Editorials The True Testament BREAK-UP OF TWO­ of Trotsky PARTY SYSTEM On the 8th Anniversary of the Assassination 0/ Leon Trotsky By E. Germaill •

ATTACK ON Yugoslav Events and the DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS World Crisis of Stalinism Statement by the Political Committee 0/ the SWP •

STALINISM AND Oil and Labor THE STRUGGLE By John Fredericks FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES

August 1948 25c Likewise hundreds of the new friends of the SWP will want Manager's Column I FOURTH INTERNATIONAL it after reading the first lit" '----- VOLPME 9 August 1948 No.6 (Whole No. 88) erature they get. They will Although the first presiden­ soon want to read the more ad­ tial campaign of the Socialist Published Monthly by the vanced and rounded Marxist Werkers Party holds the Fourth International Publishing Association material on domestic and world promise of greatly expanding affairs published each month 116 University Place, New York 3, N. Y. Telephone: Al­ in the Fourth International. our 'reading public, its imme­ gonquin 4-9330. Subscription rates: $1.00 for 6 issues' diate result was a slump in $2,O~ for 12 issues; bundles, 20c for' 5 copies and up: Some radio listeners sub­ Fourth International circula- ForeIgn: $1.50 for 6 issues; $2.50 for 12 issues' bundles scribed immediately to both, 21c for 5 copies and up. " ~tiQn. In the language of statis­ The Militant and Fourth In­ 'tics,

i FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

VOLUME 9 AUGUST 1948 NUMBER 6 WORLD IN REVIEW Break-Up of the T;tvo-Party System and the 1948 Presidential Election - The Attack·on Democratic Rights Must Be Met by Labor ~Solid(lrity - ~Stalinism and the Strllggle for Cit,il Liberties

Break-Up of Two-Party System t~ct the capitalist system. The launching of this post\var edition of the New Deal evoked- in the absence of an And the 1948 Election authentic htbor party -- widespread response from poor people throughout the country, especially the thrice-oppres­ The towering political development of the 1948 pres­ sed Negro masses, workers suffering from high prices and idential election is the breakup of the Democratic Party. even numerous middle-class elements. Th·is has ploughed up in roughshod fashion the political This noteworthy development in turn thrust the Dem­ soil of the United States. The two-party system which has ocratic Party into a crisis. In danger of losing its support. ,Iominated American politics since post-Civil War days among precisely those sections of the poptlla~ion which i.:: disrupted, and new significant political realignments are had guaranteed its victory since 1932, the Truman ad­ now appearing. ministration, in a panic, began making numerous gestures The unnatu ral alliance of Southern Bourbons, North­ and offering glib promises, especially to labor and the ern political machines, and the labor movement is falling Negro masses. Because its foundations w("re shaken and its apart. These antipathetic social forces \vere held together cLiuse more desperate than during Roosevelt's Ii fetime, Tru­ during a specific prriod of American history by the grant­ man was compelled to go even further than r~oosevelt in ing of concessions to the labor movement, huge subsidies promising the Negro people their civil1rights. To lahor, the hi the farm interests and the cement of patronage. But Democrats promised repeal or the Taft-Ilartley Law. American imperialism emerged from the war with a $250 But these steps, in turn. r.lther than 'l"esolving the crisis billion internal debt and with the necessity of laying out of the Democratic Party, sharpened it. By new, the South­ additional billions as subsidies, loans and for military ex­ el n plantation aristocracy, already alarmed by the grow­ peditions to prop up shaking regimes throughout the globe ing proportions of the postwar Negro movement for equal­ and save the disintegrating system of capitalism. The old ity, become panic-stricken with the thought that Truman's New Deal policy of throwing small concessions to the work­ demagogic utterances on civil 'rights would endanger their ing people became a luxu:ry that bard-pressed American already shaky rule in the Scuth and make impossible the imperialism could no longer afford. The period of the rreservation of Southern "lynch law" and "white suprem­ ;'cold war" with Russia became likewise the period of the £ICY." After numerous threats and blackmailing attempts, Taft-Hartley Law, witch-hunts, spy scares, labor injunc­ the most extreme of the Southern Bourbons Iikewise staged tions, union-busting and lowered living standards at home. a walkout from the Democratic Party and are setting up a But the first serious sharpening of the social crisis at scarcely concealed "Dixiecrat" fascist movement. home witnessed the splintering of the Democratic Party. These splits in the Democratic Party both from the left The Wall Street rulers, :lfter isolating and disgracing the and right, far from enhancing the position of the trade­ New Deal remnants in the administration, demonstratively union bureaucracy in the Democratic rump, have further kicked \VaIIace out of office. Goaded on by the Stalinists, weakened its influence and thrust the bureaucracy, in turn, and taking heart from the ground swell of opposition into the most serious crisis since the advent of the New developing in the ranks cf the American people over high Deal. For 15 years, the bureaucrats of the AFL and CIO l~rices, lack of housing, the Taft-Hartley Law, violation wtre able to line up their union memberships behind the of civil rights and the danger of war, \VaIIace decided to Democratic Party through the medium of ~~llch counter­ take advantage of the vacuum existing in the present-day feit labor political organizations as Labor's Non-Partisan political scene and launch· his own middle-class party, lav~ League, the PAC, etc. i~h in promises of reforms while proposing to preserve in- But after the war this policy became inclreasingly dif- Page 164 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Aug us t J 94 8 fieult to pursue. The memberships, while not sufficiently the n~tionalization of industry and the r'~organization of cl~ss-~onsdo\.ls ~nd determined to put a stop to the bureau­ the economy on planned socialist foundations; as well ~s crats' policy of supporting the two-party system of capital­ sharply demarcating the party and program of genuine ist politics, were nevertheless voting against this policy socialism i1rom all varieties of middle-class panaceas, in­ negatively. They were showing increasing apathy toward cluding Wallace-Stalinist People's Front demagogy and coming out to vote for union-supported capitalist candi­ Norman Thomas Hmilk and water" reformism. dates. After the passage of the Taft-Hartle.y Law, this apa­ These cruCial questions are basic to the founding of a thy turned to sullen resentment and lack of trust of all labor party armed with a policy that can meet the pressing cap'italist politicians. Under the chcumstanc~s, the labor needs of the Americ~n working cl~ss. The SWP campaign bureaucrats have been \ong hesit~ting to come Ollt openly for a Worker~ and Farmers· Government thus lays the in favor of Truman. They are attempting to concentrate ground-work for the hammering out of a correct program on electing "good" Congressmen to office. for the emerging mass labor party movement. B",t the existence of Wallace's Third Party in the field Tf,. Attac:k QI1 Democ.atic Rilhts and its forthright attack on the worst evils of capitalism, is making it obvious that the labor bureauoracy cannot for Must Be M!'t by L.abor Solidarity long continue its bankrupt politics of supporting the two­ On July 28, Farrell Dobbs, the' Socialist Workers Party party system. In the absence of a genuine labor party~ candidate· for Pr~sident of the Upited Sta,tes, sent a letter millions of voters are bound to turn to Wallace. to Attorney General Tom Cla.rk requesting 'a hearing on The bureaucrats fear that this repudiation of their the . listing of the SWP by the Department of Justice as it "subversive" organization. poli~i~s at the polls may at the next stage endanger their positic;m5, in the unions themselves. That .is why the most The blacklisting of the SWP, Dobbs pointed out, "was perspicacious and sodally conscioys of the bureaucrats, done without. prior notinc~tion to our party, without a hearing, and without any specification of the grounds for ~spedaI1Y in the CIO, are seeking an alternative policy. s1.lch action." It is ~n this light that Re\lther's recent call for a new party must be viewed. "Our party," the SWP c~ndid"te contin\led,. Hobjects not only to the arbitrary and unheard-of procedure by the Reuther does not want a l~bor party. H~ is attempting Department of Justice in this matter but equallY to the to. set forces into motion for the crea.tion of a new party, dictatorial principle of a political blacklist." similar to Wallace's in its People's Front ~haracter, dom­ This letter was written eight qlonths after pubUc\ltion inated like Wall~ce's by liberals and middle-class politi­ of the political blacklist. The American ~ivil ~iberties cians, but anti-Stalinist, with a pro~ram similar to the Union had protested the procedure of listing agencies with­ Americans for' Democratic Action. H i~ call for a. new party out hearings, and the Attorney General in response to this is certain, however, to inaugurate a fierce debate inside pressure assured the ACLU that a hearing would be the'l,lnion ranks. This debate can be of inestilllable signi­ granted any organization ch~llengil)g its blacklisting. ficance in furtherin~ the political education and under­ Informed of this by the ACLU, the SWP immediately stanaing of the union rani

capitalism. The cOJ"\tr~dictiQn stems from the incompatibil­ dangerous to thejr monopoly of government office. ity of the o~t revolqtion'lry and {\emocratic traditions of The organizations th us placed beyond the pale are capitalism with tpe present-qa,y lAtterly reactionary char­ denied their right to vitW the "eviden'ce" on which the acter of t\1is economy. The struggle for democratic rights blacklist is based. They are denied· the right to confront and civil liberties pl~yed a major role in the revolution their accusers. They are denied their right to appear in that broke the chains of feudalism and freed the dsing court ~md argue their case: Now, as the case of the Social­ capitalist class from those fetters. The principles enunciat­ ist Workers Party reveals, they are even denied their ed in the Decla,ration of Indep~ndence and the Bill of right to a hearing by the combined prosecuting attorney, Rights mark one of the highest points in the capitalist judge and jury that arbitrarily decreed them to be "sub­ revolution. versive." This tradition became deeply imbedd~d in the United The next step in this process of converting the United States. The workers anct farmers of America not only still States into a military police state is the persecution of in­ bdieve i,n these principles but they try to practice them dividuals courageous enough to hold opinions disagreeable ~nd defend them hom attack. Th~t is why every capitalist to Big Business and its political flunkeys. Truman's "loyal­ politician who see\\s, office today finds lthns~lf compelled ty" purge was the opening gun in the shameful witch-hunt tc tip his hat in th~ir d.ir'ection. that has since been waged. The progressive role of capitalisn1 has long pass~d. At first the purge was confined to isolated individuals Upon conq\lering pOWeF 2nd clt;!aring away the feudal rub­ iiI government service who were "guilty" at one tinw or bish, the capitaiist class btnied its' revolutionary past, another of the '!crime" of having read the Marxist liter­ tilrned conse·fvative and then ar~lt-react.Qnary. The con­ ature that is available in any reasonably well-equipped tinued existence of democratic rights and civil liberties library in the country, or of the "crime" of holding mem­ appears to the monopolists as a threat tQ their rule, for bership in an organization blacklisted by Attorney General the practice of these p.rinciples opens the poUtical arena Clark or of the "crime" of "associating" with individuals to the working class as an independen"t force, thereby belonging to those organizations. facilitating the rise of socialism, the coming new 'economic The objective of this purge is to terrorize militants and order destined to replace capitalism. to lay the basis for more far-reaching measures. It is not Consequently the world capitalist class tends to become a long step from making the reading of certain books a more and more authoritarian and dictatorial in its pol­ "crime" to the burnin~, of those books. And it is an even itics. The extreme expression of thif. tendency is fascism. shorter step from the purging of government employee~ to In countries such as the United States where vestiges of the pu·rging of employees on any job in industry. democracy still exist, the growth of authoritarianism is ex­ How far America has already traveled down this omin­ p~'essed, among other things, in the shift of power away ous road can be seen from the following two recent inci­ from the deliberative bodies such as Congress to the ex­ dents, both of them of unusually dramatic character: ecutive branch. During the Roosevelt administration, gov­ The first occurred at the South Philadelphia Works of er'nment by Executive Order increased alarmingly. The en­ the Westinghouse CorpOlation in Lester, Pennsylvania trenchment and expansion of the military clique in Amer­ \vhere Navy orders have been placed. On July 1 an engineer, ica added a new and' powerful force bolstering this sinister F;rank Carner, was informed that he was a "poor security trend in American politics. ri~k" and at once escorted out of the pla!?t. The cOlT\pany The ultimate victim of authoritarianism is the organ­ placed him on a forced leave of absence without pay. On ized labor movement. Up to now this has been seen most July 12; a sheet-metal worker in the same plant, Herb "dearly in I t~ly, Germany and J1pan where the trade Lewin, was treated in similar Hitler-like fashion. Neither unions were crushed by the authoritarian state. The same worker was presented with accusations, charges or evidence pattern is now taking shape in America. by either the Westinghouse company or Navy Department :With the close of the war for "democracy" and "four cfficials. freedoms," Big Busines,3 opened up war on the domestic Both men were well kFlown militants of Local 107 of front against the labor movemen,t~ The first great victory the United Electrical, Radio' and Machine Workers of the monopolists chalked up was passage of the Taft-Hartley America, CIO. Both men had worked during the war in Slave-Labor Law. This law is now being adjusted around plants handling government orders. No complaints had labor's neck like a hangman's noose. Its full effects are yet ever been lodged against them. te: be felt, sin.ce the strategists of Big Business prefer to ap­ Local 107 reacted to these fir'ings in exemplary fashion. ply it step by st~p in order to undermine and disarm the I ( the company could get away with firing these tW0 men, opposition. then no one was safe. At 2 P.M. on the day Lewin was oust­ H~ving achiev~d this success, the next move was pub­ ed, the first shift held a meeting within the plant gates. lication of the so-~alled "~ubversive" list of organizations After hearing complete &!tails, the shift voted to stay out who do not ~gree that the Democrats and Republicans on grounds of the obvious violation of contract by the provide tqe best type, of goverm:nent for America. This company. The second shift and third shift concurred in blacklist i~ ~ diabolk~l weapon ip the hands of labor-hat­ th is action, ing PQlit~cians. It ~nables them to proscribe and persecute Local 107 mobilized to inform the entire labor move­ any ,organization which they c~nsider even. potentially ment of this outrageous violation of civil liberties and I Page 166 I· () l' H T f ( (\J T ERN A T I 0 ~ A L A .u gus t 1 9 4 8

democrat ic rights. Tciegrams were sent to the heads of the bureaucracy. The Communist parties throughout the world, CIO and other union officials. News releases were issued he warned, would become m~re border patrols of the to the papers. Paid spot announcements were placed on USSR and national agencies of an ever more corrupted the radio. clique, interested exclusively in its own survival even if it The company took fright at this rousing demonstra­ meant the destruction of the international revolutionary tion of solidarity. On July 14. it reversed its position. re­ movemen t. instating the two men but transferring them to a ",ion­ Trotsky's early predictions have long ago become the classified" section in agreement with the local union. Local unfortunate reality. Although this fact was first noticeable 107 had won a heartening victory. only to the advanced layers of the working c1as~, it is no\\' This incident demonstrates that a militant defense by fhe COl11mOil property of workers everywhere and is even labor can push back the anti-labor drive. But the assump­ tnfiltrating into the ranks of the Stalinist faithful who have tion of the company that it could get away with such firings for so many years closed their minds to the truth. And reveals only too clearly what eventual victims Big Business' how could it be otherwise? The twists and turns of the had in mind when it inspired the "subversive" blacklist. Stalinist bureaucracy and their unconditional and un­ the "loyalty" purge and the Wash~ngton witch-hunt. critical acceptance by the GPU-controlled national sections The other incident is the case of James Kutcher, of have become so frequent and so contradictory that they Newark, New Jersey. This Purpl~ I-(eart veteran of \Vorld are at one and the same time the subjects of ridicule in the \Var II lost both legs at San Pietro. Italy. after serving, in camp of the imperialists and the working class alike. Many still remember the "Third Period" when every­ the African and Sicilian campaigns~ At the end of the war he took a job as a clerk with the Vtteran:, Administ!ration one but a Stalinist was designated as a "social-fascist," to help support his aged and sick parents. thereby easing the path for Hitler's rise to power. We saw later hO\v almost everyone was wooed to join the popular On August 13, this disabled veteran was served official front against fascism, even those who helped finance notice of "proposed ren~oval from employment" within Hitler. We remember the days of the Stalin-Hitler pact 30 days. The "charges" were membership in the Socialist when all were invited to struggle against world imperial­ 'Yorkers Party, making financial pl~dges to The Militant ism, with the "democratic" imperialists singled out as the and associating with '·persons. associations, movements, and hated enemy. And then came the attack by Hitler against groups designated by the Attornev General as subversive in nature." . . j he Soviet Union. Fascism in the form of German imperial­ ism was now portrayed as the only foe, and the hated Kutcher did not deny these "crimes." On the contrary, "democratic" imperialists of yesterday became Stalin's he proudly affirmed th~m and announced his intention to staunchest "democratic" friends. And today these same challenge th-is brutal inva,'Iion of his right to hold political "democrats" have once again become imperialists against views different from those of the Vi ashington bureaucrats. whom all and sundry must join forces .. This sensational case reveals in the most dramatic way All these changes were accomplished without regard possible how far the government of. Big Business will go for the interests of the working class either in the Soviet in its drive against civil liberties and democratic rights. lJ nion or throughout th~ world. The acceptance of the 'Vhat is needed today is a firm stand by the trade t.heory of "socialism in one country" led not only to the unions and all organizations and individuals interested abandonment of world revolution by the Kremlin but to in safeguarding these hard-won rights. I f a vigorous defense its deathly fear of it. is put up for Kutcher suchtas Local 107 put LIp for Lewin The Stalinist bureaucracy continued in power by making a.nd Carner, the anti-labor drive ·can be dealt a heavy blow. deals with one or another imperialist power. However, witb The issue at stake is an important one. I t begins with de­ Wall Street's unchallenged dominance reSUlting from the fense of the right of every working person to think and Second World War, Stalin finds it harder and harder to speak in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience. get livable terms from Washington. His role in the "cold I~ involves the fate of all minority groups in America and' war" can be understood as an attempt to secure a bridge to their right to equality. And ultimately it affects the very a new deal with American imperialism. All the revolu­ existence of organized labor in the United States. tionary-sounding verbiage emanating from the Kremlin j" sheer camouflage. The American State Department is Stalinism and the Struggle of course fully cognizant of Stalin's fear of revolution and for Civil Liberties his desperate desire to come to terms with Washington. I rrespective of temporary rapprochements, the funda­ \Vhen Stalin first promulgated his theory of "socialism mental contradictions between capitalism and the nation­ in one country" in the autumn of 1924, Trotsky not only alized property forms which emerged from the Russian condemned the theory as a betrayal of revolutionary social­ Revolution remain. Thence flows the extreme difficulty of ism, which is above all else international in character, but harnessing the Kremlin and its foreign agencies to the even at that early stage predicted the course of degenera­ :'ole of a reliable agency of American imperialism. The tion to which Stalin's theory would lead. Among Trotsky's zittitude of Washington toward the American Communist predictions was the inevitable transformation of the Com­ Party faithfully reflects the existing relationship at any munist I nternational from the militant instrument of the given time between the State Department and Stalin. When world proletariat into the pliant tool of the Kremlin there was a rift as in the days of the Stalin-Hitler pact. August 1948 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 167

\\' ashington showed its displeasure by persecuting CP the Trotskyists in a united front struggle. As Trotskyists leaders. Thus Browder was put into jail on the flimsy we again make a similar call, this time to the entire charge of a passport violation. When agreement with the American labor movement, to unite in beating back the Kremlin was again obtained after Hitler's invasion of the traudulent charges against the leaders of the Communist Soviet Union, Browder received a presidential pardon and Party, much as we despise its politics let alone its many the monstrous Moscow Trials were tacitly whitewashed betrayals. by the State Department. Now that we are in the midst We shall be as unremitting in our efforts to rally the of a "cold war," Washington once more persecutes the labor movement against the indictments of the Stalinist Stalinist leaders. Only in this light can the current indict­ leaders as we were in obtaining the support of over 5,000,- .ments of the 12 leaders of the Communist Party be fully 000 workers for the Minneapolis victims of the Smith understood. Gag Act. This will not be an easy task because of the These indictments come under the notorious Smith legitimate hatred of the workers for Stalinism. The (,ag Act. It was under this very law that 18 leaders of miseducation that the Stalinists have· carried on as, for 1he Socialist \Vorkers Party and the Minneapolis Truck­ example, in the Minneapolis trials will not redound' to drivers Union were indicted in 1941 and later convicted. their advantage. But it is precisely because Trotskyists The teachings of lVlarx and L~nin which are to be found are known as the deadly political enemies of the Stalinists in every library of the country were construed by the within the labor movement that the appeal :of our com;' .J ustice Department as a conspir~cy to ov~rthrow the lades in support of the indicted leaders of the Communist government by force and violence. In this. way 18 genuine Party will' receive a favorable hearing. We ask ~~pport revolutionists were framed and sent to prison. The Stalin­ for them not for any reasons of magnanimity but because ist leaders are likewise being framed, in fact doubly so. we fully realize that the blow against the Stalinists·:is in In the first place the teachings of Marx and Lenin are not effect a' blow aimed against all labor. I f the Smith', Act ~l conspiracy, and in the second place the Communist Party can now be invoked against the CP as it was originally no longer adheres to these teachings. But it serves the used against the Trotskyists, the monopolists and brass mterests. of \Vashington to maintain the fiction that the CP hats will not hesitate to wield this weapon against aU is a revolutionary organization and to prosecute its leaders union militants and those who dare oppose their war plans. accordingly. It was for the'se reasons that the 'Socialist· Workers In its preparation for World War III American im­ Party sent a letter to the' Central Committee of the Com­ perialism must housebreak the labor movement and shackle munist Party' at the time of their national converition, it completely to its war machine. It can do so~ only by offering them a united front to combat the government's silencing the militants and revolutionists. It can do so only irl'dictrrients. But this proposal wasnot even allowed t6 'come hy taking one step at a time. Since the Stalinists, because to the floor of the Stalinist convention. The Stalinists feaF ()f their matiy betrayals of the working class, are· the most any propulsion of the hioor moyementon the correct tourse vulnerable section in the labor m0vement, they ar'e being of struggle. They, are as well aware as we that in a united prosecuted under the. Smith Gag Act allegedly for being front s'truggle the genuine revolutionary party', always militants and revolutionists. In this way Washington also stands to gain the most l?ecause'it 'best reflects the interests seeks to discredit the real .militants and revolutionists. of the workers as a whole. So here' as elsewhere, the fear American capitalism hopes that the working class will fail of the masses moving in a revolutionary direction is the to rally in defense of the Stalinists, all the more so be­ motivat~ng force that guides the' actions of the American c~use the latter did everything in their power to sabotage Communist Party. irrespective of the particular line it the' tight of the Trotskyists against the sinister Smith Act may be peddling at the moment. - in the famous Minneapolis trials. Rut the ~ontradictions of the Communist Party. are \Ve must make ·it clear at the outset that eventually becoming clear to a larger segment of their own followers. the real victim of the current indictments will .be the It. is difficult for. the ranks to fat~'om .the reas,ons for' its American 'labor movement. It is the duty of aI! labort9 failure to join in a united front :with workers. while it rally in a solid united front to defend civil rights-the mo~t joins in a "People's Front" movement with a ~apJtalist elementary, precious possession of the working class. With­ 1ike Wallace. I n the defense of civil rights' the hroadest out these rights the labor movement stands in constant· united front is not only permissible but mand~tory;' On danger of being cut to pieces and reduced to the status the other hand, it is precisely in .the field of politics that of slaves. it is unprincipled to join forces with an agen~ of the Wherever the vital interests' of the working class are enemy class like Wallace. Thus both in their formation at stake, the tactic of the united front has been constantly of a "People's Front" movement in support of Wallace

On the 8th Anniversary of the Assassination of Leon Trotsky

By E. Germain

He who leaves nothing to posteri!y incurs no risk of hridled expansionism," just so \Vorld \Var II (, even before having his legacy contested. Only an important inheritance its outbreak, assumes for them the selfsame guise. attracts forgers of testaments, in detective stories as in I ndicative of how profoundly the "official" labor move­ political life. In the last few months all types of periodicals, ment has degenerated is its utter abandonment of the from the anarchist Libertaire to the cheap yellow sheet criterion of the class struggle not only in evaluating in­ France Dimanche, have publish.ed grossly falsified docu­ ternational policies but even in trying to justify its own ments as the alleged or even authentic testament of Leon extremely tortuous "tactical" line. If we wished to reduct' Trotsky. Here we have clearest evidence of the immense to a common denominator present-day interpretations of political capital represented today by our heritage from policies by 'the Stalinists, by the Social Democrats and by the old revolutionary leader who met death at the assassin'~ the countless shades of centrists from the right or the hand. "left," we might say that they, like the bourgeoisie and After their death, the outstanding leaders of the revolu­ petty bourgeoisie, operate with the formula of the strugg~e tionary movement have been invariably SUbjeC~e to between the major powers as determining and dominating attempts by "official" public opinion to appropdat their the social conflicts. great names in· behalf of the sordid struggle' agai t the Let us note in passing that, significantly enough, it very movement which they had led. Trotsky has not was in the Spanish Civil War that this profound modifica­ escaped this fate, any more than did Marx and Lenin tion in the "otficial" labor movement's method of thinking before him. Both wings among the intellectuals - the first became obvious. The Stalinists and the Social Demo­ Stalinist wing and the "democratic" wing-are vying with crats did not view it as a civil war at all. For them, it was each other ov.er the mantle of Trotsky, which they seek to rather "a defensive war by the Spanish people against the use as a cover in their struggles against the international fascist aggressors." For their part, the ultra-lefts regarded Trotskyist movement. This trick only underscores the this war as a "general rehearsal for the imperialist war, growing authority which the work of the revolutionary with the two contending sides representing the two .future leader now commands, dominating completely the thought camps in the. world war." Our movement, on the contrary. of our epoch, and signalizing the potential danger which cmalyzed these events as expressing the civil war between the living revolutionary movement represents, despite its the Spanish proletariat and bourgeoisie; and we assigned, apparent material weaknesses, for the ruling classes and quite correctly, 'only a secondary importance to the factor all their agents. And as Marxism, despite all the falsifica­ of "foreign intervention." For the sake of objectivity, leI tions, cont,inued to develop after 1914 within the interna­ us add that the. best-qualified representatives of the world tionalist Social Democracy; and as Leninism continued to bourgeoisie came to the same conclusion. . live after 1923 in ·the Left Opposition, so, too, does the The forward march of the "progressive" forces is true heritage of Trotsky today supply the programmatic measured by the Stalinists in the main by territorial. foundations of the Fourth International. ~trategic and economic expansion of the Soviet Union and its "buffer zone." The Social Democrats apply wholesale International Policies and the Class Struggle the converse theorem: The forward march of "democracy" To explai11 social reality and its evolution in history. is measured for them by the setbacks of "Stalinist totali­ scientific socialism take~ the class struggle as its point of tarianism." It must be conceded that the Stalinists, in their departure. Trotsky left us masterpieces of political analysis ideas,. apply their theorem with greater consistency; and. precisely because he knew how to lay bare the mechanics moreover, unlike the Social Democrats, they do not chronic­ of the class struggle, which determines, in the final analysis, ally suffer from a case of bad conscience. But, in practice. all the stormy events of our epoch. Petty-bourgeois his­ the difference is trifling. These two main political forces torians and journalists have long ago assimilated Marxist in the labor movement today picture the social struggles "tethniques" which they employ, as they so ingeniously throughout the world as if they were dependent upon each say, to illuminate "this or that aspect of social reality." advance or retreat by either the ·"American" or the But whenever it comes to rigorously applying this same "Russian" camp. The different shades of centrists apply method to present-day reality as a whole, their thought identical criteria; and while .some of them refrain from. invariably collides with their own class chat:acter. Just as taking their positions on thei basis of such a criterion, it is Wqrld War I and World War II appeared to them to be a usually, as in the case of the Shachtmanites, because they struggle between "good and evil," or what amounts to the consider the camp of imperialist democracy "ineffectual" same thing, a struggle of "peace-loving, liberty-loving against the Stalinist menace. peoples" against "militarism (totalitarianism) and its un- Following Trotsky's method, the Fourth International August 1948 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 169 approaches the analysis of international policies .in a of the Fourth International. Generally speaking, this fundamentally different way. For the Fourth InternatIopal, criticism harmonizes with the obstinate refusal of its it is the social contradictions which determine, in the last proponents to approach reality as a whole, to say nothing analysis, the· international antagonisms and not the other of their systematic distortion of the thesis they attack. way around. The great powers themselves-whom "official" Let us begin by taking the second' part of this thesis. public opinion and its huge suite of lackeys in the labor The Stalinophiles (Bataille Socialiste in France, Nenni in movement treat as independent entities-far from conduct­ Italy and .others), on ·the one side, and the Stalinoph~bes ing a policy motivated by a "thirst for power," disc,Iose (centrists of the Marceau Pivert type, Shachtmamtes, themselves instead as being impelled by contradictIOns ultra-lefts of various brands, anarchists, and so on), on inherent in their social system. Imperialist expansion of the other side, vie with one another to demonstrate in the the United States and Stalinist expansion of the Soviet light of postwar events how revolutionary has been the Union alike are for the Fourth International indices of the action of the Stalinist leadership in relation to the bourge­ wcial crisis convulsing these systems. In most countries oisie. The former regard it as progressive; the latter thrOlwhout the world the social contradictions, having been b •• • characterize this revolution as barbarous and reactioncrry ~\ggravated to an unprecedented extent, are preclpltatmg (there is nothing self-contradictory for them about the one political crisis after another; and upon these are grafted idea of a "reactionary revolution"). An analysis of events, international antagonisms, without ever depriving the which is in the least serious, will permit us to assay this social contradictions of their: predominant character. criticism for what it is worth. Two fundamentally· different methods of analysis lead Never in its history did capitalism find ·itself so close to diametrically opposite conclusions. It is by these end­ to complete collapse on three-quarters of our planet as w~s l'tsults that the two methods are now being tested. Proceed­ the case during the critical months of 1944-45. Never dId ing from formal, superficial and formalistic criteria, the any gblitical movement, including fascism, contribute so noisy pack of petty-bourgeois journalists accepted the much objectively in averting this collapse as did Stalinism Finnish war in 1940 as proof of the strengthening of the during those days. One need only observe the unexampled (-(itler-Stalin alliance. In their eyes, the "International degree of decay so characteristic of most capitalist coun.. United Front of Aggressors" was being consolidated on the tries to this very day, three years later, in order to under.. blood-soaked fields of snow. On the basis of Trotsky's stand how consciously Roosevelt had acted as the leader correct analysis of this. event, it was not at all hard to of his class when he reached at Teheran and Yalta an conclude just the opposite, namely, that the invasion of agreement with Stalin which permitted a "cold" liquida­ Finland was Stalin's defensive reflex to his fears of Hitlerite tion of the world war. \Vhat is there so astonishing about ~.ttack. Ensuing events left no doubt whatever concerning 'h' f;l'.:t that the Stalinist bureaucracy demanded and the validity of thi~ particular conclusion. !"l'ccin'd "compensation" for this colossal service it rendered \Ve have just pas ed through a similar experience. The to imperialism? We· never pictured the Soviet bureaucracy, "Praaue coup" was ta en by the professional Stalinophobe· ·:n ,. more than the reformist bureaucracy, as altruistic or as "d~finitive~' proof f the stabilization of Stalinism. of its j(l~alistically motivated servants of' imperialism. So far as drive for worl ination, of the approach of war, and so t he reformist bureaucracy was concerned, its "compensa­ forth. We never for a moment ceased to oppose to this tion" took the shape of privileges inside .the bourgeois state impressionistic prognosis. a perspective based on an ~·pparatus. There is nothing at all extraordinary in the fact analysis of the living social forces: The attempts of the that this same "compensation" in the case of the Stalinist Stalinist bureaucracy to "stabilize" its buffer zone were bureaucracy, owing to its social character, took the shape cnly a stage on the road to reaching a compromise with of territorial expansion of its "sphere of influence." Nor is Wall Street; this compromise was impe~ative for Stalin it at all an unforeseen development that imperialism should because of his own internal weakness and because of the desire, at the next stage, to regain positions it had previously contradictions teating apart the Stalinist bureaucracy. Once surrendered in order to save "what is essential." Finally, again, one can no longer question ,which method has proved the case of Tito abruptly laid bare the extremely tenuous correct on the basis of results. character of these famous "conquests." One may twist and The Instinctive Revolutionary Upsurge turn the issue as one pleases,· but on a world scale the counter-revolutionary character of Stalinism is more ap.. 01 the Proletariat parent than was the counter-revolutionary ~haracter of Trotsky transmitted to us the Marxist method, 4Pply­ the German Social Democracy after 1918. ing it with the hand of a master to the problems of our When' it comes to the first part of Trotsky's thesis, we times. But he did more. He also left us the basic conclusion similarly encounter a symmetrical criticism by Stalinist of this analysis: the fundamental characteristic of our agents and by the more hysterical Stalinophobes. The epoch, Ibdged in the contradiction between the instinctive former, to justify Stalin's policy, lecture us that "the prole­ revolutionary upsurge of the proletariat and the profoundly tariat has been caught up in the decay of capital.ism"; that iJnd openly counter-revolutionary character of itstradi­ because of modifications in its sodal composition, the tional leadership. proletariat cannot triumph without the support of the Since the war's end, countless critics, reflecting all the middle class as a whole; and that it therefore follows colors of the political rainbow, have subjected to violent (how? why? where?) that the Leninist strategy' is no criticism Trotsky's central thesis and tpat of the program longer applicable and it is necessary instead to apply the Page 170 I;OllRTH INTERNATIONAL August 1948 ta.ctic oJ the "new democracy," et,c. (See, for example, movements in France and I taly, with the arming of the GlUe,s Martinet's article "From Trotsky to Burnham," workers and occupation of the factories; or, again, in the kevue Internaticmale, No. '17, 1947. Paris.) powerful movements in the Far East: the insurrection in As for the Stalinophobes, in order to explain the mass the fleet in I ndia, the committees in I ndo-China, Indonesia, ~ilpport which the Stalinist movement continues to .enjoy Korea and elsewhere, in each case accompanied by the In most countries, they declare that the "decline of work­ ~rming of the masses. He is, indeed, a sorry revolutionist ing-class consciousness" finds its reflection in the "inability \vho fails to grasp this revolutionary upsurge in the magni­ of the workers to grasp" the phenomenon of Stalinism. ficent action recently undertaken by the Italian workers in Both sides concur that the Trotskyist thesis has order to defend--oh. horror of horrors !-,--·a Stalinist chief­ aIlegedly been invalidated by events "inasmuch as there tain, in whose behalf, according to the counsels of our has been no repetition of October 1917 on a grand scale." "cleverest" critics, it is not worthwhile even to lift a little finger. 'And how did the Italian workers do it? By occupy­ In point of fact, Trotsky never predicted proletarian ing the factories, by seizing capitalists as hostages, electing victories as a consequence ,of the war. Still less did he genuine soviets, seizing railway stations and postal build .. predict that the proletariat would tear itself free from its ings, and so on. And they did all this of their own accord. traditional leadership at the inception of the postwar revo­ spontaneously,. without any kind of "conductor," lutionary wave. On the contrary, Trotsky repeatedl," The whole period which was ushered in with the stressed, especially in his final articles, that ~the initial termination of \\'orId \Var I I is characterized by this revo­ revolutionary wave ~ould still unquestionably QCCUI" under lutionary upsurge of the proletariat. I t is this the leadership of the Stalinists. \Ve find this forecast p~ecisely that 'enables us to envisage objectively the possibility of c1eatly formulated in the very last article he wrote. but building the revolutionary party which will provide the never finished. This manuscript, a transcription of whir workers with a new leadership. This is the conclusion which was made by the Russian secretary from records dictated ~lctuaBy sums up the foregoing thesis of Trotsky. by Trotsky, was published in the October 1940 issue of F.ourth International. Here is the corresponding passage: The Famous 'Dilemma' of Tpotsky May. not the Stalinists turn out at the head of a new Here we come to the point where all our opponents and revolutionary upsurge· and may they not ruin the revolution critics, regardless of coloration, assemble in serried ranks as they did in Spain and previously in China? It is of for an assault upon the celebrated quotation hom Trotsk\', course impermi.ssible to consider such a possibility as ex­ cluded, for example, in France. The first wave of the revo­ which the forgers of the GPU have also seized upon. ill lution has often, or more correctly, always carried to the September 1939, Trotsky wrote: top those "left" parties which have not managed to dis­ credit themselves completely in the preceding period and If this war provokes, as we firmly believe, a proletarian which have an imposing political tradition behind them ... revolution, it must inevitably lead to the overthrow of the (Fourth International, October 1940, p. 130.) bureaucracy in the USSR and regeneration of Soviet democ­ racy on a far higher economic and cultural basis than in Far from refuting Trotsky's '!schema," events since 1918. In that case the question as to whether the Stalinist bureaucracy was a "class" .or a growth on the workers' 1943 have brought a confirmation of the objectively revo­ state will be automatically solved. To every single person lutionary upsurge of the workers, despite the Stalinist it will become clear that in the process of the development leaders who doomed this first wave of revolutionary at­ of the world revolution the Soviet bureaucracy was only an tempts to defeat. The argument that since the workers episodic relapse. have followed the Stalinist leadership, it therefore follows , If, however, it is conceded that the present war will provoke not revolution but a decline of the proletariat, then that their upsurge was not revolutionary is nothing but a there remains another alternative: the further decay of piece of sophistry. It is self-evident that the instinctive monopoly capitalism, its further fusion with the state and revolutionary upsurge of the proletariat is logically the the replacement of democracy wherever it still remained by direct op'posite of a state of class prostration and is no way a totalitarian regime. The inability of the proletariat to identical with a conse:ious revolutionary upsurge. take into its hands the leadership of society could actually lead under these conditions to the growth of a new ex­ We have placed the main weight of our ~.rguments ploiting class from the Bonapartist fascist bureaucracy. precisely on the prediction that even though the workers This would he, according to all indications, a regime of de­ cline, signalizing the eclipse of civilization. (In Defense of would continue to follow their traditional leadership, they Marxism, pp. 8-9.) woulcf, nevertheless, engage in objectively revolutionary actions-in attempts to take the factories and ,the state To fully grasp the meaning of the above passage 1 let power into their own hands. He is a sorry revolutionist LIS here adduce Trotsky's own clarification which he made who permits himself to be led astray by a given form in the very' next article he wrote at the time, entifled. which the action of the masses may assume and who on "Again ahd Once More Again on the Nature of the USSR" this account fails to recognize the instinctively revolu­ (October 1939):' . tionary upsurge of the masses, as for instance in the strug­ '. '. I endeavored to demonstrate in my article, "The USSR gles of the Yugoslav and Greek partisans, with their com­ in the War," that the perspecti.ve of a non-worker and pon­ mittees, their equalitarian system of distribution, their bourgeois society 'of exploitation, or "bureaucratic collec­ fierce struggle agairi&t the native bourgeoisie. Or, to cite tivism," is the perspective of complete defeat and the de­ cline of the international proletariat, the perspective of the other instances, the Warsaw Commune, with its decisions most profound historical pessimism. (In Defense of Marx­ on' workers' militias and workers' control; in the mass ism, p. 31.) August 1948 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 171

To put it plainly, Trotsky makes it clear beyond the collectivism"), concludes the author. Because, you see, in­ shadow of a doubt that the alternative he had posed in his volved here is a struggle for political democracy, and since tirst article was neither a long-term nor a short-term the means of production are concentrafed in the hands of prognosis, but a historical analysis which may be restated the state, the conquest of the state by the masses would in the following way: EITHER the proletariat would signify the socialist revolution. We can scarcely believe that prove its instinctive revolutionary upsurge and then there the originator of this new theory still continues to consider would open up an era of revolutionary struggles in which himself a Marxist. Draper's reproach-like Martinet's-is ii would be possible to forge new revolutionary leaderships; ~l.imed at Trotsky but hits in reality at Marx and the Com­ OR the proletariat would remain passive, permit itself to munist Ivl anifesto. be reduced to slavery, and then it would be necessary tt The whole of Nlarxist theory rests on the fact that review the entire Marxist analysis of capitalism. ,capitalism prepares both the objective and the SUbjective For us, there can be no doubt that this analysis has conditions for socialism. The decay of capitalism into a been completely corroborated and proved valid in the barbarous society of a new type is unthinkable otherwise light of events. Gilles Martinet, theoretician of capitulation than as involving the destruction of all these premises 01'­ to Stalinism, thinks otherwise. For him, a mere admission Marxism. Such a regime will be that of the decay of of the "theoretical possibility" of bureaucratic collectivism civilization, of the stagnation and decomposition of the constitutes by itself a revision of Marxism, convertinl productive forces, of the reduction of the masses to the Trotsky into a thinker spiritually akin to Burnham. status of totalitarian slaves, and their being, beyond a iVlartinet is little concerned that his line of argument hits doubt. progressively ejected from the process of produc­ not at Trotsky so much as at Marx himself, who was the tion. I t is self-evident that if one starts from the hypothesis first to pose the dilemma "socialism or barbarism." The that the proletariat will prove itself incapable of taking gist of Trotsky's foregoing passage is nothing but a restate­ ~l,dvantage of capitalist decay in order to inaugurate social­ ment, rendered more precise, of this old dilemma of Karl ism. when conditions for the solution of this ta~k are the !Vlarx. most favorable. then the inescapable conclusion is that it I nasmuch as capitalism finds itself in a condition of is utterly utopian to count upon any eventual capacities of lomplete decay, and inasmuch as socialism cannot be in­ totalitarian slaves for the building of a classless society. stalled except through revolutionary action 'by the prole­ These reasonings of a Martinet or a Draper may seem tariat, Trotsky, therefore, poses entirely correctly the of little interest to our readers. However, they not only following variant: If the proletariat should remain passive mvolve an evaluation of the greatest importance concern­ ror an entire historic era, then barbarism would triumph II1g the future prospects of mankind, but also have a direct And then he immediately adds: We shall 'have no lack bearing on the day-to-day activities of revolutionists. of opportunities to verify this apparent "dilemma"; we ObvioLlsly, Martinet and Draper alike count on the ~hall see whether the proletariat will remain passive after possibility (not to say, probability) that capitalism will t he war's end, and so on. vanish without receiving its coup de grace at the hands of For every conscientious person it is clear that Trotsky" the proletarian revolution. Where Martinet affixes a plus own perspective is based on a complete confidence in the sign in front of the new regime, Draper puts a minus. revolutionary fighting capacities of the proletariat. Trot­ The one like the other strives by means of incredible ~ky's confidence has been entirely justified, in the face of jugglery to demonstrate that a regime issuing from such all the available evidence. Martinet, on the contrary. has ~" "bureaucratic revolution" would not close the doors to lost confidence in these ,capacities of the working class .. 1·1 socialism. Both of them are equally compelled to revise tries to demonstrate that the bureaucracy is a necessary the fundamental bases of scientific socialism. And to crown stage on the road to-socialism! After having in this way this truly remarkable symmetry, both Martinet and Draper Justified politically the role of the bureaucracy, Martinet conclude their "criticism" with attempts to pour ridicule uses it to accuse Trotsky, after the casuistic manner of en what they call our "faith" in the proletariat Their own Jesuits who discover a "justification" for religion in such perspective is comprised in the perfectly vain hope that scientific dilemmas as the following: (( Either we shall the bureaucracy will. one sunny day, abandon its privi­ ultimately succeed in creating living matter in the labora­ leges. "when society shall bec,ome mature for unified social­ tory or we scientists shall have to admit that supernatural I~m," or that the "marvelous socialist dream" shall not forces intervene in the creation of such matter." have vanished from a society of slaves. To this sort of Faithfully symmetrical to the criticism of the Stalin­ lucubrations, so utterly utopian. we are indeed able to ophiles, there comes anew the criticism of the Stalinophobes. counterpose, with increased confidence, our own criteria, For them, the above-cited quotation from Trotsky "limits" grounded on the thousand-times-verified theses of scientific the revolutionary possibiliti~s of the proletariat to the socialism! framework of capitalism. This is explained to us by Hal Draper in the December 1947 issue of New International. The Social Natute oj Stalinism According to this writer, the tendency toward socialism Till now we have run up, time after time, aaainst the existed in a utopian form prior to the advent of capitalism. problem of Stalinism. \Vhat is there surprising about it? Under capitalism, this tendency acquired its scientific form. If all our critics-from the forgers of the G PU to the There is every reason to assume that it will retain this Impeccable moralists of Libertaire--trace all our sjns down same form under a new exploitive society ("bureaucratic to our original sin-"our position on the Russian question" r Page_i72 F () II R T II IN T ERN AT 10 N A L Aug,u,sf J94(~

--then. both iogic and experience justify us even more in ism is for the moment the "official" ideology. It is not by turning against them the converse proposition, namely: accident that in these latter countries the "struggle agairtst It is because they have long ceased to base their concrete Trotskyism," even though it does not exist there as an day-to-day policies on the unimpaired revolutionary organized force, has been placed. permanently on the order capacity of the world proletariat, that they are able to of the day in all the Stalinist cadre schools! ~lbandon themselves,' to their heart's content. to such The history of the young A,lbanian Communist Party, gratuito'us acrobatics as their variolls "theorie~" on the which we shall soon publish, will provide another proof Russian question. or this. I t shows hc)\\:, twenty years after Stalin's victory, ill , F9r a program to be consistent. each of its component a country completely bereft of Marxist traditions, under parts must lead toward the fundamental criterion. The conditions of military control by the Stalinist machine, an application of the class criterion to international politics entire generation of young Communist leaders has been does not permit of denials that in most European and l,rought-by their class instinct and by their edllcation in As~atic countries the revolutionary aspirations of the Marxism, distorted though it was, received in the Stalihist 'l.i'orkers have been expressed in their adherence to the schools-to a complete break with the policies and otgan­ Stalinist "movement. The attitude of the revolutionary izational methods of Stalinism. HWhen they Used to accuse vanguard must, therefore, mirror the contradictory fact us of Trotskyism," we' were told by their leader Who has t hat the two basic tendencies of our era-on the one side, just joined the ranks of the Fourth International, "we did the instinctive revolutionary upsurge of the proletariat: not even know what Trotskyism was, and we used to and on the other, the openly counter-revolutionary policy rrotest violently. Today I U11derstand that at that tihle \ve of its leadership-are being, so to speak, concentrated actually were -rrotskyi~ts, without being awate of it. .. ," inside these parties for an entire epoch. This phenomenon How can words like these possibly fail to fill us wit h loses its strange and paradoxical appearance once we regard confidence in the' destiny of our movement! Yes, Stalinism Stalinism as an expression of existing Russian reality" must inescapa-bly continue to distil "Trotskyist deviations," Which combines in itself the products of the most audacious ~o long as it fails to break organically with the miiitant revolution in history with the fruits of the most abject workers, and with working-class traditions, and with the counter-revolution. The contradiction which our critics scientific terminology and basic writings of Marxism. st rive to expose in our characterization of Stalinism and in • . ~hile our S~COhd World .~ongress was in session, our our revolutionary perspectives happens to be a material .. critiCS stopped the clock of history and declared that the contradiction which exists objectively. It lives in the events "forecasts of Trotsky concerning the instability of the of our day. Attempts to make it' disappear by denying it Stalinist bureaucntcy have been proved faise." Three vlith words will prove of no avail. months later, the Tito case brings \vith it a striking verifica­ On the other hand, if one views Stalinism as a social tion of Trotsky's profound analysis of the centrifugal force alien ·to the proletariat-representing either an old -forces within the Stalinist bureaucracy. The ponderous or 'an allegedly new ruling class-then one cannot avoid totalitarian lid still hides from the world the powerful the conclusion that the "lack of comprehension" by the process of discontent with Stalinism among the young world working class in the face of this enemy social force Russian Communist vanguard. the amateurs of fixed vlOuld constitute a grave sign of the extent to which the calendar dates would do well to understand the meaning proletariat has degenerated; That is why the position of of the lesson which events have just taught them. Sooner our enemies and critics is likewise not lacking in logic. It or later the hour will strike when the truth will likewise IS the logic of pessimism and prostration. It is impossible break through to the surface because of the growing to combine a social unalysi.s of Stalinism with an under­ political ferment within the ranks of the ltussian working­ standing of the instinctive revolutionary upsurge of the class vanguard. On that hour,. thousands of young R.ussian ~)roletariat, without taking as one's starting point the Communists will turn out to be "1'rotskyists who were not hypothesis that the Soviet bureaucracy has not yet severed aware of it." , . the umbilical cord which ties it to the working class. How­ ever repelling this hypothesis may appear in view of the The Building of the Ret;olufionaty Ptitty monstrous crimes of Stalinism, it neverthele~ remains the The ideological heritage Trotsky bequeathed us thus only one ~ consistent both with the general premises of stands forth as completely consistent. It weaves together Marxist theory and with the sociological, political and indivisibly: a lucid comprehension of the tetldencies of ideological conditions pertaining to' the phenomenon of decay in modern society; the objective definition of those Stalinism. Herein we obtain, on the ideological plane as revolutionary forces which alone are capable of checking well, the greatest clarity concerning the fundamental con­ humanity's plunge into barbarism and assuring the ascent ,tradiction inherent in Stalinism. 10 socialism; the scientific study of subjective conditions So long as Stalinism continues to base itself ort a indispensable for the revolutionary victory, among which falsification of Leninism, no material power in the world is the exact knowledge of the nature of the treacherous can prevent thousands of Communist militants among the leadership of the proletariat. youth from learning the true nature of Leninism and break­ But for Trotsky thIS monumental unified system of ing with Stali~. This experience is being repeated literally ideas was never anythIng else but a means of expediting l'very day in 'countries where Com'munist parties enjoy revolutionary action! of equIpping th,is action.with ~rystal­ ~ large maSs following, as well as in countries where Stalin- clear objectives which are historically justified. Nothing August 1948 r () U R T H I N T ERN A T ION A 1_ PaRe 17J is more alien to Trotsky and Trotskyism than fatalism, I n its turn, the resurgence of the revolutionary move­ political abstentionism or pas~ivity. In the case of the ment after 1914 assumes today, in the light of history, a gross forgery of the GPU, as in the case of the subtler form' quite different from that which its ·contemporaries "interpretation" of Trotsky's ideas by a Martinet or by believed they saw. Actu~Iiy, the masses that flowed into the Shachtmanites, the spirit which they seek to impute the various sections of the Third International were in­ LO him reveals itself as false, in the first instance, because stinctively revolutionary masses whose degree of com·' :t mirrors the profound demoralization of the authors 'munist cortsdou~ness differed only quantitatively from themselves. It, is in complete contradiction with the un­ those of today. Th,e leadership of these parties was, by and shakable rev,olutionary vigor Trotsky personified to his l~rge, a centrist leadership, among whom the number of very last breath. genuinely Bolshevik elements was unquestionably smaller At this point there reappears our old acquaintance, the than the present number of militants in the Fourth In­ individual with a stop-watch, mysteriously synchronized ternational. Consequently, the fusion which was momen­ with the movement of history, iI''! order to demonstrate, tarily brought about by the Russian Revolution between arguments in hand, that we have foundered in this task the international revolutionary vanguard and the broad of~onstruction. He had been expecting spectacular results, masses was only an apparent fusion on the whole. The whIch Trotsky and all of us had promised him in a too years that followed proved this beyond any doubt. 1twas brief space of time. And now he is disappointed. Alongside necessary to begin evetything anew; the program had to him there appears a whole swarm of newly-hatched gadflies, be defined anew; new cadres had to be educated; it was each of whom seeks to buzz in our ears his own pet panacea necessary to penetrate aneW into the masses. And all this ior 50lvil'lg this crucial problem. Fifteen years ago, there had to be done during a period of deepest reaction. Is it were the gentlemen of the "Sex-Pol," who are completely astonishing that this task required more time for its forgotten today. Now there are our friends of the ASH. solution than was reckoned upor} twenty years ago? (the Sodalist Revolutionary Action group in France) who In 1940' at the outbreak of war, our movement was explain to us that it is necessary to put aside. our "unified" reduced in all countries, with one or two exceptions, to program and to dissolve ourselves in a much larger (and tiny isolated groups of intellectuals, in emigration or under still non-existent) centrist movement. There is Martinet illegality, Or in the best case, in conditions ot'semi"7activity. who lectures us on the niceties of "People's Frt)I1e' policy Today we can take stock of the progress achieved since ~s the way out; there are the Shachtmanites who call Upon fhat time. W~ cannot list a spectacular gain in numbers. us to rally together, by means of a tactic of universal But our movement has become solidified in China and in entryisrrt, "aU socialist forces which are non-reformist and . many Latin American countries, where it has, after years anti;;.Stalinist"; and then there are the more naive Ones of reaction ahd confusion, shed its old skin for an entirely who .expound wi~l~ considerable si~cerity that We need only ilew one, where shut-in circles and dilettante intellectual modIfy our posItIon on the RussIan question in order to group~ have been liquidated, where our movement has obtain positive results. penetrated into unions and factories and has effectively The whole trouble with all these panaceas is that they commenced to regroup the vanguard of 'l.vorkers on a have been tried many times before without yielding any modest scale wherever this work is possible under the results whatever. The whole trouble with our well-meaning existing conditions. advisers is that they have themselves tried many times to Our movement' has become solidified in France and in build parties along their own models and have each time Italy by the emergence of a young generation of rising failed lamentably. Their disillusionment with our move­ Trotskyist worker-leaders, the first of its kind sihce the ment is nothing but a rationalization of their own frustra­ birth of our movement. This has likewise taken place in tions. India and in the United States where the Trotskyist cadres, after years of participation in the class struggles, have To evaluate correctly what has already been achieved become genuine mass leaders in various sectors. Every­ it is necessary to discard every criterion of time on the where our movement is now taking root in its class, gtowing scale of a human life-span. A different and far bigger scale with its class, and its destiny is being bound ~"() closely is required for judging such historical tasks as the build­ with that of the proletariat that in the end it must lead ing of the revolutionary party. We have become accustom~d the proletariat to its historical destiny. This road is much to speak of the "organic growth" of the Social Democratic longer and less spectacular than the one formerly envisaged, movement toward the close of the Nineteenth Century. As but it is the only road possible. a matter of fact, after the collapse· of the Communist And the true testament lies in this: that throughout 'our League of Marx and Engels, a decade and a half had to epoch convulsed by revolutionary crises, the young cadres eiapse before the building of Lassalle's General Association of the F()urth I nternational must find their way-through of German Workers. The resurgence of the French' work­ multiple and successive combat experiences-to the high ing-class movement as an organized force did not come road of penetrating into and winning over the masses. It ~l bout until two decades after the defeat of the Paris Com­ is this testament which we have started to execute. mune. Al1d yet how trifling were the material obstacles .of this past epoch iii comparison with toose fating us today 1 August 1, 1948. Yugoslav Events and the World Crisis of Stalinism

Statenlent by the Political COlnmittee of the Socialist Workers Party

The open break between the Com­ by the method of territorial expan­ servient to the dictates of the Kremlin inform and the Communist Party of sion, reparations and plunder. bureaucracy. Yugoslavia is the clearest expression The Yugoslav events provide de­ But instead of solving the problems to date of the deep crisis convulsing finitive proof that the Kremlin's ex­ confronting Stalin's regime, this policy Stalinism. The Kremlin regime came pansion, far from resolving the con­ itself gives rise to new contradictions. tr-adictions of Stalinism, actually pro­ out of the war seemingly strengthened On the one hand, the Kremlin find::, jects beyond the Russian frontiers the at home and abroad: in the first in­ itself compelled to eliminate the re­ internal contradictions which convulse stance, by the territorial gains of the sistance of the capitalists in those the regime at home. No sooner are Soviet arinies; the revolutionary wave countries ,vho have the backing of these contradictions of the Stalinist following the war likewise brought Washington. CZt;choslovakia is a good regime projected outwardly than they abol!t an unexampled growth of Stal­ example of this. The Czech capitalists tend to assume their most aggravated inist parties in Western Europe. But were strung enough to present a serious forms. all this served merely to obscure for challenge to the Stalinist machine. a while the unsolvable internal crisis Counter-Revolutionary The Kremlin was unable to cope with of Stalinism. this challenge without a partial mobil­ Kremlin The proponents of the theory that ization .of the masses. Stalinism represents a new class seized The utterly reactionary, counter­ But, on the other hand, the momen t upon this territorial expansion of the revolutionary character of Stalinism the masses are mobilized, even if par­ Kremlin as "proof positive" of their has been most crassly expressed in the tially, the laws of ·the class struggle anti-Marxist views. They argued that relations between the Kremlin bureau­ begin to assert themselves, driving the this ·expansion marked a definitive cracy and the Eastern European satel­ masses into conflict with the Kremlin. consolidation of a new class system; lite states. Regardless of the existing The case of Yugoslavia shows how they hastily claimed it as a refutation capitalist property relations in these corn::ct the Kremlin is in fearing even of Trotsky's conception of Stalinism. countries, the Kremlin seeks to inte­ a degree of independence. I f grave grate them. with the Soviet economy, In reality the Yugoslav events have difficulties arise for the Kremlin when without the slightest consideration for brought a confirmation of Trotsky's the masses are set partially in motion. the needs and interests of their peo­ analysis and prediction concerning the as happened in Yugoslavia in the ples. nature and ultimate fate of Stalinism, course of the wartime Nazi occupation This places the satellite countries and civil ,var there, what would hap­ the most unstable and crisis-ridden in an intolerable position Severed pen in a country where the masses regime in history. Stalinism lacks an from their traditional economic ties independent class base of its own and, started moving under a really inde­ with \Vestern Europe and the rest of pendent banner? in protecting its own privileges and the capitalist world, these countries interests, it invariably comes into of Eastern Europe find themselves Class Criteria sharpest' collision, in every sphere, today in an economic blind alley. They with the interests and needs of the are being economically strangled. The When one speaks of the effects of masses. The Stalinist regime is nothing Kremlin refuses to allow them the the Kremlin's policies on satellite else but a historical episode, a parasitic least degree of independence. Stalin countries, it is necessary each time to growth upon the workers' state, a has vetoed even the project of a Bal­ analyze the effects on the different specific form of the degeneration of kan federation, as a means of solving classes, along with the manner in the October Revolution, the product the existing difficulties of Yugoslavia, which each class reacts. of the isolation of the proletarian Bulgaria and Albania. The satellite countries are far from revolution in a backward country. The Kremlin's primary aim in the homogeneous. They have not elimin­ Resting on the property relations satellite countries is to exploit them ated the class struggle. From the established by the October Revolu­ and drain their resources for its own economic standpoint, Yugoslavia does tion, the Stalinist bureaucracy collides, benefit, and in order to try to extricate not differ radically from Romania, on the one side, with the imperialist itself from the difficulties of the Rus­ Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria encirclement, and, on the other, with sian economy. This policy of plunder or Albania. If Yugoslavia differs from the revolutionary masses. They have and naked oppression can be carried them at all, it is in having advanced sought in the recent postwar days to qut only by the imposition of a ruth­ furthest along the road toward de­ overcome this twofold contradiction less regime of oppression utterly sub- stroying capitalism. Au gus t I 948 FOURTH INTERNATIONAl. Page 175

The capitalist elements in Yugosla­ leading Yugoslav cadres gained dom­ dependent road. This road can be only via, as elsewhere, naturally look to ination not with the aid of Russian that of an Independent \Vorkers and Wa5hington for salvation. And \Vash­ bayonets, but through the mobiliza­ Peasants Socialist Yugoslavia, as the ington, benefiting from the Stalinist tion of the Yugoslav masses around a first step toward a Socialist Federa­ policies, just as naturally tries to bring program of social demands, in many tion of the Balkan Nations. It can be to bear every weapon at its command instances of a revolutionary character. achieved only through an appeal to to draw Yugoslavia, along with the This independent cou rse of Yugo­ and unity with the international work·· rest of Eastern Europe, back into the slav· development is one of the root­ ing class. That is to say, it can be imperialist orbit. sources of the long friction -- and achieved only by Yugoslavia's rallying But the Stalinist policies clash not now the open break - between the to the banner of the European Social­ merely with the capitalist elements in Kremlin and Tito. ist Revolution, and calling upon the each satellite country, but also with Revolutionists can only hail this international working class to aid her the \vorking class. Furthermore, they development --- this first rift, in the in the struggle against both the Krem­ clash with the peasantry, in all its ranks of world Stalinism which must lin oligarchy and American imperial­ layers. However, the workers, smart­ unfold . in open view of the world Ism. ing under the bureaucratic Stalinist working class. For revolutionists, however, it is not regime of plunder and oppression, do I t is especially welcome to us be­ enough to weIccme a great opportun­ 110t turn to \Vashington for salvation. cause it throws into the full limelight ity. This is only the beginning for the The most conscious proletarian ele­ the reactionary nature of Stalin's re­ next step, namely their seii,ing the op, ments in Yugoslavia, as in other satel­ gime, illuminating it in a manner portunity and intervening. above all, lite countries, are striving for a social­ which can be most easily understood in order to raise the conscious level of ist solution. These socialist aspirations by workers throughout the world, and the world working-class militants. of the working class likewise run di­ in particular by the militants' who are The logic of the Stalin-Tito strug­ rectly counter to the interests and poli­ in the ranks of the Stalinist parties gle is such that it is bound to impel cies of the Stalinist bureaucracy. everywhere. the militants in Yugoslavia and else­ Precisely because the Kremlin is un­ I t brings out of the shadows and where - not to the right but to the able to permit the slightest degree of into the light of day the terrible in­ left. This will happen independently independence to any of the satellite ternal contradictions of the Kremlin of whether Tito himself moves to the countries, it can maintain its hold in regime which are bound to lead to its right, or whether he seeks to straddle Eastern Europe only by naked police­ downfall. the fence somewhere between the terror methods. For this same reason, What is more, it confronts the rank Kremlin and imperialism. it cannot tolerate in the party leader­ and file of the Yugoslav CP and of But the precondition for h~~" far ship or in the government anyone Stalinist parties elsewhere with the the masses will move to the -left' lie:-; except puppets, completely dependent need of reexamining the ideas and not in their own wishes or their SpOil for their high positions not on any methods of Stalinism. I-laving said A, taneous movements but in how abJ) abilities or taknts of their own, or they must go on to say B. That is to and effectively the ccnscious revolu­ their popularity among the masses, say, they are bound by the logic of tionary vangu'ard, the world Trotsky­ but solely upon their blind obedience the situation to review and reexamine ists, will intervene as a dynamic factor to the orders of the Kremlin. the entire past history of Stalinism, in into the· situation. the first instance, and of the quarter Peculiar F.eatures of a century of the life-and-death The Way to Begin The peculiarity of Yugoslav devel­ struggle ,of Trotskyism against Stalin­ T0 intervene effectively, we must opments has been such as to preclude Ism. BEGIN by. patiently explaining the the complete handpicking of puppets, political meanieg of the Stalin-Tito along the customary Stalinist pattern. Events Favor Us rift; we must lay bare the root causes Indeed, the Yugoslav Communist The course of events will work in of Stalinism, its origin .. its reactionary Party has undergone an independent favor of th,e revolutionists. The in­ nature, its naked brutality. In this development, even though in its in­ cumbent Yugoslav regime is caught in way, by' introducing the maximum of ternal regime and policies it .hewed as a vise. To be sure, Tito and his friends political clarity into the situation, closely as it could to its Russian pro­ possess a certain amount of room to revolutionists will be able to intervene totype. maneuver not only against the masses most swiftly and effectively and help To cite two outstanding features of at home but also with respect to both the militant workers and peasants in Yugoslav developments: 1. Unlike the the Kremlin and Washington. But the Yugoslavia. native Russian bureaucracy or most moment of decision for Yugoslavia Far more than Yugoslavia itself is of the other Stalinist leaderships in cannot be postponed indefinitely. invc,lved here. The Yugoslav events Europe, the Yugoslav CP actually led The alternatives facing Yugoslavia, are only a component part of the un­ a successful civil war, applying class­ let alone the Tito regime, are to capi­ folding international crisis of Stalin­ struggle methods, even if in a highly tulate -either to Washington or to the ism This is eviJenced by the tremors distorted form. 2. Under Tito, the Kremlin - or to strike out on an in- already produced in Stalinist parties P age, 17·6 FO URTo H 'IN T E.RN:AT I'ON'A L A 'u g 'u s' t 1 94 8 the world over as a. consequence of the Soviet masses have ,waited long· up' the emergence onto the highway the Tito-Stalin rift. Theserepercus­ and anxiously for help from the out­ of the socialist revolution of the sions are only the beginning. It is by side against the Stalinist despots .. militant workers and peasants of Yugo-' no means excluded that the chain of At all events, the effective and slavia, of the rest of Eastern Europe, events, whose starting point is repre­ vigorous· intervention of the Trotsky­ and, consequently, of Europe as a sented by Yugoslavia, will continue ists into the Yugoslav events and the whole. to unfold until the Soviet Union itself maturing crisis of international Stalin­ becomes involved. Let us recall that ism cannot fail to facilitate and speed August 3, 1948. An Open Letter To the Congress, Central Committee and Members of the Yugoslav Communist Party

Comrades, demned without the Communist party the absolute control arrogated to them­ At its last session the Cominform members having been informed object­ selves by the leaders of the Russian passed a resolution excommunicating ively about the existing differences, 'Communist Party. This control has led your party and its leadership. This has without affording you an opportunity to to a constant subordination of the inter­ deeply stirred the members of Com­ defend yourselves, without letting the ests of the socialist revolution, in one munist parties and 'revolutionary work­ members of various CoI1lmunist parties country after another, to the episodic ers throughout the world. How, indeed, become acquainted with the text of your needs confronting Russia. could they fail to be stupefied by such reply to the Cominform, resolution. Today the Kremlin is determined to an abrupt ·about-face by the Cominform The double-dealing of these "leaders" force you to abandon your industrializa­ leaders who suddenly compel them to is shown even more clearly by their tion policy, just as in January 1945· it disparage a country which only yester­ refusal to accept your invitation to at­ forced Thorez to disarm the French' day was proclaimed the best model of tend your Congress. This refusal means partisans for the benefit of de Gaulle. "People's Democracy." Only three months nothing else but that the leaders of the During the Spflnish Civil War, when ago, I'Humanite, central organ of the Communist parties refuse to acquaint the workers seized the factories, the French Communist Party, sang praises their members with .. the real situation Kremlin forced the Spanish Communists to the "land of Tito." Today,l'Humanite in Yugoslavia. They prefer to despicably to declare that this was "treason." It, cannot find a slander too vile with which deceive the Communist workers through­ instructed the German Communist Party to besmirch your party. out the world rather than "disobey" an to follow the suicidal course from' 1930 Only recently, Enver Hodza, premier order sent by Russia. to 1933 which permitted Hitler to seize of Albania, declared at the fourth ses­ These facts, cou.pled with the treat­ power. sion of the Albanian People's Assembly: ment you are receiving, illustrate the But events each time proved that far methods of "persuasion" used by the from rendering the Soviet Union strong­ Our m~ople could neither enjoy the fruits of their war victories nor be leaders of the Russian Communist Party. er in the face of the imperialist forces, assured of reconstructing their country They intervene in the life of other Com­ the weakening of the international pro­ and progress toward a better life, if munist parties by means of brutal al\d letariat isolated the Soviet Union still it were not for the powerful, fraternal ultimatistic ukases; they arbitrarily im­ more and permitted the imperialists to assistance accorded us in all spheres pose their rule on all parties, without de'al terrible blows, such as that of 1941. Once again today, in order to maintain of life by the new Yugoslavia. .the least consideration for the traditions, experiences or sentiments of the respec­ their absolute sway over the Cominform, Today, the same Enver Hodza cyni­ tive party members. At the same time, the ,leaders of the 'Russian Communist cally says: the leaders of the Russian Communist Party do not hesitate to employ against The Central Committee of the Yugo­ Party jealously guard their own priv­ your party, policies which play into the slav Communist Party and its chief­ ilegE'S, regarding as treachery the slight­ hands of American imperialism and tain Tito' have disrupted all the econ­ est criticism of their own policies, and which can be utilized by all the enemies omic and political relations with our arrogating to themselves the right to of the working C! lass against the Soviet country... They aim to transform it excommunicate anyone who balks at fol­ Union itself. .into a colony of Yugoslavia... They lowing slavishly the countless zigzags Comrades, you yourselves have, al­ have tried to suppress' its indepen­ of their tortuous party line. ready raised the question of the reason dence.••• The evil you. have suddenly discovered, for this non-communist conduct of the The servility with which most of the however, has existed for a long time. Russian leadership toward the Commun­ leadership of the Communist parties It existed during the final decade of the ist parties of other countries. In this have carried out the orders handed Communist International as well as dur­ connection you might indeed have used down from above is surpassed only by ing the five years since its dissolution. the term "degeneration" in your reason­ their evident dishonesty. Your party is The grave sickness of the Communist ing. One should not fear this word, nor accused of "lack of democracy." At the parties and the main cause of the in­ its real meaning and content. The out­ same time your accusers set up a hue numerable setbacks and bloody defeats standing trait of a Bolshevik is his and cry in which your party is con- they. have suffered are to be found in courage in approaching reality and see- Aug u s t 1948 FOURTH INiERNATIONAL Page 111 ing it as it actually is, no matter how and the victoriou3 revolution. The party;s protected; this also explains at the same bitter the truth, no matter how painful internal life, along with that of the time the ideological form assumed by the examination of this reality may be. Communist International at the time, the degeneration of this leadership. In lt is a crime for a communist to deceive was regulated by discussion, as impas­ Lenin's time, the leadership of the Bol­ the workers or his own comrades -,. sioned as it was free. The most' impor­ shevik Party and of the Communist In­ and this happens to be the real crime tant decisions were reached on the basis ternational, even when directly engaged that the Communist Pal'ty leaders of of genuine conviction, that is to say, in negotiations with imperialist powers, many countries have just committed in accord ,with the experience and level openly declared to the world proletariat once a~ain. But it is an even biggel' of consciousness of the party members. that capitalism and socialism are two crime to deceive oneself through fear The party was intimately tjed to its incompatible regimes. Not for one of the sad reality which one does not c1asCj~nd through these ties brought the minute did it suspend calling upon the wish to accept. "enth'e proletariat into participation in workers of all the capitalist countries It would be the grossest self-decep­ the running of the state and the econ­ to overthrow the rule of their own ex.. tion to assume even for a moment that omy. ploiters, and actively preparing them a country, governed by a p,arty whose Today all this is changed in the Soviet for it. It always fitted the domestic and conduct toward its sister parties is so Union. The soviets are dissolved. The foreign policy of the USS~ into the utterly non-communist, can neverthel~ss workers do not exercise the slightest framework of the strategy of world play the role of the vanguard of social­ control in the factories; instead they socialist revolution, and considered its ism. It would be self-deception to as­ are completely at the mercy of the prime task to be that of giving maximum sume that policies which led to crises factory manager's every whim. The dis­ assistance to th3 Communist parties of in so many Communist p'arties can still crepancies in basic earnings are even other countries so' that they could' take remain Leninist policies. greater than in capitalist countries. Com­ advantage of every revolutionary situa.. Yes, the Soviet Union and the leader­ munistfunctionaries collect salaries as tion which opened up before them for ship of the Russian Communist Party high as those of· petty-bourgeois spetzes the overthrow of capitalism. have degenerated. Yes, they have ceased (specialists). An abyss separates the Of course Lenin and the leadership of to represent the vanguard of the world living conditions of the working masses the Bolshevik Party and the Communist communist forces since the time they from those of the bureaucracy which International at that time, could not subordinated the interests of the world runs the economy and the state. This exclude the possibility, even the neces.. revolution to their own interests. We. burenucracy has completely wiped Qut sity, of temporary compromises with repeat: They act in their own interests inner-party democracy; it has eliminated imperialism. E.very sane revolutionist and not those of the Russian proletariat. and murdered the 'Old Guard Bolsheviks; understands that every war, and certain.. The interests of the workers and the it has converted the party into a vehicle ly the social war of the working class oppressed of all countries are one and for protecting its' own privileges; it has against the capitalist class, is necessarily the same, and the interests of commun­ destroyed the party as the instrument of interrupted by periods of calm, ,of truces ism are indivisible the world over. That international communism. ' and of armistices. But as Lenin so lucidly is why the abandonment by the Russian This bureaucracy has today become a explained in "Left-Wing" Communis... : leaders of the cause of communism be­ closed caste which guards its positions An Infantile Disorder, such ~ompromises yond the Soviet frontiers proves beyond as jealously against the workers at home in the class struggle are allowed solely doubt that they have abandoned this as it is doing against you. on condition "of knowing how to apply same cause inside the Soviet Union it­ One of your most remarkable accom­ these tactics in such a way as to raise self; that is to say, their generation is plishments in Yugoslavia, just as in the and 'not lower the general level of prole­ profound. October Revolution in Russia, is the tarian class consciousness, revolutionary extension of free high school and col­ spirit, ability to fight and to conquer." CAUSES OF THE DEGENERATION lege education to all children of workers (P. 56.) OF THE SOVIET UNION and poor peasants. You must be aware This conception of Lenin flowed logi­ However painful it may seem to you, of the fact that' as far back as eight cally from the doctrine of the Bolshevik it is now necessary to put your finger years ago the Russian government Party and of the Communist Internation­ on the social origin of this degeneration. 'abolished this. enormously progressive al, according to which the socialist revo­ In Lenin's ti,me, and even after, Com­ development and reintroduced the sys­ lution can be only the work of the munist functionaries in both the party tem of paying for high school and college conscious ,and sovereign working masses. and the government :strictly adhered to education, thereby in practice restricting the rule that their salaries could not be such education to the children of func­ RESULTS OF DEGENERATION higher than the average wage of a tionaries and well-to-do petty bourgeois, The social degeneration of the USSR skilled worker. Non-Communist special­ and sentencing the overwhelming major­ has brought it to a complete revision of ists and technicians, whom the young ity of children to semi-ignorance. Is these fundamental principles of Lenin­ Soviet Republic sorely needed, were of' this not the best proof that the leaders ism. Today it proclaims and makes all necessity paid higher salaries, but they of the Russiap state and party have the leaders of the parties which follow were placed under the ,strict control of stopped the forward march toward soci~­ it also proclaim that c,apitalism and the workers lest they should abuse' those ism, and in fact have gone into reverse socialism are two systems which can advantages which the state had been gear toward .an ever incre~sing social live side by side in complete peace and compelled to grant them. The workers inequality? harmony. It categorically forbids the remained the masters in the factories, in The existence of these bureaucratic leaders of the Communist parties in the soviets, in the party. Communist privileges in Russia, far from being com­ bourgeois countries to speak of "revolu­ discipline was' voluntary, arising from batted by the leaders of the Communist tion" or of the 9verthrow of capitalism the ,enthusiasm for the clJl,ss struggle Party of .the USSR, is systematically in their countries. On the contrary' it Page 178 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL August 1948

orders them to restrict their propaganda masses in their own countries, the pres­ geoisie and proletariat of the imperialist to the "defense of the national inde­ ent leadership of ~1;le Russian Communist country, carrying on the struggle within pendence" of their own capitalist coun.· Party, contemptuous of foreign Com­ the framework of the revolutionary t-ries! These same leaders who today munist parties and workers - as you struggle for the overthrow of capitalism accuse you of "misunderstanding the know well from your own sad experience! in their own country. It is particularly Marxist-Leninist conception of class and - does not in th.e least hesitate to bar necessary to eliminate from propaganda of the state" have themselves kept the the .revolutionary ·and socialist road to all appeals to a national tradition which communist workers of the capitalist its fellow-parties when this is required can injure the workers of other countries, countries inth~ darkest ignorance on by its own sordid considerations. This all attacks against nations as such, all these questions. They were not content break with the Leninist conception of· territorial demands based on chauvinist only to enter the capitalist governments world revolution is the most cOll<:lusive arguments. The Austrian and Italian of France, Italy, Belgium, etc. from ideological proof of the profound dege­ bourgeoisies are today hoping that the 1945 to 1947 and to forget everything neration of the pl'esent leadership of the Communist parties of their countries, that Lenin wrote against th3 reformist Russian Communist Party and of its under the directives from the Comin­ Social-Democracy on the impossibility of complete rupture with' the interests of form, will line up in the capitalist camp "conquering" the bourgeois state ap­ the world proletariat. to "solve" the p·roblem of Carinthia and paratus from within and on the neces­ Under these conditions, it seems par­ Trieste in the interests of imperialism. sity of destroying it and replacing it ticularly cynical for the present·. leaders You must understand that there is only with a new workers' Soviet state ap­ of the Russian Communist Party and of one way to foil the infamous maneuvers paratus. They have gone so far during the Cominform to accuse you of misun­ of the bourgeoisie and of the leaders of this period as to forbid the workers to derstanding "proletarian international­ the Cominform against your party; that make use of strikes for improving their ism" and of following a nationalist is to appeal boldly to the international miserable living conditions, .and this in policy. This is said by those same Rus­ solidarity of the workers, to proclaim countries which are the bastions of sian leaders· whose chauvinistic propa­ aloud the right of peoples to self-deter­ European capitalism! ganda during the war, in which they mination, and to propose solutions of All these maneuvers have not in the refused to draw a distinction between outstanding problems along this line. least deceived the imperialist bourgeoi­ the ·German workers and their Nazi You have settled the national question sie, as the emissaries and foreign agents butchers, was chiefly responsible for in your country with some degree of ;of the leaders of the Russian Communist the absence of '1 revolution in Germany, success. A truly communist and interna­ Party would have us believe. The bour­ whereas in Yugoslavia the partisan tionalist attitude toward international geoisie has not for a moment given up movement was able to attract into its problems would not fail to strengthen its view that the Soviet Union is a ranks thousands of worker-soldiers from immeasurably your position in the· con­ mortal enemy. But they have confused, the occupation A.rmies. This is said by a sciousness and feeling of millions of disoriented and deceived the workers of Togliatti who did not hesitate to launch, workElrs throughout the entire world. the capitalist countries. Only yesterday along with the genuine fascists of the the workers saw the leaders of the MiS I (Movimento Sociale dell'Italia), a WHAT ROAn WILL YOU FOLLOW? ·Communist parties opposing their class chauvinist campr...ign for the return of Comrades, your Congress· which is movements, whereas today such move­ former colonies to his capitalist country. about to meet, the delegates which will ments are abruptly. and bureaucratically This is said by a Thorez whose national­ compose it, and the thousands of com,.. launched. Thus the workers have the ist hysteria on the question of repara­ munist members whom they will· repre­ impression of beir.g the dupes of a policy tions for imperialist France gives untold sent, find themselves, on this day fol­ which is foreign to their own interests satisfaction to bourgeois politicians in lowing the Cominform resolution against and of being utilized solely asl a "maneuv­ the Poincare traditjon. Really, these peo­ ycur party, confronting decisions of truly erable mass" by their leaders. ple 8,re certainly in a very poor position historical import. Three roads are open This policy broke the revolutionary to give lessons on internationalism to to you ·and you must choose one of them. fervor of the masses which, in France, anybody. Your choice will. decide for years, if not Italy and elsewhere in 1944, equaled the It is no less true, Comrades, that the for decades, the fate. of your country fervor you experienced in yoqr country: nationalism introduced into the Com­ and of its proletariat, and will exerc,ise This is explained precisely by the funda­ munist parties corresponds precisely with a profound influeJ;lce on the evolu~ion mental revision of the very conception this same kind of degeneration which and future of the entire world com­ of socialism wrought by the le~ders of you now discern in Russia.. No progress .munist movement.• the Russian Communist Party. Whereas can be made toward socialism unless The first road open' to you would be Lenin and the Communist International every trace of nationalism is extirp~ted to consider that despite the serious in­ in its initial period considered socialist from the thinking of communist mili­ juries dealt you by the leaders of the revolution in the capitalist world the tant3. To fight for the right of self-de­ Russian Communist Party, it is above product of mass action, the present lead­ termination of each nation, to struggle all necessary today, in the present world ership ,of the Russian Communist Party against national oppression, continually situation, to maintain a complete mono­ is preoccupied exclusively with the introduced and extended under imper­ lithic unity with the policies and ideology military, economic and territorial expari­ ialism ih its decadent phase, is a primary of the Russian Communist Party. There sion of the USSR. Whereas Lenin and task for th~ communist movement. And are certainly members in your midst the Communist International in its ini­ genuine communists are distinguished who will propose such a course and will tial period considered it their most im­ from petty-bourgeois nationalists pre­ even suggest that it is preferable, under portant task to assist the Communi~t cisely by the fact that they conduct this these conditions, to make a public apol­ parties of other countries onto the road struggle in an internationalist spirit, ogy and a declaration accepting the of revolutionary mo.bilization of the always draWing aline between the bour- "criticism" of the Coininform, even to August 1948 FOuRTH INTERNATIONAL Page 179

change your leadership, and wait for a road would be cleared for new defeats your mixed economy in order to help "better occasion" to defend your partic­ for the international proletariat. them achieve this. Your days would be

ular conceptions within the "big com­ A second road will certainly be sug­ numbered. I munist family." gested, consisting essentially of retir­ Every policy set up on the basis of Such a decIsion would be in our opin­ ing into Yugoslavia, repelling the at­ ignoring the international contradictions, ion an ineparable and tragic errol' and tacks and the eventual violence and which are the all-embracing framework would do the greatest damage not only provocations of the Cominform and its in which all problems of Yugoslav policy to your own party and your own working agents, and attempting to, "build social­ are posed; every policy which would class but to the international proletariat ism" in 'your own country, while con­ pose questions of industrialization inde­ and communist movement, above. all to cluding trade' relations with the powers pendently of the problem of securing the workers in the USSR. You must by of Eastern Europe as well as with those equipment by means of international of the imperialist West. We will not con­ h'ade, and COIlS€quently, independently now know the methods and ideas of th~ Central Committee of the Russian Com­ ceal from you, Comrades, that we con­ of the pressure of the capitalist world munist Party sufficiently well to under­ sidei" this second road just as pernicious market; every policy of this kind must as the first. stand that that body will never be satis­ be rejected forthright. Otherwise the It is completely utopian to think it fied by public declarations and political work undertaken by your party can only possible to "maneuver" during a whole meet with complete ruin. In view of the decisions. It will demand that all power period between the USSR and the USA slanderous accusations of the leaders of in the party and the country should pass without being subject during this same the Cominform, it is imperative to be into the hands of its own "civil and period toa growing pressure from these sharply conscious of the lurking danger military agents" and of those among two giants. The success of "maneuvers" of imperialist pressure, so that you will you whom it believes it can manipulate depends in the final analysis on the take no step without carefully consider­ like puppets. It will completely eliminate, relationship of forces, and, on the plane along with' your present leaders, all ing the consequences on that score. There­ of economic, political and military power, cadres which think independently, all in lies the main guarantee of genuine the relationship of forces is obviously revolutionary ar.d socialist progress on members who dare raise their voices in not in your favor. American imperialism YOUI' part. protest. It will completely subordinate will gladly make some advances to you the interests of the workers and poor Finally, there remains the third road, for that would increase the weight of its peasants" of Yugoslavia to the needs of the most difficult, bristling with the arguments in its conversations with jts own diplomatic maneuveFS with im­ most obstades, the genuine communist perialism. It will smash your party as Moscow. But what it is looking for road for the Yugoslav palty and pro­ an independent force and will deal a basically is not to support you against letariat. This road is the road of return terrible blow to the socialist conscious­ the US:SR but to conclude a compromise to the Leninist conception of' socialist ness of the workers of your country. It with Russia, if necessary at your ex­ revolution, of return to a world strategy pense. It will wind up 'by rhysically liquidating all Not only would the present Jead­ of class struggle. must start, in our those who' dared resist for a moment. ers of the Russian Communist Party opinion, with a clear understanding of The tragic example of so many old Bol­ have no hesitation about accepting such the fad that the Yugoslav revolutionary shevik leaders in Russia shows that it a compromise, but they would even work forces can only become stronger and' never pardons even a passing opposi­ furiously to create the greatest economic consolidate their positions thanks to the conscious support of the working masses tion, even when such pardon has been difficulties for you so as to force you'to "bought" a thousand times by self-crit- capitulate or to surrender completely to of their own country and of the entire world. It means above all to understand ,icism and breast-beating of the most Yankee imperiali~m, in order t9-ereby to that the decisive force on the world humiliating kind. "demonstrate» to world working-class opinion that every rupture with M osc~w arena is neither jmperialism with its re­ Su.ch a decision would deal an even signifies going over to the "American sources and arms, nor the Russian state greater blow to the internatio'nal com­ camp." with its formidclble apparatus. The de­ munist movement. In all countries, the On the other hand, you must be' aware cisive force is the immense army of most coUrageous and independent Com­ that imperialism will rapidly become in­ workers, of poor peasants and of colonial munist members, who are today stirred creasingly demanding toward you, espe­ peoples, whose revolt against their ex­ by your action, would be reduced to cially if' it is enc~uraged along this road ploiters is steadily rising, and who need silence. The most servile etements would .by Moscow, as i!:l to be feared. Its pres­ only a consciou'3 leadership, a suitable triumph everywhere. The permclOUS sure will first be concentrated on your program of action and an effective or­ principle that "whoever criticizes the trade relations. Its first objective will ganization in ord~r to bring the enor­ Soviet government is an agent of im:. be to include you in the Marshall Plan mous task of world socialist revolution perialism,", which has already cost the zone. In the course of putting this into to a successful conclusion. international Communist movement so effect, it will aim subsequently to destroy We do not presume to offer you a dearly, would be more firmly entrenched all the social reforms brought about in blueprint. We understand the tremen­ than ever. Thousands of sincere' revolu­ Yugoslavia in the past three years. To dous difficulties which you must con­ tionary workers, who have with good the extent that Russia will isolate you tend with in a poorly equipped country cause been revolted by the anti-Leninist and that your economic difficulties will which has been devastated by war. We policies pursued by the Cominform lead­ increase and imperialist pref'jsure sharp­ desire only to point out to you what are, ers, would fall back again into passivity en, reaction within your own country in our opinion, the main lines through and scepticism, thereby increasing the will lift its head. The kulak would at­ which to concrdize this international isolation everYwhere of the. communist tempt to make. contact with the interna­ revolutionary policy - the only policy f()rces and thereby strengthening the tional market. American capital would which will enable you to hold out while forces' o~ reaction and imperialism. The penetrate through all the crevices in waiting for new struggles of the masses, Page 180 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL August 1948 to stimulate them and to conquer with ciple of payment of functionaries on the unions must be granted their real func­ them. basis of the average wages of a skilled tion," which is to defend the interests of To cc;>mmit oneself to this road means, worker. The problem of the revolution­ the workers, even against the Soviet especially in Yugoslavia itself, to base ary transformation of your country is State if necessary, as Lenin repeatedly i oneself openly and, completely on the essentially an economic one, in which the asserted. In a word it is necessary to revolutionary dynamics of the masses. question of the peasantry takes first give the workers and poor peasants the The Front committ~es must be organs place. clear feeling that they are the masters which are genuinely elected by the work­ There is but one Leninist way to ap­ it). the country, and that the state and the ers of city and country, arising from a proach . this problem: to seek support progress of the economy are in direct .tightly knit system of workers and of from the poor and exploited layers of correspondence with their own interests. Po.or farmers. ' the country and to be careful not to We do not at all conceal that such a They must become genuine state or­ violate· the laws whereby your economy policy will encounter very great obs.tacles gans and must take the place of the functions, but on the contrary to utilize in your country and even in your o.W11 present hybrid orga·~s which are: relics them .in the interests of socialism. The ranks. A complete rMducation of your of the bourgeois state apparatus. They land must be nationalized and a struggle cadres in the spirit of genuine Leninism mu~t be the organs of Soviet democracy, waged against the concentration of in­ would be necessal'y. Still less do we in which all workers will have the right come and property in the hands of the com!eal that world. hhpeHalism and the to. express their opinions and their kulaks. But these measures cannot be present leadershit) Of the Russian State criticisms without reservation and with..; made solely by ~dministrative means, nei­ wouM furiously attack your policy, for it out fear of reprisal. The right of workers th.er by decrees nor by force. What is would appear to them a mortal threat to organize other workers' parties must necessary is that the immense majority to their acquired positions. But if yau be laid down as a principle, subject only of the peass-nts must view it as in their will apply the same Leninist principles to the condition that they take their own· interests. For this, a review of the in your foreign policy, you can be sure plac(~ within the framework of Soviet Five Year Plan and the relations be­ of powerful support from the workers legality. The present hybrid constitution tween agriculture and industry is neces­ and the oppressed of the .entire world, must be revised and a new one, taking sary. The plan for industrialization must and your cause cannot lose. its inspiration from the Leninist con­ be able, above all things, to guarantee You would have to make a sharp break stitution of 1921, must be set up by 'an a growing quantity of consumer goods with all the practices of ti'a'ditiohal assembly of delegates from the workers' for the peasants. By means of stabilizing secret diplomacy and return to the revo­ and poor peasants' committees. the dinar and a strict system of dividing lutionary diplomacy practiced in the time These decisive political changes must industrial consumer goods, the state can of Lenin; you would have to become the be conceived as the end result of a real offer more to the small and middle champion ahd active supporter of all mass mobilization, to be brought about peasant than the kulak will be able to colonial peoples· revolting against their by your party through carrying these give him. It is necessary at the same imperialist masters; you would have to Leninist ideas into. the most distant time to give the utmost support to the proclaim to the world the conditions for villages of your country, explaining the freely formed cooperatives of the small a just peace, without annexations or diffel'ences between the Soviet state and peasants, to· reserve all modern working repa:rations; you woUld hav~ to demand other state forms, and the superiority of equipment for them, grant them cheap the immediate withdrawal of the occupa­ the former type. That is the way Lenin credit, and to establish such conditions tion troops of all the great powers from did it in 1917, with the greatest sim­ for them that they will live better and all occupied countries, and strict applica;. plicity. A vast campaign of reeducation earn more than· ~,he middle peasants who tion of the right o.f self-determination must be started, together with a period continue to work their lands as indivi­ of peoples in all disputed questions. With of discussion and of unhampered' expres­ duals. This will prove to be the surest one blow you will gain the sympathy of sion of opinion by the workers. The latter method of isolating the kulak in the vil­ the Austrian and German masses who will express theIr criticisms of the pres-. lage and of developing and accelerating today teel themselves decei.ved and be­ ent state of affairs in their assemblies. voluntary cooperation locally. trayed by all parties. "You would.have to The party will finally know, directly, Progress of this kind will be realizable develop and sharpen your propaganda what the real aspirations of the masses only by changing the method of drawing in fuvor of the banubian ~ederation by are, and will obtain the constructive sug­ up and verifying plans. :N 0 group 01 giving it its classical communist form gestions of the working-class masses, spetzes can ascertain mathematically t;he and by launching the slogan for the whose vast creative energy is the real equilibrium between the needs of Balkan Federation of Soviet Socialist surest guarantee of socialism. Your party the workers, those of the peasants, and Republics among the workers and poor has· nothing to fear from such a develop­ the capital needs of the econqmy, upon peasants of neighboring countries, who ment. The confidence of the masses in which equilibrium depends the har.mon­ would take it up with enthusiasm. And it will grow enormously and it will be­ ious planning and development of the finally it would be necessary to incor­ come the effective collective expression country. It is easential that the masses porate this propaganda within the con­ or" the interests and desires of the pro­ be indl.1ced to partici:vate as actively as crete framework of propaganda for the letariat of its country. possible in t~e work of planning, that SOCIALIST SOVIET UNITED STATES It will not be enough, however, to the greatest heed be paid to their com­ OF EUROPE!; to convoke a conferenee reestablish the complete sovereignty of plaints, and that the needs expressed by at ~elgrade of the trade-union and. the committees, to change the standing them be the primary factor in planning. workers' representativ~s from all the army into a genuine workers' and peas­ Complete sovereignty of the factory countries of Europe, including Germany ants' militia, to replace appointed judge~ committees must be established in the and A-ustria; to draw up with them a with those elected by the masses, to re,.. plants, and genuine workers' control of plan for the economic reconstruction of establish and firmly maintain the prin- production must be instituted. The trad'e the continent on a socialist basis, in op .. August /'948 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 181

position to the Marshall Plan, and to other of our experiences in the revolu­ followed by your party. Tomorrow it make this socialist plan the central axis tionary struggle and can clarify our dif­ will make your documents known in 20 for revolutionary propaganda in Europe feren ::!es in a spirit of genuine proleta­ different languages - for workers' dem­ and in the world. rian and communist fraternity. ocracy is. not just an idle phn~se to the Your pOEsibilities for action along the Our organization, the Fourth Interna­ Fourth International, and a c,ommunist road of genuine Leninism disclose them­ ticnai, originated in the Left Oppositiort cartnot permit a member to be, Judged selves to be enormous. But your his­ of the Bolshevik Party, which 25 years without a hearing. It asks that you all~w torical responsibility far surpasses every­ ago already saw the germs of the degene­ a delegati-on froOm our leadership to at­ thing which has been outlined above. ration of the Russian Communist Party tend your Congress, in order to establish Miliions of wOl'kers thl'cughout the WOl,-ld which you at'e discovetirtg today. I:tunted, contact with the Yugoslav communi.st are today profmlndly disgusted with the persecuted, expelled, the Left Opposition movement and to set up fraternal ties policies and methods used by the present fought nevertheless for ten years for which can serve only the interests of the leaders of th~ Cominform. tJ,nwillirtg to reintegration ihto the official Commu­ world communist revolution.. pass over into the imperialist camp in nist, movement. Only when the present Comrades, the cause' of communism, any guise whatever, they vainly seek a leadership of the Russian COrilmunist of the revolution!lry em'ancipation of the new pole of attraction, a new political Party surrendered the' German proleta­ proletariat is invincib~e. No force in the leadership. Only the vanguard of this riat to the executioner Hitler without a world can prevent the genuine com­ lnaSS has ,at this time ~ound the road struggle, and thereby opehed a period of munists 'from ridding' themselves of t'O\\rard 'Our orgahization,; the FOtrRTH bloody defeats for th~ world working slanderers and would-be assassins so INTERNA'IlIONAL. You can become the CIas:3, did olir movement come \'-t~ the that they can go forward boldly' toward mabilization point f'Or this mass of revo­ conclusion that a new revolutionary In­ their revolutionary goal. The quicker this lutionary workers and thus, with a sin­ ternationiil had to be built. Since then, task is done, the faster will the world gle blow, completely change the present the bureaucrats who now lead the Rus­ revolution triumph. condition of paralysis within the world sian state have poured a ~~aseless stream YUGos:tAv 'COM'MtrNtSTS tJNtTi<~ working-class movement, the strangle­ of vile slander over' our International FOR A ,NEW LENINIST INrnttNA­ hold of the agents of Washingtort artd and no crime has been too. sordid for TIONAl.,! FbR TItE Wt>RLD VIC­ ot the, degenerated Rtis8hin bureaucracy. thefu. in their attempts to destroy Us. TORY OF coMMUiNtSMl The social struggles which are develop­ Just as today they cali you "agents of The International Secretariat ing artd \\riiI develop within all countries itrtperialism~" so they have labeled Us of the Fourth International. wUl th~reby be given the opportUhity for "fascist spies," when in' reality hundreds July 13, 1948 a ~Uc'Cessful revohltiohary cohclusion. of Olir best cadres and leaders gave their The Third World War~ which threatens lives irt the struggle against fascism. to tfir()w the U!SS,R, and all of Europe irtto Just as today they are organizing the art abyss; can be prevented. T~e socialist assassination of your leadership, so ,did Resolution on Latin future will unfold ih all its glory before -they manage to assassinate Leon Trot­ humanity. sky, orgoanizer of the October victory, America Comrades, we address this letter to creator of the Red Army, the greatest Adopted by Second Woi'ld Cottgres8 you because we are conscious of the ter­ lead.er of the Communist movement sinC!e The World· Congress instructs the In" rible tlilemhut in which you find' your­ the death of Lenin - Trotsky, Who ternational Secretariat, in coiiaboration selves; bechUse we utiderstand exactly just a f~w days before his death, ex­ with the delegates from Latin America, pressed his unshakable devotion com.:. the tremendous responsihility weighing to to elab'Orate immediately after the Coh­ munism and to t.he real Soviet U nioJ;l of upon you; and because we consider it gress a text of ,general poiitical()rient~­ our communist duty to assist you in re­ the workers and peasants' in his moving tioii for Latin America. solving the present crisis in communism 'ILet~er to the Soldiers of the Red Army." This text, accompanied by \raHbUs aiong proletarian arid Leninist lines.· But ail tliese crimes did not succeed in amendments presented by ~ertain ~ohi­ We have many and important dIffer­ srtlashlng the FOURTH INTERNATION­ rades of Latih America, will serve a.s ah AL becauM nothing can smash genuine ences with your past and recent poiici~s. introduction to the discussion among All Leninism! Today it has sections in 35 We .tire ift com,plete disagreement with the bl'gaJ'lizat!ions of Latin America. the theory an,d practice of "People's Dem­ different countries on all continents, ocracy'~ for w.e do hot believe in any c'Onsistil1~ of battle-tested' artd experi­ other ·road from capitalism to socialism encerl revolutionary Communist mem­ than the dictatorship of' the proletariat. bers who stand for what is best ih their Res.ol ution . on Cyprus We believe that the ul5e and propagation class. Although weak ih material re­ Adopted by ·Second Worid Congrui of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ways sources, its 8ecOlid WorM Congress~ held of livihg (servants, livery, titles, offi­ last April ,in, Paris, demonstrate~ that it After hearing a report on the actiVity cers' ~tripes, decotations) cart only serve was strong in political cohesion, in pro­ of the International Communist Party of to defhoralize real commuhists. nut we grain, ahd in its clear understanding of Cyprus and its request for affiliation, ate ~ortsCiotis of the enormoUs difficul­ present-day reality. Today it is launching and receiving assurance that it is a ties invol\Ted in a discussion between US, ih all countries a vast campaign pro­ functioning organization adhering to the in \Tiew of the separatioh in activities testing against the bureaucratic meas­ program and principles of the Fourth '\\'hieh hlts existed between us for so ures which the Cominform has taken Irtternational, the World Congress te~­ many years. For this reason we consider against you. It appeals to communist Oognizes it as an official sectioh of the it our duty to convey our ideas to you workers of all countries to send their Fourth lnternational at Cyprus And in a long and fruitful discussion, in the delegations to Yugoslavia, in order, to got-ants a mandate to its t~pr~sehtatloh course of which ~ ~t\rt ea~h advise the trtake a spot check 01 tb~ h~al policy at this COhgress. Opening Address

Delivered at the Second World Congress of the Fourth International

After declaring the Congress in session by order of the working-class movement to build its revolutionary activity International Executive Committee and International Secre­ on the rock of Marxist theory, of which we today are the tariat, and greeting the delegates, the International Secretary sole continuators. spoke as follows: The death agony of capitalism has reached its final Comrades: Today, two years after the April '1946 stage, and threatens all humanity with destruction and Conference, there are assembled in this hall the representa­ barbarism. The socialist solution becomes more imperative tives of 22 sections and organizations of the International, than ever. who have come from Europe, North America, South Amer­ The world proletariat and the exploited masses in the ica, Africa and Asia. This assemblage, which has been capitalist countries, the colonies and the semi-colonies have achieved under the terrible conditions prevailing throughout already given and continue to give proof of their profound the world since the end of the second imperialist war, determination to have done with this system which. by ib and especially in face of the enormous djfficulties confront­ contradictions, has brought humanity to the brink of ing our international movement on every side, is in itself l1estruction and threatens to wipe out all the progres~ a remarkable feat. The reality and the vitality of our move­ hitherto achieved. The crisis of humanity takes concrete ment find their most striking demonstration in the holding form in the crisis of the revolutionary leaderships of the of this Congress. workers' movement. The role of the Fourth International We have here the most representative' international is to work outl the solution to this problem. \Ve are firmly gathering that has ever been called together by our interna­ convinced that we shall accomplish this task. For the entire tional movement since its founding. In a magnificent spirit political and theoretical heritage of revolutionary Marxism. of re"olutionary internationalism, the organizations of our coming down to us through the work and teachings of International have overcome tremendous difficulties' to Marx and Engels, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, send thei r represen tati ves here. Lenin and Trotsky, lives and takes action in our interna­ This Congress hag come together at an especially tional movement. critical moment in the international situation. The present For these reasons, the role of this Congress is one period is marked by an acute sharpening of the ~ltagonism of profoundest importance. And we open the Congress between the two main world powers-the United States with fullest confidence in its success. and the Soviet Union-and' by the advanced polarization Now, as our sessions are about to commence, our of the social antagonisms. And this raises again, in the thoughts turn toward the innumerable members of alII' event of defeat of the world socialist revolution, the I nternational who. both during and after the secorrd im­ specter of fascism and atomic war, that is, the decomposi .. perialist war, have paid with their lives for their devotion tion of capitalist society into the most appalling barbarism. to the cause of the international proletariat. This Congress, moreover, has come together at a critical moment for the development and future: of our movement, Our thoughts turn to OLIr irreplaceable teacher. Leon which is feeling the pressure of the heavily fraught objec­ Trotsky, and to our other leading comrades, Leon Lesoil. tive situation. We will have to oppose the tendencies, ex­ Widelin, W. Held, Peters,' Marcel Hic, Pouliopoulos, Blasco, pressed within our ranks, which would revise our program Chen Chi-chang, Ta Thu Than, and their many comrades and liquidate our movement.' We will also have to give in struggle. And I ask you to honor their imperishable clear and positive answers to the problems and questions memory by standing for a moment of silence. which, in this unprecedentedly complex situation, are quite Our Congress also sends its warmest greetings to Com­ justifiably being posed by the members of our international rade Natalia Trotsky, to Comrade Cannon. and to the movement. imprisoned Trotskyist comrades in Greece, India, the Viet I n meeting this twofold task-defense of our program Nam, Bolivia, China and elsewhere; to the Trotskyists in and our movement against revisionist and liquidationist the USSR, in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Germany and attacks, and the outlining of clear perspectives and concrete Austria; to all the members of our I nternational: and to tasks which will assure the further development of our the colonial peoples and the workers of the entire world. movement-let us recall that our Congress is meeting on wherever they are now struggling for their national and the 100th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto and social emancipation. the founding of that scientific socialism which enabled the Comrades, our Congress is now opened. Oil and Labor By JOHN FREDERICKS

~ II. Eco"toTriicStructure of the Oil Industry Study of anyone industry' fa bound to reveal certain trends modest commission merchant with no more than $20,000 comm~n\to aU' industry. trends that lay. bare the inso~uble capital. \Vithin eight years he and hispartI~ers formed problel1!s. of capitalism as a whole. This study of the petroleum Stalldard Oil with $1,000,000 capital. industry,' technologically the most advanced, brings into sharp No additional capital focus the scientific advances which clash with the production bas ever bee'l1 added to tbe company since! The record of relations. Part' I, which was published in the May issue of capital accumulation follows: our maJi~zine, analyzed the process of ·production. It dealt with the three major stages in the development of oil refining 1862 $ 1,000,000 -kerosene, gasoline, and catalytic cracking-:-and traced the 1870 2,500,000 changing role of the worker. Part I concluded with a study 1875 3,500,000 of capital investment and the rate of profit as well as witli 1882 70,000,000 capital expansion and government interference. Part II, pub­ lished' below, analyzes' the economic 'structure of the oil in­ 1887 90,000,000 dustry.-Ed. Even these figures are underestimates of the true ** * capital accumulation of Standard Oil in that period .. The The economic structure of the oil industry is comparablt' president of the company testified before the N. Y. Sta~e to .other basic American industries: ~teel, auto or electrical legislature in 1888 that "the company is worth not less mafl'ufacturing. OIlly the, giant or dominating company than $148,000,000." inthelield controls the manufacturing process, the source , lhe process through which the expansion and con­ of. raw materials, transportation and distdbution to the solidation of this capital took place was through the con·sumer. Such companies are known as wholly integrated destruction of competing capital, rather than through companies. consolidations and absorption of competing companies. The oil industry contains more wholly . integrated com­ Thropgh price wars, terrorism, discriminatory rail rates panies than any other industry. Yet many of these seem­ and shipping rebates this company was able to smash ingly independent companies are linked together by secret thousands of weaker companies, amassing billions in the £igreements, patent control, market agreements, etc., in process. ~uch a manner that 20 major companies, acting as a unit, Technological improvements in every branch of the control nearly two-thirds of the assets of the entire industry industry-exploration, drilling, transportation and reun­ ~)nd collectively determine its basic policies. ing-r-made it possible to undersell competitors and ruin Although there are 13,000 oil comlJanies in the United them. The elimination of serious competition in the early States, the 20 major companies own 89% of the pipeline days made later high prices and the resulting hug~. mass mileage; produce 60% of the crude oil; own 87% of the of profit possible. The consolidation of capital that fol­ tanker tonnage; hold title to 96% of the stocks of refined lowed has ensured the present· posit~on of leadership en­ petroleum; own 80% of the daily crude capacity, 85% of joyed by Standard Oil. the cracking capacity, 93% of the finished stocks ofgaso­ Early rates of profit were phenomenal. The company line and lubricant; own 96% of gasoline pipeline mileage, earned 15% on invested capital in the decade 1882-92; and control 80% of domestic gasoline sales. Ten of these then jumped to 21% in the year 1892- 1900; then rose companies own over half the proven oil reserves of the again to 25%, for 1900-6. The earnings from 1876 to 1881 nation. were $55 million. In the next six years $50 million \vas The growing concentration in this industry can best paid in dividends alone. 1903 profits were $81 million: be seen in the decade prior to 1938, when the control of 1904 profits, $61 million; 1905 profits, $57 million. . the 20 companies over crude produCtion increased from Rockefeller was the first, individual -to establish a com­ 46 to 53%, finished produ<;ts from 76 to 94%, refining plete monopoly over a segment of American industry. His capacity from 66 to 76%, gasoline production from 71 to monopoly by' 1885 was complete and remained unchal-' 84%. The war and postwar years have accelerated this lenged' until 1911, when the parent company was dissolved process at a tremendous rate. The Standard Oil empire is by Supreme Court decree. At that time Standard Oil the fullest embodiment of this growing centralization of owned 33 corporations and the court order split it into 33 capital: parts. I t is clear today that the court order had little meaning, since Standard Oil of N. J. owns 255 corporations 1. Standard o.il and Monopolization and has a controlling interest in 300 others today! Before Standard Oil Company of New jer'sey is the largest dissolt~tion its shares were worth $663,793,000, while 'a ~ingle unit in the oil industry_ The history of this company month after· the dissolution they were worth $885,044,000. l~, the story of john D. Rockefeller, too lengthy to repeat Rockefeller's personal share had incr~ased in value by ·$56 here. But even in bare outline his story is that of big million through the court decision. capital, unscrupUlously wielding power' over labor and Considering that the entire capital structure started small capital. Rockefeller entered the infant industry with an investment of only $1 million, that "philanthropies~'. about three years after its birth. At that time he waS' a have consumed over' $700 million, the Rockefeller interests Page 184 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Au~ust 1948

are worth today no less than $6.6 billion! The rate of has little to fear from the government. On the contrary, Clccumulation becomes more clear. I t was in the early years the green light provided by Public Law 395 assures them that the great rate of profit made the monopoly flourish; immunity from prosecution under the Sherman Anti-Trust monopoly in turn assured consolidation and continuation Laws. of great profits. Not only that, but foreign operations have netted them 2. Monopolization, Profits and the Government super-profits. With the help of the American government, the industry is assured that this will continue. For example, The Texas Co., which was organized as late as 1926, Aramco offered to sell to the Navy oil at 40 'cents a barrel, has grown into fourth place among the major companies, on condition that the financial demands being made on but only at the expense of obtaining const?n,t new /:~aPital them by King Ibn-Saud be satisfied by the United States from outside the company. I ts growth is linked with the government. First the government refused. whereupon Standard Empire. Standard Oil of California and the Aramco raised its oil price to $1.05 per barrel. ((t should Texas Co. jointly own Aramco, the company which operates not be forgotten that they were selling to the Japanese the rich Saudi Arabian oil fields. government for only 70 cents a barrel!) Then it turned The position of the major oil companies, in relation to out that the wartime demands of King I bn-Saud were such the smaller producers and refiners, has improved enor­ that the government paid him $81 million. while it con­ mously during the war. A study of the process of monopo­ tinued to pay the premium price for its Navy oil! lization in the oil industry in 1938 reported that "through Aramco, which owns and operates the Saudi Arabian the practical denial' of the use of pipelines, through the fields. was organized in 1933 with a capital investment of operation of the proration system, through practical denial $80 million. It was owned, 50% by Texaco and 50.% by of the use, of patented processes, through the refinery price Standard Oil of Calif. In 1946 a deal was made that per­ squeeze and through practical denial of the use of com­ mitted two other American companies to buy a 40% in­ pounds and products necessary to bring his run of refinery terest in Aramco. Standard Oil of N. J. bought 30.% ano gasoline up to standards fixed by the major oil companies, Standard Vacuum the remaining 10%. The purchase price the smaller producer has been squeezed out" (TNEC was $200 million. Of this, $85 million was in cash. $50 report) . million in '10-year notes, and the remainder in oil produced The government, having greatly accelerated this process from the fieid at 12 cents a barrel. And here lies another of monopolization and profiteering during the war, tlfrned tale: Today's market price for crude oil is as exorbitant as about after the war and "exposed" the concentration and $2.50 a barreL but the 12 cents per barrel stipulated in that centralization of capital prevailing. (See, Report of the .:greement retlects the true production cost!. Since 1933 Smaller \Var Plants Corporation: Economic Concentration Aramco paid no dividends, using all income for capital and ~Vorld ~Var !I, p. 169.) On October 21. ]947 twenty expansion. Its first dividend in 1947, however. amounted to leading oil companies were charged before the Senate \Var $22 million. I ts underground oil reserves are conservatively Investigating Committee with rolling up $59,856,000 excess estimated to be worth no less than $20 billion! VJar profits. Roland Larrabbee, chief administrator for the In 1948-49 these fields wiII absorb $375 million of Reconstruction Finance Corporation, told the committee American capital; in 1947 more than $ 138 million was in­ that these companies had made $259,943,000 total profits vested in Saudi Arabia and in 1946 it was over $73 mil­ on their war contracts with the government. He demanded lion. \Vhile American production of crude oil increased the return of a mere $59 million as "excess profit." But only 6.9% in 1947, the Saudi Arabian field increased its evert this modest demand has been ignored. production by 30.%. Profits for the first postwar year, 1946, show that every oil company has increased its mass of profit over even the rinalIy, the American companies who control thest' lush war year: fields have elaborated still one other device by which to 1945 1946 coin profits. They set up "foreign" oil companies to sell the product. They thus avoid payment of any taxes what­ The Texas Co. $51,856,928 $71,089,2(J/ ever to the United States government. Thus, the Bahrein Standard Oil (Calif.), (9 mos.) 48,990,458 66,544,580 Petroleum Co., organized as a Canadian corporation, i~, Socony Vacuum (9 mos.) 36,000,000 66,000,000 owned by the same firms as Aramco. On an investment of Gulf Oil Co. (6 mos.) 26,746,013 42,510,375 $100,000 it has reaped profits of $92,186,107. On these Continental Oil Co. 15,142,870 27,607,645 fabulous profits they paid not a cent in taxes. Another Tide Water Oil (6 mos.) 7,683,663 10,0.13,899 "foreign" firm, Caltex (California Texas Co.), owned Richfield Oil Co. (6 mos.) 2,458,339 5,453,708 entirely by Texaco, is organized as a Bahama Islands 1947 saw the still greater accumulation of profits. A corporation. The total investment of $1 million has paid study by the National City Bank of New York, covering off profits of $25,386,573. Again, these patriotic Ameri­ the 21 largest oil companies, shows. a rise in total profits cans paid not a cent in taxes to the United States govern­ of 69.1%, after payment of all taxes, for 1947; over total ment. Although these facts were brought to the attention }-,rofits for 1946. At the same time the authoritative Petro­ of senatorial committee:], the lucrative fraud is still in leum Refiner (May 1948) reports that production for 1947 operation and no attempt is being made by the powers that Increased only 6.9% over 1946. . be to end the lush untaxed profits of the oil monopolists. Despite the charges before the Senate War I nvestigat­ On the contrary, the collaboration between the oil monopoly ing Committee of super-profits i~ the industry, the industry and the government grows closer with each passing day. AIf.~lIst 1948 fOUR'fH INTERNATIONAl. 'Page 185

3. The State and the Oil Industry line ,at Ras Tanura on the Persian Gulf, which"can be done in only four months. This means that there is no time to a. INTERNATIONAL RELATION bargain with the Arabs. It is more advantageous to "sur­ Ever since \Vorld War I the struggle for control of the render" since this is in accord with American imperialist world's supply of oil has become the province of govern­ interests. ments rather than the exclusive business of rival oil mono­ polies. The individual capitalist was supplanted by his b. GOVERNMENTAL "RESPONSIBILITY" government in the process of striking bargains for a share A great many "oil experts" went into the government of the world's oil pools and markets. The oil fields of I ran during the war. The 20 monopolistic companies, which were and Iraq, for instance. were taken over. by the British "regulated" by a self-appointed board before the war, Admiralty. succeeded in having their own board appointed as a gov­ As a bourgeois paper expresses it: "T.here is no country ernment regulating board for the duration of the war. In \vhich is so thoroughly geared to the power supplied by this way they were able to secure the abrogation of the petroleum. Yet, thanks to the mixture of unsupported

'Ii. A 1-1 gus tIl) ./ .\' FOURTH li"TERNATIONAL Page 181 Resolution of the Second World Con gress on the Committee A.broad of the Internationalist Communists of GermallY 1. The Committee Abroad (AK) of the fact that the AK had refused in ad­ policies and leadership of the Interna­ the Internationalist Communists of Ger­ vance to accept the discipline of the tional. The AK had previously collabor.. many (IKD), whose political position World Congress. ated with the WOl'kers Party in a phan­ had been denounced as revisionist by the 4. Despite these invitations, and de­ tom "Committee for the Fourth Interna.. April 1946 International Conference, was spite the fact that all communications tional," which vainly tried to bl'eak up invited by this Conference to collaborate and circulars which went out to the reg­ and destroy our international organiza­ with the IEC and the IS in the task of ular sections of the International were tion. When these efforts failed, the AK reorganizing the section in Germany. sent also to the AK, the latter failed continued, by secret and disloyal faction 2. Immediately after this Conference, to make any reply, or to express its views methods, to try to break up the various the AK of the IKD publicly declared that on the Congress, or to' send to the Con­ sections of the International and its it did not recognize the authority of the gress a delegate or even a letter. Their world organization. only partici.pat~on in the international lEe and the IS elected at the Conference, 6. Drawing the balance sheet of this discussion has been' to send, a lengthy and that it would conduct itself with re­ entire experience, the World Congress two-year-6Id . docUment, which the IS gard to their recommendations and di­ declares that the Committee Abroad no published in French and in English. This rectives accordingly. All communications longer has the right to speak in the document repeats that "the AK will con­ 8ent by the IS to the AK with the aim name of the IKD. The AK, as a body tinue to ignore completely the lEO and of getting their members to participate recognized by the International, is de­ the IS and their discipline," etc. in the international work in Germany clared dissolved. As individuals its mem­ remained unanswered. DISLOYAL FACTIONAL METHODS bers can remain in the International only 3. In spite of this, the lEG wished to 5. During' this period the AK of the if they accept the discipline of the new give the AK of the IKD an opportunity IKD continually engaged in public activ~ German leadership or the leadership. of to defend its position in the international ities outside the control of the Interna­ another section, and if in their publie discussion preceding the World Congress, tional and without even informing the organs they carry out the political ....line and at its October 1946 session invited International leadership. These activities adopted by the World Congress. Under the AK to participate in the discussion were and are entirely at odds with the such conditions, they will continue to en­ as well as in the Congress itself. At its political orientation of the International. joy the same rights that minority tenden­ March 1947 session, the IE'C even went Moreover, these activities included con­ cies in the International have always flO far as to repeat the invitation, despite stant public attacks against the program, fully enjoyed.

Resolution of the Second World Congress on the Reorganization of the German Section of the Fourth International 1. In 1933, the Committee Abroad 2. All comrades Who accept the politi­ National Conference. (AK) of the Internationalist Communists cal discipline of the International and 5. A comrade abroad will be elected of Germany (IKD) was recognized .as its leading bodies, who work under the as a regular member of the national the official leadership of the German discipline of the national lef..dership, leadership. Insofar as possible, he should Section of the Fourth International. In whether in Germany or abroad, and who attend the meetings of the national lead.. April 1946, the International Gonference are ready to collaborate actively in build­ ership. His functions will be defined by directed the lEG to reorganize the Ger­ ing the German Section, are members the National Conference. man Section in collaboration with the of the German Section. Until the com­ 6. The paper of the German Section AK of the IKD. The AK made no reply ing National Conference, the German of the Fourth International will tempo­ to the repeated cor.lmunica.tion03 ->f the Commission of the IS· is assigned the rarily be published a:broad. Until the na­ IS on the matter. Meanwhil~, the com­ task of coordinating the work of the tional leadership is in a position to ap­ rades of the IKD in Germany effected comrades abroad and those in Germany. point a permanent and regularly consti­ their organizational regro~ment with 3. Until conditions are such as to tuted editorial board, the editing of the the assistance of the IS and the lEO. permit regular activity of a unified na­ paper will be entrusted to five members The World Congress, therefore, provision­ tional leadership, the central national (three in Germany and two abroad), who ally recognizes the comrades in this re­ leadership shall consist of two political will be designated by the lEG and whose groupment as the German Section of the bureaus, one in the Eastern zone an,d the nomination is to be confirmed by the l1'ourth International. Furthermore, the other in the Western zone. coming National Conference. 'The edi.. Congress recognizes for the present the 4. The IXD will call its National Con­ torial board is to be under the control pl'ovisional nationalleadershi.p which will ference nqt later than (date of the IEe. be elected by the first National Confer­ to be specified). After the national lead­ The paper will be a propaganda organ, ence as the only provisional political ,and ership has been elected, it will assume and will have the task of making known organizational leadership of the Gern'lan responsibility for all the work. The to the vanguard of the German working Section. After the first National Con­ comrades abroad, together with the Ger­ class the political line of the Internation­ ference of the IKD, the IEC will defini· man Commis'sion. of the IS, must make al and its analysis of the important tively recognize the German Section. every effort to send a delegation to this questions of German and world politics Page 188 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL August 1948 hqtll :fIf~Se.nt ~nd past. It will se:rve ~t makes poss~b~e certain forms of semi­ the is.olation, of their p(lHt\c~\ life u.nder the same time to educate the German legal activity tl\ere, such as fraction fascism; if they succeed in clarifying the comrades. On tl?ose question~ on wh~cp. work i~ wor~ing-c\a.ss parties and Y'Ol,lth principal new polit\cal problems; and if the W orId Congress has not taken a posi­ 'organizations, the building' of an 'Organ­ they participate intensively in the inter­ ti()n, the paper .wUl express tl1e politic~l ized'left wing in tb,e unions~ the organ­ national discussions, at th~, s~me t\me o~iIiiop,~ of t~e nation~l leadersl1i:p. iz~tion 'Of discussi<;>n groups on a fairly 'giving a, basic edu~at~on to ,ll tl\Q ~Ww '.f~~ ~~istini. veqnan .:publicati'Ons will broad political basis, and penetration into ~lements who CQ~~ tp the mOVellle:tlt. geCQme ~:pec\~l ~~d local papers. th~cetltrist 'Orga,n~?,at~'Ons. All su:~h :pos­ 7, U~~er present conditions in Ger,­ sibilities must be ~a:refully expl():red and 9. Tlh.is jdeoloi~ca,l cla,:rif\c~tiQ¥ m.u~t m~n¥ ~ the lluUdinJ of the German ()rga~­ widely utilized. ' go h:~nd in ha,n<\ with ~ct~ve l>'rti~ill.$­ i~~t~on can be done ()nly in illegality. tion in ~ll ~ovements w~~ch e.~:pr~a r~w­ nqt the Garm.an ~rg-anization, in order g~ The most important present tas~ lution~ry aspiratio~s ~ga,lna~ the PQw~rs not to P~Co~e fi~ed in the habits~ both in Germany is, tha huilding of soli4 po­ that be. Through propaganda and' agita­ 'Orga,ni"at\Qnal an~ political, 'Of sectarian­ Utical and, 'Organi7;ationalca.dres of tl\e tion and in action, the comrades of the i'sm, must take into consideration the dif~ Fourth lnternati'Onal. 'TIhis f;o~l will he' IKD, as well as the IKD itself ~s an ~erence between the conditions 'Of illegaU,­ r,ea'cl1C j if the comra.des in Germany suc­ organization, must strive for leadership ty llnder fascism and those existing to­ ceed in a.,relativ~ly short time in closing of these movements in every field of S~~ day. The situation in the Westerh zone l,l:p, the ideological saps resulting from cia} life. Resolution an the Partieo Operaio Conlunista (POe) 01 Italy Adopted by [he Second World Congr8aa

t· 'fl\e Pf\t:tito Ol>era,~o Com~nista wpr~jng clas!, ~s lett pa,rties of the ge~eral principl{:s in co~crete a~tioI\ or (C9.mnl\~nist W~r~ers Party), v:r;eseI\t boqrge<;)~sie ("silds~ra borghese"). They to . ·f'Ormulate them into a prog:r~m of se\lt~on, of the FO\lfth lnternatioI\~1 in write as foUows: "'f:tIe forces of t~e right actio,n fOJ: the party an<~ into. ~ concrete H~ly~ Wa~ for:p1eq by th~ merger of th.e and those of the so,.c~llenistsi bpth ()f thell\ striv~l tho\l~h Alth'Ough it is difficult unqer these ~ gr..P\l:P of 'frot~~yist comrades und~r by different methods. for the sa.me ob­ conditions to ma,ke a complete ev~hlation ~l\~ ~ea,qer~hip of n~rto~omeo. 'l'his wa,s jective function. that of restoring b'Our­ 'Of tp.e daily policie& of 'the PQC with aI\ uripri.ncipled :tn~rger on a purely geois society." (~'praft Theses,'" Int~f­ the S~D1e cl~rity as in qefi~i~g the organizational basis, with'O-qt ~ny prior ~~. B,ulleUn' Qf ~~e l~ter~atiQl1al Sec:n~­ :princ~pl~d differ~nces, we can summa,rize discussion to determine a common plat­ tariat, Vol. 2, No. 17, Aug. 19!7.) the political differences in the following form. It is this dubious. origin which has c) The present leadership of the poe points: we'~ipe(l. heavily on tlw party s~nce it~ consider~ the USSR an imperlaUst state a) The ~re~ent leaQership of th.e roc for:mation and has kept it in a permanent of the same type as t~e 'United States. rejects the concept of the Transitional :state of crisis. The crisis has been (IV Iqterna"i(lIU11e, J'\ln~ 15~ l~-17: ~' ..• Pro~ram in its Qntirety, and substitutes characterized by open' and ever-growing and the position of the working class for it a com.bination of immediate de­ hostility between t~jl twp groups, whose must not be confu~ed with the imperialist m~nqs anq ~tatements. of general prin­ nwrger ha,General Strike.") the na.tional ~n(~ colonial q~estions. 3. The ,pqliti~~l differences: c) The present lead.ership of the :rac b) Th,~ p.rese~t leadership of the PQe The prcs,filnt leadership of the POC considers. that the interna.tion.f\l }lQUtical co~siders the tr~dition~l parties of the has been l,lnable to. apply eVen its own si~uatiQn today is entirely and excl\lsive- August 1948 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 189 ly dominated by the contradictions be­ present poe leadership and the Inter­ many of its groups to prepare for parti­ tween two imperialisms: Russian and national are not limited solely to the cipation by the POC in the Italian elec­ Yankee. Every struggle or social con­ programmatic and political domain but tions, and then having to giv~ it up flict is a dir~ct consequence of this extend also to organizational principles. because of insufficient material me$.l\s, general conflict, in which the workers a) The present leadership of the POC the poe' leadership presented this l1ave no stake wh~tever. (IV Interna­ advocates, as against democratic central­ "forced abstention" as a "political ~b­ zionale, July 16, 1947: "While on the ism, "revolutionary centralism," the stention," and in its paper spoke' of the one hand America ~ids the Maximos twin brother to the "organic centralism" elections as an "electoral circus." (IV government, the Stalinist governments of the Bordighists. In practice, this con­ Internazionale, March 10(), 1948: "We wash of Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria aid sists in denial of the right of organized our hands of the electoral struggle. • • the partisans. Thus the Greek workers tendencies to exid within the party and, On April 18, the voters will Pc called are being exhausted in a struggle bear­ indeed. gives the leadership ,absolute upon to vote for war, for the third world ing the hallmark of the ruthless struggle power over the entir,e membership. (POC conflict, and their only right will be to betw~en the Russians and Anglo-Amer­ Internal Bulletin, No.7: "In all other choose between figliting on the 8i

J!"RUITL,ESSEFFORTS to establish a revQlutionary party in the Partito OperaiQ CQmunista is no IQng­ FQr Qver tWQ years ,the International Italy. This is the result Qf the discredit­ er the Italian SectiQn Qf the FQurth In­ Executive Committee and the Interna­ ment which the POC casts Qver TrQtsky­ ternatiQnal, and that the Italian sectiQn tiQnal Secretariat have endeavQred, ism in general, and of the negative and still remains to be built. thrQugh demQcratic discussiQn, tOo con­ abstentionist attitude which it takes Qn Calls upon all the cQmrades Qf the POC vince the POIC leadership Qf the errQne­ the prQblem Qf regrQupment in particular to gather arQund the magazine which QUS character Qf its PQlicies, and have (fOol' example, the cQmmunicatiQn threat­ is shQrtly to appear, with the Qbject of meticulously abstained frQm any kind of ening expulsiQn of any comrade whQ at­ building a genuine TrQtskyist Qrganiza­ Qrganizational i~tervention, despite the tempted to turn his activity in this tiQn in Italy. expressed wishes Qf the POC minQrity directi on) • Points out, nevertheless, to the Qther which supPQrts the prog'ram Qf the In­ Nevertheless, the basis for the wQrk Qf members of the POC, that if they wish ternational. It is now Qf vital imp~rtance regroupmenthas been fQrmulated by tOo maintain relatiQns with the ltQurth tOo the InternatiQnal tOo direct all its ef­ the IS with the assistance Qf the BQI­ InternatiQnal, they may request the sta­ fQrts in an attenipt to regroup around shevik-Leninist minority Qf the' party. tus Qf sympathizing QrganizatiQn of the the PQlitical prQgram and ideQlogical PQ­ CQnsiderable prQgress has been made, FQurth InternatiQnal, which the IEC wi.ll sitiQns Qf the FQurth InternatiQnal, thQse and the first steps on this rQad will be grant after a trial periQd Qf six mQnths whQ have broken with the traditiQnal concretized by the publicatiQn Of a Trot­ on cQnditiQn that they carry out the polit­ parties. skyi.st magazine around which will gather ical and QrganizatiQnal decisiQns Qf the thQse cQmrades whQ are determined to W Qrld CQngress. If they meet these CQn­ 6. The task. of revolut.ionary regroup­ 'defend the fundamental principles and ditiQns, they will have the right tOo ap­ p;1ent: policies of the F'Qurth InternatiQnal. pealQn the question Qf disaffiliation The present leadership Qf the POC before a subseq".lent meeting Qf the lEe. dQes nQt understand the impQrtance Qf THE INESCAPABLE CONCLUSIONS Instructs the IS tOo continue with the the task Qf revQlutiQnary regrQupment 7. Conclusions: wQrk' Qf revQlutiQnary regrQupment in and has chQsen tOo withdraw intQ a sterile The W Oorld CQngress - Italy, under its Qwn directresPQnsibility, sectarianism which, if cQntinued, will Decides to draw the organizatiQnal cQn­ this task, having been entrusted to the lead tOo the complete failure Qf Trotsky­ clusiQns frQm the existing state Qf af­ IS by the lEG at its OctQber 1947 meet­ ism in Italy. TQday the PQlicy Qf the fairs in Italy, as Qutlined abQve. ing. POC is an Qbstacle to. any seriQus effQrt Declares that the party whi.ch is called

seriQus injury tOo the gQQd name Qf the Resolution of the Second World Congress of party. the, Fourth International on the Expulsions For these reaSQns, the WQrld CQn­ gress cOon siders the expulsiQns entirely from the French Section justified, and rejects any appeal Qn the matter.. 1. The split in the former leadership a) They entered upon their activity of 3. The W 00 rId CQngress rejects the Qf tho French Section is the end of a building the RDH without any attempt arguments Qf thQse expelled, whQ cite lQng and extremely sharp tendency at serIous di:.;;tussion inside the Qrganiz­ their "nQn-recQgnitiQn" Qf the present struggle. Those who have today broken ation, without presenting, either to the ReI leadership, elected at the }i'Qurth with the International Communist Party French Section or tOo the International, Congress Qf the party, as a justificatiQll (POI) have for two years followed a a $tatement Qf political orientatiQn tOo fQr their attitude tQward the decisiQns PQlitical orientation leading them further motivate such a grave decisiQn. Only Qf the' CO' cQncerning them. The partici­ and further away from the International. after they had already acted did they patiQn by their tendency in the CC meet­ '1;'he . deviatiQns of this tendency, twice present tOo the CC a letter frQm Demaz­ ings fQllQwingl the FQurth ,CQngress characterized by the InternatiQnal Ex­ ieres as a political resolution. clearly shows that they had, de facto, ecutive Committee as QPportunist petty­ b) After they had made their line agreed tOo respect the discipline Qf the bourgeQis deviations, have now led them clear and began immediat~ly tOo carry party's leading 'bQdies which had been to abandQn entirely the perspective Qf it Qut, the CC gave them a fifteen-day established at the FQurth CQngress. The building at the present stage a BQlshe­ period within which tOo change their PQsi­ absence Qf any written appeal tOo the vik-Leninist party in France based Qn tiQn and tOo carry Qut the decisiQns Qf InternatiQnal Secretariat Qr the Interna­ the prQgram Qf the ~"ourth InternatiQnal; the CC, which had explicitly cQndemned tiQnal EJeecutive CQmmittee, which have and to substitute for this the building their orientation. They were given a met since then, and the absence Qf any Qf a centrist party "cQrresponding to the cleal' warning that, shQuld they CQn­ campaign by them Qn this questiQn Qbjective situatiQn." This is the meaning tinue on this rQad, they WQuid place within the party, cQnfirm this. MQre­ Qf their entry intQ the RevolutiQnary themselves Qutside the party. Qver, even if the tendency Qf thQse whQ Democratic Ral.1y on the basis of defend­ c) Far from taking advantage Qf this have been expelled did nQt recQgnize the ing certain "key values." opportunity Qffered them by the PCI 'leadership established at the FQurth leadf:l'ship, they publicly joined the RDR CQngress, any seriQus QrganizatiQnal 001' DISCIPLINE. VIOLATED immediately after the CC sessiQn, and PQlitical step Qn their part shQuld have 2. The Central CQmmittee decided called UPQn all PCI memb~rs tOo dQ like­ been taken' within the framewQrk Qf ,the UPQn the expUlsion Qf these individuals wise. They have attacked the PQlicy Qf leading bQdies Qf the InternatiQnal., The after their Qpen viQlatiQns Qf the Qrgani­ the PCI and its leadership, publicly and fact that they decided tOo jQin the RDR, zatiQnal and political discipline Qf the in the press, and' ha ve - tOo say nQthing and actually did SQ, withQut cQnsulting PCI: of their breach Qf discipline '-- dealt Qr infQrming the IS, withQut even giving August 1948 FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Page 191 it an explanation of their 'position, clear­ atterr.pt to liquidate the Trotskyist or­ The Congress guarantees to them, under ly proves that their post facto argument ganization. Entry into the RDR would these conditions, their full rights as is purely formalistic, and that what is have meaning only if the' oi'ganization members of the PCI, and their participa­ involved on their part is an actual break already had a genuine mass base and if tion with full righfs at the Fifth Con­ with the policy ~nd the organization of it were a question of thus bringing new gress of the party. the International and its French Sec­ layers of radicalized workers to the . If, on the other hand, these conditions tion. Fourth International. But contrary to are rejected, the Congress definitively this, the orientation of those who have confirms the expulsions pronounced by A FALSE ORIENTATION been expelled is to. build the RDR with the Cenb'al' Committee of the PCI, and 4. The World Congress in no way ex­ those elements who were on the point rejects any proposal for organizational cludes the necessity of work toward of joining our own movement. compromise not .based on political prin­ revolutionary regrouping with organiza­ 5. Ori, the basis of this orientation ciples. tions which, like the ASR (Socialist I toward the task of revolutionary re­ RevolutionarY' Action group in France), grouping, as defined above, the World Resol ution on South ~ave broken with the traitor parties on . Congress offers those who have been Africa a class basis. On the contrary, it con­ expelled a final opportunity to reinte­ Adopted by Second W orId Congress siders such work to be of vital im­ grate themselves in the Interna'tional, portr.nce for the French· Section, as for and fixes the following conditions: The W orId Congress takes note of the most of the European sections. But the a) Explicit recognition of the political fact that the FIOSA (organization of Congress carefully distinguishes between and organizational decisions of the World the Fourth International in South Afri.. a~ti~ity of this kind and the opportunist Congress; ca), whichba'ses itself on the program.. and unprincipled fraction work which, b) Acceptance of the above-defined matic position 'of the Fourth Internation­ instead of bringing the centrist elements orientation for the task of revolutionary al, has tried to achieve unity in South toward the revolutionary program, regrouping; Africa through fusion with theWorker$ adapts, the program to centrism. It also c) Work under the direct leadership Party, and has not succeeded up to the distinguishes between the task of revolu­ and control of the IS; p~esent time. In the absence of a pro­ tionary regrouping, which must aim at d) Strict abstention from any' public grammatic base able to justify the exist­ bringing together around the revolu­ attack on the PCl and its leadership,. and ence of two 'groups in South Africa, the tionary program those elements (such as retraction of public attack~ that have World Congress charges 'the Internation.. the ASR) who are moving toward us already been made. al Executive Committee with establish.. - and the kind of work car.ried on by ing a united section in South Africa, the expelled elements which throws them A FINAL OFFER and to this end, empowers it to disaffi­ backward toward the building of a cen­ 6. The expelled comrades who accept liate; if necessary, the organization fail. trist organization (the RDR). That is these' conditions may~ after a probation ing to apply its decisions and to recon­ why the Congress explicitly condemns period of three months, ask for readmis­ stitute the Soutll African Section of the the policy of building the RI?-R, as an sion into the PCT and the International. Fourth International.

Greetings to 4a Internazionale and Die lnternationale

The appearance of two riew publications of the Fourth The first issue of 4a Interna,{ionale contains a short International in July is fresh testimony of the growing history of the Fourth International, an article by Leon strength of the Trotskyist movement and the capacity of Trotsky on the Socialist United States of Europe, articles the ideas of revolutionary socialism to survive the most en Italian politics, Palestine, the crisis of the Social Dem­ ferocious suppression. ocracy in France, the Second World Congress of the Fourth The first issue of 4a Interna{ionale, an Italian "mag­ .International, and the presidential election in. the United azine' of revolutionary Marxism" published in Rome, ar­ Stat,es. rived here almost at the same time as the first issue of pie Internationale contains an analysis of the elections Die lnternationale, official organ of the German Section ill Italy and CzechoslovaKia, a resolution of the Second \Vorld Congress of the Fourth I nternational on the present of the ~ourth International, published in. Amsterdam. situation in Germany and the t

and. toe revolutionary developments they portend. Yorkl N. Y, The cost is only 25 cents each. FARRELL DOBBS for PRESIDENT! GRACE CARLSONfor VICE-PRESIDENT! Support the Socialist Workers P arty Candidates in the 1948 Election Campaign

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