[p. 137]
October, 1953
Why has the Third World Congress been an event in the history of our international movement? Because with the help of events (especially the triumph of the Chinese revolution, the new upsurge of the colonial revolution and the war in Korea) as well as the experience and maturity acquired by our movement in all its activity, especially since the last war, we succeeded in fully setting forth a series of fundamental conclusions — which had already entered into our thought — for our orientation, our perspectives, our action in the real movement of the masses.
To appraise the achievement of the Third World Congress at its just value, we must compare it with what we previously said, with the way in which up to then we understood the essential factors in the objective situation, in our perspectives and in our activity amongst the masses for the construction of the revolutionary Party and the triumph of the Revolution. We shall be led to return to this comparison later in the development of the international discussion. For the moment it will suffice to recall on what specific questions we progressed at the time of the Third World Congress:
a. On the change in the global relation of forces between capitalism and imperialism on the one side and the Revolution under all its forms on the other, evolving favorably for the latter.
b. On the acceleration of the war preparations of imperialism in order to cope with its difficulties and in the last analysis the threat of the Revolution with armed force.
c. On the class character of the war being prepared by imperialism.
d. Of its rapid transformation, within such a global relation of forces, into an international civil war, into Revolution.
e. On the position of our movement taken toward the Soviet Union, the other anti-capitalist states and Stalinism in general.
f. On the repercussions of such a relation of forces, of such an evolution toward war (war of such a character) within the organized workers' movement.
g. Notably on the repercussions within Stalinism.
h. On our tactic for building the Marxist-revolutionary mass Party under these conditions, in this given period with these given perspectives.
Let us dwell a little more on each of these points.
The Question of the Relation of Forces
The basis of all politics, that is to say, of all conscious subjective action, is a correct appraisal of the objective conditions, that is to say, of the whole of the factors external to ourselves, to ourselves the Party (or the nucleus of the Party as we still are in most cases). Among these external factors there is also included more especially the state of the working class and the colonial masses, their mentality, their degree of consciousness, their present political organization.
The fundamental, elementary movement of the class is determined by the totality of these given objective conditions. Primed in its development and impelled by these objective conditions, the class raises itself to consciousness of the historical conditions in which it is operating and the aims it has to achieve. Herein is the process of historical creation, through the struggle of the classes (product of the objective conditions of capitalism) of the Revolutionary Party.
This latter thus created, intervenes in its turn in the class struggle as a factor which determines it in part, accelerates or retards it (according to whether it follows a correct or wrong policy), and even intervenes as a decisive factor to assure victory, transforming a pre-revo-lutionary period into a revolutionary one, or a revolutionary one into insurrection, with a specific aim: the conquest of power.
When the mass Marxist revolutionary Party already exists, its functioning is an active factor in the whole of the situation, constantly acting both on the objective conditions characterizing the state of the economy, politics and the international relations of the bourgeoisie as well as on the mentality and consciousness of the masses.
But the concrete case for our international movement is one where such parties do not as a rule yet exist, or where it is precisely the problem to create them. Our principal ally in this task is the existence of objectively favorable conditions propelling the masses into struggle despite the absence of mass Marxist revolutionary parties and despite the obstacle of the traditional reformist and Stalinist leaderships.
Hence the necessity and importance of a correct appraisal of the objective conditions and of their result on the terrain of the class struggle, that is to say, of the relation of global forces between capitalism and the Revolution.
What is called the equilibrium of the capitalist regime is made and unmade by determining forces other than that of the mass revolutionary Party. Neither economic crises, nor wars, nor the first phases of the Revolution are phenomena determined by the preceding existence of the mass Marxistrevolutionary Party. All these phenomena are caused by the laws of the operation and evolution of the capitalist regime and their repercussions on the masses determining the fundamental elementary class movement of the latter.
The Third World Congress has specified that the relation of global forces between the forces of Reaction and the Revolution are evolving favorably for the latter and will remain so during the entire present period and up to the war.
This is what fundamentally marks off the present period from that which immediately preceded the last war. And this is what in its turn essentially modifies the conditions and perspectives for the creation of genuine mass Marxistrevolutionary parties.
On the eve of the last war the equilibrium and stability (to be sure relative) of the capitalist regime were quite different from now. The capitalist and imperialist regime dominated the world except for the USSR. This latter was still only at the beginnings of its industrialization and the internal relation of forces between the masses and bureaucracy was clearly in favor of the bureaucracy. The colonial domain maintained itself almost intact, firmly subjected to the control of imperialism. The metropolitan proletariat, because of a series of major defeats in Italy, Germany, Spain, France, was in full retreat. Trotsky said: "We are living" in a period of "colossal reaction."
The present period, which is preceding imperialism's regroupment of its forces in order to restore its equilibrium and to prevent by war a more ample development of the world Revolution, is fundamentally different. Eighthundred millions, almost one-third of humanity, live under an anti-capitalist regime which has irreparably undermined the equilibrium of capitalism. The USSR is no longer that of the Thirties. In itself it represents a gigantic force, with its 42 million proletarians, its industrial production which will soon equal that of Germany, England and France combined, and the still unexhausted, immense possibilities — despite its bureaucratic administration — of its nationalized and planned economy.
[p. 138]
In Asia the New China is already emerging as a world power which has been capable of victoriously coping with the attempts of the most powerful imperialism, American imperialism, to crush it through the Korean war before it could consolidate itself. What remains of the colonial domain of imperialism in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America is in full revolutionary crisis.
The metropolitan proletariat, despite the ground lost here and there since the end of the war, because of the treacherous policy of its traditional Stalinist and Social-Democratic leaderships, has nowhere been beaten in any decisive fashion, not even in the United States — the citadel of world reaction.
In Western Europe in particular a new revolutionary upsurge is in progress.
The global relation of forces between the capitalist regime and the Revolution in all its forms — anti-capitalist states, colonial Revolution, revolutionary workers' movement in the advanced countries — is incontestably favorable to the Revolution and there is no possibility that it can change around to its opposite in a decisive manner in the years ahead.
Compared with that of the eve of the last war, the global relation of forces is essentially, fundamentally different.
Whoever wants to understand what the new element of the present period consists in ought above all to understand to the very bottom the modifications which have been effected on the terrain of the global relation of forces between capitalism and the Revolution, resulting from the new objective conditions (despite the absence of genuine mass Marxistrevolutionary parties). The notion of the global relation of forces (in the last analysis the relation of forces between the classes) is established as a conception of the average on the world scale and for an entire period. Here and there the bourgeoisie, at a given moment, has scored, scores and will score victories (partial victories, will make advances since the development of the class struggle never follows a direct and uniform line. This is an elementary observation.
But what is the question here is the global average, that is to say on an international scale, for an entire period, of the evolution of the relation of forces. For that is what counts in the last analysis, the struggle and its outcome being world-wide (today more than ever), and is not split up into national sectors arithmetically and mechanically added one to the other in order to form the organic whole of the world and of the international situation.
The Third World Congress has not denied the efforts of imperialism — and the partial results obtained along this line — to change the relation of forces in its favor before unleashing the war and precisely in order to be able to launch it in the best possible conditions. On the contrary it clearly indicated on what precise points imperialism concentrated its efforts; that at least a relative stabilization of certain positions appeared indispensable to it. But at the same time the Third World Congress clearly indicated that imperialism would inevitably encounter in this effort to stabilize its positions in preparation for war an increased resistance from the masses, which would prevent it from crushing them beforehand in any decisive way.
According to the Third World Congress, the entire period before the Third World War, far from being an empty period from the viewpoint of revolutionary events or marked by decisive defeats of the proletariat, even on certain restricted sectors, would on the contrary be a period of inevitable revolutionary resistance of the masses, maintaining in its totality, on a global scale, the relation of forces favorable to the Revolution.
Events up to now have only brilliantly illustrated this conception of the world evolution.
On the Acceleration of Imperialism's War Preparations, Its Character and Its Transformation
Certain people have extracted from this observation the conclusion that the war of imperialism would then become impossible. They still have in mind the old schema that imperialism passes to preparation for war and above all to its unleashing only after having crushed the proletariat and colonial masses in a decisive manner.
This was true in the past, before the last war, when that was still possible and when it was above all a question of inter-imperialist rs.
Today capitalism in its whole, independently of its internal, inter-imperialist contradictions which are entirely real and at moments relatively important, confronts the threat of Revolution in all its forms (let us repeat them): anti-capitalist states, colonial Revolution, revolutionary workers' movement of the advanced countries. War, armed struggle is its ultimate means of struggle against the world Revolution on the march — if one excludes the hypothesis that it can surrender without a struggle.
We have a permanent illustration of this notion of the war against the Revolution and the dialectical conjuncture of war-Revolution, in the consistent attitude of American imperialism in particular, the most conscious, the strongest, the most capable of reaction, which fights with arms in hand every actual or potential new step of the Revolution in the world: in Korea, Turkey, Greece, Iran, Vietnam.
American imperialism is constantly confronted with the advance posts of the world Revolution and strives to halt it by the most brutal violence. American imperialism did not enter upon "the cold war" after feeling itself strong — the first wave of the European revolution from 1943 to 1947 having been conquered because of the treachery of the Stalinist leadership in particular — but once it realized how much the global relation of forces issuing from the war was unfavorable to it, how much the line of division between the Kremlin and itself had become unacceptable, how much the Kremlin despite everything was holding strictly to it, and how profoundly the capitalist equilibrium had been broken.
[p. 139]
American imperialism went into the "cold war" after having realized that, despite the treacheries of the Kremlin, the existence of the USSR, the new anti-capitalist states, the rising colonial revolutions and of the revolutionary workers' movement were feeding the World Revolution with forces which were escaping from strict control of both Washington and the Kremlin and in their dynamic were menacing the capitalist system to its very foundations.
The "cold war" was the inevitable and unique reply of imperialism to the basic disequilibrium issuing from the Second World War which has been aggravated incessantly. For no matter what disposition the Kremlin had to compromise, the relations between imperialism and the Revolution, of which the anti-capitalist states are an essential part, can less than ever be even provisionally regulated on any such basis: the compromise for the Kremlin consisting — as has become more and more clear — in a status quo on the basis of the present division of the world which is unacceptable for imperialism.
The accelerated preparation for war by imperialism, the extension of its air and naval bases throughout the world, its rearmament, the regrouping of all the forces of reaction into a Holy Alliance from Syngman Rhee to Franco is not being accomplished thanks to and because of a stabilization of the capitalist regime itself resulting from a series of decisive defeats of the proletariat and the colonial masses. Quite the contrary. It is being carried on under the sign of a struggle for "survival," as the expression of the blind alley into which capitalism has arrived, as the sole means of dealing with its difficulties, with its disequilibrium, with the threats of further inevitable advances of the revolution.
What is involved is the preparation under new conditions, unknown in the past, of a war of a new class character. It is likewise necessary to understand that down to the very bottom. From the class character of the war in preparation, war on the part of the united forces of imperialism against the Revolution, the Third World Congress set forth the perspective of its rapid transformation into international civil war, into Revolution.
On the Specific Question of our Movement in the Face of the Soviet Union, the Other Anti-Capitalist States and Stalinism in General
The Third World Congress, placed before this appraisal and these perspectives of the international situation, correctly believed it imperiously necessary to redefine in clear terms our principled position toward the USSR, the European "Peoples Democracies," China and the revolutionary movements headed by the Stalinist or Stalinized leaderships of the Communist Party. It unequivocally declared for the unconditional defense of all these anti-capitalist states against imperialism. It recognized them, as well as the colonial Revolution and the revolutionary movement of the proletariat in the advanced countries, as an integral part of the world proletarian Revolution expressing itself in all these forms and forces. It categorically rejected any idea of "a third camp," "a third force," etc. between the united forces of imperialism and the whole of the above-mentioned forms and forces of the Revolution. It thereupon insisted upon the necessary distinction between the elements entering into the current conception of Stalinism: the Soviet bureaucracy, Communist parties, revolutionary movements of the masses headed by the Communist parties.
These elements form a unity, but are far from being identical. StaUnism is above all the conservative political expression, which in the global balance of its international action is counter-revolutionary in the last analysis, of the Soviet bureaucracy and its special interests. To confuse at every time and in every place the Soviet bureaucracy with the Communist parties and the mass movements they direct, to place all that under one common denominator: StaUnism, can have as a result quite simply the misunderstanding of the face of a Revolution, as was the case in Yugoslavia and in China; to pass over to the sidelines and to become imprisoned in a literally fatal sectarianism, and in any event to become incapable of understanding the movement of the masses in a series of countries and circumstances. That is the way it happened during the war with the Resistance movements in a number of European and Asiatic countries and that is now the case with the colonial Revolution in certain Asiatic countries.
In the event of the new war, whose character and perspectives we have already analyzed, a similar confusion runs the risk of multiplying the errors of the past and this time without any excuse.
Some people find the distinction between the Soviet bureaucracy, the Communist parties and the mass movements directed by the latter in the domain of neglible subleties. They prefer rounded-out and summary notions which are more easily manageable and guarantee against any possible "pro-Stalinist" sin. But in reality the distinction is of capital interest from the viewpoint of tactics, orientation and perspectives, and all the experience we have lived through during and after the war and all that of the current concrete work in a series of countries amply demonstrates its importance.
These constituent elements of what we summarily denominate as StaUnism, now tend, following the new phase in which the USSR and the Soviet bureaucracy itself has entered, to become further differentiated in their unity. All the more reason to still more firmly uphold the importance of their distinction.
We will return to this question when we speak of the preparatory documents for the Fourth World Congress.
Why was it necessary to redefine our principled position toward the USSR, the anti-capitalist states and Stalinism in general? Both because of the evolution of the international situation toward a decisive struggle between the two social camps, and the danger of deviations on this subject in our movement under the pressure of hostile social forces. It was necessary to understand to the bottom the extreme polarization which has been produced since the last war between the social forces in struggle and to adhere with an equally extreme firmness to the camp of the Revolution, comprising all its forms; anti-capitalist states, colonial Revolution, revolutionary workers' movements in advanced countries. For a movement still so relatively weak as ours, not having as yet deeply penetrated into its class and found a solid footing there, caught between the pressures of opposing classes which in the last analysis are profoundly hostile to one another, there has been and always is an entirely real and important danger of deviating, if only slightly at the beginning, from a correct class position. During this period, the most critical in the whole history of the workers' movement (but at the same time the most promising), to resist all deviationist temptations which carry us away from the camp of the Revolution; to cope internationally and in each national sector with reactionary pressures; to reject categorically and firmly the so-called politics of the "third force" and the "third camp" — camouflage or preparation for gliding toward the side of imperialism — was and remains for us the supreme test of the profound revolutionary essence of our program and our action.
[p. 140]
It was also necessary to demonstrate that our movement, far from acquiring a character of dogmatism and sectarian ossification, was capable of constantly renewing its theoretical thought; of assimilating the new elements produced by objective evolution, facts, events; to estimate the fundamental revolutionary process of our period at its full value, despite its sinuous and original paths, not foreseen in the past; in a word demonstrating that it is the genuine and only Marxistrevolutionary movement in theoretical elaboration and practical revolutionary activity.
Certain of our forces operate in the sectors where the power of counterrevolutionary imperialism is still concentrated: the United States, England, Germany.
They have the duty of adhering more firmly than elsewhere to our principled positions on the Soviet Union, the other anti-capitalist states and Stalinism in general, despite the formidable hostile pressure which imperialism subjects them to in diverse degrees in these countries through and including a public opinion considerably shaped by it. In all these countries, the duty of our organizations is to resolutely concentrate their attacks first of all and by far against their own imperialism and to unmask with the utmost energy its reactionary threats and war preparations — not in a vague and general way, but by specifying that they are directed against the Soviet Union, the other anti-capitalist states, the colonial Revolution and the revolutionary workers' movement; to clearly make the distinction between the anti-capitalist social structure of the Soviet Union, the European "Peoples Democracies," China and their temporary Stalinist or Stalinized leaderships; to resolutely speak our for the defense of these states as well as for every revolutionary movement, every revolutionary struggle, independently of its provisional Stalinist or Stalinized leadership as in the cases of the Korean or Viet-namese wars; to unmask the actions of imperialism in cases like that of Iran, or of Eastern Germany with the operation — among others — of Eisenhower's food packages; to occasionally ally themselves in a united front with Stalinist organizations against imperialistrepres-sion.
All that is naturally especially applicable to the activity of the Trotskyist organization in the United States, the citadel of international reaction, the principal base of the imperialist war against the Soviet Union, the other anti-capitalist states, the colonial Revolution, the revolutionary workers' movement where what is involved for a period is to effect a united front with the revolutionary forces, in all their forms, abroad against the principal enemy at home.
In all these cases what counts is not anti-imperialist declarations in general but the concrete manner, the precise nuance, the precise accent of our analyses, our campaigns and our articles.
For example, if in the United States the Trotskyists appear to cry out immoderately above all and in every circumstance against the Stalinists, making them responsible above all for everything: for the fall of Mossedegh in Iran, for the victory of Adenauer in Western Germany; if, taking as a pretext the bureaucratic and oppressive policy of the political regime in Eastern Germany, they justify the operation of Eisenhower's food packages — forgetting that the struggle in East Germany between the masses and the bureaucracy is unfolding in any event in the more general framework of the "cold war" and the political character of the food-package operation; if they do not resolutely undertake from the beginning the defense of the Stalinists persecuted above all as Communists and defenders of the USSR in the United States; if they hesitate to propose a united front to them against this repression; if in a word, by a skillful dosing of nuances and accents, they appear anxious to indemnify themselves in any way from any suspicion of more energetically defending than any other sector the Soviet Union the other anti-capitalist states, China, as well as from all compromising contact with the American Stalinists, it could only be concluded that the American Trotskyists are yielding to hostile class pressure in the United States.
But the line of the Third World Congress was precisely defined with the aim of avoiding such deviations under any pretext whatsoever.
On the Repercussions of the Relation of Forces and the Situation within the Organized Workers' Movement, and Stalinism in Particular
The Third World Congress affirmed that within the framework of an international situation evolving toward a decisive struggle, the polarization of opposing social forces would be accentuated in each country, provoking an organizational tightening of the masses around their traditional mass organizations, reformist or Stalinist. That it was consequently not necessary to expect — as the most probable variant — organizational mass breaks and new political regroupments outside these organizations, but rather — for an entire first period — ideological fermentation, a political ripening, differentiations and regroupings within these organizations and mass currents. That their leaderships, forced by the march of events and the consequent pressure of the masses upon them, could not go squarely against the stream but would be obliged to relatively "radicalize" their policy, in any event taking account of the aspirations and reactions of their ranks (and not strictly of the interests of the bourgeoisie or of the Soviet bureaucracy).
[p. 141]
This supplementary consideration, the Third World Congress affirmed, would operate along the line of an organizational tightening and not the breaking up of the traditional organizations and currents.
This entire perspective has been fully verified both in respect to the reformists as well as the Stalinist mass organizations.
Examples:
The British Labor Party and its Bevanist tendency; the German Social Democracy polarizing the essential mass of the German proletariat at the last elections; the Belgian, Austrian and Dutch Social Democracies; the French CP and the Marty-Tillon case which occurred without any important organizational break; the Italian Communist Party and its new gains at the recent elections.
Only sectarian parrots, perched on the dry branch of solitude — and baptized for compensation the Independent Revolutionary Party and its mass activity — have supposedly seen or predicted (how many times the poor souls!) the end of these organizations, their breakup, splits, centrifugal mass currents, etc. in the process of going toward them — them, the Party, the Leadership, increasing their ranks, etc.
Meanwhile, they have avoided the only possible work for the formation of the genuine mass Revolutionary Party of tomorrow, that within these organizations and currents.
Agreement on the appraisal and predictions of the International concerning the consequences of the evolution Of the objective situation and its perspectives on the mass Social-Democratic, organizations and currents have shown themselves to be in one sense, in our ranks, easier than that on the Stalinist mass organizations and currents.
Some have been much more ready to recognize the organizational tightening and the relative "radicalization" of the Social Democracy than the same phenomena within the Stalinist mass organizations and currents.
This is in effect a strange reaction which at bottom denotes a "Stalinophobia" which is not entirely dissipated, that is' to say, repulsion of a sectarian character from the Stalinist current which our movement has> however, always considered, Trotsky first of all, as an integral part of the workers' movement, differing "only to its own advantage" from the Social Democracy in particular! '
For the most elementary reflection, ought to make it easily understood that Stalinism cannot but be placed — in the big capitalist, countries — for an entire period, that of the "cold war" and the preparation for war as such against the Soviet Union and the other anti-capitalist states, only farther to the left of the Social Democracy.
On the other hand, did we ever have the idea of comparing the "radicalization" of the policy of the Social Democracy at any given moment with the consistent Marxistrevolutionary line we represent? Naturally not. This "radicalization" exists only compared with the previous course of a given Social Democratic organization. Even in the best of cases it would not surpass the limits of a left centrism. Nevertheless, it remains of no less concern and highly exploitable' by the revolutionary-Marxist tendency employing an adequate tactic.
It is the same with the mass Stalinist organizations and currents. Their "radicalization" under the pressure of the "cold war" and their mass base, does not mean that they are aligning themselves with the Marxistrevolutionary tendency, that they are adopting a genuine left policy. The comparison has meaning only when referred to the previous course of these organizations and currents. But its interest is no less great above all in relation to the possibilities and perspectives it offers to the Marxistrevolutionary tendency employing the tactic of entrism of a special type.
The "radicalization" is a consequence and an index of the objective conditions favorable for the formation of left centrist currents within the traditional mass organizations, despite the obstacle of the bureaucratic and opportunist elements of their leaderships, the inevitable first stage of the formation of revolutionary-Marxist consciousness in the best elements of the masses and of the more revolutionary orientation of their whole.
On the Creation of the Revolutionary-Marxist Party in these Conditions and Perspectives
The tactical conclusions from the general appraisal of the situation and of its perspectives drawn by the Third World Congress itself and then by the Tenth Plenum which closely followed it were very rich. The way toward a complete integration of our forces in the real movement of the masses was everywhere considerably opened and sectarianism attacked in its most hidden entrenchments.
Possibly the whole of our movement did not realize at one stroke all the consequences and the really new way of envisaging our work amongst the masses and the creation of a genuine Marxistrevolutionary Party. We shall see more clearly into this domain during the preparatory discussion for the Fourth World Congress on the text submitted on "Our Integration into the Real Movement of the Masses" which reviews, deepens and amplifies the tactic proclaimed by the Third World Congress and the Tenth Plenum.
It is not at all adequate to proclaim at every moment the need for the mass Marxistrevolutionary Party and of the Fourth International to resolve the crisis of leadership from which humanity suffers and thus to assure the triumph of the world Revolution and Socialism. It is necessary to know how to have this idea penetrate among the hundreds and thousands of elements necessary to build such a party in each country, organized meanwhile for the most part into reformism and Stalinism.
In the present concrete historical conditions, the variant which is more and more the least probable is the one where the masses, disillusioned by the reformists and Stalinists, break with their traditional mass organizations to Come to polarize themselves around our present nuclei, the latter acting exclusively and essentially in an independent manner, from without. There are only very limited cases in our movement, especially those of Ceylon and Bolivia, which justify such a hope thanks to the advance already made by our organizations in these countries and the relative weakness of any other organized workers' movement. Naturally on condition, even in these special cases, that our organizations pass successfully the test to which history is now submitting them which demands from them to effectively fulfill their role as revolutionary mass Parties capable of organizing and leading the masses to the conquest of power. Elsewhere however the road which will lead to the creation of revolutionary mass Parties will not be direct but in all probability will pass through detours and turnings which will demand tactical capacities (political in the last analysis) of flexibility and boldness, having the general form of a more or less prolonged and more or less total entrism.
[p. 142]
Even for the category of countries where we have considered that the essential work ought to be independent in the present period, like those in Latin America or the United States, that does not mean that one can think of being able to conduct themselves from now on exactly "in the Bolivian manner" and excluding any eventuality of entrist work. The document presented for the Third World Congress on "Our Integration into the Real Movement of the Masses" should dissipate all possible confusion on this subject.
It specifies that it is "very unlikely, even where reformism and Stalinism do not now constitute major political obstacles that the movement of the political maturing of the masses will develop in a straight line toward its polarization around our present nuclei. A work of more or less lengthy duration, essentially oriented in this or that milieu which polarizes the movement of the masses at the present stage, at no matter what level, is necessary."
This conception of the tactic for the creation of the revolutionary mass Party results from the understanding of the real process of the formation of the Party by the class itself, through its struggles and real experiences, from the comprehension of the real dialectical relations between the class and the Party. It is fundamentally differentiated from any sectarian or literary conception of what the Party is and how it is created.
In the atmosphere of the imperialist epoch in particular one can form groups of cadres under no matter what special conditions, even in countries which are still socially stable, even in the absence of a genuine revolutionary movement of the masses, by selecting them one by one here and there, by educating them in courses and through books. But that is far from representing the Party of the class. Here we as yet have only a nucleus of this Party which has still to link itself with much larger forces by striving to attract them to its program and which will pass its true tests only during the resumption of the real class struggle in the country.
It is through this process and this real struggle that the restricted number of cadres initially formed must prove to really be the cadres of the class, capable among other things of understanding the concrete political experiences of the latter from which its revolutionary mass Party will come in the final reckoning.
But has there not been the experience of the Bolshevik Party, a small nucleus of cadres, still isolated in 1917, which from February to October won over the masses thanks to a correct and audacious program and led them to the conquest of power? Could not our present independent nuclei, assisted by the objectively revolutionary conditions, repeat the same experience and ought they not to be above all inspired by this example?
First of all, the Bolshevik nucleus of 1917 was on a quite different scale and had a quite different experience than most of our present nuclei, counting thousands in its cadres and members formed in the crucible of the revolutionary struggle of the Russian masses through a long period of years, marked by strikes, insurrections, wars. Its members were selected and tempered in these struggles where they were recognized cadres of the class itself. Finally, the general historical conditions characterizing the international workers' movement, and the Russian workers' movement in particular in 1917, are no longer the same, were it only because of the subsequent existence of the Soviet Union and Stalinism. We will return later on to this question.
The nuclei of Marxist-revolutionists, already having had experience of the masses and armed with a correct understanding of their real movement, can in the circumstances of revolutionary upswing and where neither Stalinism nor reformism represent major obstacles, advance rapidly and become genuine mass currents.
But the case is entirely different now in the big capitalist countries, especially where a traditional mass movement exists, organized under reformist or Stalinist leadership.
The Contribution of the Documents for the Preparation of the Fourth World Congress
The line of the International is developing since the Third World Congress in the framework of the same fundamental considerations and perspectives. That of the global relation of forces evolving favorably to the Revolution and the general characteristics of the international situation being such as the Third World Congress defined them.
The two documents presented for the preparatory discussion of the Fourth World Congress, "The Rise and Decline of Stalinism" and "Our Integration in the Real Movement of the Masses," form a unity and endeavor to develop still more our revolutionary perspectives and our possibilities of creating in the new favorable objective conditions genuine mass Marxistrevolutionary parties.
The new events, or rather new developments have been those occurring above all in the USSR following Stalin's death, in the buffer countries and Stalinism in general.
If these were not foreseen in the precise form and details in which they were manifested (and in any event they could not have been foreseen in such a fashion), they were counted on as inevitable since the revolutionary dynamic of the international objective situation and the new conditions in which Stalinism has been placed since the last war were pushing in this direction. Our movement, ahead of any other political tendency, repeated many times in recent years that the equilibrium on which the Stalinist phenomenon had developed was irreparably broken, that the expansion of Stalinism, that is to say, the grip of the Soviet bureaucracy on the new anti-capitalist states and the Communist parties, must be understood dialectically as reinforcing the elements of ferment, crisis and breakup of Stalinism in the last analysis; that new revolutionary forces were rising up in the Soviet Union itself on the basis of the economic and cultural progress achieved.
For us, Stalinism began to decline before Stalin was dead.
We expected that the international revolutionary wave would manifest itself in one way or another in the USSR itself through the inevitable juncture of the external and internal revolutionary forces of the country. We foresaw the disintegration and even the end of Stalinism during this period of the decisive struggle waged between imperialism and the Revolution in all its forms, rejecting with the utmost energy all the pessimistic lucubrations of the sectarian or right-wing currents on a so-called world domnation and consolidation of Stalinism for an entire historical period, that is to say, of the grip of the Soviet bureaucracy on the international workers' movement and the world Revolution.
[p. 143]
Naturally we did not foresee the date of Stalin's death, an event that in its own way, because of the special role that personage played in the system of equilibrium of the Soviet bureaucracy and Stalinism in general, precipitated the entire development.
However, armed with a profound understanding of the totality of the general situation, of Stalinism and the new conditions in which the latter henceforth found itself situated, we were again the first to draw from Stalin's death a whole series of conclusions and perspectives. They are precisely set forth in the document "The Rise and Decline of Stalinism." They have already anticipated a series of events which have been produced since then and which sketch out the tendency.
Several comrades wanted this document to be shorter, summing up in theses form the essential points, clearly indicating the guiding line, insisting on the new sides and ideas to emphasize, and less on the well-known things which presumably had already been assimilated by our movement. But we preferred to present a longer document, a sort of global balance sheet of Stalinism since the birth of the phenomenon, in order to recall everything that had been said by our movement up to now on the question, justifying our general line on this subject and thus facilitating an understanding of why the new objective conditions and the new events determine the new phase of the disintegration of Stalinism and the new perspectives opened in the USSR, the other anti-capitalist states, the Communist parties and Stalinism in general.
We thus thought to forestall objections and possible misunderstandings from elements and currents which follow with some delay the general thought of the International. Really all that we say on the chapter of Stalinism ought normally to be an easily assimilable matter for the whole of the International, the entire programmatic preparation of our movement and all its revolutionary perspectives having proceeded along this line: that the objective conditions upon which the equilibrium of Stalinism was based in the past (before the last war) have changed both on the international plane and on the internal plane of the USSR; that the USSR is no longer either an isolated country, totally encircled by a powerful, relatively stable imperialism, or a backward country; that the imperialist encirclement is seriously broken through provoking a profound disequilibrium of the whole of the capitalist system; that the social structure of the USSR has been transformed with the creation of a powerful working class of 42 million technologically very developed individuals and that it has become the second industrial power in the world; that because of the overall effect of all these profound international and national changes the objective bases of the dictatorship (bonapartist bureaucratic) are in the process of rapidly disappearing; that the death of Stalin whose role consisted precisely in prolonging the maintenance of the equilibrium of the bureaucracy in general beyond what corresponded to the already changed objective conditions, has precipitated this entire evolution; that as a consequence the USSR as well as Stalinism in general has entered into a new phase; that henceforth it is necessary to expect a still more marked modification of the relations of strict obedience to the Kremlin of the other anti-capitalist states, the mass Communist parties and the revolutionary mass movements influenced by these parties; that in a word, the decline of Stalinism is being precipitated, the conditions of its rise and its relative equilibrium having been profoundly modified.
Consequently new perspectives are opened for our movement The importance of the base of the Communist parties, bit or little, far from diminishing for us, is only increased under the new conditions of evolution of the objective situation and Stalinism. The base of the Communist parties — and this in all countries without exception — still constitutes the only revolutionary vanguard beside our own nuclei (as a general rule far inferior numerically to them up to now), from whose ideological differentiation will come the decisive forces — or in any event extremely valuable ones according to the given case — of the revolutionary Party of tomorrow.
This base of the Communist parties, that is to say the revolutionary proletarian vanguard formed by the stillliving attraction of the October Revolution and the new anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist victories achieved after the last war, is now being furrowed by forces, pressures, influences and ideas breaking up strict Stalinism. It can and ought to be won to the ideas and program of Trotskyism.
However restricted the influence of the Communist parties may be in any country, this case is for us not a negligible quantity over which one can very simply place a cross, especially at the present stage. Such an attitude would be a manifestation of unpardonable sectarianism.
As a general rule, the base of the Communist parties have an interest for us everywhere and ought to receive our attention especially in the new conditions of the acceleration of the crisis and ideological breaking up of Stalinism.
How should this concern with the base of the CP's manifest itself in practice? This depends on each concrete case.
In countries where the principal movement of the class is still passing through the CP's, we should, as we are now already doing, more than ever persevere in the tactic of entrism of a special type.
In countries where the CP's constitute only a minority, often even a very restricted one, we ought to find a way to concern ourselves with their base, with its present reactions, with its preoccupations and doubts by demonstrating to it, among other things, the falseness and sterility of the orientation of its leadership which is neglecting the indispensable work to be done in the real movement of the masses of these countries.
Thus, for example, in a country like England one way of attracting toward us the healthiest and so valuable elements in the base of the English CP is undeniably the effectiveness of our entrist work within the Labor Party.
In Ceylon and Bolivia it is the dynamism and effectiveness of our activity as the genuine revolutionary mass party which will attract the best Stalinist elements to us.
[p. 144]
To accord an absolutely necessary attention to the base of the CP's which is now more necessary than ever, does not at all signify everywhere orienting our essential work toward this milieu. On the contrary in all cases where the CP's represent only a minority within the workers' movement of a country, that signifies adequately demonstrating to their ranks the real mass work that has to be done and the non-sectarian way of conducting it well.
The Trotskyists ought to be more than ever persuaded of the possibility of influencing the best elements in the ranks of the CP's in the present period, and far from avoiding them, make on the contrary a persevering effort to contact them. "Stalinophobia," repulsion of a sectarian character from the Stalinist movement, which at bottom denotes on the part of these who practice it an inferiority complex toward the latter and lack of assurance in the profound correctness of the Trotskyist program, must more than ever be rejected. It ought to be replaced in reality by the contrary slogan: More concern than ever now and everywhere with the base of the Communist parties!
This attitude has a profound logic which is bound up with the real, and not literary and arbitrary development of the world revolution and of the creation of genuine mass revolutionary parties. In reality the overcoming of Stalinism will not emerge from nothingness, from a creation ex nihilo, but above all from the differentiation within the already created revolutionary vanguard.
On the other hand both the USSR, China and the other anti-capitalist states far from representing handicaps for the Marxistrevolutionary rebirth of the workers movement, far from losing importance in such a process, far from being able to be neglected in any respect whatsoever, on the contrary acquire an increasing importance under the new conditions, again becoming essential and active hearts of the rebirth of the movement as well as the affirmation of the Revolution in the world.
The real and dialectical renewal of the workers movement will not be accomplished independently or apart from what is now happening, with what is being prepared and ripening in these countries. The Russian proletariat is in the process of reentering upon the scene on an infinitely higher basis than in the past. It is more than ever an essential force of the world revolution. Analogous considerations apply to the subject of the masses of the other anti-capitalist countries and of China.
It is necessary to grasp the process of the world Socialist Revolution in its concrete and real march, advancing from these countries through the colonial and semi-colonial world and the European countries toward the last fortress of imperialism: the United States.
It is necessary to grasp in this march the interaction of the epicenters of the revolution, it is now necessary to grasp the role of the new contribution of the USSR and its masses on the general march of the revolution and the breaking up of Stalinism.
It is certainly now now that the base of the Communist parties, the essential material of the revolutionary vanguard up to now created by history, will become of less concern to us than in the past.
Precisely the contrary is true. And it is precisely on this question of the attitude toward the transformations in sight in the USSR and in Stalinism in general, of the appraisal of the USSR, China and the other anti-capitalist states in the march of the world revolution and of the precise attitude toward the base of the Communist parties that no compromise with the sectarian tendencies which have already been manifested on this subject and others which will later appear within our own movement, is possible.
The line of demarcation between those who fuse with the real development of the world revolution in our time and those who wish to treat it in some other manner, in accord with this or that desire (resulting from this or that pressure) clearly passes through this point.
We want to be and we will be with the real revolution. Any other attitude will lead us to sectarian isolation and even in the end to treachery. We will deal with the questions of the evolution of the USSR, China, the other anti-capitalist states, the base of the CP with the greatest confidence and the greatest optimism. We see in all that some of the most serious and promising opportunities for the Marxistrevolutionary rebirth of the workers' movement, for the definitive triumph of the ideas and program of the Fourth International.
Yes, the objective conditions are in the process of changing favorably to Trotskyism in all these domains, as has never in the past been the case.
Yes, our active intervention in this process, carried out in a non-sectarian and tactically adequate manner, can accelerate the whole process and thus lead it to a complete victory for our ideas and our program, a victory which will then be that of the Revolution and Socialism on the world scale.
All these considerations, far from diminishing the role and importance of Trotskyism, of the International, and its national sections, only bring out their value the more by making them real.
It is from this viewpoint that "The Rise and Decline of Stalinism" speaks of the possibility for the Fourth International to capitalize on the crisis and the present ideological breaking-up of Stalinism. It is from this same viewpoint that the document on "Our Integration in the Real Mass Movement" emphasizes more then in the past the development of our direct means of expression in all the countries where we practice an entrist tactic, on the diffusion of our full Trotskyist ideas as broadly as possible as well as emphasizing the significance and role of our movement regarded as an organized world party, as an International.
The entrist tactic acquires its full meaning, especially under present conditions, only when accompanied by a broader than ever diffusion of our Trotskyist ideas, that is to say, our thoroughgoing, Marxistrevolutionary ideas through 100% Trotskyist organs and publications parallel to those organs directly serving entrism.
On the other hand the whole of our work in the national sectors acquires its full meaning only when viewed from the angle of our international movement organized into a world party, into the International.
The part of the documents referring to the conception and role of the International is one of the most developed that has ever been devoted to this subject up to now.
That has been made necessary in order to leave no confusion as to the true role our International ought to play in the new conditions, to emphasize its decisive importance and the inevitable victory of its ideas and its program; then we have it clearly understood that we do not conceive of the International as a mechanical assembly, with more or less loose connections like the Social Democracy and like those centrists that Trotsky has similarly combatted in the past, the Vereeckens, the Sneevliets, the partisans of the London Bureau and bureaus of mere connections and consultations in general, but as a single world Party with a single line and discipline and a centralized international leadership. The role, the idea and the functioning of the International as a single world party is the very essence of our movement It is in the existence and the manifestations of the International that our programmatic and organizational independence of all the other workers movements is expressed, independently of this or that national entrist experience, as well as the ideological superiority of our movement, profoundly bound up with the organic unity of the international situation, with the international structure of the revolutionary program in our epoch, and with the struggle of the proletarian and colonial masses.
[p. 145]
On the other hand, our present conception of the International corresponds to the real progress and practice since its foundation and especially since the last war, along the line of the intimate fusion of our different national groups into a single world party and the creation of an international leadership.
The present structure and functioning of the International expresses the progress realized in the political maturing of our movement and its strengthening as an integral part of the real movement of the class. All the tendencies in the past who have challenged this conception of the International, who have wanted to regain their "freedom" and not recognize the organization of the International, have really found themselves subjected to the pressure of forces hostile to the fundamental policy of the International and have ideologically degenerated.
The inevitable revisionism that these tendencies undertook, proceeding from the so-called "organizational" domain of the International to its policy and its program, has never been denied in the long run.
The Only Tradition We Make Use Of
There is a profound creative continuity in the line of the International from the Third to the Fourth World Congress which is bound up with the best theoretical traditions of our international movement and of revolutionary Marxism in general.
In these recent years how many people have uttered cries, literally hysterical cries, against a so-called "revision of traditional Trotskyism" undertaken by the International! Their conception of "tradition" is that of all the sectarians and routinists of thought (the ideological expression of a conservative and routinist practical work in a setting of stagnation or set-back). Similar elements have always existed in the workers movement and have never missed resisting the living application of the Marxistrevolutionary method to the extreme richness and complexity of reality in motion, hiding behind citations, schemas and slogans arbitrarily extracted from their historical context. Instead of analyzing each phenomena, each situation, proceeding above all from the new relation of forces and the new dynamic which determines them, instead of looking for those features of change inevitably provoked in this or that domain in respect to the past of deducing from them the necessary readjustments in this or that analysis, idea, formula or slogan of the past, they hold on to the formal resemblances or contradictions between the past and the present, prisoners of the weight of dead tradition upon reality in its evolution.
"Marxism" — wrote Trotsky, flogging as vigorously as Lenin the so-called defenders of tradition — "is a method of historical analysis, of political orientation, and not a mass of decisions prepared in advance. Leninism is the application of this method in the conditions of an exceptional historical epoch. It is precisely this union of the peculiarities of the epoch and the method that determines that courageous, self-assured policy of brusque turns of which Lenin gave us the finest models and which he illumined theoretically and generalized on more than one occasion.
"Neither October, nor Brest-Litovsk, nor the creation of a regular peasant army, nor the system of requisitioning food products, nor the NEP, nor the State Planning Commission, were or could have been foreseen or predetermined by pre-October Marxism or Bolshevism. All these facts and turns were the result of the independent, critical application, marked by the spirit of initiative, of the methods of Bolshevism in situations that differed in each case.
"Every one of these decisions, before being adopted, provoked struggles. The simple appeal to tradition never decided anything. As a matter of fact, with each new task and at each new turn, it is not a question of searching in tradition and discovering there a non-existing reply, but of profiting from all the experience of the party to find by oneself a new solution suitable to the situation and, by doing so, enriching tradition. It may even be put more sharply: Leninism consists in being courageously free from conservative retrospection, from being bound by precedent, purely formal references and quotations.
"Lenin himself not so long ago expressed this thought in Napoleon's words: 'On s'engage et puis on voit' (Start fighting and then see.) To put it differently, once engaged in the struggle, not to be excessively preoccupied with canon and precedent, but to plunge into reality as it is and to see there the forces necessary for the victory and the roads leading to it. It is by following this line that Lenin, not once but dozens of times, was accused in his own party of violating tradition and repudiating 'old Bolshevism.'" ( The New Course, by Leon Trotsky, Chapter V, "Tradition and Revolutionary Policy," pp. 51-53)
Trotskyism as the continuation of Leninism, that is to say as the application of living revolutionary Marxism to our epoch which is developing in more tumultuous, explosive and complicated manner than in Lenin's time, demands the same; if not an even more profound, conception of political elaboration, critical, creative, freed of all "dogmatism, formalism," of any "conservative and bureaucratic traditionalism."
The Leninist and Trotskyist, that is to say revolutionary-Marxist tradition, consists above all in the highest qualitative and quantitative appraisal of reality, undertaken with a critical, liberated and bold spirit The political answer to the most important problems which have arisen since the last war, do not exist ready-made in any book or document of the past We must find it through our own intellectual effort thanks to our formation as Trotskyists, as revolutionary-Marxists.
[p. 146]
Neither the unfolding of the Second Imperialist War culminating not in the destruction but in the victory of the USSR; nor the appearance of new workers states; nor the peculiarities of the Yugoslav Revolution and the Chinese Revolution; nor the new concrete situation in which imperialism finds itself; nor the new developments in the USSR have been events which were foreseen, or could have been in Trotsky's time. The world of 1936-1939 and the world of today, fifteen years after, are profoundly different. The quotations, formulas and slogans of the past must be critically reexamined and then readjusted in accord with the new relation of forces, the new dynamic, the new factors, in accord with the balance of global changes which have intervened since that time. Whoever does not understand that and does not make the necessary effort to contribute to thus maintain, and only thus, the theoretical tradition of Trotskyism, is ready for the museum of "Trotskyist antiquities."
Let us take the concrete example of the Soviet bureaucracy and Stalinism. The objective conditions have changed both internationally and in the USSR itself in relation to them. What does that mean exactly? That the Soviet bureaucracy has changed its character, its nature, thatithas become less conservative and in the overall balance of its international action less counter-revolutionary?
Absolutely not. For its character, its nature are conditioned by its social position as a privileged caste which has usurped direct political power from the Russian proletariat. But its relations of force with imperialism on the one side and the Soviet and international masses on the other have manifestly changed. There follows from this a series of conclusions, exemplified by events, which are otherwise inexplicable.
Why has this bureaucracy, still as conservative as before the war, been able to transform on so grat a scale in a military-bureaucratic manner, the relations of production in a series of European countries and thereby accomplish an objectively revolutionary work? Only the post-war conditions of capitalism and of the new relation of forces between it and the bureaucracy explains the possibility, even the inevitability of such an accomplishment. On the other hand the new relation of forces between the bureaucracy and the Soviet and international masses explains why its counter-revolutionary action is necessarily becoming more limited than in the past, and that the bureaucracy itself is being broken up (not being a homogeneous class, but an extremely stratified caste) and presents a less great resistance than it would put up before the war at the height of its power and its relative stability.
Shall we deduce from this that it will abandon power without a major struggle, without the violent action of the masses against it, or that its regime will be liquidated in an evolutionary manner, by more and more ample reforms and concessions? Not at all. Only that its resistance let us repeat it again, could be less great and that the program and the forms of what we call the political revolution are not yet foreseeable in all details.[1]
In fact these are not to be found in any book or text of the past and we should ourselves follow its evolution, understand it, and readjust formulas to the objective changes. The only positive and valid landmarks are the inevitability of the fall of the bureaucracy, thanks fundamentally to the pressure and action of the masses.
We Will Never Go Backward
We have the profound conviction that the overwhelming majority of our movement has been definitively won to the present appraisals and perspectives of the International as well as to the living application of the method of revolutionary Marxism, exempt from all formalism and sectarianism, to the analysis of the reality. However shall we avoid every internal shock in this march forward? "Generally speaking," Trotsky wrote, "crises are produced in the party at each important turn in its line, either as a prelude or as a consequence of this turn. A tactical or strategic turn involves a more or less important break with the habits and methods of work of the past." And he adds, citing Lenin's words: "It very often happens that when history makes a sharp turn even the most advanced parties show themselves incapable for a more or less extended period to adapt themselves to the new conditions. They repeat yesterday's slogans, slogans which were correct yesterday, but which have lost all their meaning today as sharply as history has realized its own sharp turn." (Leon Trotsky, The Lessons of October).
In reference to the extraordinary situation which has been developing in the world since the last war, full of unforeseen events, new phenomena and sharp turns, we must certainly make a no less extraordinary effort to readjust our analyses and formulas of the past to the new reality and to constantly renew our theoretical thought. In doing this, only a miracle on the other hand could spare us from internal shocks.
To think over again the objective situation and its perspectives; to resituate the USSR, the Soviet bureaucracy and Stalinism in general, in the new conditions; to readjust our tactics for the construction of revolutionary mass parties as a consequence; such was and still remains our task. It has not been accomplished and will very probably not be accomplished without frictions and internal crises. But to the degree that we readjust our policy to the rhythm and to the demands of history, we are progressing in that respect, we are consolidating our positions, and we are preparing the future, avoiding, as there is the strong risk and always the risk, of becoming under hostile pressures "indirect instruments of other classes."
September 15, 1953
[1] In his Revolution Betrayed, although written in 1936, Leon Trotsky even in emphasizing the necessity and inevitability of a "political revolution against bureaucratic absolutism" considered that "with energetic pressure from the popular mass, and the disintegration, inevitable in such circumstances of the government apparatus, the resistance of those in power may prove much weaker than now appears." (p. 287) He specified on the other hand that "the program of the new revolution depends to a great extent upon the moment when it breaks out, upon the level which the country has then attained and to a great degree upon the international situation." (p. 289)