After a long discussion of the crisis precipitated by the Cannonite faction in the International, the 14th Plenum of the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International states:
1. That the immediate origin of the crisis was the justified refusal of the international leadership, and especially the IS, to give the majority leadership of the SWP carte blanche to smash the minority with the tacit approval of the International, before the political discussion had fully revealed the basis of the political differences, and even independently of them. This method of procedure lies at the bottom of the organizational concepts of the Cannonite faction, as regards their own organization as well as the International. This concept consists of the belief that their majority rule in their organization is consecrated for all time, and that the role of the International is one of an unprincipled ally of this consecrated leadership. It thus represents, in the last analysis, a bureaucratic clique concept, and a complete negation of the character of the International as a centralized world Party with a principled line both politically and organizationally, a Party within which the national organizations are fused.
2. The background of the crisis is nevertheless political. That is to say, even if the International had allied itself with the majority in their unprincipled struggle against the minority, with a longer period of "peace" most likely then ensuing between the majority and the International, still the basic political differences would not thereby have been really eliminated. In other words, this would really have been at most a tacit compromise, with the American majority interpreting the line of the International in their own way and carrying it out in their own way in the United States, and the International closing its eyes to their conduct and contenting itself with managing its "own" domain, that is, outside the United States.
The present crisis highlights the sectarian concepts that the SWP majority leadership — which, moreover, is clearly suffering the pressure of the present reactionary climate in the United States — is impregnated with. Having started, in 1946, from the perspectives — which have proven false — of an upsurge of the American workers' movement parallel to that of the workers' movement in other parts of the world, this leadership was unable to readapt itself in the course of events to the real development of the situation in the United States. Moreover, to the degree that the situation worsened, developing in a direction diametically opposite to that of the situation in the rest of the world, it imposed on the SWP leadership a reactionary pressure which diminished considerably their ability to comprehend and to reorient to the international situation. All this has finally led the SWP leadership to objectively betray the cause of the International, and to unfold and to spread within its midst a set of political and organizational ideas of a sectarian, Social-Democratic and capitulationist character before the pressure of imperialism.
The sectarian and retrogressive development of the SWP majority leadership in the recent period is embodied both in its concepts of the perspectives and tactics in the United States, and in the way it conceives of the international revolution at the present stage and the place of the Russian question in the international revolution.
In its estimate of the present situation and perspectives in the United States, this leadership is essentially carried away by the idea — advanced sometimes directly, sometimes with a certain constraint — of the precipitate outbreak, or at least within a brief period, of the revolutionary crisis in the U.S., which will turn the entire present situation upside down, nationally and internationally. This estimate and perspective have led the SWP leadership to believe, or make believe, that the Trotskyist cadres, already formed, will then finally and fully play their role at the head of the masses, who will flock directly to the present Trotskyist nucleus. Moreover, such a perspective for the near future would really make the American revolution the center of the international revolution and would automatically — and correctly — minimize all the revolutionary successes hitherto won elsewhere. The question of Stalinism, furthermore, would also be automatically settled by the perspective of the close and direct victory of Trotskyism in the United States.
3. What we have here is obviously an estimate and a perspective which are wrong from beginning to end, which falsify both the tactics in the United States and the evaluation and view of the international situation. So long as the American Trotskyists will not accept the present reality in their own country and will not understand that the revolutionary eruption of the American proletariat can come about only as a result of blows infinitely more important than a few strikes limited to immediate demands, a few moves and a few political actions of a liberal-democratic and non-proletarian character, or a small economic recession but not a real major economic crisis, they will be building on sand. Only the blows resulting from a major economic crisis or a war will seriously shake the present foundations of the relative power of American imperialism. And there is every reason to believe that the real revolutionary eruption of the American proletariat will come only after the outbreak of the war, which the reactionary bourgeoisie will precipitate rather than let itself be caught in the catastrophic vise of a major economic crisis. Meanwhile, it is the progress of the world revolution which saps the power of American imperialism, and prepares and makes worse the conditions under which the major revolutionary crisis of the future will break out.
[p. 169]
Historically, the American revolution seems, as before, to take its place most probably as the final link in the chain of world revolution, and not as one of the next successive links.
Furthermore, preparation for the virtually inevitable struggle of the revolutionary forces throughout the world against the last bastion of reaction — Yankee imperialism — must be freely accepted with all its consequences.
4. From all these considerations flow the precise national and international tasks of the American Trotskyists. Nationally, their tactics at the present stage must be flexible and oriented toward the practical activity of their forces in all the living political milieus that are polarizing the working masses. This is necessary in order to avoid the petrefaction resulting from a long isolation, and at the same time to facilitate both the development of the best elements and currents in these milieus toward proletarian and class positions, and also our own fusion with the genuine left tendencies that will develop in the future through various channels and under various forms.
It is in the process of such a fusion with the larger revolutionary forces of the working class which have not yet had the occasion to reveal themselves, that the genuine revolutionary mass party of tomorrow will be formed, through a series of phases and forms as yet unforeseeable.
In this sense, the slogan of the formation of a Labor Party based on the unions must be the center of the present Trotskyist propaganda, both as the concrete form — and by far the most likely one — of the political awakening and organizational polarization of the proletarian movement for an entire period, and also as a concrete method of combatting — no matter with how little effectiveness, since it is imperative that the task be done — the American imperialist policy of reaction and war.
Internationally, the American Trotskyists must stand forth as the best defenders within the United States of the revolutionary conquests and the revolutionary forces throughout the world, in whatever forms they may take: the USSR, China and other anti-capitalist states, the colonial revolution. They must denounce and fight against the war preparations of American imperialism, not in general but concretely, as preparations which are directed against the USSR, the other anti-capitalist states, the colonial revolution and revolution in its every form. They must truly base themselves on the World Party of the International; only this, moreover, will make it possible for them — as for every other section — to withstand victoriously the hostile pressures and to maintain themselves on a correct class line.
5. The so-called optimism of the SWP majority leadership concerning the present situation in the United States is translated in practice into sectarianism on a national plane and into incomprehension and a spirit of defeatism on the international plane.
They are obliged to keep advancing the slogan of a Labor Party, but deep inside they fondle the idea that this is by no means the indispensable road, and that the "most likely" road is that the masses will flock directly to the SWP. (See, among others, Cannon's letter to Warde of July 2, 1953, and Dobbs' final speech at the May 1953 Plenum.)
Moreover, after the expulsion of the minority and the break with the International, this leadership, disavowing with a stroke of the pen its entire struggle against the "pessimism of the minority," sounded the alarm on the fascist danger in the United States, "greater than in 1939," which it has suddenly discovered in McCarthyism.
On the international arena, they place the accent on the "threat of barbarism"; the growing danger of capitalist restoration in the USSR; the limited importance — despite everything — of the Chinese revolution, the Korean war, the other anti-imperialist conquests and victories; and the power of imperialism — which we "underestimate." They see the revolutionary character of the objective situation as dependent upon the prior existence or non-existence of mass Trotskyist parties; and in general they revise into its opposite the Third Congress evaluation of the relationship of global forces, on which the policy and the tactical conclusions of the International have been fundamentally based since that time.
6. The international extensions of the Cannonite faction embrace the sectarian elements and tendencies running through our movement which have developed as a consequence of our long isolation from the masses, and which have experienced but have not understood or assimilated either the meaning of the fundamental changes that have come about in the post-war situation, or the policy of the International corresponding to these changes and to the new situation.
The Bleibtreu group in France, which has suddenly become the ideological leader of the international Cannonite faction, has clearly manifested its character as both sectarian and adventurist in relation to the real movement of the masses in France.
The Swiss leadership, in addition to its extravagant positions on every question and its systematic opposition to the policy of the International since the war, has succeeded so well in camouflaging its activity in the real movement of the masses in its country that neither the movement led by the Social-Democrats nor the various movements under Stalinist leadership have had the slightest reason to worry about them.
The tendency of the leadership of the Chinese section, put to the test by historical events, was responsible for the blindest and most catastrophic of policies when confronted by the revolutionary movement of the Chinese masses and the victory of the revolution in that vast country. Following the line of "orthodox Trotskyism" they led the section to complete ideological confusion and practical dismemberment.
The Burns group in England is reverting to the thoroughly sectarian and anti-internationalist traditions of the WIL.
The coalition of elements and groups in the Cannonite faction is not based on a principled platform, but on a common foundation of sectarianism in relation to the real movement of the masses and the common practical rejection of the dual and contradictory character of the USSR and of Stalinism. This is clearly manifested, moreover, by the "principles of orthodox Trotskyism" formulated in the declaration of the so-called "Committee of the Fourth International" which consist, in effect, of a pedantic repetition of the first truths of the Communist Manifesto on Capitalism and Socialism, plus the taking of a summary position, sectarian and mechanical, on the question of Stalinism which negates all that the International has learned in this sphere and can only completely disarm our movement once again.
[p. 170]
As for the concept, the structure and the functioning of the International as a centralized world Party, all these elements and groups are distinguished by a common rebellion against such a concept, and they actually oppose to it the concept of a federated union, a sort of Bureau of "ideological liaisons and exchanges," with full autonomy and freedom of action for each section.
7. The existence of these elements and groups in the International, nevertheless, was and still is possible, on condition that they respect the discipline and the rules of functioning of the International as a centralized world party.
Contrary to the Cannonite concept of the party and the International, a concept which, when political differences arise, wipes out the importance of the organizational structure of the International, overthrows all organizational rules, takes every difference down to "fundamental principles," designates everyone in opposition as "class enemies," and thus from the outset carries on a struggle of extermination that inevitably ends in split — contrary to this, the International, faithful to the true spirit of the teachings of Lenin and Trotsky in this sphere, is always open to all elements and tendencies who respect its discipline and its rules of functioning, and accords them full and real rights in its midst.
The policy and the leadership of the International are determined by the free play of discussion and the decisions democratically reached by majority vote at its World Congress and IEC Plenums. Under these conditions, anyone who leaves the International shows simply that he refuses to submit to the rule and decisions of the majority of the international movement.
8. The lessons of the crisis that has just broken out contain a grave warning for our movement. They reveal sharply the advanced decomposition of an important part of our forces who suffered most deeply the effects of their isolation from the masses and became profoundly disoriented in the extraordinary new conditions following the war.
If there is not an ideological reorientation in the direction outlined by the Third World Congress, and if we do not intervene with all our forces, at no matter what cost, in the real movement of the masses, there is the danger that this decomposition may overtake the entire movement.
On the other hand, the objective conditions have never been more favorable than at present for the penetration and success of the ideas of revolutionary Marxism which we represent. Never have the opportunities been greater to capitalize on the 30 years of tenacious efforts of the international Trotskyist movement.
To the degree that we achieve a real fusion of our forces in a centralized world party, carrying out our practical work on a national plane in the real movement of the masses in each country — to that degree will we see to it that the present crisis is resolved by the greatest leap ahead ever made by our movement.
Adopted unanimously