New York, N.Y.
July 14, 1954
Los Angeles
Dear Jim:
We have already sent you copies of Burns' letter of June 25 reporting on the Pabloite rump congress and the letter of June 25 from P. Frank forwarding the rump congress resolution on unity.
Enclosed is a copy of a letter of July 8 from Burns and Joe reporting on their discussions with the Ceylonese subsequent to the rump congress and recommending a tactical orientation toward formation of a parity commission. We suggest that a reply be sent to the comrades of the International Committee along the following lines:
[p. 245]
We have defeated the Pabloites in the political struggle since publication of the Open Letter. As a result a three way division was manifested at the rump congress: the Pabloite liquidators, the Germainist conciliators who have made political concessions to Pablo, and the Ceylonese to whom Pablo has made political concessions.
The rump congress made contradictory decisions. In proclaiming itself as the "Fourth Congress," it moved in the direction of split. The political concessions to the Ceylonese, on the other hand, implied motion in the direction of unity. These decisions of an opposite character were intended to placate the contradictory forces at the rump congress in order to hold them together. The Ceylonese could not be induced to go along with Pablo without political concessions. The Cochranites on the other hand would probably have split if the rump congress had not been proclaimed the "Fourth Congress."
We now face the question: Shall we insist that the act of proclaiming the "Fourth Congress" consummates a definitive split, or shall we accept the Ceylonese proposal to form a parity commission for the organization of a joint discussion and preparation of a joint conference?
If we say the split is now definitive our political attack on the Pabloites will continue to make its way as before. Polarization among the participants in the rump congress will continue to take place between the orthodox Trotskyist elements still entangled in Pablo's net and the revisionists who support Pablo's liquidationist line. There fore we will sooner or later have to face the question of precisely how to bring about reunification of the viable political forces within the world movement. The question is, would acceptance of the Ceylonese proposals help to expedite this polarization, help to isolate and conclusively defeat the revisionist-liquidationist wing?
Burns' report on the rump congress seems to indicate that such a tactic would be profitable. There is no doubt that the cadres who boycotted the rump congress constitute a world majority. The political concessions Pablo had to make to the Ceylonese reflected the gravitational pull of the International Committee forces on the non-revisionist elements who participated in the rump congress. These elements were further propelled toward the International Committee by the new revisionist-liquidationist manifestations displayed by the Cochranite-Lawrenceite wing. It is significant to note that the latter voted against Pablo's political and organizational concessions to the Ceylonese
We would be wholly justified in taking the stand that the decision of the rump gathering to proclaim itself the "Fourth Congress" had made the split definitive. However, if we were to refuse on this ground to have any relations with those elements at the rump congress who are subject to attraction by the IC, we would be setting up organizational barriers that would help keep them in Pablo's revisionist-liquidationist net. On the other hand we can't let the struggle end in compromise solution that would slur over any of the political differences or fail to specify and denounce the precise character of Pabloite revisionism. Consequently we must devise a tactical line that will enable us to establish relations with orthodox Trotskyists who participated in the rump congress and enlist them in a further and final stage of struggle for the re constitution of the Fourth International on firm orthodox Trotskyist lines. Toward this end we propose:
Under no circumstances do we recognize the Pabloite rump meeting as a congress.
We will accept the proposal to establish a parity commission between the orthodox Trotskyists and the participants in the rump meeting to organize a joint discussion and prepare a joint conference.
Any parity commission established must be arranged through direct negotiations with the International Committee and not through any attempt to by-pass the IC in an approach to individual sections.
Meetings of the parity commission should be held in London in order to permit maximum IC representation.
Our aim in the joint discussion should be to compel the Pabloites to answer for their political and organizational crimes committed following the Third Congress, namely:
a. Why they split the French party, discriminated against the Chinese leadership, aided and abetted the splitters in England, the United States, Canada and other sections, and "suspended" the orthodox Trotskyists in the midst of preparations for the Fourth Congress.
b. They must explain where they stand in relation to Pablo's public repudiation of the Transitional Program, his repudiation of revolutionary perspectives for America, his apologies for Stalinism in the French general strike and East German uprising, his solidarity with Clarke's repudiation of the political revolution in the USSR, etc.
These points must be pressed, not at all out of vindictiveness against a hostile tendency, but because of the iron necessity to establish clear political and organizational lines on which a unified organization would function. Any attempt to reunify the movement without explicit reaffirmation of the fundamental Trotskyist positions and a specific rejection of Pablo's political policies and organizational methods would solve nothing. It would only lay the basis for a new and even worse internal crisis.
Before sending any reply to the comrades of the International Committee, we would like to have your views of the general situation as it now stands after the rump congress and of our proposed line of reply to the IC.
Comradely, Farrell Dobbs