Los Angeles, Calif.
Dear George:
I received the copy of your May 19 letter to the PC with the enclosure of a copy of Germain's letter to you. I had been expecting something like this and expect that there will be more to follow. I have been doing quite a little thinking about this whole question, especially since the new developments in Russia. It is true, as Germain says, that the reaction of the Pabloite paper in Paris and the line taken in my March 9 speech [reprinted in Speeches for Socialism, Pathfinder, 1971] were "in all points similar." The tone and the emphasis of the two articles, however, were different; and tone and emphasis always have a political significance. It goes without saying, also, that we reject out of hand Germain's sly pretense that we have finally come around to the position which "the International"—meaning the Pablo faction—"has elaborated" in the past. As we know, Cochran-Clarke, Lawrence and Mestre drew different conclusions from the previous "elaboration" of the Pabloites, and for good reason.
I particularly noted that the article in the Pabloite paper specifically repudiated the Deutscherite concept of the self-reform of the Stalinist bureaucracy. That is an important development. Previously, as you know, they had confined themselves to private assurances on this point in Germain's personal letters to you, while combining with the real Deutscherites in this country and in England and supporting them against us. In view of the costly experiences in the past, I think it would be the part of wisdom to watch developments for a while, with particular reference to the evolution of their policy and their actions on this most fundamental point.
Germain, who is in love with words, thinks agreement on a formula can settle all differences. That's something, of course, but not everything. I, for my part, am more interested in what the Pabloites do than in what they say. The words of the Third Congress documents obviously meant different things to different people, and the differences were not "tactical." Liquidationism is not a tactic. That, plus profoundly serious questions of organizational principle, caused the split. It will not be healed by a return to the old word-play and the old regime as if nothing had happened. "Unity maneuvers" around the trick formula of a "parity commission" for discussions won't do any good either. A parity commission makes sense only as an executive body to arrange a formal unification already agreed upon.
[p. 8]
Meantime our most important task on the international field is to help orient our own people on the new situation in the Soviet Union. We are now dealing with indisputable facts of a new stage in the development of the Russian Revolution, and not with suppositions and speculations about the good intentions of the Stalinist bureaucracy. We must help our comrades to understand this and to draw the necessary tactical conclusions. There is danger that they will fail to do this if they think or suspect that the analysis of the new developments contains or conceals the slightest taint of revisionism of basic Trotskyist theory and policy. Our method, so brilliantly exemplified in The Militant, week after week, of first drawing a clear line of principle, is the only way to prepare the movement for effective tactical action in the great new opportunity opening up, especially in those countries where the Stalinists control a workers' mass movement.
A reopening of unity discussions with the Pabloites at the present moment would be more apt to hinder than to help this work of orienting the international Trotskyist cadres in the new situation, because of their justified suspicions and hostility to Pabloite political conclusions, based solidly on past experiences. They have not forgotten—and should not forget—that Pabloism inspired and supported conciliators who became liquidators in one country after another, including our own. Let us wait and see what conclusions the Pabloites have drawn from the disastrous consequences of their policy, and especially what they do about it.
* * *
I think the first rule in political action, as in military action, is to put one's own ranks in order for effective combat. In elaborating tactics in a new situation, it is necessary to begin by sharply re-drawing principled lines, to make sure that the tactical actions serve the principle and do not dilute it. Otherwise, tactical approaches to other movements tend to take the form of adaptation to politically hostile currents, and can end in capitulation to them. The capitulatory course of the Cochranites, who were inspired in the first place by the Pabloite policy of adaptation, is a shining example of this overeager attempt to get something for nothing by tactical maneuvers. I use the word "shining" here in the sense that an American congressman once compared a flashy opponent to "a rotten mackerel by moonlight, it shines and stinks."
My March 9 speech at Los Angeles was an attempt to apply the above-mentioned principle of politico-military strategy in a preparatory period for a great new campaign. This campaign will be continuing for a long time. It opens up immeasurable opportunities for our movement on the international field, and to a lesser, more limited, but still important extent, even in this country.
My speech combined the recognition of the new reality—manifest facts this time, not suppositions and speculations—with credit to the Soviet workers as the motor force in the new events leading up to a political revolution. I combined reaffirmation of our principled line of unconditional hostility to the Soviet bureaucracy with a denunciation of the theory of its self-reform as treason. And I tried to get this all-sided analysis in the same paragraph and even sometimes in the same sentence, so that there could be no possibility of encouraging our comrades in this country, and especially abroad, to enter the new campaign with mere tactical prescriptions which might lead to adaptation and conciliation.
I think the line of the Militant after the first couple of weeks, and the resolution adopted by the Plenum, has admirably served our purpose, both of awakening the ranks of our movement to the new developments and the new opportunities and of hardening them in principle and outlawing any trace of conciliation with a modified Stalinism.
* * *
But that's not enough. All the Militant has done and is doing in the new situation up to now, which is really beyond praise, cannot be considered as the whole campaign. It represents rather the work of preparation, the work of putting the ranks in order. Next comes the tactical approach to Stalinist workers, sympathizers, and half-sympathizers, This has scarcely been touched yet. But I think we can now begin it in earnest without running any danger of our cadres losing themselves in the Stalinist milieu.
Up to now our line has been one of analysis, exposition and denunciation of Stalinism and Stalinists in general. This was correct and necessary in the first stage of the campaign. It served the necessary purpose of demonstrating that we are still Trotskyists, 100 percent, and not advisors to the Stalinist bureaucrats. Now, having once again drawn the principled lines sharp and clear, we must begin to differentiate between the Stalinist bureaucrats and the Stalinist workers. Now we must begin the work of persuasion, with the deliberate aim of drawing Stalinist workers and peripheral elements into friendly discussion, of winning some of them over to an understanding of what Leninism really means, and of recruiting some of them into our ranks.
Here tone and manner become important, as always, for tone and manner always have to be suited to a political aim. The harsh tone and belligerent manner, which are indispensable implements in our unceasing war against the bureaucratic fakers, must be combined with an approach to the Stalinist workers in a friendly tone and patient manner, which are no less necessary implements in a recruiting campaign.
Smart-aleck, know-it-all attitudes, offensive wiseacreism, etc., can be left to the Shachtmanites. Such an approach only repels the shocked and bewildered Stalinist workers and sympathizers, and prevents any real communication with them. In our articles, and in our approach to individual contacts, we should begin to proceed as if we regarded the disoriented and demoralized rank and file Stalinists as people who are somehow or other devoted to the socialist ideal, and to the Soviet Union as the embodiment of a great revolution; as people with whom we hope to come to agreement for the construction of a genuine Leninist party.
* * *
It will be difficult to orient our own people psychologically to this necessary turn, after so many years of physical separation from the Stalinist workers by a line of blood. But this turn must be made if we are to follow up the preliminary work of our press with tangible results in the recruitment of new members and sympathizers. The prospects of this recruitment are poorer in this country than anywhere, due to the especially degenerate character of the American CP and to the additional circumstance—probably unique in the entire world—that both we and the Stalinists are isolated from the actual movement of the workers. But even so, the Stalinists are 20 times bigger than we are and we can get some recruits if we really try.
[p. 9]
Even more important than that, we must remember that the Militant circulates all over the world and that Trotskyists everywhere read it. The prospects of the Trotskyists in most other countries, provided they combine a correct line of principled firmness with a flexible tactical approach, are beyond calculation. The Stalinist parties in many countries represent the real mass movement of the workers. The Trotskyist cadres in these countries now have the greatest possibilities they've ever had for rapid expansion in this mass movement.
* * *
I am under the impression that a good many of our comrades have passively resisted the preoccupation of the Militant with the Russian question and Stalinism, and that there will be even greater resistance to a psychological readjustment to concentration on actual proselytizing work among Stalinists and Stalinist sympathizers. Some comrades see in this a contradiction with the basic line we elaborated many years ago—and which still holds good—that the main troops of the revolutionary party of the future will come out of the mass unions and not from the Stalinist milieu.
I think this idea is absolutely unassailable, but we should not be trapped in our own formula at every twist and turn of the road. At the present moment of dormant class struggle, when the workers generally are dominated by a mood of conservative passivity, a veritable explosion of political interest has broken out in the Stalinist milieu. This opens up possibilities for us, not for big mass activities and rapid, wide-scale expansion of our influence in this country, but for numerous contacts, animated political discussions and possible recruitment of individuals by ones, twos, and tens. Such recruits can strengthen our cadres and put us in better shape to exploit new opportunities in a new period of mass radicalization.
* * *
We expect to build the revolutionary party out of new forces from the mass movement. The American Stalinist party is probably the most discredited, and proportionally the weakest, of all the Stalinist parties in the capitalist countries. But for all that, we must not permit ourselves to forget that the Stalinist party is and will be our chief rival in the struggle for the allegiance of new strata of workers and youth turning to radicalism. Every blow we can deal to the Stalinists, by exposure and denunciation of the bureaucrats on one side, and by recruitment from its ranks on the other, helps to knock the main obstacle out of our road. Our campaign in the Stalinist milieu should not be considered as a contradiction to our main orientation toward the actual mass movement of the workers, but as part of the preparation to make it more effective.
Our work among the Stalinists should not be limited to the literary campaign in the Militant; and participation in the campaign in the various localities should not be restricted to those comrades who distribute the Militant at Stalinist meetings. Our leading comrades everywhere—including New York, and especially New York, which is the main political center—should be on top of this task, directly intervening at all Stalinist meetings and spending all the time necessary in patient, friendly discussion with contacts among the Stalinist workers.
Fraternally,
James P. Cannon