[p. 26]
Dear Sherry,
I received your lengthy and quite interesting letter of 4-24-57. Good job.
Now we are waiting for the news of your talks with Jim.
About the two questions posed in your letter: (a) the "amendments" burned by Clarke. Naturally I know nothing of that "mysterious" affair except that Clarke did in fact receive comments or amendments and that he asked them to withdraw them. Which they did, according to him (going by what he told me). If they deemed their amendments to be important, why didn't they protest at the time and why didn't they report anything to the IS? Why didn't Manuel [Novack] ever raise this question? Why, on the contrary, did they approve and publicly hail (Jim personally) the results and line of the 3rd Congress?
As for the "centuries of transition," I'd have to send you the three texts in which this question was posed: namely, an early article on the social character of Yugoslavia; my article "Where Are We Going?" published in the February-April 1951 Quatrième Internationale; and my answer to the accusations and falsifications of Bleibtreu in an International Bulletin.
They know about (and must have) these three texts!
I did indeed write and affirm that the transition from capitalism to completed socialism must be considered as a historical epoch of "several centuries." I explained that the lapse of time which will pass since the publication of the Communist Manifesto until the completion of socialism (that is, the beginnings of Communism) will appear as a historical epoch of some centuries. To me, that seemed to be obvious for anyone who would think about it at all seriously. It is a matter of the era encompassing the victory of the revolution over world capitalism and the subsequent completion of socialism on a scale likewise worldwide. More than a century has already passed since Marx wrote that "the spectre of communism is haunting the world" and more than 50 years have passed under imperialism, the "highest phase of capitalism."
Now we are still not at the point of the world victory of the revolution. And this victory, once guaranteed, does not lead us yet to "completed" socialism but to the preparatory phase of socialism. I likewise wrote and reaffirmed that the bureaucratic phenomenon having its deepest roots in the inadequate material and cultural level of the masses, it follows that during this transitional epoch, bureaucratic deformations are inevitable but that they will be eliminated as the revolution and socialism conquer in a "more and more considerable part of the world."
I spoke of bureaucratic distortions and never of bureaucratic degeneration on the Stalinist model.
As for Stalinism, on the contrary, I claim to have been the one who since at least 1948 has fought to get it understood that, in spite of its apparent "successes," it had in reality entered into a phase of decomposition.
I consider these questions of a great theoretical importance but I have in no way insisted on imposing these personal viewpoints on the movement. No official text contains these views. So what practical interest, from an immediate point of view, can there be if I as an individual consider that the transitional epoch from capitalism to completed socialism will extend over some centuries, while others think it will happen over a few decades or a century?
I can only admire in a strict sense their perspicacious optimism, without necessarily sharing it. Of course History will settle the issue (unfortunately without bothering at that time about our poor existence).
Every political discussion must deal with the official documents of the movement and not with the exclusively personal views of this one or that one.
If we should join in this little game too, we might see mountains of comments formulated about the articles and writings of such or such on their side. . . .
Very fraternally,
Gabe [Pablo]