March 7, 1954
The I.S. of the Pabloites,
Your letter dated Feb. 5th, together with a letter from the United States with the signature of K. were all received on March 2nd. We have discussed your letter and a number of questions in relation to this international dispute and hence decided to make you this reply.
Our Fundamental Attitude
Concerning the serious revisionist errors you have committed politically and bureaucratic abuses in organisational field, we maintain the same position which was expressed in our "Response to the Appeal of the SWP.
The reason is as follows: your revisionist positions are not only in contradiction with the fundamental spirit of the Third World Congress; moreover, it is in violation of the basic principles of Trotskyism. If you had presented your views only in the internal discussion, you had naturally the right to maintain your different views within the framework of our movement. But it was not so: not having waited or gone through an internal discussion, and without being endorsed by any of the international conferences, you openly published these views in the name of the International leadership and in the international organ as if you fully represented our International, and applied them to analysing all events occurring after Stalin's death, on the East German Event and the French General Strike, and thus openly spoiled the standard of the Fourth International in front of the working class and toiling masses all over the world. This is absolutely inadmissable.
You did not even stop there. With the facility of controlling the international leading organ, you manipulated with organisational maneuvers to suppress and conceal the divergent views existing within the movement, to exclude your own opponents, and to create successively splits in a few important sections, and arbitrarily sanctioned several leaderships and rank and file militants of national sections who opposed your views, in order or in the attempt to secure your "majority." Besides, alone or united with Stalinists, you openly attack the comrades holding the different opinions than yours among the masses. All these facts (just as exposed in the "Letter of the SWP to World Trotskyists" and Peng's Letter to Cannon which have not been replied precisely and concretely by you) prove that you did not at all observe the attitude of "welcoming a discussion with facts and argument" as assured by you in your letter.
Therefore, as a leadership, you were the first to violate the party discipline, strangle internal democracy of our movement, and render all attempts of solving all divergences through the channel of a democratic internal discussion unrealisable. Under these concrete circumstances, it became absolutely necessary to give an opening to this struggle which had been suffering from your suppression, and to declare an intransigent war against you. Whoever still looks at this crisis confronting our International as simply a normal party dispute and would insist on the normal procedure of solving internal divergences in the present crisis is the most pedantic fetishist of democratic centralism. This fetishism can never resolve crises, but would prolong the spasmodic agony engendered by this crisis.
When we first read the Open Letter of the SWP we did not yet fully comprehend the depth of bureaucratism exercised by Pablo and his faction, hence in our "Response" we advocated for following a normal procedure in dismissing Pablo and reorganising the I.S. Since we learned that the Pabloite faction, having expelled the majority of the French Party all by itself, proceeded with its arbitrary and bureaucratic practices in successively outlawing the majorities of the New Zealand and British Trotskyists, and fabricated fictitious majorities, and excluded a number of IEC members from this international leadership by this procedure. Consequently the International Committee inaugurated and organised by the British, French, Swiss and New Zealand Trotskyists as the means to rally all forces in the International against Pabloism, to prepare for the convention of the coming congress on a genuine democratic basis, has become absolutely necessary. We fully approve the constitution of this International Committee. We had previously entrusted Comrade Peng with full power as the representative to engage in common emergency action together with the other sections in the struggle against Pablo; now as Comrade Peng has participated in this organism as representative of the Chinese Section, we completely rectify this measure.
[p. 180]
We have considered that the IS Bureau under Pablo's control has completely lost its role as an international leadership. Recently after we learned the real state in which the 14th Plenum of the IEC was held, we are further convinced that Pablo's bureaucratism has completely destroyed the IEC, and the IEC created by the Third World Congress does no longer exist as an official leading body of the FI. Henceforward, we shall stand on the side of the IC and unite ourselves with all sections who fight for the defense of Trotskyist tradition and against Pabloism in a common effort for safeguarding the Fourth International.
A Few Criticisms and Refutations in Regard to Your Letter
As to your letter, we judge that you are not able to justify yourselves on many questions.
It is true that we have made a very general criticism in our "Response" on your political thought as follows: "You assume that in the 'new world reality', Stalinism will gradually transform itself and adopt the Trotskyist program under the pressure of the masses cover up in many ways the criminal betrayals of Stalinism. At that time, we grasped the main line of your thought principally through the criticisms made in the Letter of the SWP. Today, when we have read several of your principal documents (such as "Rise and Decline of Stalinism," Declaration on the East German Insurrection, and the articles written by Pablo: "The Post-Stalin New Course" and "Where Are We Going?" etc.) we further realise that your revision starts with Trotsky's fundamental conception on the Soviet Thermidor and the conception of Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR as the first phase of bourgeois restoration, and you proceed on to reconcile the unreconciliable antagonism between the Stalinist bureaucracy and the masses; all that with the addition of your hardly convincing analysis of the evolution of the world situation, you derive an assertion that the basic conditions of the existence of Stalinism have disappeared, and thus open the way for the following conception: that in this present phase of the revival and mounting of the world revolution, the Stalinist bureaucracy will reform itself under the pressure of the masses. Although you have never written categorically in your documents this formula: "Stalinism will gradually transform itself under the pressure of the masses and adopt the Trotskyist program and ideas," you have however emphasized constantly on the mass pressure which becomes more and more decisive in determining the policy of the Kremlin, that the Malenkov era is tending towards the liquidation of Stalinist heritage, and that Malenkov is obliged to liberalise the internal regime, loosen its grip over the national CPs, and is obliged more and more to seek alliance with the colonial revolutions, and that its capacity for counterrevolution has become more and more limited.
Besides, you have stressed that under the pressure of the masses, the national CPs have not only yielded to the penetration of a trend of thought against the Kremlin, but have entered upon a process of transforming its own hierarchical bureaucratic relations formerly established, and you go on further: you place your hope and perspective of the socialist renaissance in the USSR and the leading role to be played in the coming world revolution on the evolution of the policy of the Stalinist parties and their disintegration. The formula as we stated above and with which we reproached you is evidently involved in all your make-believe assertions and analyses, and is the logical conclusion which you will inevitably arrive at with all your revisions of Trotskyist conceptions in your conciliation to Stalinism.
It is not possible to treat in more detail on this question within the limit of this brief letter. We are preparing another resolution on all the important political and organisational problems involved in this present international dispute in order to express more fully our opinions. But here we have to insist on one point beforehand that your attempt of placing China and Yugoslavia on the same level, and your assertion that Mao's regime is a deformed workers state, and the Chinese CP has already become a centrist party are all completely unjustified, false and contradictory to the reality.
In your letter you declare that another fundamental divergence between you and Cannon is organisational. You quoted from the speech made by Cannon on May 18, 1953, and denounced him of abandoning the principles of a centralized world party. We have not yet read this document of Cannon's, but from all we have read about the opinions or ideas expressed by Cannon in the past as well as in the present on organisational matters, we cannot find out this idea as you denounced. On the contrary, in this present struggle, the same as the enormous contributions he has made on the organisation conception in the previous struggle of 1939-1940 with Burnham and Shachtman and later with Abern, Cannon understands extremely well how to defend the genuine democratic centralism, and knows how to engage in an intransigent struggle against bureaucratism camouflaged under the coat of "democratic centralism." Democratic centralism is no longer a fetishist schema in his mind but contains the same spirit when Lenin fought against Mensheviks and Social Patriots, and when Trotsky engaged in the battle against Stalinists.
You made the claim for authority of a leadership, but the authority of a party leadership resides entirely in the correctness in applying political and organisational principles. Authority cannot be maintained by organisational enforcement, by excluding the opponents, by means of intrigues and trickery. History has demonstrated by numerous examples that the factional conspirators in the attempt of establishing their "authority" are in fact merely usurping power, and fail eventually in confronting real tests. We consider that since Comrade Trotsky's death, the authority of the international leadership of the FI can only be built on the principle of a genuine collective leadership. This collective leadership should manifest itself not only in the mutual cooperation within the leading apparatus, but also necessarily in the intimate collaboration between this leading organ and the most outstanding militants of the older generations in the International and the leaderships of the various national sections (at least the most important ones). This collaboration is not at all contradictory to the principle of a centralized world party, but the real source of the authority of this centralized world party. The facts have proved that you are going in directly opposite way in seeking for authority; you are in reality demanding an "authority" which enables you to violate at your will the internal party democracy. This kind of "centralism" can trace its origin only in the tradition of Stalinism.
[p. 181]
Besides, we have to point out two facts mentioned in your letter but which you are not able to refute and explain:
You say that the reason of your not having submitted the dispute in the SWP to the discussion in the IEC was that the divergences on the American question in this dispute were not "clearly formulated"; and you felt that what Cannon wanted was "nothing else than a pure and simple approval of his tendency and of the measures of expulsion he wanted to take against the minority." This sort of argument cannot be justified in any way. Whether the dispute in the SWP had arrived to the point that political divergences were "clearly formulated" or not, but the fact that the whole party had been divided into two different tendencies was quite evident; their divergences did not stop at political issues, but had already created serious organisational antagonisms. Towards such a serious conflict, the IS Bureau had no reason whatever to conceal it, to refrain from presenting it to the IEC for discussion in order to arrive at a decision, to participate in the discussion in the qualification of the International leadership, to refute and reject the wrong position "with facts and argument." And, even if Cannon were really like what you conceived to be, who had desired the simple approval of his own tendency and his "expulsion" of the minority, it would have been more necessary for you to present the dispute before the IEC for discussion and to formally expose and reject him according to the principle of a centralised world party.
You say that you did invite Comrade Peng to the 14th Plenum of the IEC. About this we have received formal report from Comrade Peng. He pointed out in his letter that among you, Pablo had once told him that his "Few remarks on the Draft Resolution on the Third Chinese Revolution to serve as Amendments," had been published in the internal bulletin, and that the "Appeal of the Five Chinese Trotskyists" sent by us was transmitted to the organs of different sections for publication; but the facts have revealed that all these words are not true. And further, in fact, during the past one year you had not at all convoked him to any meeting of the IS itself (see Peng's letter to Cannon), thence it is clear that today you do not let him participate in the 14th Plenum of the IEC is not due to any accidental technical obstacle, but simply a step in advance from your preventing him from attending the meetings of the IS. Meanwhile, we know also that those IEC members who were eliminated or excluded from the 14th Plenum of the IEC are not limited to Peng only. According to the article "Struggle for Safeguarding the FI" appeared in the Militant, there are altogether 9 members of the IEC either being suspended or expelled. We can no longer believe that the other members could not participate in this conference also because of accidental technical reasons.
Comrade Peng represented our Chinese Section to participate in the Third World Congress, was elected by this Congress as one of the members of the IEC, and then again elected by the IEC to join in the activities of the IS, therefore his participation in the meetings and activities of the international leading organ is not only his personal right but also the right of the Chinese Section. We are deeply indignated by your deliberate attempt of excluding him from these international organs!
Statement on the Question of our Contacts in the Past On the question of our past contacts with you, what Comrade Peng asserted that we did not have a safe address is the truth. This is due to our bad conditions and our feeble material basis. Comrade Peng's letters addressed to us in the past, except through the methods of secret correspondence, by using an insecure address for a few times, were generally transmitted to us through our comrade in xx. All the recent documents concerning the International dispute (among which many are the principal documents representing your political views, are published as soon as they are received for the convenience of a general discussion among the rank and file of our party.) have been sent to us by this same comrade, and this possibility of carrying through communications was obtained only a few months ago.
We have profound understanding about Comrade Peng. His greatest merit is his constant insistence on principles and his serious and upright attitude in conducting organisational matters. It is precisely so that he has become an unique personality remaining from the older generations of our Chinese section, who exerts steadily his efforts for our movement (those among our older generations who were not able to stick firmly on principles or were not serious in their attitude to our movement have almost all left our movement). According to the record of more than 20 years of his consistent, honest and upright conduct, and taking account of the facts of practical difficulties in our contacts, we deem any prejudice or suspicion on your part towards Comrade Peng not only unnecessary but unjustified.
Now we have decided to give you an address, and if you have any letter to communicate to the CC of our section, instead of sending to the last one which was no longer available, please send to: xxxx. And besides, send a copy of any letter you address to us in future to Comrade Peng in order to save us the trouble of mailing it back to him.
Central Committee of the Chinese Revolutionary Communist Party.