[p. 201]
We have watched with increasing concern the unstable behavior of the IS from the time Cannon launched his drive to split the SWP and wreck the International. If we refrained heretofore from making our views known publicly it was because we did not want to add to the difficulties of the situation and in the hope that the IS would come to appreciate the realities of our movement as it had appreciated the realities of the world around us. We speak now because we have become convinced that the world Trotskyist movement is in danger.
[p. 202]
The latest maneuver of the IS contained in the projected IEC unity proposal can lead to capitulation to the retrograde, sectarian elements, or to complete demoralization and disorientation. The maneuver must be categorically rejected and the IS must reorient its course fundamentally.
On the eve of the World Congress the IS proposes that the Cannonites be permitted to ignore the presently constituted leadership of the International and to set their own terms for participation in the forthcoming World Congress through negotiations with a committee whose personnel in effect will be selected by the Cannonites. Some will probably be bewildered to hear such a proposal from those who have been shouting about "the centralized world party," "the statutes," etc. But, in reality, this is the culmination of a false course started a year ago, and is, in the immediate sense a reply to the unofficial negotiations between Cannon and Tilak of the Ceylonese LSSP. Cannon, who is willing to discuss unity proposals with Tilak because he believes there is political agreement between them against the "revisionists," lays down the following terms (SWP Bulletin, March 1954): to remove the present leadership of the International, to rescind its political line and orientation as "revisionist" and "pro-Stalinist," to set aside all organizational measures taken to protect the movement against the split (in reality to reinstate Bleibtreu and Burns to the position of leadership in their own countries), to postpone the Congress until such time as he can be assured of a majority to impose his own line and leadership. In a word, it is a demand for unconditional surrender, politically and organizationally.
Yet, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of the world movement has rallied behind the International, the IS is apparently in the throes of wavering and indecision. It is now formally proposing to take a first big step in yielding to Cannon's ultimatum. It rationalizes its retreat by reference to a desire to influence the "backward elements" still following Cannon. As a strictly tactical matter, retreat and surrender are the poorest means to win over anybody. But the IS proposal is wrong and dangerous for even weightier reasons: it sets the retreat in motion. The next logical step must be the resignation of the present leadership, or that part which Cannon finds most noxious to himself, and the postponement of the Congress until all these moves have been executed and have taken their full effect. There is no turning back from this path of organizational compromise and surrender — regardless of subjective desires to the contrary — once conciliation and unity with the sectarians is considered the supreme need of the movement. It will then be but a short distance to the creation, of ideological chaos, to the abandonment of the program the present leadership was elected to defend, to full-scale political capitulation to the Stalinophobes and sectarians. Even in the event that Cannon once again brusquely rejects an offer he will consider a half-measure, and decides to wait until he can dictate even more extreme terms, the overall effect of the IS maneuver, so-called, is not to give us a greater hearing with the Cannonite ranks, but of growing uncertainty, disintegration and demoralization within the International movement.
The source of what can become a disintegration is at the top. While the sections rallied at the first sign of danger with admirable solidarity and understanding, the IS from the beginning has been engaged in desperate backdoor maneuvers, in sowing fear and demoralization in the ranks. The Tilak-Cannon correspondence did not drop from the sky. It followed on the heels of similar proposals made by Germain to Breitman. The very next day after Cannon had perpetrated his split in America and England and had issues his appeal for a split in the International, Germain was offering terms for a horse-trading compromise — at the expense of the groups loyal to the International in America, England and France. This disloyal and arbitrary action was taken without the approval even of the IEC, let alone of the sections most deeply involved in the matter. It became known for the first time to most of the world when the correspondence was published in a Cannonite bulletin. A protest by the English group to the IS against both the procedure and the proposals was blandly dismissed. In substance, the present statement is a continuation of the same procedure. Without opening a discussion on the problems created by the Cannon-Tilak correspondence, (with which the IS was fully familiar), without even a reference to that correspondence in its covering letter, without calling a meeting of the IEC to consider the new situation if it thought one actually existed, the IS by a 3-1 vote presents the world movement with the reversal of the course decided upon by the December IEC meeting. Under the circumstances, the letter being sent to the IEC members takes the form not of a collective discussion of a new tactic in the struggle, but of a vote of confidence for contemplated deals with the Cannonites. This lamentable procedure and self-defeating course, this flouting of the elementary precepts of solidarity toward co-thinkers defending a common political line against an enemy political tendency, stems from a false position on the role of an International leadership in the present period.
Throughout the course of the present struggle, the International leadership has misconstrued its function in the world movement. Its present proposals exposing the movement to destruction as an effective Marxist tendency is only the culmination of a whole series of false steps which arise from this misconception, and which have now led it into a blind alley. The basic error consists in its attempt to rest on precepts of organizational authority rather than on being the rallying center for an ideological re-groupment. It failed to understand that its prestige and authority derived essentially from the political reorientation it effected at the Third World Congress. Instead of recognizing the long hard struggle that lies ahead before the political line will find realization in life, the IS plunged into the farcical game of competing with Cannon in empty boasting.
The present conditions of our movement — where the Trotskyists constitute small organizations seeking a foothold in the mass movement, abysmally poor in finances, material resources and personnel, where International leaders often have to be chosen on the basis of practical availability — these conditions dictate the form, character and authority of the International center and leadership. The International center and leadership has to be viewed primarily as an ideological center and authority. This simple fact the IS could not grasp from the first. Instead of assuming the political leadership in the fight against the sectarian tendency and battling it out throughout the International on the political front — as even a Trotsky did in 1940 and in all previous major struggles — they attempted to rest on formal organizational authority. This gained them nothing with the sectarians and their followers, but did provide grist to the Cannonite faction mill and lent credence to the charge that people were attempting to arrogate to themselves authority to which they were not entitled.
[p. 203]
The line of resting on organizational authority could not be maintained in practice, as we have seen. As a result its actual policy has undergone the wildest fluctuations: from attempts to conciliate with the sectarians when it should have been involved in political struggle with them, to demands for their recognition of its absolute authority as a leadership, and now to a readiness for organizational capitulation when the movement is prepared for political struggle. This fatal course, which began by muffling political line for false organizational considerations of "world leadership" will end, unless halted in time, by undermining the political cohesion of the movement and its confidence in its programmatic orientation.
Therefore, it is with a sense of the strongest urgency that we call upon the IEC to reverse the course and to reorient the entire struggle along correct lines. The first requisite is that all present maneuvers with the Cannonites be dropped forthwith. The present task is the consolidation of the world cadre that was selected in struggle and defense of the Third World Congress around a program. Only when that is accomplished, when the program is fully developed, and the cadre is hardened and consolidated around it, can there be any fruitful consideration of approaches to the Cannonites. Organizational maneuvers, premature from point of time, and not serving a political program, will not result in political unification with our opponents, but in organizational injury and even divisions among ourselves. That is precisely where the present line of the IS can lead to, and that is why it must be reversed.
The Fourth World Congress has to become the rallying center for the political consolidation of the world cadres. This is its historic task. The Cannonites have split with the world movement, nationally and on a world scale. They have rejected the Congress in advance — refusing to accept its political premises, its basis of representation, or its decisions should they prove to be in a minority. The Congress, in its preparations and actions, must accept this as a fact and proceed with the real work before it. It must turn its back on the sectarian past of the International and turn its eyes toward the living workers' movements.
April 10, 1954