Third World Congress of the Fourth International, August-September 1951 Adopted unanimously minus one abstention (Sweden)
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Resolution on the Austrian Section
1. Both parts of the Austrian section hold that any sharpening of the class struggle in Austria expresses itself above all in the sharpening of the internal contradictions of the Austrian SP, because this party has the support of the great majority of the proletariat, owing to its historical development and to the experiences the Austrian workers have had with Stalinist policy.
2. For this reason, work within the SP is today recognized by both parts of the Austrian section as the terrain of action on which the forces of the organization must be concentrated. This implies work in the branches of the SP, in the Young Socialists, and in the SP's factory groups.
3. Work within the SP must be conducted in such a way as to favour and support the creation of a broad left tendency within the SP, with the aim of forming a left wing. This left wing will have to express the experiences and the will to struggle of broader layers of workers, and will only be able to take a first step in the direction of the revolutionary programme. All other organizational tasks (individual recruitment for our own organization, etc.) must be subordinated to the tasks that flow from this orientation. In the course of the formation and development of this left wing, a real field of work will also be created for the growth of our own organization.
4. In order successfully to carry out the orientation thus defined, it is necessary that the majority of the members of both parts of the organization be members of the SP or of the Young Socialists and take an active part in the work of these organizations. Exceptions are admitted for comrades for whom personal reasons, or the needs of our own organization, stand in the way of work in the SP. The work of our members in the SP will be conducted under the firm direction of the leaderships of both parts of the organization.
5. The action of our members in the SP, etc., will be governed by the following directives:
a) not to appear as Trotskyists with our full programme; b) not to push programmatic and fundamental questions to the fore; c) to start from the level of consciousness of the workers in each given sector of activity and to avoid the threat of isolation by exaggeratedly outstripping this level; d) to advance differentiation by means of the central questions of the day for which broader layers of workers are ready to fight (questions of prices and wages, of rents, of coalition policy, etc.); e) to push forward and resolutely encourage those SP members, etc., who are oriented towards the left, so that these, influenced by us, may create a broad protective layer around our own organization. The general line of this activity aims to link the left-wing groupings that appear in the branches of the SP and the Young Socialists with the most advanced layers of SP factory workers.
6. For work within the SP aimed at creating and strengthening a left tendency, a fraction organ defending the line defined in point 5 d) represents an important support. The organ Y, which is drawn up in this sense, will be maintained until the efforts of the SP members oriented to the left — efforts which we must support in this direction — have produced the publication of a broader organ of the left.
7. The orientation thus defined has as its precondition that the two parts of the organization, far from dissolving themselves, remain organized as firmly as before under conditions of double illegality, with their own leadership, their own cell activity and education, with active participation in the political life of the International, etc. The IKO publishes its own organ, whose circulation remains limited to its own members and sympathizers and thus creates no obstacles to the principal work being carried out within the SP.
8. The present resolution expresses the decision of the world congress concerning the work orientation of the two parts as the immediate basis of their activity. A joint committee of four members will be set up, which will meet every fortnight, will apply the directives of the present resolution, will coordinate the practical steps resulting from these directives, and will determine to an increasing degree the line of organ Y. On the basis of the practical experience of this committee, the question of the reunification of the two parts of the organization will be placed on the agenda by this committee.
The Third World Congress takes note that the Eighth Plenum had decided, following the exclusion of the opposition of the Austrian section, to carry out a division of labour within this section: the excluded minority continuing to be recognized as a part of the section (IKO opposition) and working within the Austrian SP under the control of the IS, the majority of the IKO, which continues its work towards the outside, having the exclusive right to represent the IKO, Austrian section of the Fourth International, externally.
Taking into account the political resolution on the Austrian question which it has adopted, the Third World Congress decides to maintain the decision of the Eighth Plenum until the IEC is able to re-examine the implementation of the decisions contained in point 8 of the political resolution.
Resolution adopted unanimously minus one abstention (Sweden).