THE COLONIAL REVOLUTION
Since the Second World War
Resolution
The predominant factor in the world, since the Stalinists and social-democrats betrayed the proletarian revolution in Europe at the end of the second world war, has been the advance of the colonial revolution, which embraces in its movement three-quarters of the earth's population, and which is developing on every continent that has been colonized.
world war and the victorious October Revolution had contributed to the awakening of the colonized peoples, particularly in Asia. munist International for the first time drew the interest of the metropolitan workers' movement to the uprisings of the colonial peoples, as being an element of the struggle for the world revolution, and formulated the principles of communist strategy and tactics movements of the colonial masses.
In the twelve years elapsed since the end of the second world war, the colonial revolution has increased in extent and continues to spread to all regions that were colonized in past centuries (Asia; Middle East, Africa, Latin America...).
The colonial revolution triumphed as a proletarian revolution in China, then in North Korea and North
The victory of the revolution in China acted as a powerful stimulus to the shifts in the relationship of social forces.
revolutionary developing not only confirm this change in the relationship of forces; in numerous cases, they have even pushed this balance in a direction more unfavorable to imperialism and more favorable to the masses and to world revolution. The defeats suffered by the masses have been only partial and limited.
The colonial revolution has placed world imperialism superiority — in a situation which, apart from attempts to contain or roll back the revolution in limited sectors, has no other prospect than a third world war against the alliance of the workers' states and the-colonial revolution, to re-establish globally its lost equilibrium.
The colonial revolution has set in motion the world's most economically and culturally backward masses, with a view to enabling them to cover in a short historical period the road already covered by the advanced capitalistic countries of Western Europe, and that to the building of a socialist society. Though, on the political plane, the victory of the Chinese Revolution and the advance of the colonial revolution have henceforth guaranteed the victory of the world revolution, the economic and cultural problems raised by this surge forward of the great majority of mankind will be resolved only with the victory of the revolution in the most advanced capitalist countries.
The colonial revolution has brought about a change in the rei tionship of forces between the masses on the one hand, and bureaucrats on the other — whether they be the leading Kremlin bureaucracy and its servants, strongly contributed to the crisis of the bureaucratic régime in the workers' states and the traditional workers' leaderships in the capitalist world.
On the theoretical level, the colonial revolution has strikingly confirmed the theory of the permanent revo-
La confirmation supported by the weight of 600 million Chinese in current history, and has already driven parts of this theory into the heads of Stalinist-
It has also enriched the theory itself, and consequently Marxism itself. 2 — THE COLONIAL REVOLUTION IS AN INTEGRAL
PART OF THE WORLD SOCIALIST REVOLUTION a) Because of its own devei pment.
The progress of the Chinese revolution, from 1911 to 1949, has shown, both by the heavy defeats it suffered and by its final victory, that given the present structure of the world, there is no possibility for the native bourgeoisie to accomplish the whole of the fundamental tasks of the democratic revolution (economic and political national independence, national unity, agrarian reform) and to set up a stable bourgeois regime in which the productive forces would go through a long period of development, as in the XVIIth, XVIIIth, and XIXth century revolutions, and that these countries might become independent imperialist powers.
In spite of the various tempos of its development, resulting mainly, as we shall see further on, from the part played by the Soviet government and the leaderships of the parties it controlled, the drive of the colonial revolution throughout the world can find no effective solution under a bourgeois leadership and its victory can he assured only by a proletarian leadership.
In confirmation of this, the most striking comparison is that between China and India: between China,
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FOURTH INTERNATIONAL where the revolution is guided by a working-class leadership (though a highly empirical and opportunistic one); and India, where the native ruling bourgeoisie can at present avail itself of the financial support of imperialism and the political and material aid of the Soviet government. Such a comparison leads to the following conclusions:
India has not accomplished the essential tasks of the democratic revolution: political independence has been acquired, but national unity is not completed (Pakistan) ; the agrarian reform has not been carried out.
The bourgeois régime of India offers no real stability ; it maintains itself mainly due to the traditions and authority of the Congress Party, acquired during the old struggles against British imperialism, and to Nehru's personality.
To give some answer to the feelings of the Indian masses, impressed by the development of the productive forces in China, the Indian government worked up an ambitious Second Five-Year Plan which was to demonstrate the possibilities of economic development without having to have recourse to revolutionary methods. But the economic situation in India has considerably worsened (inflation, lack of foreign exchange), and the Second Five-Year Plan has got itself into a crisis which at present requires considerable sums (according to the estimates of the Minister of Finances, 2,000 million dollars) to overcome it. Hence, although India unlike China (boycotted by the USA), normal relations with the entire world, its economic possibilities within the framework of the maintenance of the capitalist system have shown themselves to be very limited.
India will be able to open up the way to a development of her productive forces comparable to that China only by overthrowing the capitalist régime and carrying out the agrarian reform.
In all countries that have acquired political independence since the end of the second world war, this change, of a political nature, has rapidly dissipated illusions about «national unity » among all social strata, and the masses promptly and vigorously forward -- against the aims of the native bourgeoisie - their own demands, without which, national independence for them would be but an empty shell.
In each colonial revolution there has appeared what Nasser has empirically described as the simultaneous advance of « two revolutions, » that is, in Marxist terms, the permanent character of the colonial revolution.
The colonial peoples demand not only formal equality of rights with Western nations. Together with political equality, and so that this does not become just an empty formality without content - they press for equal living conditions. That is why in all colonial or semi-colonial countries, the idea of industrialization exerts such a deep influence on all strata of the population. Given this fact, and the fact that the industrialization is beginning to materialize even within a colonial structure, the positions of the colonial proletariat are getting stronger, and the proletariat could thus more easily push for and win the leadership of the struggle; were it not for the betrayal of the Stalinists and the reformists in tying it to the tail of the native bour-
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The second law of the permanent revolution (revolutionary transformations and jumps in development in all fields after the establishment of proletarian power) is confirmed in China, as it had been in the
In this connection the tempo of economic development in colonial and semi-colonial countries after their victory over imperialism depends to a large extent on the help they can obtain from the victory of the revolution in industrially advanced countries. The tremendous task of the colonial revolution is to raise the living standards of about 2,000 million human beings, within a relatively short time, to the present one of some several hundred million people, an indispensable prerequisite for really starting to build socialism. If the countries have to resolve these problems mainly on their own, or with the inevitably limited help of the USSR - such being the case still for China - they will be able to do so only slowly, at the cost of great sacrifices by the toiling masses, and with the risk of bureaucratic deformations, even under an authentically revolutionary leadership.
b) By its effects on the stablity of the metropolitan capitalist régimes.
In a period when the revolutionary struggle of the European masses has been held back by the social-democratic and Stalinist leaderships, and the revolutionary upsurge of 1944-1945 could be checked, because of the American support of the bourgeois powers on the one hand, and, on the other, the impotence of the Communist Parties geared as they were to support the aims of Kremlin diplomacy, the capitalist world has not been able to re-establish any lasting form of economic or political stability at home, because of the efforts it had to expend against the colonial revolution.
The spread of the colonial revolution has not only weakened the economy of the imperialist countries, it has also served as an effective brake on the growth of the exportation of capital, thus causing an excess of capital in certain countries (United States, Switzerland, Belgium, and partly in Great Britain and Germany) and a persistent delay in the industrialization, even of a colonial type, of certain regions of the world — thus accentuating both the crisis of the colonial countries and the crisis of the world capitalist system as a
The two great XIXth century colonial powers (Great Britain and France) have obviously been those to suffer the most from the effects of the colonial revolution.
British capitalism, in spite of its relatively flexible policy in a number of territories of its ex-empire, has lost position after position — both from the strategic and economic point of view. In the Middle East it is faced by a matter of life and death for its commerce and industry, for its very existence as a capitalist
Since 1956 French imperialism has been at war every single day with some colonial people or another. gave way in the Far East and is fighting with its back against the wall in North Africa, its defeat in Algeria bringing as a consequence the crash of its African
Colonial wars weigh heavily on its budget. Hundreds of thousands of men have been called up to
22 fight them. The morale of its army is deeply affected. French capitalism has survived only because of US aid and the disastrous and criminal policy of the leaderships of the French Communist and Socialist Parties.
As for American imperialism, which still enjoys the benefit of a social equilibrium long since lost in Europe, its whole economic structure is undermined by the fact that there are no real prospects for expansion because of the colonial revolution. It cannot find, as Great Britain did in the XIXth century, adequate outlets for its productive: forces. Whereas these forces are considerable, it has to face a contracting capitalist world, and it is only at the expense of its « allies » that it has even limited possibilities of expansion. What is more, even in the United States, in the political and social field the first source of instability derives from the Negro movement which, to a large extent, is influenced by the success of the emancipation movements of the colonial peoples.
In short, both by the very logic of its own development and by its effects the stability of the metropolitan capitalist regimes, the colonial revolution is an integral part of the world socialist revoiution, and, from the end of the second world war up to today, it has been the most important factor in the world revolution. 3 — THE PRESENT LEADERSHIPS OF THE COLO-
NIAL REVOLUTIONS
The colonial revolution develops at different rhythms and under different leaderships according to countries.
In China, in part of Korea and Vietnam, the revolution was victorious under the leadership of a workers' party of Stalinist origin.
In Cevlon, it is developing under a revolutionary Marxist leadership.
In Bolivia, its possibilities and success depend above all on the capacities of the revolutionary Marxist leadership to fulfill its role effectively.
In most cases, even where there exist fairly powerful working-class organizations, bourgeois or petty-bourgeois leadership.
The causes of this situation lie much less in the specific objective conditions in the colonial or semi-colonial countries (newness or weakness of the proletariat, weight of the peasantry and native middleclasses) than in the policy of the metropolitan workers' leaderships, both reformist and Stalinist, and in the Kremlin's policy. These leaderships advocate that in the colonies the workers and the peasant and poor petty-bourgeois masses ally themselves with the native bourgeoisie, under the latter's leadership and on its programme. Lastly, the Stalinists and reformists have paralyzed the metropolitan workers instead of calling on them to demonstrate their solidarity with the colonial
Under these conditions, the colonial peoples do not yet see in socialism and communism an answer to their needs, and tend to turn towards ideologies formulated by the bourgeois or petty-bourgeois leaders (Justicialism, Pan-Arabism, etc.).
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL 4 - THE COLONIAL COUNTRIES AND THE INTER-
NATIONAL SITUATION
During the post-war vears the Asian and African countries of colonial structure that had won political independence set up, between the Atlantic coalition of imperialist countries and the alliance of workers' states, the Bandoeng group, which is trying to get the maximum economic and political advantages out of the unstable equilibrium established between the East and West, and their fundamental antagonism.
Latin-American successful in forming a bloc. They do not hesitate to use for their own benefit the inter-imperialist economic rivalries on their continent. . Occasionaly, they demonstrate feelings of sympathy towards the governments of the Bandoeng group against imperialist aims; but they quite clearly line up against the USSR behind American imperialism, since they are bound to it by a network of economic, political, and military agreements in the Organization of the American Stafes, precisely because they afraid of the sympathies of the Latin-American USSR and China.
a) The policy of the imperialists.
The imperialists have a policy that varies according to regions and times.
Whereas Great Britain granted formal political independence to and Burma the end of the war, everywhere else each imperialist power has tried to defend its own positions (Holland in Indonesia, France in Vietnam, Great Britain in Malaya). And the United States, while pretending to grant formal independence to the Philippines, has consolidated there a regime completely under its
In the Far East, the French and Dutch have lost their key positions. Britain maintains. precarious hold on Malaya.
Economically, it is the United States that tends to supplant the old imperialist powers that have lost their positions. American imperialism which, because of its overwhelming power compared to that of the old imperialisms and its leading rôle in the imperialist coalition, has supported a policy of « moderation » and « understanding, » in order to bring the native bourgeoisies into the general struggle against the rising socialist revolution, has nevertheless proved in Latin
(Guatemala, Argentina...) that it is qnite. prepared to organize military intervention where it fears that its vital interests may be affected by a mass movement that the native bourgeoisie may not be able to control, or when sectors of the bourgeoisie swing dangerously out of its orbit. It clearly showed in Korea and in its policy towards Iran that it will not hesitate to intervene in this way at any point on the
During the last few years, the French and British imperialists threatened have adopted differentiating policies on the African continent, granting independence under irresistible pressure to a more or developed native bourgeoisie (in Morocco, Tunisia, Togoland, and the Gold Coast) but indulging in a frightful repression in countries that occupy strategie positions (Kenya) or
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL where the mass movement is difficult to canalize
Africa, through a geographic entity, does not have sufficient ethnic unity so that all its countries could jump over the stage of setting up separate nations. But though this stage is being reached in the whole north of the continent, from Casablanca to Suez, and though tomorrow Egypt and doubtless Libya as well will find their place in an Arab Federation of Middle Eastern countries, that part of Africa south of the Sahara was artificially cut up at the time of the imperialist conhistoric unity, and the imperialists are now trying to maintain their domination by giving such « nations»' an independence or autonomy devoid of real content, by Balkanizing Africa (the Deferre framework-law for the colonial territories Without underestimating the propagandistic importance for the emancipation movement of the remembrance of vanished ancient Negro kingdoms (Ghana, Songha, the Congo, Kaffirland, etc.), and without failing to exploit all possibilities of reaching political independence even within the framework of artificial frontiers, the revolutionary vanguard will resolutelv direct its efforts toward the establishment of the Socialist United States of Africa, with the countries of North Africa left free to choose to federate with the Federation of Arab Countries, with Socialist Africa, or with Socialist Europe, according to their own inclination.
The Middle East has witnessed the practical elimination of British imperialism from this region, where it had since the end of the first world war enjoyed an almost complete supremacy (with the exception of Syria and Lebanon, where French imperialism was dominant). Its last attempt, at Suez in October 1956, in liaison with French imperialism and the State of Israel, forced it to give up its position as the imperialist champion to the USA. Since then the USA has demonstrated the extreme importance it accords to this part of the world (« the Eisenhower Doctrine»), which at this moment constitutes one of the most explosive regions for international relations.
b) The policy of the USSR and China.
Since they have no imperialist economic interests in the colonial and semi-colonial countries, Moscow and Pekin — contrary to the imperialists — have had the most friendly attitude towards the native bourgeois governments of the Bandoeng Bloc. They gave them support in their resistance imperialists' aims, but, at the same time, they ments, thus backing them against the working masses of these same countries (India, Indonesia, Middle East...).
The Kremlin's influence may grow, all the more since the USSR is now capable of supplying relatively substantial economic aid to these colonial and semi-colonial countries for their industrialization plans and their arms needs, because of the possibilities of industry, and the stocks of arms produced during the « cold war, » which are now replaced by more modern equipment, and in exchange to guarantee these countries a growing outlet for their production of raw materials and agricultural commodities for which the USSR has an increasing need.
Because of this, the Bandoeng group has had a
23 « neutralist » attitude, characterized however by more favorable inclinations towards the USSR than towards the capitalist states.
The understanding between the workers' states and those of the Bandoeng group is a fragile one from the viewpoint of the particular interests of their leaderships; when faced with the danger of a mass movement, the national bourgeois leaderships will turn back towards American imperialism. On the other hand, the interests of the masses in the colonies and in the workers' states tend in the direction of a strengthening
The leaderships of the countries of the Bandoeng Conference have diverse interests too, from one country to another, and in some cases there even exists a strong opposition between another (divergences amongst the Arab States of the Middle East; divergences between India and Pakistan). Fundamentally, the leaders of these countries are either bourgeois or feudo-capitalist chiefs anxious to maintain the capitalist system, which is the source of their profits. But they turn towards the Soviet leaders, representatives of the ruling bureaucracy, because the latter support them against both the aims of the imperialists and the demands of their own masses.
But none of them today is in a position to disregard the masses which, in both these countries workers' states, are in an ascendant revolutionary
And, as we have explained above, the aspirations of the masses in the colonial countries join those of the masses in workers' states: to destroy imperialism and capitalism, and to build a world of well-being and freedom. 5 — THE BONAPARTIST GOVERNMENTS
From the end of the second world war till today, the unstable international equilibrium — characterized by a sharp decline of capitalism and the weakening of the imperialist positions, on one hand, and, on the other, by the expanding development of the economy of the USSR and the most gross opportunism of the Kremlin, which has slowed down the movement of the masses — has brought to power in various colonial and semi-colonial countries governments of a Bonapartist •type (Nasser, Sukarno, and at one time Peron...).
The men who head these governments appear to have the support of the whole nation, or at least of the broad masses of their countries. also act in a Bonapartist way as arbiters between the different strata of society. But an attentive study of their programme clearly reveals, without the slightest doubt, that they express the fundamental interests of the native bourgeoisie that is trying to win for itself a more important position at the expense of the landowners and comprador bourgeoisie, both of which are allied to imperialism, to develop a larger native market among the peasantry, and eventually to extend this market to neighboring countries.
These men possess a power quite out of proportion to the strength of the native bourgeoisie.
Their strength stems essentially from the possibility they have had of playing a Bonapartist rôle on both international and national scale. On the international plane, they have been able to exploit the antagonism between East and West; on the national
24 bativity of the peasant and worker masses against plane, have been able to utilize the high comimperialism, landowners, and the compradores.
The example of Peron however has clearly shown the limits of such governments. They can neither initiate a consistent struggle against imperialism and the other possessing classes, both because of the bonds that unite them to the latter and their fundamental weakness - with regard to the 'masses whose combativity they use for their own ends. They are eventually, forced, in times of economic difficulties, to turn against the masses, and to take back some of the concessions won by the masses in the first stages of the struggle. At the moment when they no longer have the masses' support, imperialism and the other possessing strata do not hesitate to attack, speculating basically on the fact that it is impossible for these governments to make the death-defying jump out of the framework of capitalism by arming the masses and attacking capitalist property.
The same hesitations that characterize the political attitude of the native bourgeoisie, swept backwards and forwards between the movement of the masses and imperialism, also characterize its economic policy, not only in structural problems such as the agrarian reform, but also and especially towards the problem of industrialization. The important results obtained in certain cases, like that of Brazil, occurred only in such fields as were stimulated by foreign capital. Nowhere in the world has the industrialization carried out by a native bourgeoisie's own means achieved significant results.
What is more, despite a greater industrialization in colonial countries, their rate of growth has still been inferior to that of the metropolitan countries. result is that their relative situation in the world is far from improving: thus, in the favorable period for capitalist economy that has existed since 1954, this conjuncture has affected only the highly developed capitalist countries, whereas the colonized countries, particularly in Latin America, are in serious economic
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL anywhere. The peasantry, for the defense of its economic and political interests, follows the political formations of the cities (whether bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, or proletarian).
Where plantations exist, there is an agricultural proletariat whose essential characteristics are those and it is part of the proletariat as
The victorious colonial revolution means, in short, the uprising of the peasantry, led by the proletariat. In China, the victory was achieved without the intervention of the working class, by the sole fight of peasant ‚armies (led by a workers' party).
quite exceptional circumstances (the extreme decomposition of the bourgeois régime, the considerable numerical disproportion between proletariat, the policy Chinese CP towards the cities, the old tradition of peasant wars, the fact that US policy was turned mainly toward Europe, bourgeoisie weakened by the Japanese imperialists, Japanese arms captured by the Chinese Red Armies...).
The task of the revolutionary party, in order to guarantee the victory of the colonial revolution, combine the struggle of the urban proletariat with that of the peasantry.
This union attains one of its highest expressions in guerilla warfare, which — against the armed forces of imperialism and of the bourgeois state - proves itself to be a powerful means of struggle and a no less powerful factor in political organization.
Guerilla formations of this type and win only when composed of individuals with a very high revolutionary morale, and when connected with the masses of the country. That is to say that they tend to become a selected vanguard that elaborates and applies a policy corresponding to the interests of the masses.
its vital political importance, guerilla has also proved itself to be an « economical» difficulties. A new structure of exchanges is being built up in the capitalist world that is reducing their outlets for a part of their production.
In short, these governments of a Bonapartist type have possessed an apparent strength (that basically, 7 — THE PROLETARIAT IN THE COLONIAL REVOhowever, was extremely limited in its practical possibilities) because of the international conjuncture, East-West conflict, and the Kremlin's betrayal of the mass movements that threatened the status quo. 6 — THE PEASANTRY IN THE COLONIAL REVO-
LUTION ITS CONNECTION WITH THE
PROLETARIAT
In the colonial and semi-colonial countries, together with the problem of overthrowing imperialism, the agrarian question is the most explosive because of the great misery of the peasant masses and of their numerical weight in those countries.
The social structure of the peasantry in those coun tries varies extremely from one country to another and within any given country. But whether there be big landowners with a semi-feudal structure, or such tiny bits of land that the peasant cannot even make a living from working them, there exists no « peasants' party» form of warfare, needing only limited cadres, a small number of troops, little material equipment, yet that paralyzes and demoralizes considerable enemy forces.
LUTION
In spite of its numerical weakness, the proletariat of the colonial countries has tended, ever since it existed, lo play a leading rôle in the colonial revolution, becoming in anti-imperialist struggles the spokesman for the other strata of the toiling population, and above all of the peasantry from which it has but recently sprung. It should be able to draw tremendous strength from belonging international proletariat, the only social class that is not fundamentally divided by local or national interests. But precisely because the proletariat of the colonial countries has not received the necessary international solidarity from letariat of the metropolitan countries, weakened in its struggle for the leadership of the colonial revolution.
Whereas the working-class movement in the colonial and semi-colonial countries presents different politically varying characteristics from one country to another
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL is sometimes under a Stalinist leadership, or, more often, under bourgeois or petty-bourgeois leaderships, one of its main characteristics in every country is the formation of powerful trade-union organizations.
This fact is above all due both to the growth of the class-consciousness of the proletariat in the colonial the objective necessity XXth century capitalism to have an organized labor market. In certain cases the native industrial bourgeoisie has aided working-class trade-union nization as a means of using the strength of the workers in a controlled way against imperialism or against the possessing sectors linked up with it.
Since the colonial revolution is still more often than not under the leadership of the bourgeoisie or pettybourgeoisie, it often leaders belong to the bourgeois or petty-bourgeois
Nevertheless, this political affiliation of the leaders in no way alters the fact that the trade unions themselves organisations, nizations, and not appendices of the bourgeois or petty-bourgeois parties. Even the leaders of these unions cannot serve only the interests of the bourgeoisie or petty-bourgeoisie within these unions. They feel to. a greater or lesser degree the pressure of the working-
Very often, these trade-union leaders are pushed into taking a left-wing position within the bourgeois or petty-bourgeois parties.
Given the situation of the colonial and semi-colonial countries, it is inevitable that the political and trade-union struggles are combined. Wherever mass working-class parties recognized by the masses lacking, the trade unions tend to overflow the framework of trade-unionism and to play the role, when the case arises, of a party, and even the role of organizing workers' power at great moments of crisis.
The fact that the class of the colonial or semi-colonial countries in many cases begins its class experience through trade-union organization will have important consequences in the political development of the working class of these countries. In these cases there is no doubt that the trade unions will be called upon to play an important part in the creation of the mass working-class party. 8 - THE SOCIALIST PARTIES IN THE COLONIAL
COUNTRIES
Socialist parties or parties with a socialist ideology exist in some of the colonial and semi-colonial countries. It is impossible to put these parties and those of the capitalist countries on a par from the viewpoint of their class nature. The socialist parties of the metropolitan countries, although they are reformist in their policies, are historically and socially working-class organizations; for such important countries as Germany and Great Britain, they are the mass parties of the working class. the contrary, the socialist parties of the colonial and semi-colonial countries, even when they have a militant, revolutionary political activity, are not usually specifically working-class
In the majority of cases, they are petty-bourgeois political formations, with a more or less socialist ideology. Historically, there can be no doubt as to their
25 fate: they will disintegrate between the action of imperialism and that of the toiling masses. From a practical point of view, in certain countries, since. these parties begin by rallying together elements from every social stratum, and especially the most combative ones, they must be considered as a suitable area for work in order to form Marxist cadres. 9 — STALINISM AND THE COLONIAL COUNTRIES
All the Stalinist-led parties have placed the interests of the Kremlin and the aims of Soviet diplomacy above the interest of the masses, especially the masses of the colonial countries.
For the metropolitan parties, this subordination has had the most scandalous consequences in France, where the French CP, wanting to pressure the bourgeoisie into an agreement with the Kremlin (against the policy of rearming Germany, struggling for «national independence » with regard to US policy, both at the time of the Vietnam war and now, in the Algerian war, had at most a policy of weak parliamentary opposition ; practically, it has let the imperialists do as they wished and, with the pretext of bringing the socialists into a united front, it voted the emergency powers to • the government in the Algerian war. By such a policy, the French CP has discredited itself with the revolutionary movements of the colonial countries and has put the Communist Parties of the colonial countries in a difficult position. • The CPs of the colonial countries too, have followed a Kremlin-dictated policy, and the most famous example of treason of a revolutionary movement is that of India in 1942. At present, the mainspring of their policy is that of alliance with the native bourgeoisies, on the latters' programme.
The crisis of the Communist Parties which has been developing since the XXth Congress has, in several countries, because of the place held by the colonial revolution in the present revolutionary struggle, brought into general debate either the policy of the Communist Parties in the colonial question, or their policy towards the national bourgeoisie in those countries.
The Stalinist leaderships in the colonial countries have picked out the most right-wing aspects of the Axth Congress: peaceful co-existence, new roads.., in order to accentuate their policy of collaboration with the native bourgeoisies, on the latters' programme, the price of which is the sacrifice of the interests of the working class and poor peasant masses.
Under these conditions, the Communist Parties of the colonial countries will be faced with more and more serious crises, in which will arise the question of their very existence. 10 — THE METROPOLITAN SOCIALIST PARTIES
AND THE COLONIAL REVOLUTION
In general, the metropolitan Socialist Parties demonstrate feelings of sympathy towards the colonial peoples insofar as these peoples' movement is no danger to the interests of their metropolitan bourgeoisie. Then, on the contrary, they reveal their true « socialimperialist » nature, as Lenin qualified them during , the first world war.
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The most striking example at present, and the most vile, is that of the French Socialist Party. It is to the General Secretary of this party that the bourgeoisie entrusted the task of crushing the Algerian revolution ; it is also he who proved to be most enthusiastic preparing and carrying out the war against Egypt. He only gave in when Great Britain stated that it gave up the fight.
As for the British Labour Party, its attitude on the colonial question reflects the evolution it has undergone towards a still very right-wing centrism. a parliamentary opposition to the manifestations of the British government's imperialist policy.
Politically, social-democratic centrism joins up witl: Stalinism to encourage the workers of the colonial countries to follow their native bourgeoisies. field, the social-democrats transplant to the colonial their own policy in the metropolitan 11 _ THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AND THE
COLONIAL REVOLUTION
The Fourth International, World Party of the Socialist Revolution, unconditionally supports all the struggles of the colonized peoples against imperialism, regardless of their temporary leadership.
This participation in these struggles is engaged in with complete political independence. The Fourth International, in the course of these movements of the colonial peoples, fights for the following aims :
- The Fourth International fights for the creation of mass workers' parties, independent of the political formations of the bourgeoisie, the petty-bourgeoisie, and Stalinism.
- The Fourth International fights so that the mass workers' parties and the mass organizations of the working class (in particular the trade unions) shall have a proletarian revolutionary policy independent of the national bourgeoisie.
- The Fourth International fights so that these colonial revolutions shall aim at bringing the working class to power, to the creation of Workers' and Peasants' Governments.
With these ends in view and these prospects, the sections that the Fourth International is trying to construct in all the colonial and semi-colonial countries work out appropriate lactics for the conditions of the mass movements at the present stage.
In the capitalist countries, especially where the bourgeoisie is fighting the colonial movements, the sections of the Fourth International unconditionally support the colonial revolutions and have also the imperative task of struggling to guarantee the help of the metropolitan proletariat in the struggle of the colonial peoples. The
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL metropolitan sections of the Fourth International must particularly combat, within the workers' ranks, the policy of the reformist and Stalinist leaderships who, even when they denounce colonialism, do so in the name of pseudo-national interests that are endangered by an outdated colonialism, and not in relation to the interests of world socialism. Such an ideology, far from stimulating the support of the metropolitan masses for the colonial revolutions, has a bourgeois social basis, tends politically to seek the support of bourgeois elements who have « good will, » etc., and disarms the workers' movement. 12 — THE PLACE OF THE COLONIAL REVOLUTION
IN THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD REVOLUTION revolutionary wave of 1917-1923, progress of the world revolution starting in Russia, was blocked in the West as a result of the combination of the resistance of capitalism, the rôle of the reformists, and the consequences of the of the Soviet bureaucracy in the communist movement.
After several heavy defeats, which culminated in the victory of fascism in Germany and the outbreak of the second world war, the world revolution began to break through in the East with the victory of the colonial revolution in China. The social upheaval brought about in Eastern Europe, except in the case of Jugoslavia, was brought about mainly by the military and police intervention of the Soviet armies and, for this very reason, did not act as a stimulus lutionary action by the masses in Western Europe, still held back by their traditional social-democratic and
The break-through in the East changed the balance of power: it brought a decisive contribution to the crisis of Stalinism; it stimulated the beginning of the revolutionary upsurge in the workers' states, but it did not, of itself, bring forth-given the political level of the problems it/ had to resolve immediately, and the level of the Chinese leadership itself-the necessary elements for an efféctive solution of the problem of a world revolutionary leadership.
beginning of the upsurge in the workers' states, the USSR and in the «People's Democracies,» and above all, the political revolution now in course ill Poland and Hungary, have raised the most decisive problems in the whole international communist movement, including that of the world revolutionary leadership, of the Fourth International. It also places on the order of the day the European revolution, the decisive step on the road to world revolution. The colonial revolution therefore will have been the link between the October Revolution and the victory of the World Revolution.