Dear Smith [Dobbs],
Many thanks for your letter of December 8th. . . .
There is, of course, complete agreement between us on our political estimation of Pabloite revisionism, but I think it would not be correct to conclude that the battle is over. As a political force, international developments more and more tend to demoralise the Pabloites. Their June congress marked a halt under pressure from the Cochranites on the right and the Ceylonese on the left. As I see it, the people who lead the Paris rump behave like a bunch of punchdrunk centrists who empirically improvise answers as they go along.
However, we must recognise that the Pabloite ranks still contain some very important elements whom we do not desire to see demoralised as a result of the impasse of Pabloism. It is not quite true to say that the IC represents all the main forces.
The Ceylonese are an essential part of our world movement as well as the Bolivians and Latin Americans, and they remain inside Pablo’s organization. In my opinion, some of them (Ceylonese) are very close to us and must be won to orthodox Trotskyism. That is an urgent and inescapable task. It is also a reason which leads me to conclude that the fight is by no means over, and that we cannot rely on time alone for the very good reason that an international stalemate has existed now since June. The international movement to-day has no overall political perspective.
True enough, the members of the IC could be leisurely in approaching the drafting of a political document if it concerned them alone—but we must accept the overall responsibilities for trying to clarify the weak and undecided internationally. We cannot go lordly on our way—we must seeks ways and means to clear up the mess. That is why we should prepare this document at once as well as the other you mentioned. We must lay down our line boldly. Otherwise sections of the movement can bleed to death unnecessarily. Unfortunately such an atmosphere will strengthen Pabloism and not weaken it. I favour the comrades your end preparing a draft right now for discussion in a few weeks.
The Parity Commission arose out of discussion with the Ceylonese comrades last July. We reported this to you at the time and proceeded to operate when you agreed with the general line. Personally, I do not consider this a mistake. It would be so if it tended to give some cover to the Pabloites, but we remain completely free to fight as we think necessary. We are not bound by anything in this respect. It provides us with a common approach to the Ceylonese and any others like them. I would like to stress that the Italians and Germans favoured this idea, because they felt they could all the better organise the fight in their sections on this bais.
Without the continuation of a political offensive on our part, the Parity committee would indeed be a trap and absolutely useless.
Here let me say that I entirely agree that there is little for this committee to do. We can stall it for some time until we get the documents out, then have one meeting and circulate the material. I think it will help our relations with all those who want to be orthodox but who remain trapped for one reason or another. Certainly I do not visualise regular parity committee fixtures within such an approach. These are out of the question. We have also plenty of time to consider a congress if that is necessary.
In conclusion, please let me stress the urgency of preparing the political material. Let us establish our tendency clearly in this field. Whilst I do not think we can avoid one meeting of the committee, I think this can be held up until everything else is ready.
Warmest regards,
Jerry