[p. 7]
Detroit, Mich.
Dear Comrades,
The enclosed letter to me from Germain was forwarded here and received two days ago. I have typed an exact copy for you.
I am not familiar with the Bremerhaven business or the latest developments around the parity committee, and am not especially interested in the details right now. Aside from them, I think it is time to take a new look at the whole question. I have been thinking about it on and off for some time, even before the receipt of the Chinese comrade's letter last fall recommending a changed orientation on the international discussion, but circumstances made it difficult for me to follow through.
Leaving aside questions of individuals, it is clear that we were correct to launch a struggle against what we called "Pabloism," and the greatest credit is due to those who first understood this (as you will recall, I was not among them). But an objective evaluation of what has happened since the launching of this struggle should convince almost everyone that no one clearly foresaw everything that has happened. The really die hard "Pabloites" (in the sense in which we understood that term), the best representatives and spokesmen of the capitulatory tendency, proved to be the American, British and some French elements, while the IS group, for whatever reasons—and our conduct was unquestionably very important among those reasons—paused, held back and did not go all the way down the road of the Cochrans, Lawrences and Mestres.
Has our orientation taken this fact sufficiently into consideration? I don't think so. Have we made a completely accurate assessment of the tactics pursued in the last two years, which were aimed in great part at dividing the genuinely revolutionary and the centrist elements away from the capitulatory tendency, or what remained of it after the Cochranites left? On the basis of what I know—about the Ceylonese, etc.—I am inclined to doubt it. Have we made an objective study of how the old IS and its followers have reacted to the latest events in the crisis of Stalinism—whether the tendency toward capitulation among them has grown stronger or been weakened, whether they look to the bureaucracy or to the workers as the motor force, etc.? On this point I have no knowledge, but I think it should provide important, perhaps even decisive, information as to the direction in which they are moving.
I'd like to get more information on this last point, but even without it I feel safe in saying that Pabloism minus Cochran and Co. has proved somewhat different than it was or seemed to be before the split (among other things, to speak now just from the viewpoint of tactics, it is weaker).
For these reasons, I urge that a review of the present situation be made, and consideration be given to adopting a more positive attitude toward continuing the international discussion up to and including the possibility of a reunification congress.
Comradely,
(signed) George Breitman
P.S. Knowing of Comrade Cannon's interest in this matter, I am sending him a copy of Germain's and this letter.