[p. 5]
Paris
Dear Lee,
In your letter of inquiry about the situation in the IC, as you do not state the purpose your American friend intends to utilize the information for, I am rather uncertain as to what is required. However, the following casual observations, without too much regard to serious assessment, will give you my opinion in a very brief form.
Since the establishment of the IC three years ago, not much has been accomplished except at the beginning in the fight against Pablo's revisionism. In this time several meetings have been held at irregular intervals, sometimes three months, sometimes six. All these meetings mainly dealt with reports from England, France, and Germany, rarely with political questions. That is, no political decisions were made on political matters. For example, on the question of the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the IC gave no decision or direction.
In such a long period, the worst thing was that the IC occupied themselves with the exhausting discussion of the complicated problem of the French section. The loose, informal atmosphere of this discussion reduced the IC meetings to an unbusinesslike proceeding.
As for the sections concerned with CP work, England and Switzerland were able to realize important developments, but the French section, paralyzed by its sectarianism, was unable to take advantage of the favorable developments. For example, in the crises of the French CP, it could not even discover or evaluate what was going on, and thus had no influence.
The Italian section, although they have made more progress, have lost connection with the IC. This is because the French section which had the responsibility of corresponding with them, did not properly discharge these responsibilities. And for the same reason, in Latin America, the communications we had with individuals there have been severed for two years.
WHY DID THE SITUATION DEVELOP LIKE THIS?
1. The IC was not set up as a stable organization like the IS. That is, it did not have the responsibility of the political development of our movement and the task of preparing thereto the necessary documents and reports. Nor did it have the responsibility of contacting all the sections to help the weaker in solving their difficult problems. Nor did it assume the task of exchanging political opinions with the more highly developed sections.
2. The responsible IC comrades are dispersed and have no contact with each other apart from the irregular meetings. The most responsible comrades, the English, also concentrated on the activities of their own country and paid little attention to the work of the IC.
3. The French section, centrally located geographically, and able to communicate in Italian and Spanish, was logically appointed as the IC center, but unfortunately, due to the weaknesses previously enumerated, did not assume their responsibilities. On the contrary, they played a destructive role. . . .
Above all, the present IC does not correspond to Trotsky's idea of what the international revolutionary-socialist world party should be in its cooperation with the sections and in their centralized direction. The essence of Pablo's error was that he made the IS a bureaucratic centralized leadership, rather than the cooperative participation of all the sections. On the other hand the IC is the other extreme. Essentially we are negligent of the centralized cooperative leadership. The tendency may not do harm to the stronger sections, but it is very important to the weak who need help from the International.
Now to correct this is not easy. First of all, I think it would be best if we had a comrade sent from America, resident in Europe, to reorganize the IC and set up a stable organization according to the international regulations. . . . To take up the responsibilities of communication with all the sections especially the weakest, to help them solve their problems. . . . to prepare the necessary discussion materials for the IC meetings, etc. Paramount in importance, to assist the French section to clean up their sectarianism and to mend their split, i.e., the Lambert and Bleibtreu factions.
It is necessary to publish an international review as an instrument to present a centralized international position. Alongside this we should reevaluate our attitude towards those sections still with the IS. For not only is the Ceylonese political position the same as ours, but even in France, Germany, Italy, etc., the majority of the comrades that still belong to the IS are loyal to the Trotskyist program. Thus for the needs of the development of the international situation and especially in the interests and perspectives of our movement in Europe, we should take certain measures to reunify those comrades with us wherever possible, cutting them away from Pablo's revisionism and bureaucratism.
But with the IC as at present constituted, we are not only unable to attract those comrades who belong to the IS, but objectively we even help Pablo to control the IS and to consolidate his position.
[salutation missing]