New York, N.Y.
March 24, 1954
Dear Comrade Kane:
The IS letter of February 22 to the Canadian section and a similar letter they sent on February 15 to the Chinese Party are patent frauds. These letters attempt to paint the Pablo-rigged IS as a group of injured innocents in the international faction fight. They represent themselves as "Honest Johns" who want only to help the comrades "resist pressure from alien forces" and carry on "efficient work among the masses of your country." A simple statement of the facts will explode these hypocritical Pabloite pretensions and reveal that the IS letters signify the following:
1. An attempt to camouflage the real Pabloite political line. The letters deny the IS has taken the position that Stalinism will gradually transform itself and adopt the Trotskyist program under pressure of the masses. The. real position of the IS on the "disintegration" of Stalinism, it is said, will be found in "The Rise and Decline of Stalinism." As in the case of every other Pabloite document, these remarks are designed to put over a revisionist line piecemeal while trying to conceal its true revisionist character.
In "The Rise and Decline of Stalinism," the Pabloites see the Kremlin bureaucracy obliged to liberalize itself and relax its hold on the Communist parties in other countries. Despite occasional right oscillations, they predict, these parties must radicalize their policies under the pressure of the masses. In his document, "From the Third to the Fourth World Congress," Pablo goes farther. He sees the ideological breaking up of Stalinism and assigns to the Communist parties a revolutionary vanguard role. For the Trotskyist parties he prescribes a more or less prolonged and a more or less total entrism into the Stalinist milieu.
Pablo goes still farther in La Verite des Travailleurs of December 1953 when he says the perspectives of the 1938 transitional program have been overturned from top to bottom. Such an overturn "from top to bottom" must of necessity include abandonment of the perspective of building independent parties of the Fourth International. Any doubt of this intent is removed by a resolution adopted at the recent Pabloite rump plenum, which predicts that for America the revolutionary mass party will be formed in a process of fusion with "left" tendencies through a series of phases and forms as yet "unforeseeable."
These piecemeal injections of a revisionist policy clearly add up to the following: Stalinism will gradually transform itself and adopt the Trotskyist program under the pressure of the masses, hence the perspective of building independent parties of the Fourth International has been overturned from top to bottom.
[p. 187]
2. An attempt to falsify the political views of the orthodox Trotskyists. Opponents of the Pabloite revisionist- liquidationist line are described by the IS as people who live on past schemas and show signs of succumbing to the pressure of alien forces. They are indicted for general confusionism and pessimism. Then comes the real political booby trap in the form of a charge that opponents of Pabloism are attempting the "revision of the dual and contradictory nature of Stalinism."
Pabloism discards the traditional Trotskyist analysis of Stalinism as basically counter-revolutionary. Stalinist maneuvers actually designed to head revolutionary movements in order to behead them are pictured by the Pabloites as signs of the transformation of Stalinism into a revolutionary vanguard force. This represents a revision in crassest form of the "dual and contradictory" nature of Stalinism. Stalinism becomes absolved of its fundamentally reactionary character and becomes instead increasingly revolutionary. Yet those who challenge this crude whitewashing of counter-revolutionary Stalinism are accused of ignoring the "revolutionary" side of Stalinism and therefore of violating the Trotskyist conception of its "dual and contradictory" nature.
Stated briefly, the following is the orthodox Trotskyist concept on this question: The Kremlin bureaucracy doesn't aim to aid the world revolution or overthrow imperialism. It wants to contain both imperialist aggression and revolutionary expansion, hoping to maintain the general status quo and become the balance of power between the imperialists and the revolutionary forces. This guiding line of the Kremlin accounts for the Stalinist betrayal of the French General Strike. Suppression by the Kremlin of the workers' uprising in East Germany explodes the myth that the Soviet bureaucracy is liberalizing itself, as does the Beria purge in the Soviet Union.
Recent political events in France, East Germany and the Soviet Union confirm the Trotskyist program of the necessity of political revolution to overthrow Stalinism where it holds the power and of the need to isolate Stalinism everywhere in the revolutionary movement. These events also confirm the perspectives of the 1938 Transitional Program, including the necessity to build independent parties of the Fourth International everywhere in the. world.
3. An attempt to prohibit factions. The Pabloites falsely charge that the orthodox Trotskyist faction led by the International Committee has split from the International. They manufacture from the whole cloth the fraudulent accusation that the International Committee is organizing its own world congress. On the basis of these trumped-up charges, the Pabloites claim that the orthodox Trotskyists are not acting as a faction. The object of this frameup is to prohibit the organization of a faction in the Internation by anybody but Pablo. Those who desire to support the orthodox Trotskyist faction are warned by the Pabloites that to do so means to "leave the International" and that "sanctions" will be taken against them by the Pablo-rigged IEC because they have "split."
This Pabloite frameup for the purpose of prohibiting factions is exploded by the declarations of the International Committee. The IC has constituted itself as the coordinating body for the organization of an orthodox
Trotskyist faction. It has announced it will fight to conduct a full and democratic discussion of all issues in dispute, so that all the sections may familiarize themselves with the issues and take a political position before decisions are made at a democratically organized congress. The IC has stated its basic aims to be: Defense of the Trotskyist program and organization against the Pabloite revision-ist-liquidationist attack; and removal of the Pabloite usurpers from the central apparatus of the world organization in order to restore internal democracy and carry out a genuine Trotskyist policy. The IC has made clear that it has not split from the International and has no need to split. It already has the support of the majority of the basic Trotskyist cadres and is sure of an even bigger majority in a democratic discussion. In fact, the International Committee is today the truly representative leadership of the Fourth International.
An attempt to paralyze decision in the sections. The Pabloites warn the comrades not to take a position against the IS before all the IS documents against the orthodox Trotskyists have been made known to them or before there has been full discussion at their projected rump congress. No political views are to be decided by the sections until they have first sent delegates to the Pabloite rump congress and then received the report of their delegates about the decisions of that rump gathering. Baldly stated, this injunction to the sections means: If you can't make up your mind now to support Pablo, don't make any decision at all until he has made it impossible for you to oppose him without being thrown out of the International under the "discipline" of his rump congress.
An attempt to impose minority rule over the International. If anybody wants to remove Pablo from office, the IS states, the proposal should be brought to the Pablo-rigged IEC from which Pablo has succeeded in purging all opposition. The IS letter adds that it would be better still to come to Pablo's jerry-rigged rump congress in order to seek his removal.
With the introduction of this slick argument the Pabloite intrigue against orthodox Trotskyism begins to emerge in rounded form. Political confusion is sown by attempting to camouflage the real Pabloite political line and falsify the political views of the orthodox Trotskyists. An attempt is made to prohibit factions other than Pablo's by accusing the opposition of "split" and reading them out of the movement. An effort is made to paralyze all political decision in the sections, except approval of Pablo's line, until he has put over his line at a rump congress. To rig a fake majority at his rump congress Pablo has sought to cut down his opposition by suspensions and removals in the leadership, by minority splits and expulsions of majorities in the sections. The delegates at Pablo's rump congress would be instructed to go home and lay down the law, ordering everybody to carry out Pablo's line in obedience of "International discipline" or face expulsion. These are the Comintern-like methods employed by Pablo in an attempt to impose minority rule over the International and carry out his revisionist-liquidationist line in defiance of the opposition of the orthodox Trotskyist majority.
From these facts it is plain to see that it is the Pabloites who are trying to stampede the movement into an international split at their rump congress. Fortunately they appear to have been caught up with in time to prevent them from causing a disabling rupture of the Fourth International.
[p. 188]
In opposition to the Pabloite split drive the orthodox Trotskyists have raised the following demands: (1) Beginning with the reinstatement of the French majority, cancel unconditionally all suspensions, removals and expulsions; (2) cease issuing public statements not in accord with fundamental Trotskyist principles and previous congress decisions; (3) cancel the announced Pabloite decision to hold a congress next May or June, which would only be a rump gathering to formalize an international split; (4) cancel the special conditions attached by the Pabloites to participation in a congress by their political opponents; (5) withhold the scheduling of a congress until after a democratic discussion has been held, instead of scheduling a congress before there has been full discussion. These demands for a democratic discussion and decision in the political dispute help to expose the Pabloite intrigue and save comrades from Pablo's trap of organizational fetishism. Most important of all, however, is the need for the Trotskyists to carry the political battle to the Pabloites. The main task is to make certain everybody has full knowledge of the fundamental political issues in dispute and thus reduce Pabloism down to its hard revisionist-liquidationist core.
Fraternally, Smith