Report on the Tactical Applications of the Line of the Third World Congress

Issuing body: presented by Michel Pablo to the 10th Plenum of the International Executive Committee (IEC)

---

Report on the Tactical Applications of the Line of the Third World Congress (presented by Michel Pablo to the 10th Plenum of the IEC, February 1952)

The stage of mass work for our international movement should have been reached with the elaboration and application of the Transition Program, which L. Trotsky had conceived precisely with this end in view.

It crowned a long period of development and activity of the Trotskyist movement, during which the latter, starting from the necessary stage of strict ideological delimitation from Stalinism and the other tendencies of the labour movement, as well as from general propaganda, had reached that degree of maturity which permits, and indeed demands, the broadest activity within the class. The conception and elaboration of the Transition Program, to which the collective experience of the Trotskyist movement contributed, already reflected on the plane of ideas this natural maturity of our movement. However, the particular conditions of the war which broke out shortly after its adoption did not allow the International and its sections to develop the experience of the new stage without hindrance, an experience that would have drawn in and educated the movement as a whole.

Most of our sections found themselves, during the war, plunged into the strictest illegality, with limited forces, severely hunted down by imperialist and Stalinist repression. In certain countries where the mass movement took particular forms of expression, our weak sections, insufficiently experienced and still prisoners of a mentality tainted by a certain formalist, schematic, doctrinaire spirit, were unable to appreciate the possibilities offered by these mass movements, to integrate themselves into them and to profit from them. The result was that, in the immediate aftermath of the war, our movement as a whole had not yet had any real experience of mass work, and the general propagandist character continued to dominate its activity. Its activity, and not its policy — for what our movement still lacked at that time was not so much a concrete, as opposed to a general, position on this or that political question (a trade-union programme adapted to the conditions of each country, concrete analyses of the national political situation, concrete political slogans) but, above all, a concrete milieu in which to work, a concrete conception of how to work in such a milieu, all of this ordered within the framework of a concrete conception of the building of the revolutionary party in each country. The stage of such activity began for our movement as a whole after the last war and has continued since then, constantly reaching new levels of maturity and achievement, some of which constitute new acquisitions — in the field of tactics and experience — for the Marxist labour movement as a whole since its origins.

We shall subdivide this stage into three phases in order better to grasp the logic of the development and the scope of the progress achieved: from the end of the war to the Second World Congress (April 1948); from the Second to the Third World Congress; and since the latter.

In the first phase, several of our sections applied themselves to propagating and applying, in the concrete conditions of their countries, the Transition Program, which had become more topical than ever in the situation of post-war capitalism. This was particularly the case with most of our European sections and with the American Trotskyists, as well as with our organizations in Ceylon and Bolivia, both of which, for specific reasons, had already acquired real mass influence. In all these countries our organizations made parallel progress both in the elaboration of a concrete policy and in real mass activity, participating widely in election campaigns, strikes, and trade-union activities. They thus broke, both on the plane of ideas and on that of practical activity, with their past as propaganda groups, and were imperceptibly transformed qualitatively into political groups more intimately linked to the life and struggles of the class. This phase was placed, as a general rule, under the sign of the independent activity and organization of our forces.

The reasons for such an orientation were based on our assessment, at the time, of the international situation, of Stalinism, and of reformism. This assessment was essentially correct.

Coming out of the war, the situation in Europe, in Asia, in Latin America, and even in the United States (certainly to a lesser degree) was full of revolutionary possibilities. It was the class-collaborationist policy of the Kremlin, already applied during the war in conjunction with the "democratic" imperialist camp — a policy the Kremlin intended to continue — that liquidated these possibilities and cynically betrayed the interests of the revolution. The Kremlin wished to avoid a complete break with its former allies, and sought a durable compromise with them, who, for their part, had not yet regained sufficient strength to launch the Cold War. Certainly, the logic of the situation, despite the Kremlin's overtures, pushed toward a break between the two camps and their violent confrontation, but the game was not yet up on the capitalist side, and no one could foresee exactly how much time would elapse before this break occurred. It was in reality the fall of Chiang Kai-shek, far more than the Prague coup of February 1948, that undermined the possibility of an extensive and viable compromise between the Kremlin and imperialism.

In any case, the period 1944-1947 unfolded under the sign of the Kremlin's counter-revolutionary policy, liquidating the revolutionary possibilities of the situation. The masses, deserting the old reformist parties, flowed into the Stalinist organizations, but the policy of the latter disappointed them and threatened to push them into overflowing the framework of these organizations. Under these conditions it was logical for our movement to attempt an experiment in essentially independent work, one which made it possible to denounce openly and without restriction the clearly counter-revolutionary policy of the Kremlin at that time, and to polarize around our own organizations the revolutionary elements disappointed by this policy.

On the other hand, "entrist" work, or essentially "entrist" work, within the reformist organizations, which at that time were weakened and discredited in most European countries, opened up no serious prospect for our movement. Nevertheless, the particular cases of England and Austria had already, from that moment, attracted the attention of the International.

The second phase began with the holding of the Second World Congress, at the beginning of 1948, almost simultaneously with the Prague coup and the actual entry into the Cold War. On the plane of tactics and of the concrete building of the revolutionary party, the Second World Congress made a particular contribution concerning work directed toward the reformist organizations.

Between the Second and the Third World Congress, and more particularly between the Second Congress and the Ninth Plenum of the IEC (November 1950), it was above all this work that held the attention of the International, because of the revival of a number of reformist organizations in the eyes of the masses, and a parallel decline of Stalinist influence in the corresponding countries (Belgium, Austria, the Scandinavian countries, Germany, etc.).

The case of England, raised even before the Second World Congress, found a solution shortly afterward. Entry into the Labour Party, and the conception of the work to be done there, was by far the most important new experience so far in the field of entrist work in general. It has since developed in a direction that differentiates it considerably, almost qualitatively, from "entrism" as practised by our movement in the years 1934-1938. I shall return further on to the objective and subjective conditions which determined the new meaning of this "entrism." For the moment it is enough to point out that, through entry into the LP, Trotskyism embarked on a long-term perspective of work within the movements and organizations through the channels along which the fundamental political current of the class passes — and, in all probability, will continue to pass.

In acting thus, Trotskyism was acknowledging a reality and, consequently, the necessity of envisaging the building of the revolutionary party through a shared experience with the political majority of the class, an experience lived out where this class was, and would remain for a period, grouped together. The essential forces of the revolutionary party would emerge through the differentiation or break-up of these mass organizations.

This tactical conception was, and remains, naturally founded on the perspectives of the evolution of the international situation as they began to become clear to us from the time of the Cold War onward: relatively short delays before the war, the new and decisive character of this war, an accelerated crisis of the capitalist regime attaining in any case an explosive general degree in the war itself. Here and there, a probable tightening of the ranks of the masses around their main organizations — reformist or Stalinist depending on the country — and a differentiation generally maintained within the very framework of these organizations. To seek to shake, and even more to replace, the bureaucratic leadership of the masses from outside, by counterposing our own independent organizations to it, risked, under these conditions, isolating us from these masses and causing us to lose all the real possibilities that existed for operating far more effectively, to this end, from within their movement itself.

Between the Second and the Third World Congress, the evolution of the objective situation in the direction already indicated reinforced us in this tactical conception. But while, from the time entry was carried out in England, this tactic appeared generally possible with regard to the reformist organizations and gradually met with greater understanding throughout the International, the tactic of approach to the Stalinist movement remained the same as in the past. The wager continued to be placed on the crisis and overflow of Stalinism. The main reason for this was the actual crisis of Stalinism, which reached its high point, so far, in the post-war period, in 1948-1950, with the maturing of the Yugoslav affair, its outbreak and its repercussions in all the countries of the "buffer zone" and in all the Communist Parties, right up to the Korean War. It fed on the contradictions between the objectives of the Kremlin's reactionary policy in the "buffer zone" and through the Communist Parties of the West, and the needs and aspirations of the revolutionary masses who had flowed into these organizations after the war.

The outbreak of the Yugoslav affair, and the progressive left-centrist course which the Yugoslav CP outlined up to the Korean War, militated in favour of the widening and deepening of this crisis. But at the same time, the intensification of the Cold War had brought about a leftward shift in the policy of the Communist Parties compared to that which they had followed up to about 1947, and placed the Stalinist movement in new objective conditions. This second factor worked against the free exercise of the influence of the first and, to a certain extent, counteracted its effects. The Yugoslav affair, during its progressive phase, would have had infinitely greater repercussions in the international Stalinist movement if the CPs had at the same time maintained their ultra-rightist policy of 1944-1947. However, what really reversed the centrifugal process of the Stalinist crisis was, in general, the new situation created by the Korean War and, in particular, the disastrous effects that this situation produced on Yugoslav policy. With the Korean War, the Cold War intensified enormously, and, in parallel, the leftward shift of Stalinist policy became more pronounced. On the other hand, the leadership of the Yugoslav CP, caught between internal difficulties and the aggravated pressure of imperialism, began to give way to the latter.

All this worked increasingly not in favour of a disappearance of the crisis of Stalinism (this crisis, in reality permanent, being due to the insoluble contradictions of Stalinism), but toward its transformation into a crisis contained within the framework of the Stalinist organizations and movement, with the masses and militants instinctively closing ranks above all against threatening imperialism. From being a powerful stimulus accentuating the centrifugal, dislocating aspect of the crisis of Stalinism, the Yugoslav affair became, on the contrary, a factor working to reinforce the centripetal aspect of the crisis of Stalinism, with discontented elements hesitating to break away for fear of betraying, in isolation, like Tito, the class front. The accentuated leftward shift of Stalinist policy worked, moreover, as we have already noted, in the same direction.

This new international situation, and its new repercussions on the Stalinist movement, which arose with the Korean War, were bound to command our attention and influence our tactics, particularly with regard to the Stalinist movement. It was no longer possible to proceed as if nothing had changed, without the certain risk of taking a wrong turn, of ossifying our movement on positions overtaken by moving reality, by life, and of causing it to stagnate through theoretical incomprehension and sectarianism of activity.

It was the Ninth Plenum of the IEC that outlined the reorientation of our movement, that is, that began to bring our political analysis and practical activity into accord with the new international situation and its implications for the labour movement. It was this plenum that outlined, in particular, a new approach to the Stalinist movement, within the framework of a new perspective for the evolution of the international situation and of the new conditions in which Stalinism, and particularly the Communist Parties enjoying mass influence, now found themselves. This beginning of a reorientation was completed at the Third World Congress. In its reports and resolutions were laid the foundations of an overall tactic for our movement, aimed at working for the building of the world mass revolutionary party, within the framework of an overall perspective for the evolution of the international situation.

With this Congress, our movement reached the highest degree so far attained of understanding of its tactics for inserting itself into the real mass movement and becoming its revolutionary leadership. Any mental, intellectual approach to objective reality is, in principle, a limited, incomplete approach. Thought grasps a few aspects of reality, which it fragments, immobilizes, and impoverishes of its much richer, more complex content. Thought necessarily distorts reality and, in order to grasp it, breaks its unity, its movement. The thought of the movement, despite its superiority over the individual thought of each unorganized element (which does not benefit, consequently, from the contribution of the discipline and vigour of the collective thought of an international movement possessing a thousand and one privileged vantage points of observation and experience), is not exempt from these defects. It too constantly lags behind the objective process and grasps it with limitations. Certain fundamental things, certain fundamental aspects of objective reality, can be grasped, understood, only through experience, through a natural maturing of thought in action. The revolutionary movement, despite the powerful weapon of Marxist theory, does not succeed at once in merging with the real movement of the class in each country, does not succeed in grasping external reality in its particulars, does not succeed in eliminating the doctrinaire, schematic barriers that separate it from reality except through the experience and successive approximations of its thought to reality, facilitated, indeed imposed, by experience.

With the Third World Congress, we have the proof of a concrete maturing of the thought of our movement, based on its entire past experience and on its theoretical resources, which has made possible the elaboration of an overall tactical conception for the building of the mass revolutionary party — the most vital, that is, the most realistic in relation to the whole past of the revolutionary movement, the best adapted to a real understanding of the character of the epoch and of the real mass movement that this epoch engenders in each country. It is we, the international Trotskyist movement, who have achieved, on the plane of tactical conception, the greatest progress since the birth of the Marxist labour movement, by working for the real fusion of the revolutionary vanguard with the natural movement of the class, as it forms, as it expresses itself in each country, thereby eliminating all the doctrinaire, schematic barriers that separate formalist thought from revolutionary action; by eliminating the sectarianism that lies at the root of a thought that holds back from merging into creative revolutionary activity. This progress we have achieved on the plane of the understanding of the majority of our cadres and of a large part of our militants. It remains, naturally, to imbue the whole movement with these conceptions, and thus to realize, for the first time in the history of the international labour movement, the example of a truly non-sectarian vanguard — that is, of a vanguard closer than ever to reality, whose thought and consequent activity have grasped, more closely than ever, with fewer limitations than ever, reality, life, the natural movement of the class, whose revolutionary consciousness and leadership it is a matter of becoming.

I come now to the overall conception of tactics which we reached at the Third World Congress. Its constituent elements, as well as their dialectical connection, are contained, explicitly and implicitly, in the line of the texts, reports, and resolutions of this Congress. My purpose in this report is to bring out this conception further and to develop it more fully and more analytically. I say that the Third World Congress elaborated an overall tactic for our work within the real mass movement, aimed at building the mass revolutionary party in each country. In this sense, it took up the whole accumulated experience of our movement's past and raised it to a higher degree by fusing elements that appeared disparate into a more developed and more integral overall tactical conception. This overall tactical conception is subordinate to, and flows from, the general political perspective elaborated by the Third World Congress. The unity and meaning of this tactic can be grasped only by those who approach it in the light of the general perspective.

This perspective is defined as that of the final crisis of capitalism and the extension of the world revolution, both of them precipitated by the upheavals that the last war provoked, accentuated since the Cold War, and which are now moving, through a decisive conflict, toward a decisive solution — that is, one that will in any case mark an entire historical epoch. In this evolution, we say: the forces of the revolution start out favoured, and we do not foresee the possibility of this relation of forces changing decisively, in the years to come, to the detriment of the revolution.

The counter-revolutionary war which the coalesced imperialism is preparing, and to which it will be fatally driven (barring the hypothesis that the revolution triumphs worldwide, including and above all in the USA, before it breaks out, or that imperialism, including that of the USA, takes fright and yields without a fight), within a timeframe which, even now, is relatively short, this war, far from halting this destructive process of capitalism, will carry it to a still higher level — that of international civil war, of war-revolution. In this period, which is already open, the most revolutionary in history (not only in the history of capitalism), in which the final fate of Stalinism will be decided within a relatively short time, the fate of capitalism will also be sealed — that is, the fate of the Soviet bureaucracy and of its reactionary hold on that part of the revolutionary movement which it still influences.

We start from the conviction that the extension of the revolution means, at the same time, the certain death of Stalinism. That the final outcome of the struggle now under way, independently of this or that initial, passing, episodic phase here or there, will also bring about the destruction of Stalinism. This conviction is in no way a matter of consoling sentiment or wishful thinking, but is founded on a profound understanding of the objective forces in struggle, of the nature and contradictions of Stalinism, as well as of the experience already gained in Yugoslavia, in China, in the "buffer zone," with other Communist Parties, during and after the last war.

The new objective conditions in which the struggle for socialism is currently unfolding determine a new dynamic of the spontaneous mass movement. These objective conditions have placed, and constantly place, the organized political movement of the proletariat, and the various currents and organizations in which it manifests itself, in likewise new objective conditions — that is, conditions which determine new reactions on their part, independently of this or that wish or plan of their leaderships. It is on the basis of such an understanding of the character of the period, of the meaning of its evolution, and of the reactions which this situation imposes and determines, both on the plane of the spontaneous mass movement and on that of its organized formations, that we elaborate our overall tactic.

This is how we proceeded at the World Congress. The tactical conceptions elaborated by this Congress are all based on the analysis of the character of the period and of its prospects. It is there that they find their meaning and the unity of their content. For, in various forms, our tactic everywhere aims at our integration into the real mass movement, taking account of its particularities in each country, in order to create the revolutionary leadership and the revolutionary party.

The Three Sectors of Our Activity

With the Third World Congress, our movement succeeded in unifying, within the conception of its tactics, two elements: a concrete milieu of work, and a concrete manner of working within it.

It is false to say, as some maintain, that the Third World Congress gave any preference to work directed toward Stalinist organizations and workers at the expense of the other sectors of work. If it laid particular stress on the necessity of such work, this was, as we have noted, because this field had hitherto been the most neglected, the one where the delay in the reorientation demanded by the new objective conditions was unquestionably the greatest. But in truth, the tactical conception worked out by the Third World Congress bears simultaneously on three distinct directions, according to the particularities of the mass movement in each country: essentially independent work; work directed toward reformist workers and organizations; work directed toward Stalinist workers and organizations.

• Essentially Independent Work

The texts of the Third World Congress clearly indicated that, for a whole very important category of countries in which the obstacle of a strong reformist or Stalinist movement does not exist, the immediate central task of the Trotskyists is to act, from now on, as the revolutionary leadership of the masses. This category of countries comprises, above all, Latin America, Ceylon, the United States, India, and the countries of the Middle East. The African colonies may be considered as belonging to this category, with the following reservation: in all these countries the Trotskyists must act, from now on, as the revolutionary leadership of the masses, even if, for some of these countries, this must involve an experience carried out through certain reformist, centrist, or simply national currents and formations. For example, the activity of the American Trotskyists is, at the present stage, an essentially independent activity, even though it advocates the necessity of a Labour Party in the USA, an eventuality which, were it to be realized, would entail their entry into the LP. The activity of the Trotskyists of the Middle Eastern countries and of the African colonies could develop for a period within the national movement now shaking these countries, but it would have to assume, from the outset, the tasks of a revolutionary leadership of the masses. Our activity must be considered essentially independent in all countries where the existence of another leadership, reformist or Stalinist, is not solidly established among the masses and consequently does not impose a long-term entrism, as we now envisage it for all other cases.

This essentially independent activity means, as we have said, acting from now on as the revolutionary leadership of the masses. This character of activity flows from our assessment of the situation and of the prospects for its evolution. The situation is everywhere pre-revolutionary, to varying degrees, and is evolving, within a relatively short time, toward revolution. And this process is now in general irreversible.

Revolution breaks out even unexpectedly, as in Iran, in Egypt, in Tunisia. The small nuclei of Marxist revolutionaries can and must play the role that history assigns them, that of the revolutionary leadership. These nuclei can discharge this task and, in so doing, develop, within a relatively short time, into powerful currents, if they are, from now on, ideologically and politically prepared. That is to say, if they have, from now on, a clear and profound understanding of the explosive revolutionary character of the period, and if they elaborate a concrete policy and a concrete tactic adapted to the particular conditions of their country. If they act, in a word, from now on, not as general propaganda groups but as the nuclei of the revolutionary leadership, conscious of the needs and aspirations of the masses of their country, and having a concrete political answer to give to their problems. It is this bold, offensive, broad, and flexible spirit that the Third World Congress sought to instil in the Trotskyists of all these countries.

What the Congress texts said about the Middle Eastern countries, and the tactic to be adopted there by inserting ourselves into the national movement now shaking them so profoundly — this even before the flowering of the Iranian crisis and the events in Egypt and Tunisia — is a resounding confirmation of the correctness of the assessment and of the tactic advocated.

On the other hand, the resolution on Latin America is an example of such an understanding of the situation and of the tasks of the vanguard. This resolution warns the Trotskyists of these countries that the explosive, revolutionary crisis of the Far East, spreading to the Middle East, is their own inevitable and very close future tomorrow. That they must, consequently, prepare themselves, from now on, quickly, to play their leadership role. That this must be expressed in the structure and spirit of their programme, in the boldness and flexibility of their activity. The resolution gives precise directives on all these points. Its spirit, its conception, are even more important than its letter. The Third World Congress strove to break down every doctrinaire, formalist, schematic — in the last analysis, petty-bourgeois — barrier that prevents an understanding of the objective revolutionary process of our epoch and its timely exploitation.

Objectively, revolution can begin along unforeseeable paths, apparently contrary to the letter of the books and documents, outside the established schemas. One must be ready to throw oneself, first of all, into the struggle, confident that the logic of its development is unfailingly that of permanent revolution, and to seize hold of whatever end the situation itself offers (a peasant movement, a proletarian strike, or a national demonstration), to go along with the masses, to demonstrate with them, and to be the first against the imperialists. Even if they are shouting, at the same time, "Long live King Farouk," "Long live Mossadegh," "Long live Bourguiba" — their second, inevitable cry will be against the treacherous king, the treacherous pashas, the treacherous feudal-capitalists, the cry of the demonstrators in Cairo: "War and revolution!"

One must begin where the masses themselves begin: with the anti-imperialist struggle, for example, organizing it ourselves, taking the initiative in it, pushing it to the hilt. One must trust the masses, one must avoid overestimating their apparent apathy during a given period, their inevitable momentary retreats, and must not underestimate the constant molecular process taking place in the depths, in the direction of revolution, which explains the sudden qualitative transformations, the revolutionary explosions. One must not lag behind, one must act quickly, one must always be ready, full of a spirit of revolutionary initiative and boldness. It is the character of the period that imposes this conception. It must be understood, and demonstrated through appropriate action.

To the comrades of Bolivia and of Ceylon, the International says today: power is within your reach, not in ten years' time, but immediately, within the next few years, if not this very year (this applies more particularly to Ceylon). It depends in large part on you, on your policy from now on, on your boldness, on your daily activity at the head of the masses in defence of their daily demands, on your bold programme for tomorrow, on winning their majority, even a parliamentary majority, and on constituting a workers' government, the first step toward a genuine seizure of power in Ceylon, resting on the mobilization and revolutionary organization of the masses.

Naturally, the comrades of Bolivia and of Ceylon must not remain alone in this struggle. It is the International as a whole, its leadership above all, that must assist them, help them. We shall be jointly responsible for success or failure, in solidarity.

• Work Directed Toward Reformist Workers and Organizations

In countries where the reformist movement embraces the political majority of the class, where there exist solidly established Socialist Parties still retaining great influence over the masses and far outclassing all other political formations, as in England, Austria, Belgium, Australia, Canada, Holland, the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, Germany, and, with reservations, India, our forces have the duty to act above all in the direction of these organizations and of the masses they influence. The question of an entry, even a total entry, must be considered in all these countries, wherever it has not already been carried out. For it is infinitely probable, in all these countries, barring new developments unforeseeable at present, that the movement of radicalization of the masses, and the first stages of the revolution, of the objective revolutionary situation, will manifest themselves within the framework of these organizations.

The principal forces of the revolutionary party in these countries will emerge through the differentiation or the break-up of these organizations. These cannot be broken and replaced by others within the relatively short time that separates us from the decisive conflict. The workers who have not so far abandoned these organizations will not leave them so quickly in the absence of another powerful pole of attraction. All the more so since these organizations, insofar as they are really mass organizations placed under the new objective conditions of an accentuated crisis of capitalism, of preparation for war, and of the inevitable resulting deterioration in the standard of living of the masses, will be compelled, whether they like it or not, to shift the policy of the whole, or at least of a part, of their leadership to the left.

Bevanism, of varying scope from one country to another, is an inevitable phenomenon of the present conjuncture for all the Socialist Parties. Bevanism will polarize the discontent of the masses in these countries and sustain it within the framework of these organizations. Bevanism is at once the expression of the pressure of the masses within these parties and of the hope they nourish (and which it sustains) that a change in the rightist policy of these parties is still possible.

When and exactly how the surpassing of Bevanism and the creation of a truly revolutionary, mass-based tendency and leadership will occur in these countries, we cannot say with precision at this time. What is certain is that it is necessary to pass first through this experience, inserting ourselves into it and helping it from within to develop to its ultimate resources and consequences.

• Hence the conception of an entrist tactic in all these parties, but of a kind different from the entrism practised before the war. Before the war, more precisely between 1934 and 1938, after the victory of Hitler and the threat that fascism posed to bourgeois democracy and to the labour movement, including social democracy, L. Trotsky conceived the tactic of entry into the Socialist Parties placed under these new conditions and compelled to fight. But this tactic had a rather ephemeral, short-lived character, with limited objectives. It was, in general, a matter of entering these parties, of taking advantage of their passing leftward shift, of recruiting militants or capturing a few slender left currents developing within them, and then of leaving. There was no question of confronting the tasks of war and revolution while remaining inside these parties. The whole conception governing the manner of carrying out the entry and of working within these parties was determined by this perspective.

Today, it is not exactly the same kind of entrism. We are not entering these parties in order to leave them again soon. We are entering in order to remain for a long time, wagering on the very great possibility that exists of seeing these parties, placed under the new conditions, develop centrist tendencies which will lead an entire stage of the radicalization of the masses and of the objective revolutionary process in their respective countries. We wish, in reality, from within these tendencies, to amplify and accelerate their left-centrist maturation and to dispute with the centrist leaders themselves the leadership of these tendencies as a whole. Such developments are currently possible, in contrast with the pre-war situation, because the crisis of capitalism is infinitely deeper and the movement of the masses infinitely more powerful.

Does all this mean that the reformist parties will become revolutionary parties, and that we are entering them not to destroy them but to strengthen them? No — the reformist parties as a whole, as they are, will never be transformed into revolutionary parties, but they can be transformed, under an exceptional thrust of the masses, into centrist parties, as a whole or in a large part. We do not enter them, consequently, under the illusion of transforming them into revolutionary parties, but in order to help the development of their centrist tendency and to secure our leadership over it.

This whole process will not necessarily be short, but neither will it stretch out over decades. We continue to hold that the decisive developments and deadlines fall within the next few years, and not in an indeterminate or very distant future. On the other hand, it is not excluded that reality, life, will confront us with particularities that are currently unforeseeable and that will modify our tactic. But acting now, as we advocate, within these powerful reformist organizations is no handicap for such eventualities. On the contrary, it is a guarantee that we shall be, should the occasion arise, best prepared, through our present work, to adapt to them and to exploit them to our advantage.

The concrete questions raised by such an entrism are: (a) how to insert oneself into the movement; (b) how to work within it at the first stage; (c) how to work within it and progress thereafter.

The Trotskyists have carried out entry individually, unconditionally, as ordinary recruits of these organizations, behaving, for a whole initial period, like any other member, not dwelling on their status as Trotskyists, undertaking no activity along our overall Trotskyist line, and making it their priority to show themselves as the best militants of these organizations. In this way they sought to make their entry as unnoticed as possible, to elude the vigilance and mistrust of the bureaucrats, to win the esteem and protection of the rank and file, to become embedded in the milieu and to know it concretely. It is only once this preparatory phase has been completed that they have begun to develop political activity in accordance with the possibilities of the milieu, which they have come to know closely and concretely. This activity has not always been an openly Trotskyist activity, developing our whole programme clearly. It turned on limited objectives, suggested by the life and consciousness of the milieu, tending to favour the development of left tendencies, however elementary at first. In this domain, the tactical spirit of the leadership has a very wide range, varying by country and by moment, in which to exercise itself and demonstrate its capacities. Examples: England, Austria, Holland. Given favourable objective conditions, such flexible and intelligent activity on the part of our forces can accelerate the development and maturation of a broad left tendency in these parties, over which they will seek to exercise their leadership.

Any manoeuvre and any policy that risk cutting us off prematurely from the great mass of these parties must be regarded as mistaken. The great danger threatening us is not, as was the case in the small organizations we entered (the Young Socialists, JS), that of remaining there too long once the situation had rotted; the great danger is that of moving too fast, of mistaking the stirrings of a restricted vanguard for the radicalization and revolt of the great mass, which will practically coincide with the outbreak of a genuine revolutionary crisis in the country. Our aim is dialogue with tens and hundreds of thousands of workers whose revolt against rearmament and war is inevitable. It is to this end that our instruments of work must be established. It is to this end that our political platform within the Socialist Parties must be adapted.

On domestic policy, this platform must be summed up in the formula: the Socialist Party alone in power, to apply a socialist policy. Starting from the demands formulated by the reformist leaders for a "fairer sharing of the burdens of rearmament," the Trotskyists in the Socialist Parties must elaborate a platform of concrete measures (confiscation of all rearmament and war profits; nationalization without compensation of war industries; a sliding scale of wages; price controls exercised through housewives' committees; nationalization of the banks and basic industries; a plan for the welfare of the people, not a plan for preparing war, etc.) which meets the concerns of the broad masses: struggle against the rising cost of living, against profiteers, against rearmament as such, struggle for the achievement of socialism, etc. It is clear that this platform must start from the concrete conditions of each country and must include, for example in Great Britain or Norway (should the Socialist Party lose power), the defence of the progressive reforms introduced by homogeneous Labour or Social-Democratic-led governments (social security, nationalizations, housing policy, etc.).

• Our Platform on International Policy

This is the most difficult and, at the same time, the most important part of our activity within the Socialist Parties. It is here that the Trotskyists must act, from now on, with the idea of becoming the effective leadership of the masses as soon as the latter reach a certain point of discontent and revolt. This means that our platform must be such that it can be understood by the broad masses, that it can push them forward on the road of resistance to imperialism and to war, that it can offer them a way out and a perspective comprehensible not only to a small vanguard but to everyone. General opposition to war, the general feeling that this war is willed and prepared only by imperialism, principally by American imperialism, instinctive mistrust of all the "defensive" declarations of one's own bourgeoisie, the will to defend the emancipation movement of the colonial peoples against the imperialist exploiters — these are, from today, factors present among tens of thousands of conscious socialist workers (as demonstrated, for example, by the Bevan platform, which reflects rather the rearguard than the vanguard of the workers discontented with the leadership of the Labour Party). All this accumulated experience is sometimes combined with a vague feeling that "when all is said and done, the USSR must be defended."

But we would be disarming ourselves if we wished to close the eyes of the broad masses of the countries of Western Europe to Stalinist policy, past and present. Its discredit — linked, in Germany and Austria, to the fear produced by the masses' own experience — is a real factor in the political situation, and if we wish to pursue a policy genuinely capable of influencing, and even of leading, these masses, we must start from what is, and not from what ought to be.

These masses, rightly, do not trust Stalin. In all these countries with a long social-democratic and workers'-democratic tradition, they instinctively sense the conservative and oppressive character of the Soviet bureaucracy. It is not our task to combat or weaken this fundamentally sound sentiment, as sound as the sentiment of instinctive opposition to imperialism and to war. It is not our task to sow illusions about the Stalinist bureaucracy in countries where its influence is declining or minimal. This is why our platform, on international policy, should be summed up as follows: let us struggle for a socialist England, for a socialist Germany, etc., the only means of avoiding imperialist war, of combating the influence of the Soviet bureaucracy, of wresting from the Stalinists the leadership of the colonial revolution, and of freeing the peoples of the whole world from the false alternative — imperialism or Stalinism — by placing them before the real alternative: victory of imperialism or victory of the socialist revolution (of socialism).

On such a platform (rupture with the Atlantic Pact; unlimited aid to the emancipation movements in the colonies; withdrawal of all imperialist troops from Korea, Egypt, Vietnam, Malaya, etc.; conclusion of peace and economic-aid treaties with China and the liberated colonial countries; conclusion of economic-cooperation agreements with the USSR and the people's democracies; elaboration of an economic plan for world development for the whole of the non-capitalist zone of the world, etc.), it is possible to combine the healthy anti-imperialist and anti-Stalinist sentiments of the socialist workers and to open up a perspective which is indeed the only way out for the international proletariat: the shift of the centre of gravity of the world revolutionary movement toward the industrially advanced countries.

By developing such a platform, we could far more easily mobilize the masses in practice against war preparations and against imperialist war itself — that is, lead the masses to defend, in practice, the USSR and the people's democracies — than by centring our agitation directly on the slogan "defence of the USSR," or on: "we must be in the anti-imperialist camp even if it is led by Russia." These slogans are adequate only on the plane of individual propaganda; they can convince a few hundred or even a few thousand advanced workers, but they cannot by themselves overcome the obstacles that thirty years of the past have created in the consciousness of the masses on this plane. This does not mean, naturally, that within the framework of our general propaganda, in our organs, etc., we must dodge the problem of the defence of the USSR. It means only that, on this plane as on the whole range of questions, our work in the Socialist Parties is no longer, in the first instance, a work of propaganda, but a work aimed at getting the masses to take a practical step forward. It is to this task that the work of general propaganda must be subordinated.

Such an international platform also makes it possible to use the European question, which is important in several Socialist Parties, in favour of a revolutionary mobilization. The Europe of Franco, Churchill, Adenauer, Gasperi, Paul Reynaud, or de Gaulle is a Europe for which not a single worker will want to lift a finger. A socialist Europe, a Europe in which the Socialist Parties will have conquered power, could become the first world base of socialism, etc. Likewise, on the question of the Schuman Plan, we can take up excellent slogans such as: first nationalize, then internationalize! First a socialist government in each country, then a socialist international authority, etc.

• Work Directed Toward Stalinist Workers and Organizations

All the considerations set out above in this report, and more particularly those concerning work directed toward reformist workers and organizations, should illuminate and facilitate the understanding of the work advocated by the World Congress with regard to Stalinist workers and organizations.

Both in the "Theses" and in the resolution on the international situation, it is explicitly stated, and, better still, implied in the meaning, in the very line of these texts, that "in countries where the majority of the working class still follows the Communist Parties," our organizations "must orient themselves toward more systematic work at the base of these parties and among the masses they influence."

"In all other countries where the revolutionary mass movement still passes principally through Stalinist or Stalinizing organizations, our essential concern must be not to cut ourselves off from these masses, to seek to mingle with them, and to take advantage of the common struggle against capitalism and imperialism in order to turn them, through this struggle, against the bureaucracy and Stalinism as well." (Resolution on the International Situation.)

For countries where the mass movement has already taken on an openly revolutionary character, led by the Communist Parties, as in the "Asian countries in revolt," the World Congress further clarified this line by indicating that in these countries "the orientation of our movement must also be toward work within the Communist Parties and the organizations they influence, with a view to not cutting ourselves off from the mass movement and to exploiting the conjuncture of the war as best we can."

The question of entrist work within the mass Communist Parties and the organizations they influence was raised by the Third World Congress itself, which further stressed the "essential" character of such activity by our organizations.

But why, then, did the Congress at the same time specify the "necessarily independent" character of the latter? Because the super-bureaucratic nature of the Stalinist movement, and above all of the Communist Parties, does not permit a total entrism of the kind we are able to practise, and do practise, with regard to the reformist organizations. The essential activity of our organizations, in the countries where the Communist Parties influence the majority of the working class or already lead its revolutionary movement, must be exercised in the direction of these parties, while remaining necessarily independent from an organizational point of view — that is, while being obliged to safeguard organized forces outside them, independently.

It follows that, with regard to the Communist Parties, at least for a period, one cannot practise a total entrism but an entrism of a specific, sui generis kind, as we indicated in the IS letter addressed to the CC of the French PCI in January 1952. We hold that the very nature of the work we have to do at the present stage in the direction of Stalinist workers and organizations imposes such a division, such a sui generis way of operating. The political considerations underlying such a tactical orientation have been amply given both in the texts of the World Congress, in later texts of the International (the Resolution on the Trade-Union Question in France; the IS letter to the CC of the PCI of January), and in this very report. I shall, however, insist on a few additional aspects of the question.

Those who understand, or who say they understand, the logic and the necessity of an entrist tactic toward the mass reformist organizations at the present time should normally more readily understand that the same considerations, amplified and reinforced, impose an analogous tactic toward the Stalinist movement, as it now stands under the new objective conditions of the Cold War and the prospect of a third world war.

If mass reformist organizations are capable, under the pressure of the revolutionary evolution of their base — an evolution which we consider inevitable, itself determined by the inevitable objective evolution leading toward a revolutionary situation, toward revolutionary explosions, toward the final crisis — of inevitably developing centrist tendencies, the Stalinist movement, wherever it has a mass base, will inevitably develop centrist tendencies of much greater scope and importance. This, moreover, has already partly begun.

The evolution of the objective situation is currently working (and this process will intensify with the evolution toward war and with war itself) on every mass workers' organization, against the rightist opportunist tendency and toward its transformation into centrism. This process is not rectilinear, not everywhere the same, etc., but in general it is inevitable and moves in this general direction. It is the extraordinary depth of the crisis of the capitalist regime — a crisis with no way out, irreversible — that provokes all these phenomena. It must be understood, once again:

Stalinism, including the Soviet bureaucracy, has been placed, since the Cold War, in new conditions compared with everything the situation had been up to then. Its rightist opportunist tendencies, inherent in its nature, are constantly thwarted, checked, by the evolution of the situation, both by the attitude of the capitalists and by the reactions of the masses. The conditions that permitted its game from 1934 to the end of the war will never recur. At that time, the inter-imperialist antagonisms were still virulent enough to provoke an effective rupture between two blocs of powers and a struggle to the death between them. The struggle of coalesced imperialism against the USSR was subordinated to the struggle between the two blocs, and the policy of the Soviet bureaucracy, wagering exclusively on this antagonism and on alliance with one part of the bourgeoisie against the other, had a meaning. Today, the rupture provoked in the capitalist world by the appearance, alongside the USSR, of China, of the European "people's democracies," of the colonial revolutionary movement, and of that of the metropolitan masses, renders any stable and viable compromise impossible and has placed at the centre the inevitable conflict between coalesced imperialism and these various forms and forces of the revolution.

The Soviet bureaucracy is being driven into the final, decisive combat; the Stalinist movement is everywhere caught between this reality and the reactions of the masses in the face of the ceaselessly aggravated crisis of capitalism. Under these new conditions, which the Soviet bureaucracy did not create voluntarily but which it undergoes under compulsion, Stalinism is bringing back to the surface centrist tendencies that will get the upper hand over rightist opportunism. How far will these tendencies go? Can they transform the nature of Stalinism, make genuine revolutionary parties out of the Communist Parties?

Absolutely not, so long as these dependent parties remain controlled by the Soviet bureaucracy which, while itself obliged — under the new conditions — to shift its policy leftward, to appeal to the masses, to seek to lean on them, will do all this only by subordinating all its action to the question of its bureaucratic control over the masses, which must not be put in danger.

The zigzags of the Soviet bureaucracy do not change its reactionary nature, which is determined by its social position as an omnipotent privileged caste in the USSR. But zigzags do continue to occur in its policy, and are in turn determined by the pressures exerted upon it by imperialism and by the masses.

Between the Soviet bureaucracy and the mass Communist Parties, we have learned, in the light of the experience of the war and since — of Yugoslavia and of China in particular — to establish a distinction and to take account of what can happen with these parties if they find themselves in exceptional conditions and swept along by a powerful revolutionary mass movement.

These parties, under such conditions, inevitably develop increasingly pronounced centrist tendencies and begin to sketch out a revolutionary orientation. Such a development, which we have already experienced, is bound, under the new conditions created by the intensification of the Cold War, by the march toward war — and in the war itself — to take on still more considerable proportions, and it is on this centrist development that we must wager our tactics. This means, as in the case of the reformist organizations, that the future of the revolution and of the revolutionary party in the countries concerned will depend, for the years ahead, on the fate of these centrist tendencies.

To mingle now with the forces that make up their base, to follow them and help them in their dynamic development, and to dispute the leadership with them — this is the concrete, realistic way for our organizations to work for the building of the revolutionary party. Will these centrist tendencies conquer and transform this or that mass Communist Party as a whole?

We do not know, we cannot know; this is not decisive. What we do know, what we must know, is that the essential core of tomorrow's revolutionary party will emerge from these tendencies, and that this will in any case come about through a break with the Soviet bureaucracy.

In what exact form, we cannot at present predict. But these considerations already determine the kind of work we have to do in the direction of Stalinist workers and organizations, the prospects and aims of this work.

I take up here a series of points included in the IS text to the CC of the French PCI, which, in my opinion, concretizes the conception of this work using the example of one country, namely France.

It is a matter of practising in this country, more and more, a kind of sui generis entrist policy with regard to the organizations and workers influenced by the Stalinists. This means that, as we draw closer to war, an increasingly large part of our forces must integrate themselves into the various political and trade-union organizations led or influenced by the Stalinists, including the PCF, remain there, and work there according to a tactic adapted to the nature of these organizations and subordinated to the principle of long-term work. The independent part of our organization will have as its principal task facilitating the understanding of our revolutionary line by Stalinist workers, and our work within their movement.

The whole of the inner and outer work of the Trotskyist organization will thus have as its aim the acceleration of the radicalization of Stalinist workers and the development of a revolutionary leadership arising fundamentally from within their own movement, through the experiences of coming struggles and the tasks that these struggles will impose on the mass of Stalinist militants.

Let us now examine the various particular aspects of this orientation, without, however, claiming to exhaust the subject.

The experience the International is embarking on in this field is, up to now, unique in its history, and working it out will require a certain amount of time, as well as the understanding and loyal collaboration of the leaderships of the sections involved in this work. The first problem posed by such work, directed toward and within the Stalinist organizations and movement in general, is that of the manner of integrating oneself into this movement. This integration must begin with the peripheral organizations and work its way up to the CP itself. Exceptions to this course are naturally possible, and even inevitable. Comrades designated by our leadership, taking account of their possibilities and their capacities for such work, will endeavour to integrate themselves into all the political, trade-union, cultural, etc., organizations and bodies which the PCF leads, influences, or promotes: Peace Partisans, Henri Martin Committees, UJRF, CGT unions, single unions, single union sections, unity committees, etc.

To achieve such a result, to remain there and to work there, it will be necessary, for a whole period, at the beginning, for our militants to completely camouflage their status as Trotskyists, or no longer to dwell on it, to undertake no political work on the basis of our own ideas, and to make themselves known in their new milieu, above all, as the best activists in all these bodies. It is only afterward, once they are solidly integrated into these milieux, once they have gained the esteem and confidence of their fellow workers and acquired the necessary concrete knowledge of their milieu, that they will be able, and will know how, to act as best as possible to gradually promote some of our ideas, to accentuate the radicalization of Stalinist militants, to favour — always with flexibility — left positions and tendencies, to identify the most combative and most interesting elements, and either to work on them directly, individually, or to bring them to the attention of our independent bodies. Every Trotskyist militant, if he acquires this understanding of the work and is constantly assisted by his leadership, is capable of becoming the animator of a sector of work and of bringing a Henri Martin Committee, a single union section, a unity committee, etc. more to life than a Stalinist militant could. The argument that these bodies often exist only on paper, do not function, are skeletal, bureaucratic, etc., is not decisive.

In England, those who fought against entry into the LP often pretexted that this party existed only as an electoral machine, without a defined, living structure, etc. In reality, they were exaggerating, owing to their total failure to understand how to work within this organization and to bring it to life. The experience since gained by our comrades who carried out the entry has already demonstrated, in the most striking fashion, the possibility of such work and the surprising results that can be achieved with an adequate understanding of its specific nature.

The organizations and bodies led, influenced, and promoted by the PCF are infinitely more real, more alive, but naturally the bureaucratic control over them is also more severe. It is entirely possible for our militants to integrate themselves, to work, and to remain within these milieux, if they behave, at first, exactly like simple PCF militants and demonstrate their capacities for initiative, organization, and leadership. This is the meaning of the attitude we advocated on the trade-union terrain in our resolution "For the Reorientation of Our Trade-Union Work in France." Through this document, we sought to draw the party leadership's attention to the great possibilities offered, in this field, by the conjuncture created following the proposals of the CGT and the unitary current developing within the class, aiming to integrate ourselves into the CGT unions, including into the leadership of the unitary trade-union bodies (single union sections, unity committees). This required our comrades to be prepared — and, if necessary, capable — of outmanoeuvring the Stalinist leaders, of showing themselves flexible, of leaving their status as Trotskyists in the background, and of putting forward, above all, their capacities to apply a unitary line, to animate and to lead the bodies that give it concrete form and that the Stalinist leadership itself wanted to see arise.

In order to integrate oneself into the real mass movement, to work and to remain, for example, in the mass unions, "ruses" and "capitulations" are not only admissible but necessary. We already learned this from Lenin's Left-Wing Communism, and the whole experience of the International in the field of mass work, whether entrist or trade-union work, has enabled us better to develop its meaning. In order to be able to return to the CGT unions once one has been expelled, or to enter some unitary trade-union body, we shall not hesitate, if necessary, to sacrifice, for example, the sale of L'Unité or even of La Vérité, to put our status as Trotskyists entirely into the background if the bureaucratic leaderships demand it and if we ourselves conclude that this is the condition for facilitating our integration.

We had believed that all these questions had long been perfectly clear to all the members of our movement.

Let us continue. If we have defined the policy which the International intends to follow in France as a kind of sui generis entrist policy, this is, let us repeat, because of the specific character of the Stalinist movement, whose extremely bureaucratic leadership prevents us from proceeding exactly as we would within a reformist movement of the same importance. Otherwise we would be — and would have been for a long time already — in favour of a total entrist policy. The nature of the Stalinist movement in fact imposes on us a combination of independent work and "entrist" work, with the following particularities: independent work must be understood as having, as its principal aim, helping the "entrist" work, and it too is addressed principally to Stalinist workers; entrist work will expand as we draw closer to war.

The independent sector helps the entrist work by supplying it with personnel, by directing it from outside, by developing the themes of our policy, of the concrete critique of Stalinist policy, etc., broadly and clearly, with no limitations other than those of language and form, which must be studied so as to find a growing echo among Stalinist militants. The independent sector maintains all essential current activities, in the factories, the unions, among the young, and continues to recruit, including from among the best elements identified within the Stalinist movement by our militants doing entrist work. It may well be, indeed, that while our constant tendency will be to maintain and increase our forces within the Stalinist movement (and this for a long period), it may be preferable, for certain elements brought to our attention within this movement, to complete their Trotskyist formation by affiliating them to the independent sector.

The independent sector will be made up of all the elements strictly necessary to direct the work as a whole, plus those who, for whatever reason, despite all our efforts, cannot integrate themselves into the Stalinist movement, plus those whose Trotskyist formation we judge it preferable, even necessary, to complete within the independent organization. Our independent militants will abandon no activity in the factories and the unions, in keeping with our ideas on united action, on unity, on the strategy of struggles, etc., nor any initiative to promote or lead bodies and struggles wherever conditions permit them to do so, but they will always take care that this activity is exercised with due regard to the work as a whole that we are doing in France, and to the priority we give, above all, to Stalinist militants, to experiences undergone above all with them, and understood above all by them.

If our French organization commits itself to a policy such as the one we have just sketched, in some of its broad outlines — as we told our French comrades — this will, in due course, result in a genuine integration of dozens upon dozens of our militants into real mass work, within the very heart of the Stalinist movement. We shall thus follow it through its entire dynamic evolution, determined by the evolution of the international situation, and we shall be placed in the best conditions to profit from it. Such a policy will yield, in the immediate term: a field of work for several of our militants; it will gradually create, among the milieux of Stalinist militants, an atmosphere of understanding of our fundamental political positions and of our critique of the fundamental contradictions and errors of Stalinist policy; it will even reinforce our organization numerically, as a whole, through the influx of Stalinist elements.

I shall round out these points by examining a few particular problems raised by work directed toward Stalinist workers and organizations. First of all, with regard to our independent press, its content, its form. Our press, we have said, must be written above all to assist entrist work, to give political directives to our forces working inside, to find the maximum echo among Stalinist workers and militants, to facilitate their political progress. Since these are openly Trotskyist organs, and since they are addressed not to reformist workers but to revolutionary workers who stand on the general terrain of communism, of revolution, who share our concerns and our aims, our organs have the duty to develop the whole of our policy, all its themes, amply, to make a clear, unequivocal, concrete critique of Stalinist policy, etc. "With no limitations other than those of language and form, which must be studied so as to find a growing echo among Stalinist workers and militants."

At the present stage, we shall centre our tight, pedagogical, but unequivocal and clear argumentation on the utopian, reactionary character — incompatible with an effective mobilization of the class and a real struggle against war — of the two great themes of Stalinist policy: peaceful coexistence, and national unity and independence. We naturally have no shortage of arguments with which to deepen the doubt that already exists on these two themes among the most advanced Stalinist workers and militants, and to demonstrate, in a comprehensible way, tangible for them, the impasse to which Stalinist policy (above all, the policy of the Kremlin) thus leads, both internationally and nationally, and the obstacles it constitutes to an effective and efficient mobilization of the class, the only force capable of really fighting against war. Appropriate, more cautious discussions on these themes must be carried on within the Stalinist organizations themselves by our entrist elements, who will take care not to isolate themselves from their milieu or to provoke their own expulsion.

Our press will have, in reality, the task of bringing out, in a way comprehensible to Stalinist workers and militants, the necessity of a class orientation, both for confronting effectively the imperialists' war preparations and the war itself, an orientation whose logic is felt more and more through the absurdity, the continual failure in the face of realities, the impasse to which present Stalinist policy leads. The Stalinist leadership itself is subject to the pressure of the situation, of its logic, and seeks to free itself from the impasse of its own policy. But naturally, being a prisoner of its past policy, of the pressure of the Kremlin, and of its own bureaucratic nature, it succeeds only partially, confusedly, bureaucratically, in a jerky and contradictory way. An example is the manner in which it seeks to resolve the question of united action and the united front on the trade-union and political plane between the reformists and its own forces. The Trotskyists have an opportunity, such as they have never had before, to speak now to Stalinist workers and militants, and to facilitate their understanding, their evolution.

In coming to the conclusion of this already very long report, I wish to repeat that I am far from considering the subject exhausted. But the spirit of our tactics is clear; the general lines, and more precise directives, are already there. We are all here, I believe, firmly convinced that the Third World Congress has freed our movement, more than any other international assembly or deliberation of our movement, from its last sectarian shackles, and that its directive "to complete our insertion into the real mass movement" will not be disappointed. Our movement is in the process of fusing, and will indeed fully fuse, with the class, will follow it in its natural march, will live through its experience and will help it, as best it can, to achieve its historic goals, goals that are now so close.

Naturally, the orientation we now demand of our movement as a whole does not go without encountering the resistance of inertia, of the habits of the past, of the inevitable incomprehension of a range of elements in the face of the fundamental changes that have occurred during and after the war, and in the face of the rapid, tumultuous character of the objective revolutionary process of this epoch.

People remain surprised, astonished, and struggle in vain to force a new, rich, explosive reality into narrow, outmoded mental schemas. They then rebel not against the schemas but against those whom they call iconoclasts and visionaries. They react, they sulk, they cry scandal, they cling to their schemas, they no longer understand. Naturally, the International has the duty to be patient with the laggards, to explain and re-explain the line.

This it has done, this it is doing, this it will do. But within certain limits. It cannot, for the sake of persuading everyone of the correctness of its line, agree to delay, until that is achieved, its activity along this line. There is always a percentage of residue in the movement, made up of worn-out elements or elements worked upon by the pressures and forces of the enemy, who will never again understand. There is always a sectarian residue that settles out, especially in a movement like ours, long isolated from the great masses, and which cannot be re-educated by arguments. One must move to action and let action persuade those who lag behind.

Even if we still have two, three years — or even a little more — before the decisive struggle, this is not much time in which to prepare ourselves. On the contrary, we must act quickly, deploy our forces, act now for our integration everywhere into the real mass movement. This is why the discussions on the tactical applications of the line of the Third World Congress cannot be allowed to drag on. For a year now, we have been losing, in certain countries, extremely important, precious time, and we are worsening our lag behind the real situation in these countries. Like the labour movement as a whole, our own movement also suffers from the contradiction between the demands of a situation more extraordinary than ever and our subjective inadequacies. But, unlike the other currents in the labour movement, which enjoy the support of the masses, we ourselves, still at the present stage, have no other support, no other principal strength, than the clarity and breadth of our thought, the speed and flexibility of our action. The epoch, the period, demand of the revolutionary party, of revolutionary leaders and militants, greater capability and completeness than ever before. They demand, in reality, parties of cadres, that is, parties possessing an ever-growing number of cadres with broad and deep vision.

Our movement, in its great majority, ought to be, as a whole, already at such a level as to be able to confront this period and to accomplish its tasks. Otherwise it risks being crushed under the enormous pressure of a situation without precedent, which it fails to understand, and of tasks which it fails, above all through lack of understanding, to accomplish.

Report adopted by 12 votes for, no votes against, and 2 abstentions (Bleibtreu and Buchbinder). Bulletin intérieur du PCI, 22 March 1952, and Quatrième Internationale, no. 2 and no. 4, February and March 1952.