolutionary crises, and partial or general insurrections (August 1945, for example). There is a dual lesson here. Generally speaking, the transition from minority armed action to the arming of the masses occurs in a context of overall socioeconomic crisis, of revolutionary crisis. What is involved is a qualitative leap; i.e., it is not a case of linear develop ment from an armed wing of the party to a mass revolutionary army. And the political line of the revolutionary party must lead to locating these favorable factors. For that matter, the concrete means for forming a revolutionary proletarian army of mass proportions will vary according to the country, the specific situations, and the concrete forms of the class struggle (centralization of workers militias, development of a "national liberation army" of the Vietnamese type, etc.). Here again the party's role in anticipating developments will be decisive. The comparison could be pursued further to show the importance of differences in defining an orientation. There is, however, a general theme underlying the differences between the majority and minority, a theme that has nothing to do with "continental" considerations and that expresses itself in our different conceptions of armed struggle. What is this theme? It involves the relationship that must be established between the revolutionary vanguard and the masses in order to assure the full development of the transitional dynamic of struggles; it also involves the nature of the program and the whole question of transition. The differences can be expressed as follows: Is it enough to march at the same pace as the masses, merely taking up their slogans and forms of struggle, or should the Marxist vanguard be capable of preparing the masses- through propaganda, agitation, and action- for the tasks they are going to be confronted with in the immediate future? We agree with Lenin that there are times when the party must know how to march a "half step" ahead of the masses, or else risk being unable to play its role. That holds true for armed struggle as well as everything else.
A Bolshevik Tradition
For the minority, the resolution on armed struggle in Latin America, in the context of the Ninth World Congress, rep resents an "innovation" in the history of the Trotskyist movement, an innovation whose methodology is contrary to the Marxist tradition. We have already re plied to this astonishing argument in the precongress debate, taking up (among other examples) the method applied by Lenin at the time of the development of guerrilla actions in Russia in 1906, and the method Trotsky applied to the anti-fascist struggle and to actions taken by the party itself. Since it is necessary to go back over this, let us take a look at a pamphlet written by Trotsky — Strategy and Tactics in the Imperialist Epoch, chapter 10, "The Strategy of Civil War." In 1924, a working group centered around the Military Science Society encountered opposition from the anti- Trotskyist faction of the Comintern. In Trotsky's view:
"A more lightminded and criminal step can hardly be imagined. In an epoch of abrupt turns, the rules of the civil war in the sense presented above must be part of the iron inventory of the entire revolutionary cadre, let alone the leaders of the party. These 'statutes' would have to be studied constantly and augmented from the fresh experiences in one's own country. Only such a study can provide a certain guarantee against steps of panic and capitulation at moments when supreme courage and decisiveness are re quired, as well as against adventurist leaps in periods which require prudence and patience.
"Had such regulations been incorporated in a number of books, the serious study of which is as much the duty of every communist as the knowledge of the basic ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, we might well have avoided such defeats as were suffered during recent years, and which were by no means inevitable. . . ." (The Third International After Lenin, pp. 146-47.)
It can be seen that our concerns are not new.
We do not believe that the solution to all our problems can be found in the texts that are the heritage of the Marxist movement. But we do believe in the application of the method that guided the Bolsheviks' actions during the Russian revolution and the elaboration of the Transitional Program of 1938. All we are doing today is renewing— in a modest fashion— an old tradition of the communist movement, a tradition many of whose threads have been broken by Stalinism. The resolution presented to this Tenth World Congress puts forward a concept of armed struggle that is sharply distinguished from the militarist or spontaneist deviations of armed struggle, deviations that have been and continue to be widespread in the Latin American far left. The resolution enables us to draw a critical balance sheet of our own orientation. Its aim is to clarify and better differentiate the concepts we make use of (armed protection of the party's propaganda work, actions of the party itself, guerrilla warfare in the strict sense of the term, and so forth). It illuminates the correlation that exists between the evolution of developments in the class struggle and the tasks incumbent upon the party. But this resolution remains very abstract. It is no substitute for the capability of each of our groups or sections in Latin America to define its own tasks in terms of the national situation. It does not claim to define a full, complete, overall strategic orientation for the entire Latin American continent. But to move ahead in both elaboration and action, we must now bring to a close the debate between tendencies that emerged in the International following the Argentine and Bolivian experiences.