Issuing body: Comité communiste internationaliste (CCI) — minority
Minority Theses presented by the CCI: The Hour of the Fourth International (extracts)
"National demands" an obstacle to the revolutionary regroupment of the masses
A review of the evolution of the "national" activity of the so-called official fraction of the B-Ls (Bolshevik-Leninists) enables us to understand the opportunist character of its present position on "national demands." Having been swept along by the tide of nationalism, having theorized it by characterizing French imperialism as an oppressed nation, this fraction, retreating from one fallback line to the next, today defends the idea that the masses formulate national demands which the Fourth International must take up in order to link itself to them and draw them into the seizure of power. In reality, we find ourselves faced with nationalism's last line of retreat within the Fourth International.
The heart of the matter lies in the fact that this fraction no longer believes in the autonomous and spontaneous revolutionary activity of the working class. The whole of its propaganda reveals the following conception: the workers must be drawn into struggle, pushed, pulled by every means; today they hate Hitler, so they must be drawn to rise up against him, to arm themselves, to engage in combative activity. The B-Ls, by voicing this hatred in their propaganda, will link themselves to the workers and, through the "national insurrection," draw them into "transforming" it into a workers' insurrection and a socialist revolution. Starting from this, the Bolshevik-Leninist fraction idealizes every enemy of German imperialism (Lord Mountbatten, the USA, de Gaulle, the Stalinist terrorists, etc.). It regards as progressive everything that weakens the "oppressor imperialism," presenting it as an ally, or at least as a fellow combatant alongside the workers. At the same time, it calls on the workers to overthrow the "Nazi oppressor" themselves (who will overthrow Hitler?), so afraid is it that they will remain passive, and it presents itself as the best anti-Hitler champion, boasting of having fought Hitler before the Stalinists themselves did. It believes so little in the action of the proletariat that when it calls on the workers to struggle against the employers, it feels obliged to attract them by pointing to the "collaborationist" bosses. Likewise, when it calls on them to struggle against the French state, it is because the latter is supposedly a "transmission belt" of German imperialism!
From this lack of confidence in the spontaneous activity of the proletariat was born the perspective of the national insurrection, coinciding with the second front, "the great day of national liberation," because the opportunist fraction attributes the awakening of the masses to nationalist propaganda and their revolutionary assault to the Stalinists. From this also was born the idea of "national demands" that the B-Ls must defend on pain of leaving the workers under Stalinist domination. In reality, the awakening of the proletariat, its struggles in the factories, its strikes, have nothing to do with nationalist propaganda and "national demands," just as the socialist revolution will neither break out nor develop under the impulsion of the Stalinists, but against their efforts to confine it within the bounds of "national insurrection" and the "struggle for freedoms."
And this for the simple but fundamental reason that lies at the base of the Marxist programme: the enemy of the workers is in their own country. When the workers resumed the class struggle through sabotage, strikes, etc., it was against their own imperialism, represented by their own boss, that they fought, and for class demands, not national ones: wage increases, improvements which turned into anticapitalist demands — it is these anticapitalist demands that the "heroes" of national liberation are trying to divert into "national demands" in order to break them.
Anti-Hitler, nationalist propaganda and agitation have as their sole purpose to drown the class consciousness of the proletariat, to keep it in submission to French imperialism, to turn it into that imperialism's soldier. "National demands" are not the expression of the proletariat's revolutionary rise, but the importation into its ranks of bourgeois ideology in order to demoralize it and hide from it both its real enemies and its real class objectives, in the same way that the democratic demands of the Popular Front were meant to divert the rising tide of the masses. Moreover, from the moment one acknowledges that there is no national question posed in the imperialist countries, "national demands" are stripped of all progressive character. The theoretical condemnation of the "national question" cuts the ground from under the defenders of national demands, condemning the latter at the same time.
The Fourth International must condemn anti-Hitler nationalist propaganda as reactionary, preventing the workers from becoming conscious of their socialist mission. Its elementary task is to denounce relentlessly the Gaullist sacred union or the Stalinist "anti-Boche" policy. It must explain to the workers that they must prepare for a new June '36, worldwide and decisive, that the Gaullist employers, as much as the collaborationist ones, as well as de Gaulle and British and American imperialism, are in no way its allies but on the contrary its worst enemies. It must carry out intense agitation for fraternization with the German workers — not to struggle together against Hitler, but to overthrow our respective bourgeoisies together.
It is only in this struggle against the current that the Fourth International will form the cadres of the revolution while helping the proletariat become conscious of the real objectives of its struggle. By abandoning a policy centred on the bourgeois ideology that the social-traitors keep alive within the working class, by ceasing to appear as the left wing of the National Front, it will prepare itself to take the head of the proletariat when the latter, breaking all national unity with its bourgeoisie, struggles against it and its lackeys to establish socialism and resolve the crisis of humanity.
How the democratic demands are posed
The Stalinists succeed in binding the masses to the bourgeoisie only by posing as defenders of the working class's real demands. But even then, they use this to divert the anger of the masses away from their own bourgeoisie, to direct it against German imperialism, and thereby to tighten their treacherous ties with their own bourgeoisie. Thus they use the workers' hatred of the fascist dictatorship of finance capital to direct it against German fascism, in favour of the "democratic" bourgeoisie in France.
The Fourth International fights the fascist bands of finance capital, but in no case does it confuse the fascism of its own bourgeoisie with the Hitlerite fascism of the German bourgeoisie. The Bolshevik-Leninist press must be cleansed of the struggle against "the oppressor fascism" and must take as its axis what Leon Trotsky wrote on this subject in the article "After Munich": "The programme of the 'defence of democracy' for the advanced countries is a programme of reaction. The only progressive task here is the preparation of the international socialist revolution. This does not mean, once again, an indifferent attitude towards the current political methods of imperialism! In every case where the counter-revolutionary force attempts to turn back towards provincial particularism, towards monarchy, military dictatorship, fascism, the revolutionary proletariat, without taking upon itself the slightest responsibility for the 'defence of democracy' (it is not defensible!), will oppose these counter-revolutionary forces with armed resistance in order, should it succeed, to direct its offensive against 'democracy.' This policy, however, applies only to internal conflicts, that is, to cases where what is truly at stake in the struggle is the question of the political regime: this is how, for example, the question presented itself in Spain… However, it is pure deception and charlatanism to transpose mechanically the laws and rules of the struggle between different classes of one and the same nation onto imperialist war, that is, the struggle of one and the same class of different nations."
The struggle against fascism must break completely with the anti-fascist policy of the social-traitors. No slogan for the struggle against fascism must leave the slightest illusion about bourgeois democracy. The only real struggle against fascism can consist solely of a revolutionary struggle against the whole bourgeoisie. In particular, today it is inadmissible to idealize the Popular Front period, during which "life was worth living." The struggle against fascism today passes through the denunciation of the counter-revolution of the "Popular Front." "The merciless exposure of the theory and practice of the popular front is the first condition for the revolutionary struggle against fascism." (…) "This obviously does not mean that the Fourth International rejects democratic slogans. On the contrary, they can play an enormous role at a certain moment, but the formulas of democracy (freedom of association, of the press, etc.) are for us only transitional or episodic slogans within the independent movement of the proletariat, and not a democratic noose placed around the proletariat's neck by the agents of the bourgeoisie (Spain). Let the movement take on but some mass character, and democratic slogans will mingle with transitional slogans. Factory committees will arise, it must be thought, before the old bureaucrats have got round, from their offices, to building trade unions; soviets will cover Germany before a new Constituent Assembly is convened at Weimar. It will be the same for Italy and the other totalitarian or semi-totalitarian countries!" (Transitional Programme).
At the present stage of the revolutionary rise, it is now beyond doubt that not only will the movement take on some mass character, but that the whole of the proletariat and of the poor peasantry will find themselves swept up by the world revolution, from the very first days, far ahead of any Constituent Assembly. This slogan, far from rallying still-passive strata and drawing them into the revolution, will immediately become that of the counter-revolution, intended to break the momentum of the revolted masses. […]
The defence of the USSR and the tasks of the B-Ls
The B-Ls remain unshakeably faithful to the policy of the "unconditional defence" of the USSR as it was defined by Leon Trotsky. They reject any other strategy or formulation, allegedly "more revolutionary," which amounts to nothing but a revision of the Bolshevik-Leninist programme. The struggle for the defence of the USSR is closely bound up with the struggle for the revolutionary regroupment of the proletariat. The B-Ls must carry out intense activity against the Stalinist nationalist policy which, in the name of the defence of the USSR, hands the proletariat over to imperialism and strengthens the latter against the workers' state. No compromise can be permitted with the anti-German struggle; the struggle against pro-American illusions is fundamental to a correct application of the strategy of unconditional defence.
Sabotage in the form of attacks, given the present relationship of forces, must be rejected outright. It can only bring demoralization into the workers' ranks and increase repression against the vanguard. The class struggle, in the form in which it expresses itself today — reduced output, clandestine sabotage of production, strikes — allows for the regroupment and strengthening of the proletariat and thus merges with the defence of the USSR. Every action of the workers in this direction, even a limited one, must be linked to this struggle as part of the international struggle of the proletariat against world imperialism, and not as a struggle against "the Nazi invader."
In the countries "allied" to the USSR, its defence must be a powerful lever for turning the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and for denouncing the Stalinists' sacred union: the struggle for free supplies to the USSR, workers' and sailors' control over shipments. Obviously, only class means should be advocated in this struggle (strikes), without flinching before the arguments of the bosses and the social-traitors who preach calm in the name of aid to the USSR. "We are quite willing to work, but for the workers' state and not to oppress the Hindus! We want to control production and transport!"
Given the present relationship of forces, the slogan "Down with Stalin!" for agitation among the broad masses must be rejected. In propaganda and in the education of the B-Ls, we must show and explain what remains of the conquests of October and what can ultimately be saved only if Stalin and his Bonapartist clique are swept away by the Soviet proletariat, backed by the assault of the world proletariat against imperialism. But today, while the B-Ls are still a minority within the working class and thus incapable of replacing Stalin, openly calling for his overthrow can only mean his crushing along with that of the USSR by imperialism. We must show Stalin's betrayals and help the workers to regroup and become conscious of the need for his overthrow. Through transitional demands corresponding to their own experience: a return to soviet democracy in the factories and in the army, the abolition of ranks and decorations, workers' control over production, etc.
For an autonomous organization of the working class: the Workers' Groups
The traditional organizations systematically abandon and sabotage the workers' struggle for their class demands. And yet "the laws of history are more powerful than bureaucratic apparatuses," and the curve of the revolutionary rise keeps climbing despite the gaps caused mainly by the disarray kept up by the social-traitors and by the lack of organizations, a source of defeats. Through the class battles waged permanently by the workers, whether in clandestine form (reduced output, lateness, absences, etc.) or openly through strikes, the cohesion and strength of the proletariat continue to grow. These battles will inevitably culminate in the explosion of the socialist revolution in the coming period. Its international character will immediately bring about a struggle of such magnitude that the broadest layers of the proletariat will be drawn into it, going far beyond the framework of the traditional organizations, both in the forms of struggle and in the modes of organization that they will adopt.
With the occupation of the factories in June '36, the proletariat showed that it knew how to take the boldest initiatives without, and even against, its organizations of betrayal. Likewise, today it struggles on its class terrain without being called to it — far from it — by them, and tomorrow it will elect its factory committees and its soviets against the provisional governments of the Kerensky-Thorez type. It is on this initiative, which expresses the deep laws of history, that the Fourth International must base its policy, helping it to find the form of organization for struggle appropriate to the relationship of forces.
This form of organization is the clandestine Workers' Groups. Today, they help recreate the cohesion of the working class by re-establishing links from workshop to workshop, from factory to factory. They establish a leadership for the workers' struggles within the factory, outside the old organizations, their routine and their reactionary policy, and they enable the advanced workers who make them up to regain confidence in themselves and to draw the lessons of their class experience. Thus, by enabling the workers to fight better, by recreating their cohesion, by raising the consciousness of the vanguard organization, they appear as an indispensable step corresponding to the present stage in the class's preparation for revolution, on the road towards the autonomous forms of organization proper to the period of dual power: committees and soviets.
The clandestine Workers' Groups, no more than the soviets or the committees, are not united or linked to one another by any programme. Nor, obviously, are they branches of the Bolshevik-Leninist organizations. They do nothing more than express the workers' demands and organize the struggle to obtain them. But it is precisely in this that they prepare the way for the committees, then the soviets, which will express far broader demands and organize a more intense struggle, whose crowning achievement will be the struggle for the seizure of power through insurrection.
It is through this struggle, growing ever more intense, of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, that the Fourth International will win the masses and be recognized as their leadership, on condition that it helps them, through its slogans, at every stage, to find the appropriate form of struggle and to become conscious of the objective to be attained. On the eve of the revolution, the slogan of the Workers' Groups is the first step towards the conquest of the masses by the Fourth International.
The B-Ls must reject the slogan of the workers' front. By its very name of "front," it takes on the appearance of an organization assembled on the basis of a programme. This is confirmed by the fact that it presents itself as a united front with the traditional organizations. This character considerably restricts the scope of the slogan: the workers' front is no longer, like the soviet or the Workers' Group, open to every worker, but only to those who accept its programme.
Moreover, by being a united front, it loses its entire character as an elementary organization of the workers; it keeps them under the sway of the traditional apparatuses by failing to fix precisely the objective of this united front's struggles. This rests on a fundamental error that has already given rise, in parallel, to the idea of "national demands." Just as it seems impossible to the "official" B-L fraction to win the masses without making concessions, without imitating the reactionary ideology spread through the class by the social-traitors, so it seems impossible to it that the workers should organize without being led to it by their "leaders." This fraction reveals its opportunist character by having no confidence in the spontaneous revolutionary activity of the proletariat, which is "determined by the objective conditions of decaying capitalism," and by believing it must get itself introduced by the traditional organizations. Yet it is precisely because the Fourth International will raise the slogans that correspond to this spontaneous activity of the proletariat that the latter will experience the correctness of its programme and will realize it consciously, against the social-traitors, by taking power under its leadership. Experience demonstrated this in June '36, when the B-Ls alone raised the slogan of the general strike, which the whole proletariat applied spontaneously, outside its leaderships.
But the whole falseness of the slogan becomes apparent once one knows that this "front" must also fight against Hitler "for national demands." Then it becomes clear that, just as it does not help the workers to go beyond the traditional organizations, so it will not help them to rid themselves of reactionary nationalist ideology, and that this workers' front is nothing more than a "left wing" of the national front.
Work in the trade unions has passed, in this pre-revolutionary period, under the fascist slab, into the background. Not, obviously, that the B-Ls should lose interest in the workers gathered in the unions, even the state-run ones of today, nor above all that they should raise the infantile slogan of "genuinely revolutionary unions." But the unions, in the present period of illegality, can be neither organs of active demand-struggle nor, consequently, mass organizations. The work that the B-Ls can do there is therefore of an entirely different character from that of before the war: since the unions are unable to fight, it is difficult there to organize the struggle or to appear as the best fighter. The union can, under certain conditions, serve as legal cover, though experience shows this to be quite precarious. It can also allow contact to be established with certain trade-union militants in the factory and, through them, to gain influence over workers of the pre-war generation.
But a correct perspective indicates that the maximum effort must be devoted not to regroupment within the unions but to regroupment in the day-to-day clandestine struggle, under the leadership of the Workers' Groups. It is indeed certain that the revolutionary rise will not stop at the stage of the reconstruction of the unions, but will move straight on to the autonomous organizations, committees, soviets, which will far surpass in power of attraction the bureaucratic apparatuses that the social-traitors will try to rebuild in order to contain the mass movement.
[…] The hour of the Fourth International
The problem of the crisis of revolutionary leadership can and must also be posed from the angle of the historical experience of the Fourth International. Why, during the revolutionary battles waged by the masses in every country, ever since the Left Opposition and then the movement for the Fourth International have existed, have the Trotskyists not been recognized as leadership by the proletariat? In other words, why, despite the relentless struggle of Leon Trotsky and the Bolshevik-Leninists against the opportunist leadership within the CI, and then against the Third International, have the latter remained the strongest and led the working class from disaster to disaster?
The most diverse theories are put forward to explain this contradiction between the existence of a programme capable of leading the class to victory and the fact that it was not recognized by the class, even though the class fought with the greatest heroism to attain it. In general, these theories can be grouped along two main lines of departure from Marxism: one opportunist, the other infantile-leftist. It should be noted, moreover, that they express themselves concretely today and that at the same time they express a total inability to analyse correctly, while remaining faithful to Marxism, the crisis of the Fourth International.
The first rest explicitly on the conception that, although conditions are ripe for socialism, the working class remains reformist. It could attain consciousness of its historic mission only if it were educated, if a class consciousness were created and instilled in it. Likewise, and for the same reason, it will make the revolution only if it is "pulled," "drawn" into making it — the traditional parties up to a certain stage, then the revolutionary party, taking over and pulling it through to the seizure of power. The link between the masses and the revolutionary leadership is made through concessions by the latter to the reformism of the masses. It "hooks" them by saying what they say, then leads them to the seizure of power. The application of this "theory" that illustrates it most completely is the perspective of the "national insurrection" and the necessity for the B-Ls to defend "national demands." Through these, they will bind themselves sufficiently to the masses to draw them into "transforming into a workers' insurrection" the "national insurrection" into which the Stalinists will have drawn them.
From this anti-Marxist conception flows an explanation of the revolutionary crisis: the reformist masses adopted the Second International precisely for its reformism. In 1917, the Bolsheviks, thanks to their "flexibility," hooked the Russian workers and led them to the seizure of power, but they did not have the strength or the time to educate the masses, who gave themselves a reformist leadership once again.
As for the fact that the Fourth could not be recognized as leadership, this is attributed to various factors, but above all, in the final analysis, to its "sectarianism," its "spirit of opposition," which prevented it from "hooking" the masses. No one dares reproach Leon Trotsky himself, because he is who he is, but there is little approval for the B-Ls who failed to bring themselves "within the workers' reach." Indeed, people make up for this today by denouncing as "sectarian" and "schematic" the Trotskyists who denounce the "national insurrection" and "national demands."
These theories place the causes of the crisis of the Fourth International impartially, half on the reformism of the masses, half on the sectarianism of the B-Ls. They promise to resolve it on condition that revolutionary principles and programme are one thing, for the use of the leadership that will draw the masses along, and that the B-Ls' policy be another, deriving not from these principles and this programme but from "concrete facts" — that is, the present nationalism of the masses instilled in them by Stalinism.
The infantile-leftist theories, for their part, are less "impartial"; they throw the whole blame onto the B-Ls. The latter betrayed, because if they had had a bolder policy, they would have led the masses to victory. On them falls the whole responsibility, not only for their own crisis, but also for the past defeats and for the crisis of humanity. Since the objective conditions are ripe for socialism, it is enough to call on the masses to make the revolution for them to follow the "subjective factor." The revolutionary programme is reduced to demonstrating the betrayal of all the organizations that failed to call "on the masses to make the revolution (in 1933, in June 1940, etc.) and to propose to the workers that they make it immediately."
Both these categories of explanation for the fact that the Fourth International has not been recognized as leadership by the working class must be definitively rejected as anti-Marxist. Both turn the "subjective factor" into an abstraction living outside the consciousness of the proletariat, which must be superadded to it by cunning or by force.
In reality, there is not on the one hand the consciousness of the proletariat and on the other the consciousness of the revolutionary party; rather, the subjective factor is constituted by the consciousness of the entire class, including the revolutionary party. It is the conditions governing the internal modification of this real subjective factor that must be analysed in order to understand how the majority of the class, which trusts its treacherous leaderships, will come to perceive their betrayal and will recognize the Fourth International as its revolutionary leadership.
The proletariat is not reformist; on the contrary, there exists an "organic, radical, invincible aspiration of the working masses to tear themselves free of the bloody capitalist chaos" (L. Trotsky). But "consciousness lags behind life," and, despite this organic aspiration, the masses possess only a limited consciousness of it and place their trust in the old organizations. These, through the whole of their activity, fulfil their mission, which is to prevent the proletariat from "tearing itself free of the bloody capitalist chaos."
The class becomes aware of the insurmountable contradiction that exists between its revolutionary aspirations and the conservative, counter-revolutionary character of its leaderships fundamentally only on the basis of its own experience, which is that of the class struggle.
The subjective factor, that is, the consciousness of the proletariat, changes under the influence of the class struggle. This fundamental thesis of Marxism rejects a priori the opportunist and leftist explanations of the crisis of the Fourth International.
In order for the proletariat to become conscious of the need for the new leadership, together with the need for the seizure of power, the struggle engaged against the bourgeoisie must be sufficiently sharp and sufficiently prolonged for the proletariat, through it, to experience the policy of betrayal of the old leaderships. This struggle is engaged by the proletariat, driven by its organic aspiration to free itself, but it is held back by the full force of the old leaderships. For the struggle to last long enough and be sharp enough, for the proletariat to experience the policy of betrayal of the traditional leaderships, it is thus necessary, if one may put it so, that its aspiration be greater than the strength of those leaderships. Now the strength of the proletariat's spontaneous will to free itself is not a psychological virtue but is "determined by the objective conditions of decaying capitalism." It is from this angle that the objective bases of the crisis of the Fourth International can be understood.
When the opposition was formed within the Communist International after the German defeat of 1923, the weight of the petty-bourgeois current, which had already grown considerably stronger on the basis of the USSR's isolation and the defeats of the revolution, and which was directing the Communist International, was already so great that an extremely important revolutionary rise would have been needed for the leftward push of the masses to bring about a shift of the vanguard grouped within the CI towards the opposition and to remake the leadership. Instead, the eclectic policy of the leadership brought about, in the meantime, the defeat of the English workers and of the Chinese revolution, which strengthened it still further. But the German proletariat was still on its feet; its strength and the importance of its position in Europe could have provided, had it thrown itself into battle, a basis of national and international experience sufficient for a shift of the Communists towards the Opposition under its leadership; the international revolutionary movement could have triumphed once again, the relationship of forces could have turned definitively in the proletariat's favour; Stalinism, by handing over the German proletariat without a fight, avoided this experience, which could have been the basis of its own defeat.
With the German revolution, the objective possibility of an internal shift of forces within the Third International disappeared. It could no longer do anything but degenerate completely. The B-Ls had to open the struggle for the Fourth International. But with this defeat, the reactionary weight of Stalinism grew heavier still. To overcome it, an even greater revolutionary rise was henceforth needed, as a basis of experience for the proletariat, than the French and Spanish revolutions, which proved too limited to constitute one.
From this historical process, the following essential conclusion must be drawn. Objective conditions were ripe in 1917 for an international transition to socialism. But the economy is not reflected directly in the class struggle. On the basis of the defeat of the international rise of 1918 to 1933, the bourgeoisie stabilized itself somewhat. This fact, combined with the still more important factor of the mistaken policy of the Communist International, brought about a national fragmentation of the international revolution. The "objective conditions" of decaying capitalism could not, for the proletariat of an isolated country, produce a spontaneous revolutionary rise sufficient to overwhelm Stalinism. In order to experience the betrayal of the degenerate bureaucracy, resting on the immense wealth of the workers' state, the proletariat needed to wage an international struggle. The ebb of the world revolution was the basis of the objective impossibility for the Fourth International to be recognized as leadership. The greatest victory of the world proletariat has become the basis of the greatest obstacle standing in the path of the revolution. Only the world revolution can provide a basis of experience sufficient for the proletariat to overcome that obstacle and move towards the Fourth International.
We find ourselves today on the eve of the world revolution, that is, the objective conditions for the masses to undergo the decisive experience of the betrayal of the Comintern and to adopt, in struggle, the programme of the Fourth International are going to be laid down as never before and as never again will they be. This is why it is the hour of the Fourth International. This perspective must absolutely lead to the irrevocable condemnation, as revisionist and as abandoning the perspective of the world revolution which lies at the base of the B-Ls' programme, of all theories that reject, explicitly or implicitly, all or part of the responsibility for past defeats onto the proletariat.
At the same time, we must break completely with the perspective of "national insurrection," which is that of the proletariat's passivity, of its total continued subjection to the Stalinist yoke. It must be recognized that the Fourth International will never lead the working class to victory, or else we must return to the programme of the B-Ls, that is, to the perspective of world revolution: "It is not by chance that the Fourth International calls itself the world party of the socialist revolution. Our path remains unchanged. We maintain our orientation towards the international revolution." (Leon Trotsky, September 1939). The Trotskyist programme of world revolution will be adopted tomorrow by the proletariat of the whole world through the world revolution.
Theses adopted by the congress of the Comité communiste internationaliste in January 1944, republished in the Bulletin intérieur of the PCI in October 1944