The events marking the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet CP and its reverberations are clear indications of an increasingly rapid maturing of the objective and subjective conditions for political revolution in the Soviet Union.
The meaning can be summarized in three points:
1. Increasing pressure from the masses, for the first time since 1933-34, has begun to divide the central leadership of the Soviet bureaucracy. Relatively free discussions have taken place inside the Central Committee of the CP of the USSR, without any of the tendencies which began to crystallize being crushed. Political differences in this top layer have begun to appear over several ideological questions (class struggles after the revolution; the degree to which socialism has been attained in the USSR; forms of the proletarian seizure of power; the nature of economic crises in the epoch of capitalist decline, etc.) and political questions (distribution of the national income between consumption and investments; wage reform; the extent to which freedom of criticism is to be tolerated inside the party; the agrarian question; the attitude to take toward the Stalinist period, etc.). As a whole this reflects the pressure of two antagonistic social forces: that of the laboring masses and the lower layers of the bureaucracy, on the one hand (the Mikoyan-Malenkov tendency), and the pressure of the most conservative layers of the society, (the most privileged elements in the bureaucracy, managers, the top officer caste, etc.) on the other hand (the Kaganovich-Molotov tendency).
2. Under this pressure from the masses, and with the aim of anchoring itself more securely in power in the new period—in order to obtain a new respite—the bureaucracy has been forced to sacrifice Stalin and the Stalinist tradition in the strict sense of the word and to blame him for the most repulsive aspects of its dictatorship. In so doing, it tries to limit itself to these aspects and to avoid being held responsible for them. By making Stalin, and no longer Beria, the scapegoat for everything that the masses hate in the bureaucratic dictatorship, it implicitly promises them that many things will change quickly. These implicit promises will have to be followed up by real concessions if they are to have any effectiveness. This is why, with the Twentieth Congress, for the first time since the beginning of the “new course,” political concessions were added to the economic concessions made earlier to the masses, which were themselves broadened at the same time (free middle and secondary education; the initiation of a reform of the labor code and the penal code; promises of a broader involvement of the masses in municipal administration, etc.).
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3. The struggle against the tradition of Stalin and the “cult of the personality” brought about a deep crisis in all the Stalinist parties of the world, though the intensity of the crisis has varied from one country to the next. This crisis is only beginning. It is the result of the fact that by undermining the argument of authority and blind obedience to the decisions of the “leaders,” the speeches of the Twentieth Congress opened the door for a critical atmosphere and political ferment in the ranks to make their way into the Stalinist parties, not only in regard to past events but also for every important new decision of their national CPs and the CP of the USSR.
The new phase of the “new course” thus opens a new and decisive phase in the crisis of Stalinism. It puts on the agenda the overthrow of the bureaucratic dictatorship in the USSR and in the “people’s democracies,” as well as the complete renovation of the international workers’ movement.
I. A NEW STAGE OF THE “NEW COURSE”
As we just pointed out, the new stage of the “new course” essentially consists in the fact that, for the first time, the bureaucracy has been forced to make political concessions to the masses. The nature of these concessions tends primarily to shake the terror-associated foundations of the dictatorship more than previous attacks on arbitrary police rule had ever done. At the same time, the rigidity of the bureaucratic caste is challenged and the door is opened wider for a new recruitment from below. On this last point, the pressing requirements of the economy have certainly contributed, along with mass pressure, to the attainment of the important reform of the educational system.
In addition to these political concessions, the Twentieth Congress of the CP granted new and important economic concessions to the masses, especially to the masses of workers. The increase in the wages of the lowest-paid workers, the reduction of the work week, the increase in pensions, the organization of a system of housing for the elderly created by the state, the impressive new promises of increases in the production of consumer goods (made despite the victory—Platonic, it would now seem—of those who wanted to give priority to heavy industry)—all this should show the masses that their condition is already rapidly improving and that even more rapid improvements’ are coming soon. But this will only whet their appetite, and there are vital sectors (such as housing and food) which are in a condition of impoverishment while others (such as clothing) suffer from poor quality. Thus it seems excluded that these concessions will give the present masters of the Kremlin a broad mass base in the USSR.
The decisions of the Central Committee of the CP just before the Twentieth Congress seems to have had several aims, in regard to the peasantry: to immediately increase potato and vegetable production by making important new price concessions to the peasants; to attack the structural crisis of the kolkhoz system by trying to turn peasants away from work on their own plots of private land. This latter aim is pursued both through stimulants (money credit) and threats (expulsions from the kolkhozes and seizure of the private plots of all those who do not do a minimum number of hours of work on the kolkhoz lands). It remains to be seen whether the peasantry will view these measures as a serious attack on their means of earning a living and whether the measures will open a new and serious crisis in the provisioning of the USSR.
The most important aspect of the muffled dialogue over “demands or concessions” which began three years ago between the bureaucracy and the masses is now the one concerning industry in the exact sense of the word, i.e., the system of wages, the organization of factories, and the rights of managers and workers. Pressured by economic considerations (the struggle against inflationary tendencies) the bureaucracy attempted to undertake a full-scale modification of the wage system which means that, under cover of a break with Stakhanovism, the total nominal wages of a whole layer of workers, especially skilled “vanguard” layers (miners, metallurgists, steelworkers, rail workers, etc.) would be reduced or at least frozen. The resistance the bureaucracy ran into here forced it to suspend the application of all these measures and to announce for the time being an increase in the lower wages. For the first time, as well, workers and lower layers of the bureaucracy raised the question of bonuses, demanding, it seems, that a higher percentage of these bonuses (seventy-five percent) be paid automatically to the workers.
All the events of the last six months demonstrate clearly that the pressure of the masses, especially the masses of workers, is still the preponderant factor in the evolution of the internal situation in the Soviet Union. This is the tendency which the top levels of the bureaucracy have generally bent to, up to now. As the pressure of the masses spreads into the factories, however, it is inevitable that the privileged layers of the bureaucracy, the “masters of the country,” seized with panic, will loudly demand extra guarantees for their privileges. This was the meaning of the “Industrial Conference” held in Moscow in the Spring of 1955 and the decisions of the Central Committee of the CP in June 1955 on increasing the rights of managers, on the drawing up of a model statute for managers, etc. It is also clear that one tendency of the bureaucratic leadership (Kaganovich, Bulganin, etc.) more or less openly identified itself with the interests and desires of this still very powerful layer (it continues to hold the principal levers of economic power). The inevitable clash between the workers’ demands and the positions of these layers will lead to the crisis point of the “new course.”
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II. THE BUREAUCRACY LIQUIDATES THE STALIN MORTGAGE
After Beria, Stalin himself is more and more being made the scapegoat for all the dictatorship’s crimes, which are collective crimes of the leadership of the bureaucracy.
It is inconceivable that the bureaucracy as such, which saw in this particular form of dictatorship the principal safeguard for its power, could have decided of its own free will to carry out this sensational turn. While the individual desire for security may have caused the ending of arbitrary rule to be popular even in the ranks of the bureaucracy, this is not at all the case with the ending of the myth of the infallibility of Stalin in the eyes of the masses. It is true that a regime of “collective” dictatorship allows broader layers of the bureaucracy to take part in the exercise of power; but at the same time, the development of an atmosphere of ideological and political criticism inside the CP and among the masses threatens to destroy the very foundations of the bureaucratic dictatorship and create a powerful democratic and egalitarian current which will ring the death-knell of the dictatorship. Therefore it is mistaken to try to explain the sensational turn of the Twentieth Congress other than as a concession made by the bureaucracy in self-defense, in face of the discontent which is constantly rising in the country.
It is also unlikely that Khrushchev and the majority of the Central Committee decided in advance to drop the “Stalin bomb” on the congress. If they had intended to do this, they would have moved more cautiously, preparing public opinion by stages, proceeding in a more orderly and logical way. In actual fact, the initial report to the Twentieth Congress by Khrushchev contained no indication that an open attack was going to be made on Stalin; his name was not even mentioned. It is more likely that the sudden attacks at the congress by Mikoyan and his friends against Stalin forced the hand of Khrushchev and the “centrist” elements who tried to reconcile the two incipient tendencies in the CP Central Committee. Afraid of being bypassed by an oppositional anti-Stalinist tendency, Khrushchev made ‘his move and identified the whole party with the anti-Stalinist campaign (running up against the perhaps passive but not less real resistance of Kaganovich, Molotov, Shvernik and others).
But by organizing the liquidation of the “Stalin mortgage” in this way on a grand scale, Khrushchev and the other leaders of the bureaucracy took care to set limits which constitute a last safety barrier around the privileges and power of the bureaucracy. The criticisms against Stalin apply especially to the last twenty years of his life, which is the period after the Seventeenth Congress beginning with the “Kirov affair.” They concern essentially the monstrous “purges,” the conduch of war and the postwar policy, particularly the policy toward the nationalities and the break with Yugoslavia. It is not clear whether the policy of forced collectivization was openly denounced. In any case, all the leaders of the bureaucracy made it a point to demonstratively solidarize themselves with Stalin’s fight against the Left Opposition, the Zinovievists, and the Bukharinists. The political meaning of this maneuver is clear. The bureaucracy is saying to the country, “we reject the mass killings and the gross blunders that almost made us lose the war, but we can only support the policy on which our power and privileges are based.”
The partial and unexplained (or at least insufficiently explained) rehabilitation of some of the Communist victims of Stalin shows the same effort of the bureaucracy to set a limit beyond which the very foundations of its dictatorship would be shaken by the attacks against Stalin. It is difficult to explain in detail that Zinoviev, Bukharin, and Trotsky were “only” ideological opponents and not spies and traitors without specifying their “ideological” differences with “Marxism-Leninism.” It is impossible to really open the archives without simultaneously exposing the falsifications of the real positions of the Communist oppositions by the present and past leaders. A genuine discussion of the real political positions of the Communist opposition could easily develop—which would be a mortal threat to the group in power.
III. THE DYNAMIC OF THE “NEW COURSE”
Having noted what happened and why it happened, we now have to determine what is the dynamic of the “new course.” Where is the bureaucratic dictatorship headed? What forms could it take? How will it be overturned?
It is clear that lacking close contact with events today at the base of Soviet society, especially inside the cells of the CP and in the factories, and unable to base ourselves on any historical precedent, we must be very cautious in approaching this matter. However, it is indispensable for the orientation of our own movement and of the international vanguard for us to give a clear and unequivocal answer to two fundamental questions.
The first question is: Is the “new course,” as a political response by the bureaucracy to the increasing pressure of the masses, in its overall character irreversible? In other words, is it excluded that in the immediate future, two or three years from now, most of the concessions to the masses will be withdrawn, the police regime will be reestablished in all its Stalinist frightfulness, freedom of discussion in the Central Committee will be repressed once again, and a “new Stalin” will establish a new “personal dictatorship”?
Our answer to this question is an unequivocal “YES.” Such an evolution is impossible, not because the Khrushchevs and the Bulganins are more “intelligent” or more “liberal” than Stalin, or because they have “drawn the lessons of history,” but because the relationship of forces in the world between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and the relationship of forces in the USSR between the proletariat and the bureaucracy, make such a sudden overturning of the evolution underway impossible. It would require heavy defeats of the working class, nationally and internationally, that is, a complete reversal of the world trend, for the dictatorship in the USSR to be able to stabilize itself rather than disintegrate (in the social sense of the word).
We repeat that this does not exclude that the bureaucracy will do its best on some specific point to take back what it has let go, or that it will do its best to forcibly crush explosions of discontent by the masses. But this is within a general line of evolution which must be clearly understood.
The second question is: Can the “new course,” as a political response by the bureaucracy to the increasing pressure of the masses, arrive by stages at the reestablishment of Soviet democracy under the leadership of the present leading team in the Kremlin? In other words, is it possible that at the Twenty-first Congress, Khrushchev and Bulganin will reestablish freedom of discussion in the party cells; at the Twenty-second Congress organized tendencies with different platforms will appear at the congress, as in the Leninist period, that at the Twenty-third Congress the “maximum” on incomes for Communists and trade union independence will be reestablished, etc.?
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We answer this question “NO” with just as little equivocation as we answer the first question “YES.”
Of course, the concessions which the bureaucracy made to the masses objectively favor a rise in their consciousness, their activity and their self-confidence. They objectively prepare the revolution, just as any reform under a hard-pressed dictatorship prepares in the long run the revolution which overturns it. But despite the dialectical ties between “reforms” and “revolution,” they cannot be identified with each other without falling into reformism and vulgar evolutionism, thus concealing the decisive problem of the “leap,” the “qualitative change,” which is implicit in every revolution. The political revolution in the USSR is above all the bureaucracy’s loss of absolute power in the factory and the state. To think that these hundreds of thousands of highly privileged persons will watch passively as their power is dismantled when they still dispose of an enormous defensive force, is to be a victim of illusions. To start a revolution, mass pressure is no longer enough. It is necessary for the masses to pass over to action and, in the factory and in the street, to go up against the last defenders of the dictatorship. It is quite possible af even likely that this action can be short in duration, that the privileged layers of the bureaucracy can be completly isolated at this time, that between the fall of the dictatorship and the establishment of the genuine regime of Soviet democracy (that is, between the beginning and the end of the political revolution) a series of intermediate stages could be interposed. But it is equally certain that the bureaucracy will not commit hara-kiri under the pressure of the masses and through love of the Soviet fatherland. We emphasize this point from the beginning; the “new course” is not a movement for self-reform of the bureaucracy; it is a last maneuver of self-defense by this bureaucracy. The time will come when the “new course” will end and the revolution will begin, a time when the leading group in the bureaucracy will turn from a subject into an object of the historical process.
Clearly the bureaucracy cannot be considered as one “reactionary mass” which the working class will have to attack all at once. This mechanistic and anti-Marxist position is contrary to everything Trotsky taught. The more the pressure of the masses (and, parallel to it, the pressure of the most privileged layers) increases, the more the bureaucracy, including its leaders, will split into conflicting tendencies. In the course of this process a “Reiss tendency” will appear which will sincerely realign itself with the Leninist tradition. The Mikoyan tendency certainly cannot be identified as such a tendency; at most it provides a culture medium for the ideas of such a tendency to develop). It is impossible to predict the exact comportment of every Kremlin leader in the course of this process; but it is excluded that a return to democracy will come about gradually, coldly, without overt action by the masses against the bureaucracy, without splits in the CP and in the bureaucracy itself.
Events have completely confirmed the correctness of the view we defended since 1953 on this subject of the decisive role of pressure of the masses in the internal evolution of the USSR. Some of our so-called orthodox critics tried to explain these events as the result of internal dissensions in the bureaucracy. Today it is clear how untenable this position is, and how it is this position itself which actually favors tendencies to capitulate to Stalinism. It is clear that if the bureaucracy dismantled the Stalin myth of its own free will, as a mere maneuver, the nature of the Stalinist regime and the very nature of the bureaucracy would have to be seen in a different light from that of Trotskyism. If, on the other hand, the pressure of the masses—during the period preparatory to the action of the masses, that is, the revolution—is the decisive factor in the evolution of the last three years, then the Trotskyist analysis of the USSR is strikingly confirmed.
As for those who accuse us of “exaggerating” the importance of this pressure, all we can say for them after the Twentieth Congress is that they must look sheepish today.
IV. THE “PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACIES”
The repercussions of the Twentieth Congress in the “people’s democracies” differ from country to country according to the local character of the Communist Party, its ties with the masses, and the degree of pressure the masses put on the bureaucratic leadership. However, it can be said that in all these countries, confidence in the leadership has been shaken to various degrees and that a new period is opening for these parties, a period which will see a blooming of critical, if not oppositional, ideas and tendencies.
In Poland there is a genuine popular explosion which, by intervals, has begun to resemble the debut of a revolution. Violent debates have broken out in the party’s cells, in the trade-union organizations, intellectuals’ organizations, and even the local councils (soviets) and central Parliament. Everywhere rank-and-file members have opposed the official positions not only the Stalinist but even the post-Stalinist ones to the extent that the leadership has spoken of a campaign “organized by anti-Soviet and anti- Party elements.” There have even been, it seems, street demonstrations at the time of the burial of Beirut. The content of the critcisms which appeared in the press equals, if not outstrips, the heat of most of the Trotskyist criticisms. They do not touch only theoretical and ideological aspects of the Stalinist era, but even the way industry is organized, the system of wages, bonuses, the rights of managers and the absence of rights (and independence) for trade unions.
It is true that we must refrain from identifying the possiblity for oppositional elements to express criticism during a turbulent transition period with the reestablishment of democratic freedoms in the workers’ movement, and even more, identifying it with the acceptance of these criticisms by the leadership and their applying them in practice. It is probable that, at least on this score, there will be a certain “reestablishment of discipline” and that the elements who advanced the furthest risk paying dearly for their audacity. But the sudden revelation of immense discontent accumulated in the ranks of the Polish party will quite likely destroy its “monolithic” character for a long period and will lead to constant internal debates (probably, in the near future the creation of a solid left-wing current). According to not yet confirmed Yugoslav sources, some thing similar is taking place in Bulgaria, where violent debates and anti-Stalinist criticisms have broken out “even in small villages.”
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In Czechoslovakia and in East Germany, where the CP once had a base of popular support as broad as in Poland and Bulgaria, but where it came to attack much more crudely the interests and aspirations of the masses—which resulted in greater isolation—the leaders seem to have tried to profit from the decisions of the Twentieth Congress to work out a popular maneuver by adopting the anti- Stalinist line, though there is not yet a really deep wave of popular sentiment in these countries. Given the industrialized character of these countries, however, and the social relationships of forces, the beginning of a new reawakening of the masses threatens to almost immediately overturn the dictatorship (as the events of June 17, 1953, demonstrated). This explains why the Czech and German Stalinist leaders will need to act more cautiously than the Polish or Bulgarian leaders, expecially in questions that directly concern industry and workers’ lives.
In Hungary, the Twentieth Congress bomb exploded after a prolonged struggle of tendencies inside the party, during which the Nagy tendency, which was linked to the Mikoyan-Malenkov tendency, was decapitated by the expulsion of Nagy himself. While the decisions of the Twentieth Congress certainly represent a defeat for the Rakosi tendency, which had to rehabilitate its victim, Rajk, nevertheless it seems that this tendency is entrenching itself in power very securely and that an internal struggle will be waged for Nagy to be allowed back in. Since the masses, at the same time, seem more passive than in other countries, the whole situation seems ripe for Hungary to be one of the first countries where a more or less open struggle between tendencies will take place inside a Stalinist party which holds power.
In Rumania and Albania, where the ties of the CP to the masses are much more limited, it seems that the leadership is having more success in resisting the Kremlin’s efforts to impose a revision of the Stalinist line. In Albania, however, the leadership has already met with a surprising amount of opposition, even inside the legislature.
In general, the recent experience of the people’s democracies therefore confirms the conclusion that we drew about the evolution of the Soviet Union. The decisions of the Twentieth Congress favor the unleashing of a more or less violent movement of criticism and anti- Stalinist opposition. The old structures nevertheless remain in place in all the CPs, and it is necessary to wait for the outbreak of an open struggle of tendencies, as well as overt action by the masses, before this will change. It is not excluded that this will occur in one of the people’s democracies before the political revolution breaks out in the USSR, or that such events could exert a profound influence on the evolution of the Soviet Union.
V. THE CRISIS IN THE COMMUNIST PARTIES
The Twentieth Congress of the CP of the USSR opened up a new stage in the crisis of the Communist parties. In order to understand the relative extent of this crisis in the various parties, however, it is necessary to consider several supplementary factors: the “right-wing” international policy inaugurated by the Twentieth Congress; the relative strength of this Communist Party and its actual ties with the masses; the (relative) degree of solidarity in the top Stalinist leadership, etc.
We can distinguish three categories in particular:
(a) The case of mass Communist parties in advanced industrial countries, (the PCF [French Communist Partyl, the Italian CP). The crisis is developing in both through the destruction of the authority of the leadership, the discussions that have begun over the right-wing policy announced by the Twentieth Congress and applied enthusiastically by the national leaders (peaceful coexistence, parliamentary roads to socialism, the Algerian affair, etc.), and through the demand for a revolutionary class struggle which revolutionary layers of these parties are beginning to raise. The absence of any objective basis for collaboration with the bourgeoisie limits the room for maneuver for the right wing and in spite of everything makes it sensitive to the pressure from below in the long run. This does not change the fact that it remains initially in control of the situation, since the whole tradition of Stalinism favors a right-opportunist policy today.
(b) The case of small Stalinist sects in advanced industrial countries (Great Britain, Belgium, Austria, West Germany, etc.). The crisis in these parties is influenced on one hand by the destruction of the authority of the leaders, and on the other hand by the search for a suitable attitude to take toward the mass Social Democratic movement. Part of the apparatus undeniably bases itself on the decisions of the Twentieth Congress in order to propose a liquidationist-reformist orientation. The healthiest elements in the ranks oppose this, reinforcing, however, sectarian attitudes which they hold toward the mass movement. Our intervention can be very influential in preventing this reaction of the healthiest part of the Communist ranks from being led into sterile adventures doomed to defeat.
(c) The case of the Communist parties in the colonial and semicolonial countries (such as the Indian CP). The orientation of the Twentieth Congress toward these countries is the most right-wing of all. (Kuusinen’s rotten criticism of the theses of the Communist International!) But at the same time there is a real objective basis for collaboration between the “national” bourgeoisie of the these countries and the Stalinist leaders. These leaders will therefore be less sensitive for some time (until they are subjected to a genuine revolutionary mass movement) to criticism from the ranks and more inclined to follow the line of the Kremlin. For these reasons we have a real chance to broaden and draw toward us critical tendencies, left centrist tendencies, if mot tendencies that are revolutionary in their strength, which will develop inside these Communist parties.
VI. OUR TASKS
In a general way, the stage which has opened in the crisis of Stalinism in the USSR itself, in the people’s democracies, and in the Communist parties, is characterized by a process of disappearance or at least a loosening of many prejudices which the mass of Communist militants had against our movement. The struggle for our ideas can therefore be carried on more successfully on the periphery and in the interior of the CPs, provided that we carry on this struggle with arguments that are better and better worked out, more precise and concrete, and provided that the political level of our own organizations be raised higher and higher. The disappearance of some of the most repulsive aspects of Stalinism makes this all the more necessary and our own ranks will be in danger of becoming susceptible to pro- Stalinist and semi-Stalinist illusions if they are not thoroughly educated, particularly about the past history of the “Russian question” and about all of our analyses and our world orientation.
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In relation to the evolution of the USSR and the people’s democracies, we hail and support—critically—all the concessions that the masses have been able to tear away from the bureaucracy which feels its position shaking. At the same time we denounce unmercifully the hesitations, the half-measures, the delays and retreats, and especially the hypocrisy of the “liquidation of Stalin” by his principal lieutenants. We demand a complete political explanation of the crimes of Stalin, an explanation which can only be “sociological,” Marxist, in the sense of a Trotskyist analysis. We denounce the “personality cult in reverse” which consists of explaining everything wrong about the USSR by the faults of one (or a few) individuals. We demand a real and honest review of all the trials, by means of an international commission of inquiry in the labor movement.
At the same time, we will exploit to the maximum the theme of “back to Lenin” by demanding a genuine return to the teachings of Leninism in every area: politics (“State and Revolution’), economics (trade union independence), the international domain (Leninist theses of the Communist International), etc.
In the mass Communist parties, we will support the development of a broad revolutionary left current, inside the mass Communist movement, employing if possible a public organ appearing outside the CP but published by personalities known to Communist militants, or even employing a public organ of a tendency, which could become possible if the opposition in the CP takes on a mass character. The platform of such a left tendency, with the inevitable national variations, should generally be: a revolutionary orientation for the country in question; back to Lenin; reestablishment of the Communist International. One of the most effective forms of activity of such an organ would be the centralization of all kinds of information about the evolution (and the critical currents) inside the CPs.
In the small Communist parties we will support healthy rank-and-file tendencies which oppose liquidationist-reformist maneuvers, at the same time that we try to increase these comrades’ understanding of the need to work in the mass movement. Given the lack of perspectives and the acute organizational crisis of these parties, the constituting of a Bolshevik-Leninist fraction with a precise organizational orientation will probably be necessary in short order so as to avoid many militants becoming demoralized and returning to passivity. This work will be carried on in these countries without changing our fundamental orientation concerning the social democratic organizations, beginning particularly with sympathizers, contacts, former members, or isolated members who, for particular reasons, have not been able to apply our orientation of mass work.
Everywhere our members will understand that the events of recent months represent a historic confirmation and a total justification for the struggle taken up by Leon Trotsky and the Soviet Left Opposition in 1923, as well as a complete confirmation of the “new course” of Trotskyism and the theses “Rise and Decline of Stalinism” adopted at the fourth world congress of the International. No other tendency in the labor movement has been so well equipped to understand and predict these events as has the Fourth International.
The study of the history of our movement, particularly of our Russian movement, will be developed in a useful way by our sections, and our movement ought to try to draw up a kind of historic balance sheet of thirty years, comparing the Trotskyist and Stalinist positions on the major events between 1923 and 1953, and making it possible to see how much every step forward taken in the USSR and in the Communist parties can only be a step on the way traced by Trotskyism. Such a work will at the same time be an important contribution to the struggle against the pro- Stalinist tendencies which try to argue in support of the “objective necessity” for the Stalinist crimes of the past.
With the period of the death agony of Stalinism which is opening up, an extremely favorable period is also opening up for the strengthening of our movement internationally. But it would be mistaken to assume that the decline of Stalinism will automatically strengthen Trotskyism. It will only do so to the degree that Trotskyists are able to follow a politically correct and tactically adequate political line, in every country and internationally, toward the labor movement as a whole and toward the Stalinist militants in particular. Our initial experience has shown that these opportunities are real in many countries. It is necessary to get to work so that the crisis of Stalinism will be translated in practice into a strengthening of the Fourth International.