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FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
ENGLISH - LANGUAGE EDITION OF THE THEORETICAL ORGAN OF THE
INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
THE SITUATION ON THE EVE
WORLD CONGKESS
Number Il
Editorial
OF THE SIXTH
The Autumn 1960 session of the UNO well deserved the interest it aroused in international opinion because it represented first of all the tangible evidence of the important changes and constant transformations that the reality of the conThere temporary world is undergoing. The fact that the traditional European powers and the North American colossus have seen their role become more and more disputed and limited has by now found an expression on a formally "legal" basis, for the Afro-Asian countries were in a majority at the U NO after the accession of a number of new African states to independence.
It is true that there was an important absence from the New York spectacular, that of People's China. But it was a formal rather than a substantial absence: no one could forget in fact that, if the relationship of forces has so considerably changed during the last decade, this is mainly due to the fact that the revolutionary armies of Chinese peasants had swept away Chang KaiShek's gangrenous regime in the late forties. The attitude of Khrushchev himself has been largely conditioned by the existence of the Chinese workers' state and in particular by the trend the Chinese leaders follow today in differentiating their action from that of the Kremlin. sarcasm about the Congolese events (while they were really trying to hide their anxiety). But they cannot be unaware of the fact that this simply shows that the big wave of the colonial revolution, far from ebbing, is on the contrary, spreading.
Autumn 1960 The year 1960, as it has been often emphasized, has marked the upsurge of Africa as a new and powerful historical factor: it is no longer a matter of rebellion on the part of the Arab masses on the shores of the Mediterranean or of heart-rending protest by the Bantus in the barbaric citadel of South Africa, but it is right in the centre of the dark continent that new forces are growing and developing and more dynamically. Meanwhile, in spite of all the ridiculous hysteria, the Cuban people keep on defying American imperialism on its very doorstep, while the latter can no longer envisage, without enormous risk, a repetition of the 1954 Guatemala operation.
The Yankee policy-makers felt sure they could somehow bolster a tottering prestige by making the U NO session coïncide with the launching of a rocket around the moon. As this was a hopeless failure, they obtained quite the opposite result, namely, they completed the negative pieture by demonstrating once again that in decisive technical matters the US A is very clearly in an inferior position and that the recovery which was hoped for is far from being achieved.
Furthermore, this same Autumn, the demagogie and often childish prattle which has as usual distinguished the election campaign has not succeeded in stifling the really anxious voices raised about an economic situation which seems to have betrayed the hopes of even the recent past. The spectacular boom which manv expected did not occur, and while only 60% of the steel production capacity is utilized, new names are added to the list of the unemployed. Official sources have hastened to state that there is no danger of
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2 a new recession and even less of a depression. But, even leaving aside the reservations usually aroused by official optimism, the situation nevertheless appears to be serious, for, under the conditions of the contemporary world, the comparison to which capitalism is forced is no longer elliptic, but has become concrete. It is no longer a matter of rates of development theoretically possible under new social conditions, but on real rhythms achieved by the Soviet economy - which means that, even with no depression, a protracted stagnation or only a limited and jerky development would involve a serious defeat for the Americans and for capitalism on the world scale.
Need we add that at a stage in the worid situation in which the colored populations of Africa colored people in America will no longer endure their condition of inferiority, which represents, at the very least, a conspicuous anachronism?
It was very rightly emphasized that the Ameriean political leadership revealed in such a situation an almost complete deficiency. More and more criticisms have been raised in the last few years and are very openly expressed in certain American publications. There are a few attitudes, in fact, which cannot fail to astonish if they are considered from the viewpoint of imperialisms' interests. Let us just mention a very recent exam. ple. How can a fuss be seriously made about the miserable sum of $500 million for Latin America at a time when the White House has every reason to consider with great anxiety what is happening south of the Rio Grande?
Of course the new administrations might, and probably will, introduce important changes. In spite of everything, Yankee imperialism still has very big resources, which it might try to exploit better than it has done during the last period. Yet, all this being granted, there are objective limits that no new policy could eliminate.
It is true, for instance, that Washington could be a little less short-sighted as far as "aid" to underdeveloped countries is concerned. But we have frequently emphasized the structural reasons which seriously limit this type of policy and give it quite a different concrete and objective meaning from that of aid on the part of the Soviet Union or other workers' states. There is no reason for us to change our evaluation on this matter; it must not be forgotten, on the contrary, that the possibilities of the workers' states are bound to increase in the years to come.
This seems to be even more evident with regard to the important political manœuvre of impe-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL rialism in the field of the colonial revolution. This manœuvre, which consists of a certain withdrawal of imperialism with a view to ensuring an alliance with the native leading classes and especially with the national bourgeoisie, was outlined by the British as early as the morrow of the Second World War; the aim of the Americans «eems to be to push it further and to generalize it under their own sgis.
The experience of the last four or five years has already shown the difficulties imperialism runs up against in this field. It is first of all very difficult for it to satisfy the requirements of colonial or semi-colonial countries, for it must sacrifice many of its own direct interests to do so. Secondily, it runs the risk of weakening some of its European allies, whom it considers essential for the survival of capitalism as a world system. Thirdly, it cannot avoid constant clashes with the national bourgeoisies themselves, which, under the pressure of the masses, are obliged to become more and more exacting. This means finally that it is and would be able to obtain at the utmost only precarious results.
This manœuvre, however, which in the past was developed in Asia, the Middle East, and Egypt, is now turning to Africa. Now it is precisely in this part of the world that its chances seem to he very small, not to say non-existent. If the British were able to find a Nehru in Asia, the objective situation is far more unfavorable in Africa (besides, the present world situation is much more difficult for imperialism than in 1948 when India gained its independence) and in the majority of cases the necessary social and political premises are lacking, for either a native bourgeoisie is absolutely non-existent or else it is limited to very small nuclei. We must add that at a stage when African masses are progressively awakening, even experiences on which imperialists set high hopes (as, for instance, the British imperialists with regard to Nigeria. which has recently become independent) may turn out to be extremely short-lived.
Obviously the fate of all manœuvres and calculations on the part of the imperialists will after all depend upon the attitude and movement of the masses. If the masses are mobilized on an ever greater scale, and carry their struggle beyond the limits that certain leading strata or native élites would like to impose, and if they represent a true for the economic and lopment of the dark continent, not only French
British but also American neo-colonialism will see every possibility of manœuvre rapidly disappear. The situation is all the more open to such possibilities in that the union between work-
ers' states and the colonial revolution constantly be sufficient to jeopardize even Germany's present
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL becomes closer, in spite of the bureaucracy and its peaceful "coexistence." Common anti-imperialist objective interests act in this direction and Khrushchev himself must take his own initiatives, if for no other reason than to exert pressure upon the imperialists on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to prevent the Chinese influence from growing stronger.
Outside America, the only solid stronghoid of capitalism is still Western Europe where the economy has recorded new spectacular advances. It is therefore logical that the United States is more anxious than ever about the alliance with European countries and that the advocates of capitalism try to find favorable auspices to restore "prosperity."
We have no reason to minimize this aspect of contemporary reality, which, by the way, faces Marxists with very serious theoretical problems. There is no doubt that if the capitalist system has not yet been completely overthrown, if it can still organize its defense in spite of the disastrous decline of its world hegemony, this is large. ly due to the economic reconstruction of postwar Europe, apart from American economic power.
It would, however, be wrong not only to forget the overall picture we have just outlined but also to neglect symptoms such as the profund uneasi. ness existing in France today following the unsuppressable consequences of the struggle of the Algerian people in the mother country itself, or the July disturbances in Italy, or the aggressive vitality of the left wing in the Trade Unions and in the Labour Party in England. The old man of Bonn seems to consider all that is happening with haughty assurance: the German "miracle" follows its course and the workers' movement stagnates and trails painfully behind a leadership which has lost all sense of decency. But a new crisis in Berlin (which is far from being unlikely) would
Editorial Notes
3 "stability."
This is the situation amid which our movement stands on the eve of a new World Congress, which it has sufficient reasons to face with optimism in spite of the blows its leaders have received from our opponents.
How will the colonial revolution, which has been the most dynamic force of the last decade, be able to develop and spread further, how will it go beyond the bourgeois framework and grow into a proletarian-socialist stage of development; how will the workers' movement in the advanced capitalist countries be able to regain the initiative it has lost for several years due to the treason of the traditional leaderships; how will the struggle for socialism and for setting up proletarian power develop; how will the masses of the workers' states be able to free themselves from bureaucratic tutelage and ensure the flowering of a real socialist democracy, under what transitional slogans will their action start to be organized; what is the real approach to the problems of war and peace, the problems of the final overthrow of capitalism and of the passage from capitalism to socialism on the world scale; how must the masses be mobilized ed against the danger of a nuclear holocaust brought about by imperialism: these are the problems of capital importance to which the Congress will find the answer, these are the questions which are already answered in the documents now submitted to a broad democratic discussion in our ranks.
The Congress will further specify our tasks and prospects and confirm an optimism which derives from no wishful thinking but is based on the fact that all the conservative forces in the world - from the imperialist bourgeoisie to the bureaucracy which for entire decades has worked havoc in the workers' movement — are now undergoing a crisis which will find no conclusion except in their final defeat. 4 October 1960