[p. 79]
Dear Comrade Hansen:
I am sorry I could not reply to your letter earlier. We are all greatly encouraged by the support you have extended to us in our activities in India. We have read with pleasure the editorial written in the Militant welcoming the merger of the RWPI and RCPI. We are reproducing the same editorial in the next issue of our journal, the Militant which has been adopted as the organ of the united RCPI.
I am receiving an air-mail copy of your Militant regularly. We are also posting to you copies of our journal by air-mail. We have been somewhat irregular in publishing our journal for obvious difficulties of finance. We are trying to overcome these difficulties and bring out the journal regularly hereafter.
Although the United RCPI is not formally known as a Trotskyist Party, the merger has taken place as you are aware on the basis of a near-Trotskyist program. The Stalinists and others have already begun to call the new party as Trotskyist. Some of the old RCP comrades have some objection to be known as Trotskyists. Since we have full freedom to advocate full-fledge Trotskyist program within the party and through signed articles in the party journals, we are confident of overcoming this feeling through friendly discussions.
The formal merger conference of two parties is scheduled to take place next month in Calcutta. We shall write to you about it later.
We have been following with interest the controversy between the International Committee and the F.I. Secretariat. I do not propose to discuss all the points of differences at this stage. I strongly feel that these differences are not such as to justify the existence of two international centers of the Trotskyist movement. The present split has undermined the faith of the Marxists all over the world in the F.I. movement. It has also come in the way of our consolidating the anti-Stalinist Marxists into a single movement in India.
[p. 80]
We strongly feel that the attempt to organize two rival World Congresses of the F.I. should be discouraged and some method should be devised to convene a single world congress. This is possible if the SWP adopts a positive attitude on the question of unification. The assumption either by the I.C. or the F.I. secretariat that the national sections of our movement will be swayed by factional considerations is wrong, if not insulting to those comrades who have devoted their lives to the cause of revolutionary Marxism. A representative world congress of Trotskyists should be able to thrash out all differences of strategy and tactics in our movement.
In this connection I do not see why the suggestion of a parity committee (made by Pablo and his colleagues) for convening a world congress should not be accepted by the I.C. We are told by Com. Livio Maitan of Italy who visited India recently that Pablo is prepared to keep out of any key position in the new set-up for the sake of unity. We cannot understand why we as serious Marxists should insist upon the exclusion of Pablo or any other individual for that matter as a condition for unity between the two sections.
Through the columns of our journal we have always publicized the activities of the Socialist Labour League of G.B. without entering into its controversy with the F.I. group. Our sympathies are still with the S.L.L. although the situation in G.B. is not very clear to us. We have also written to Com. Germain and others disapproving certain tactics of the F.I. group in Britain in the factional struggle against the S.L.L.
But do you approve of the editorial written in the "Labour Review" early last year launching a broadside against Pablo and his colleagues? What was the earthly use of washing our dirty linen in the public in such a manner—whatever be the provocation. Our movement has suffered not only in Britain but outside also as a result of such an attitude on the part of the S.L.L. leadership.
Personally speaking, I am not opposed to the tactics adopted by our English comrades to form the S.L.L. I don't share the view that the Trotskyists within the L.P. should remain in hiding forever in the futile hope of radicalizing the entire L.P. or a bulk of it. It is possible for Trotskyists to combine open work outside L.P. in Great Britain with entry tactics by retaining those who are not exposed within the L.P. According to us the main emphasis should be on outside open work to which the entry tactics as a whole should be subordinated. This is our criticism of entry tactics of the F.I. in countries like France, Italy, etc.
We are aware that the SWP was also a party to the entry tactics adopted by the F.I. in 1948. It has had disastrous consequences in India at any rate. Our forces were almost completely decimated within the old S.P. (thanks, of course, due to the infection of Shachtmanism). But we will not make this tactical difference as a point of split with the F.I. or the I.C. for that matter. It appears that the S.L.L. has made this question of entrism a point of serious difference with Pablo although according to my reports Com. Burns (Healy] had all along supported entry tactics.
I do not know much about the S.L.L. leadership. Even the Ceylonese comrades were complaining about the uncompromising attitude of Com. Burns on the question of unification. We are sure that the S.L.L. comrades can play an important role in unifying the world Trotskyist movement, provided they forget their local differences. We think that you comrades of the SWP should use your relation. ship with the S.L.L comrades to persuade it to adopt a more realistic attitude on this question. If we are of any help we shall certainly do our best.
We are happy to see some friendly correspondence exchanged between the I.C. and the F.I.S. as published in the Militant. We earnestly request you to follow this up with concrete organizational steps of joint meetings, etc. We can achieve a great deal once we are united. When we are trying to unite all the non-Stalinist Marxist forces (if ours is any example how can we afford to have a split in the World Trotskyist movement?
I have to write to you on other problems which I shall do later. We have great possibilities in India. The electoral debacle of the LSSP in Ceylon is unfortunate but to most of us here it was not quite surprising. Our Ceylonese comrades had an exaggerated concept of their political influence. We have our own criticism of their overemphasis on the "parliamentary" form of struggle. About this later.
We should be able to set up an Asian center of the Trotskyist movement if the LSSP takes the initiative. What do you think of the latest position adopted by the Chinese CP on imperialist wars, peaceful coexistence, etc. (vide Red Flag article of April 1)? It blasts the traditional Stalinist (Khrushchev) concept of peaceful coexistence and the Chinese Stalinists are resuscitating Marxism although on a limited scale to fight Khrushchev. . . .
With comradely greetings,
Yours comradely,
s/S.B. Kolpe