[p. 13]
[salutations missing]
During the visit of Comrade Dobbs we discussed with him the situation of the international Trotskyist movement. As far as we are concerned, despite the quite reasonable reluctancy of Comrade Dobbs to furnish final replies to our questions, we are satisfied with the exchange of ideas we had. We got further confirmed our opinion we drew by reading your weekly newspaper.
This opinion can be summarized into a single sentence: in the present situation there are no political divergencies such as to justify the division of our forces. According to us, this seems to be the fundamental point.
If we think over the painful experience we had in 1953, we may recollect that either side was having serious preoccupations. We however believe that the developments which followed have been such as to clear off all these preoccupations.
In fact we think you had two fundamental preoccupations in 1953: (1) that the IS might give an interpretation of the phenomenon of destalinization such as to imply our giving up the basic positions on the nature of the bureaucracy. (2) that the IS were on the same lines of certain revisionist tendencies which were growing up in certain sections of the International.
The critical analysis which was made afterwards by the IS on the development of the process of destalinization, their attitude on the occasion of such events as those of the Hungarian revolution, the explicit statements of the 4th and 5th Congress should have cleared off all these doubts; no change whatsoever in our conception of the nature of the bureaucracy, no illusion on a likely "self-reformation" of the bureaucracy, while the necessity of an antibureaucratic political revolution was underlined further. On the other hand, the 4th Congress had already evidenced the irremediable breaking off with liquidating tendencies like Cochran's, Lawrence's, and Mestre's.
At our end, we could have had the following preoccupations: (1) that you could have taken a sectarian Stalinophobic political line which might practically lead you to give up Trotskyist conception on the nature of the USSR and hence prevent you from understanding all the developments which were going to happen in the Stalinist world. (2) that you might be going to change the tactics which lead us to decide to do entrism into the large Stalinist and Social Democratic mass movements.
After five years we are quite glad to see—both from your ensuing analyses and statements and from our conversations with Comrade Dobbs—that neither of the above preoccupations has a reason to exist any longer.
Let us leave aside the question whether the split could have been helped or not. What is now important is that it is possible to bring it to an end. This is possible and necessary.
We do not think there is any need to illustrate to you all the positive aspects of a reunification: On our part there is no question of sentimental exigencies but of the understanding we think we have of a clear political exigency.
Our international movement still has very weak forces, from an organizational point of view: The partition of these forces further reduces our possibilities of action. On the other hand, such polemics as those which have been made in several occasions—in both public and semipublic form—in France and Great Britain, have a remarkable incidence on the prestige of the Trotskyist movement in general. We do not speak abstract words.
[p. 14]
In Great Britain, Stalinism has undergone a very serious crisis. Both the groups that accept Trotskyist ideology have gained but still to a very limited extent. We are convinced that should a sole Trotskyist organization exist—which means that those militants who left the Communist Party would not see two Trotskyist organizations fighting each other—the attraction power of Trotsky. ism would no doubt be comparatively higher.
In France the Trotskyist movement had a great tradition and for many years it was the far strongest section in all Europe. The split and the public polemic—between two parties who have the same name and both claim to be the official section of the 4th International!—have stricken a serious blow to the prestige of our movement in general. They have thus prevented it from playing the role which it would have played in the general crisis of the traditional workers' movement, which was concluded with the coming to power of De Gaulle. These are quite heavy lessons to be thought about.
We are convinced that in spite of its present standstill, the crisis of Stalinism will continue sooner or later. Stalinist political organizations will be shaken by other deeper convulsions. We are also convinced that the large Social Democratic parties will not always be able to escape a final showdown with the working class. Do you think that a split Trotskyist movement could avail itself of all the chances when the declining process will appear? We believe it couldn't. We are convinced that one of the conditions for our success is that of presenting ourselves before the international working class as a single organization.
On the other hand, we are also convinced that the process of renewing the international workers movement will involve agreements, alliances, and even unifications with forces not quite homogeneous. In fact it would be absurd to require such deeply corrupted organizations, such as the traditional movements, to release true revolutionary l Marxists, Bolsheviks, l Trotskyists. How shall we be able to furnish evidence of our ductility in the working class movement in general, if in our organization itself we are used to behave like sectarians, through letting a partition live without any fundamental political justification?
We therefore believe that the reunification should be included in our agenda very soon.
Certain divergences of course still exist. There are some important points to be discussed. We must discuss them. But we should not go on just as all the world were contained into our organization. We should not continue to engage ourselves in skirmishes for years. The world continues to turn despite our partitions and discussions. The only result of our delays, procrastinations, and endless polemics is that of reducing our possibilities to have a substantial incidence on the actual situation.
Let us put up the problems. Let us make concrete proposals. For instance, you may begin saying what you think about the documents of the last world congress, apart from the formal question of recognizing that congress. Say what is your conception of an international leadership. As to us, we bind ourselves to act in order that your proposals may be given quick consideration.
Let us forget about actual or apparent force relationships between our organizations. We think Comrade Dobbs should have an idea of the situation of our movement in Europe and that you may now have a realistic picture of the situation. We also believe we have a clear picture of the situation. But listen comrades, it is necessary that we should not forget about quite more fundamental force relationships, that is to say those between our movement and the traditional working class movements. How can we forget that in a number of countries we are still a handful of militants who fight in most difficult conditions? It has no sense that we should be satisfied at the fact that brother-enemy Trotskyist group has a few scores or even hundreds of militants less than ours.
Our organization did not feel any particular consequence from the 1953 split. Luckily, in Italy there is no such situation as that existing in Great Britain and France. Not even now we are having difficulties in this respect. For these reasons our appeal for reunification should appear to you worthy of consideration.
We once again wish to repeat: The reunification is possible. We must do it and soon!