Since the XXIst Congress of the CP of the USSR
THE CKSS (
1. "Destalinization" was a series of empirical operations carried out by Stalin's successors to overcome the contradictions built up at the end of his reign, which had reached an explosive pitch in the USSR itself and in the "people's democracies." The crisis became acute in 1956-57, not only in the USSR and the other workers' states, but also in the C Ps of the capitalist countries.
The Khrushchev leadership, which succeeded in consolidating itself in the leadership of the CP of the USSR in July 1957, tried to overcome the crisis by a series of economic and political measures, and by defining a line of regroupment for the leaderships of the workers' states and the Communist Parties, in order to establish the framework and limits of a "destalinization" that could be carried out in a way controlled by itself. This line of regroupment is to be found in the declaration adopted in Moscow on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution by the leaders of the C Ps, with the exception of those of the Jugoslav League of Communists.
This document, setting forth Stalin's "qualities and defeets," limited explanation of the past to the "personality cult" of Stalin in the last period of his life, i e, it fell short of the Khrushchev report to the XXth Congress, and disapproved of any attempt to enquire into social differentiations in the US SR, which would have been detrimental to the bureaucratic power. This document also reasserted the policy of "peaceful coexistence," i e, the policy of subordinating the Communist movement to the needs of Soviet diplomacy.
The line thus defined on the fortieth anniversary remained integrally within the limits of the bureaucratic regime for the US SR and the other workers' states, and of a monolithic system for the Communist Parties throughout the world. It formed a line of defense, a barrier against workers' democracy, whether in the workers' states or in the Communist Parties.
The Khrushchev leadership attempted to stabilize the bureaucracy's power at a new level, liberal compared
Stalin's time, and to reestablish the authority of the leaderships of the Communist Parties.
These attempts have obtained certain results which eulminated at the XXIst Congress of the CP of the USSR (January 1959), concerning the reëstablishment of bureaucratic domination and have caused considerable changes both concerning the structure of the governments of the adapt itself to the new situation have contributed to opening new roads to the development of the crisis of Stalinism and to the political revolution.
But there was thus set up only a very limited equilibrium, both among the leadership of the Soviet Union, the bureaucracy, and the masses, and among the various strata of the bureaucracy, and a no less relative equilibrium between the leadership of the USSR and the leaderships of the other workers' states and the Communist Parties, if account is taken of the new relationship of forces, unfavorable to the Soviet bureaucracy, that exists in the "Communist world."
All the reforms undertaken have been made with the aim of self-defense of the power and the main bureaucratic privileges, and have not brought anything of even very slight value in the way of workers' democracy. This the Soviet workers will obtain only through their own action, through their struggles rising to the level of a political revolution. The whole evolution in the USSR since Stalin's death, however extensive it may have been, has never gone outside the frame of the bureaucratic re-
And so this extensiveness itself emphazizes avoidable necessity for a political rerolution which will throw the bureaucracy out of power as a social stratum with interests distinct from those of the masses, and reëstablish Soviet democracy at a level corresponding to the huge economic and cultural advances of During these three or four years of a certain stabilization, new contradictions have ripened, replacing or predominating over a part of the old contradictions. These new contradictions are generally located on a higher level than the will tend to give the crisis of the bureaucratic regime the political forms that are indispensable for making concrete the way to the political revolution in the U SS R and the way to the creation of a new international revolutionary leadership of the proletariat.
2. Besides these internal contradictions in the Communisi world itself, an absolutely new fact is now weighing on it. For the first time, there have been for several years now developing in the world strong rising revolutionary movements, the spearheads of revolutionary combat, which escape from the control of the Soviet bureaucracy, and which are driven to seek a socialist doctrine outside this control. The two most characteristic examples are precisely the two main present revolutionary movements: the Algerian revolution, where the Algerian C P no longer has any chance of developing, and the Cuban revolution, where the Stalinists play a role only because they are tailing the movement and publicly show no disposition to take control of it. This is also the case for various movements in Negro Africa.
Thus for the first time the Communists of the entire world see challenged — no longer by small vanguard groups of a predominantly ideological nature, but by mass revolutionary movements which are spearheads in the struggle against the capitalist world — Moscow's leading role, which was recognized even after the dissolution of first the Comintern, and then the Cominform. Thus powerful revolutionary movements are implicitly raising the question of a new international revolutionary leadership. This has been added to the fact that the Khrushchev leadership, after having practically condemned Stalin's action toward the Jugoslavs, did not succed in bringing the leadership of the League of Communists back into the Moscow orbit, thus leaving a still open wound in the Communist world properly
THE MAIN CONTRADICTIONS OF THE PRESENT
COMMUNIST WORLD
3. Under the influence of the rise of the masses in the of the rise of the colonial revolution, and of the new worldwide correlation of forces on the level of the masses and states, new contradictions are developing in the present Communist world, are bringing question the hegemony and the policy of the Soviet leadership over this world, and are thus preparing the terrain for a new stage toward the renewal of communism.
The Chinese-Soviet dispute, even in the forms in which it has been presented and developed up till now, is the most striking and serious manifestation of these contradictions, which have brought into question the essential problems of the Communist movement's policy on international relations, relations with world capitalism, with the national bourgeoisies of colonial and semi-colonial countries, on
52 roads to the conquest of power, the paths to building of socialism in the countries where capitalism has been overthrown, etc.
The Sino-Soviet dispute did not arise from a desire for theoretical clarification by the Chinese CP, the problems raised for it by the needs of transforming Chinese society and under the pressure of the colonial revolution. While the Soviet C P is the political instrument of a bureaucracy which crystalized long ago and is eminently conservative, the Chinese C P, in spite of important bureaucratic characteristics, much more sensitive to pressure from the world revolution. Therefore, opposition between the Chinese CP and the Soviet CP is not that between a revolutionary party and a conservative one (in the workers' this opposition has considerable consequences for the revolutionary struggle in the world.
Now and henceforth the unity of views of the Comminist Parties is either explicitly or implicitly brought into question on the following probiems: 4) DANGERS OF WAR AND PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE
On the question of international relations, since the end of the Second World War, the line of the Soviet leadership, under Khrushchev as under Stalin, both in moments of "détente" and in moments of the greatest tensions of the "cold war," has been invariable: to reach an agreement with world capitalism at any price, including the sacrifice of the revolutionary movements throughout the world, while the Communist Parties Peace Movement brought pressure in the capitalist states with a view to obtaining a twist of policy in a direction favorable to the propositions of Soviet diplomacy — whence the fundamencal orientation of all the Communist Parties since the end of the war. The struggle for power by the overthrow of the bourgeois state has been replaced by the "struggle for peace," by an agreement with wings of the bourgeoisie, both in advanced capitalist and in colonial and semi-colonial countries.
The differences between Stalin and Khrushchev arise only from the evolution of the correlation of forces in favor of the workers' states. In Stalin's time, when the USSR did not yet possess nuclear weapons, it was the Stockholm Appeal that was launched. With Khrushchev, is made for disarmament, presented as an attainable result, which is then to ensure a mere economic competition and ideological struggle between the two camps.
The opportunist, pacifist, petty-bourgeois orientation thus followed by the CPs and their fellow-travelers had not been challenged by the various C Ps, especially not by the Jugoslavs. Because of the international and national conditions under which the permanent revolution has been developing in China, the Chinese leadership has brought the Soviet Union's fundamental orientation into question on the plane of international relations. The Chinese are in favor of peaceful coexistence among states and also of disarmament proposals. But they challenge — and quite righily — Moscow's ideas about peaceful wings opposed to warlike wings in the bourgeoisie; they also dispute the possibility of disarmament under the capitalist regime. They recall that war is a phenomenon inherent in capitalism, that one must not be fooled by peaceful proposals by capitalist leaders, that illusions nust not among the masses on this subject, and that the rejection of disarmament proposals must be utilized to educate the masses in the direction of the struggle against capitalism.
Without drawing conclusions in an explicit way about the orientation of the Communist Parties in the capitalist countries, the Chinese are thus quite rightly opposed to Moscow's essential conceptions, although their own argumentation may have been defective or dangerous on certain points (American imperialism as a "paper tiger," under-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL estimation of the dangers of a nuclear war for humanity). They afterwards made corrections on these subjects, a more or less clear way. B) ATTITUDE TOWARD COLONIAL REVOLUTIONS AND TOWARD THE NATIONAL BOURGEOISIES OF COLONIAL AND SEMI-COLONIAL COUNTRIES
The Soviet leadership is guided in this question only by diplomatic considerations, apart from any notion of anti-imperialist and class solidarity. Thus, confronted by the the Soviet government, in hopes of reaching an agreement with de Gaulle, has long considered the Algerian question as a "French affair." The Chinese government, on the contrary, has recognized the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic.
The Soviet leadership seeks out and backs up the national bourgeoisies or fractions thereof which are in favor of its line of "peaceful coexistence" with imperialism. It causes the Communisi Parties to support these "allies" and to subordinate to them the struggles of the worker and peas-
The most striking examples are Kerala in India and the attitude imposed on the Iraqi C P toward the Kassem government. To justify this conduct, Khrushcher's "theoreticians" only repeat Stalin's about the bourgeois-democratic stage of the revolution in these countries and about the progressive role that the bourgeoisie might play in these revolutions.
Without formally repudiating what was the fundamental conception of their party for more than 20 years, that of the revolution by stages, the Chinese, both because of their own experience and because of their relations with bourgeois governments of colonial and semi-colonial counput forward a conception of "uninterrupted revolution" which tends to encourage the class action of the worker and peasant these countries, pendently of and against bourgeois leaderships. It is not a question of an absolutely clear and principled attitude, apart from any consideration of foreign policy by the Chinese state. But on this point also the orientation of the Chinese is headed toward the correct path. c) PARLIAMENTARY AND PEACEFUL PATHS TO SOCIALISM
Beginning with the XXth Congress, Khrushchev had made explicit a conception underlying the activity of the in most capitalist countries, especially in France and Italy - that of the conquest of power by peaceful and parliamenary paths, with the question of the destruction of the bourgeois state blurred over. The reservation concerning the fact that these paths could prove to be blocked in case of a fierce resistance by capitalism or by certain of its fractions, was only a literary flourish, for the policy of the Communist Parties is based only on parliamentary and peaceful paths, and the C Ps, like the Social-Democratic Parties, are organized only for that perspective.
This conception, warmly accepted by the leaderships of the Communist Parties, had caused worries and resistance in their rank and file. The Chinese, on this question, pull these equivocal formulæ in the opposite direction to that adopted by Khrushchev. They insist on the inevitable resistance of capitalism, and on the reasons that render the bourgeois parliament an obstacle to the revolutionary transformation of society. They also insist on the need for the construction of a new state, that of the dietatorship of the proletariat. D) "MODELS" FOR THE BUILDING OF SOCIALISM
Just after the war, and especially after the start of
"cold war," when the "people's democracies" were structurally assimilated, they began in a servile way to
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL copy the Soviet model, each setting out to build its "socialism in a single country" (extreme industrialization, forced collectivization of agriculture, ete).
The first resistance to this servile copying, the Stalinist errors were renewed and amplified, came from the Jugoslavs, who worked out their own way. Other resistances were shown in 1956, especially in Hungary and Poland. And lastly the Chinese — especially owing to the "communes" are following a different path for the building of socialism.
Thus three different "models" for the building of socialism exist and confront one another: the Soviet model, the Chinese model, and the Jugoslav model.
Each of these models, while containing characteristics inherent in the conditions of the countries where they are being developed, take as their starting-point different and even opposed conceptions about social relationships, and so the masses of the workers' states have the possibility of contrasting these conceptions and judging their results.
The Soviet model carries weight because of its seniority and the economic and technical results already achieved, which make the US SR the second most powerful state in the world. But, in spite of all the reforms carried out since Stalin's death, it is essentially marked by the weight of the bureaucracy in Soviet society, its omnipotence in every domain, its profoundly conservative nature, as well as by the tendencies to personal interest which are dominant among the bureaucracy. In addition, its Stalinist past (especially the forced collectivization of agriculture and the frightful purges) remains on the debit side for the workers' states of Eastern Europe and in the workers' movement of Western Europe.
The Chinese model is above all marked by the experiment of the communes. Despite a bureaucratic functioning that has its causes both in the conceptions of the leadership and in the conditions of China's economic and cultural backwardness, the experiment of the communes consists of an attempt to mobilize the masses on a collective basis, and not on the basis of stricily individual interest. The experiment of the communes is to permit this collective effort to bring the whole of Chinese society out of the extreme backwardness that characterized it. At the same time, it permits very considerable advances on the social plane, especially on the plane of the liberation of women from the state of extreme inferiority in which they were in China. The Chinese model exerts considerable attraction on countries throwing off the colonial yoke, which find therein valuable teachings for their own development through an appeal for the collective participation of the masses. On the contrary, the Chinese model is feared by the Khrushchev leadership, which sees in the example of the communes a potential danger in the long run for the authority of the bureaucracy, and which is seeking to discredit it by falsely identifying it with Stalin's forced collectivization.
The Jugoslav model is the first "model" which, despite it- limits and inadequacies, is trying — on the level of the enterprises, and to a certain degree on the local and regional levels — to base itself on the initiative and free consent of the masses, both in urban and rural regions, to favor the control and administration of the workers in these fields, in order to fight consciously against bureaucratic tendencies. The limited character of this policy appears in the fact that in Jugoslavia there is no economic and political democracy on a national scale (maintenance of the regime of one single party, without tendencies). Nevertheless, it is above all to this reliance on the masses against bureaucratic tendencies that Jugoslavia's important advances are due. The experiment has also proved fruitful on the level of the agricultural economy, in the attempt to favor its gradual collectivization, with a regard for its technical possibilities and with the voluntary contribution of small peasant proprietors. It is especially as the begin-
53 ning of a practical example of the antibureaucratic struggle that the Jugoslav model and the leadership of the League of Jugoslav Communists are combated by the leaderships of the other workers' states and Communist Parties. E) INSUFFICIENT COÖRDINATION OF PLANNING BY WORKERS' STATES
There are no longer to be found in the relations between the US SR and the other workers' states the abuses and roughnesses that stirred up the Soviet-Jugoslav conflict to the point of a break, and then the tensions, especially with Poland and Hungary. Contradictions and tensions, however, continue to exist, and were echoed by Gomulka recently in a session of the Central Committee of the Polish party.
The Comecon is not a global planning organism of the workers' states' economies; it only ensures a certain division of labor. The reason for this is that the ruling bureaucracy of each workers' state, and first of all the Soviet bureaucracy, have interests that are above all national, and are aiming at results that they consider the best for their own position in their our country - and this even to the detriment uf the others. In Eastern Europe, it was the leadership that was put most at a disadvanage by this situation, the Polish, which pointed out the danger.
The development of the economy of all the workers' states will render more and more acute the contradiction between the predominantly "national" character of the planning by countries, and the need for these economies to have international planning. The development of this contradiction will be an important factor in bringing into question the hegemony of the Soviet Union over the workers' states of Eastern Europe, and as a result will also contribute to the development of the crisis of Stalinism.
These new contradictions of Stalinism decisively finish off the monolithism of the apparatuses of the workers' states and Communist Parties. Except for the case of Jugoslavia, it is in the heart of the Communist world, where there have been no breaks for a whole period, that gigantic contradictions have appeared and are confronting each other. Taken as a whole, these contradictions are beginning to trace out a revolutionary policy as against the opportunist policy of the Soviet leaders, on both the international and national planes: workers' control and adminicollaboration among support of the colonial masses, including against their own national bourgeoisies, revolutionary paths to socialism, and the fight for peace through the revolutionary struggle against capitalism.
But none of the mass forces which today are in contradiction with the Soviet policy and leadership formulates its opposition in a wholly consistent way and brings together all of these contradictions in an overall and fundamental criticism of Stalinism. On the contrary, the contronting positions among the different leaderships of the Communist Parties and the workers' states are visibly tangled and intersecting. Thus, the Albanians are supporting the Chinese on account of some of their positions and methods which are very different from those on account of which the Brazilians, for instance, are supporting them. It is therefore necessary, in order to decide on a correct intervention of our movement, to avoid any overall simplified juxtaposition, which could lead to wrong estimates about the different currents which are showing themselves in the crisis of Stalinism, and it is important lo know in each case how to distinguish exactly the characteristics of each current concerning the motives which are impelling it and the tendencies, methods, and positions which are peculiar to it.
In addition, none of these forces formally brings into question the monolithic conception of the parties, defends
the right to tendencies in the parties, not to speak of the right to a plurality of workers' parties in the workers' states.
In different fields we see the emergence of the opposition between the progress of the workers' states and the policy of "socialism in a single country," which remains the central point of the orientation and the thought of all the leader ships of the Communist Parties. Objectively, the situation, especially that of the Chinese revolution, raises for the first time before a party leadership the problem of the permanent revolution in its three combined aspects: setting up of the dictatorship of the proletariat to solve in passing the bourgeois-democratic tasks, development by bounds (by "great bounds") in all domains of social life, and international expansion of the revolution already victorious on the
Thus the contradictions of Stalinism have arrived at a degree of political ripeness eminently favorable for raising in more concrete terms the question of the political revolution and the renewal of the Communist movement, as well as that of the new mass international revolutionary leadership.
The political positions of the Chinese CP are far from those of revolutionary Marxism but they demonstrate its huge possibilities and are opening a field of work such as Trotskyism has never had in the past. The condition for our movement to make the most of this exceptional field is fully to understand the progress marked by Chinese positions in order to go forward in the building cl consistent communist tendencies free from the present
Chinese CP leadership, offering a rounded prospect to the Communist militants of the entire world and to the other revolutionary forces which are outside the CP's influence.
THE MOSCOW CONFERENCE OF THE 81 COMMUNIST AND WORKERS PARTIES
4. After two attempts (first in Moscow, then in Виcharest) which did not produce any lasting result, the Russians and Chinese endeavored at the Moscow Conference, held on occasion of the 43rd anniversary of October, to find a compromise putting an end to their dispute. They were obliged to associate in their efforts the leaderships of all the parties owing allegiance to Stalinism, given the fact that the problems at issue affected the whole Communist world.
Already by its very duration — more than three weeks — the Conference of the 81 Communist and Workers' Parties
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has borne witness to a considerable change compared to the Stalin period in which unanimity was automatically reached by following his "genius." Monolithism has replaced by discussion. But this is not a sign of democratic renewal in these parties: the discussions went on in secret among leaderships anxious to avoid revealing their difficulties and their differences to the militants and workers, as was done in the time of Lenin and Trotsky.
Beside the Conference's duration, the document which it issued expressed the determination to find a compromise which might be lasting.
In a general way the agreement seems to have been reached on the essential positions of the Soviet bureaucracy: the text is centred around the fight for peace through "peaceful coexistence" and disarmament. The Chinese had fought these ideas, but not in a clear and straightforward manner. The text repeats the Soviet formulæ but introduces, concerning each position, each political affirmation, reservations and considerations taking into account the positions defended by the Chinese. In particular, it is no longer a question of a capitalism divided into war-mongering and peace-loving wings, the aggressive character of American imperialism is vigorously emphasized, in words which have nothing to do with the Camp David state of mind and favor the Pekin press.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
The Chinese retreated on "uninterrupted revolution": we now a new formulation appear "the state of national democracy" — a state without a class nature, the definition of which would depend, not on the nature of production relations, but on the eminently changing nature of its policy. Behind this formula we in fact find again the old Stalinist theory of a revolution standing halfway between capitalist society and the dictatorship of the proletariat, a social stage which would be neither capitalist society nor a workers' state, a society which has never yet been seen in history.
The Chinese have offsettingly obtained very serious concessions on the question which they certainly had most at heart, i e, the attitude towards the national bourgeoisie of colonial and semicolonial countries. "dual role" of these bourgeoisies, opposed — but in a very unequal way — both to imperialism and to the worker and peasant masses, is denounced. The document is far from being correct on this point but it contains formulæ which the Chinese can utilize to good effect in the question of their relations with the underdeveloped states, still economically dependent on imperialism, in which the national bourgeoisie is seeking, not the improvement of the conditions, but a more important share of the surplus-value produced in these countries. Given the place which is now occupied by the colonial revolution in the world revolution, it is evident that this is not only an important concession thus made to the Chinese, but also a leftward step — however timorous and contradictory it may be — in relations with imperialism on the scale of world policy. In practice, this concession to the Chinese could prove of very great importance by the consequences it may involve.
The text repeats more or less what was said at the XXth Congress about the ways toward socialism, which was interpreted in one way by the Russians and in another by the Chinese. On this point there have been no new derelopments; and nothing will prevent the discussion from being renewed on the first occasion, just as in the
Un the question of the Communes, to which the Chinese accord a preponderant place as a form of development of society toward socialism, that the divergences persist. The most the Chinese obtained was that it is a question of a the general laws for the building of socialism, taking into account the national peculiarities of each country interests of the socialist system as a whole. This is enough if it is remembered that, for them, the of the Communes was rather for generalized application.
The resolution denounces, but in a different and unequal way, revisionism and dogmatism. The latter is presented as a secondary and anonymous danger. The Jugoslavs, on the contrary, are violently attacked as revisionists and, what is more, they are falsely accused of having proclaimed hat Marxism-Leninism was "obsolete" and of committing "subversive actions" against the socialist camp and the world communist movement. The excess of these attacks testifies to how much the bureaucrats are afraid of the Jugoslav attitude — however limited it may appear — faced by the contradictions of the parties and states re-
On a point raised by the Poles concerning closer planning among the workers' states, they obtained satisfaction.
The text seems to show that no change has occurred on the point of the "guiding party": the Soviet CP keeps its title as the universally recognized vanguard of the world Communist movement, ete.... This formulation has never bothered the Chinese when they wanted to fight the Soviet leaders policy.
In the official communiqué announcing the holding of the conference and the ist of participants, it may be noticed that the Soviet CP is no longer put first but is
----- photo credits and running heads -----
54
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL named in alphabetical order between the Turkish and Uruguayan. In so hierarchical and bureaucratic a world as this, this tiny indication has a symbolie value.
The document adopted by the conference shows that in fact the differences have not been resolved and that there is rather "an agreement to be in disagreement," provided it he sufficiently discreet. During the conference, the Chinese, although in the minority, received the support of several Communist Party leaderships. Other leaderships, moreover, intervened in a conciliatory
The international situation and the general conditions which gave birth to the Sino-Soviet differences, far from having a pacifying effect, will nurture them and tend to make them still more acute than in the past. We must consequently direct our action with the prospect of a renewal of the conflict, a rebounding of the differences, more and more important signs of tensions and crises inside the Communist world, without its being possible now to determine exactly the moment, the precise forms, and the parties from which the crisis will start again.
The Conference 81 Communist and Workers' Parties has shown that the spread of the revolution in the world and the strengthening of the productive forces in states have not ceased. since the Second World War's end, to stimulate the crisis of Stalinism and that no solution can be found within the framework of bureaucratic power through agreements among bureaucratic leaderships. These only manœuvre against the requirements the situation itself, namely the reëstablishment of workers' democracy and the reëstablishment of a Communist International basing itself on democratic centralism.
PROBLEMS AND CONTRADICTIONS OF SOVIET SOCIETY The general tendency shown by the Soviet leadership since Stalin's death in the direction of raising living standards has been kept up and developed. The leadership has had to take into account the egalitarian tendencies which had been ferociously repressed in Stalin's time. It has had to raise very low wages, though the inequalities still remain very great. The improvement in the living conditions of the masses puts an end to or tones down the most elementary demands, but they give place to new demands. The toilers are more and more conscious of the enormous contradiction between the economic power of the Soviet state and the still modest level of their own lives (observe the various remarks at the time of discussions about the sputniks). This explains the insistence with which Khrushchev promises to surpass US living standards, and also his cam-
"détente," in order to transfer part of the heavy military expenditures over into the domain of mass
Buyers are showing themselves to be more and more demanding and exacting about the quality of consumers" goods, which was heretofore neglected, for quality was directed toward heavy industry, military needs and objectives connected therewith (space missiles, ete).
It must be pointed out that, in the movements that took place in Kazakhstan, the workers accorded great importance to demands of a social nature: crêches, theatres, cinemas, sports fields, etc.
In the field of life in the enterprises, the authorities have taken various measures which could in themselves be considered liberal (powers of certain trade-union organisms in the enterprise, transfer of the administration of certain institutions to the enterprises or the trade unions). Whatever use that the workers may make of these in a still indeterminate future, dictated above ambye e needs of bate acministration, which remains of a bureaucratic type. They are parallel to the measures of decentralization taken in the economy in
55 general, in planning, for the old forms of extreme centralization were incompatible with extremely developed and extensive organisms.
he bureaucracy is the object of numerous criticisms o rounds of its forms and methods of leadership. and no — at least in an openly expressed way — as a social category. The Soviet working class, so strong numerically and spread over a large number of urban centres, has not up till now expressed demands for democratization in the enterprises, which would normally form the bridge toward more general demands of a political nature aiming at the reestablishment of soviet democracy in the workers' state.
Since the agricultural economy is still the weak point of the Soviet economy, the leadership has sought both to improve the conditions of the peasantry by stimulating the personal interest of the kolkhoz members, and to bring pressure on them by production obtained by utilization of the "virgin lands." The results obtained by these two means have been mediocre, and it cannot be otherwise so long as the peasantry is dealing with bureaucratic authorities.
The intelligentzia, even though its income has been reduced, remains a very privileged social stratum, but always on condition that it shows itself conformist toward the authorities. In the field of artistic and literary production, after a period of "thaw," the Khrushchev leadership, while parading an appearance of liberalism and giving up certain absurdities specific to Stalin, has gone on to tightening up control over the intellectuals. It fears that, through them, political criticism of the bureaucratic regime may make its way. The notions of "party literature," "party
" are maintained, although with broader limits than in Stalin's time. The important fact is that there is a resistance in the intelligentzia to the reëstablishment of controls. In addition, besides official literary and artistic production, there exists a non-conformist production that circulates in a semi-clandestine fashion.
In the youth, especially the university youth, new currents, new absolutely non conformist tendencies, are already ripening. It is from them that there will arise the revoluforces that will fight for a genuine "return to Lenin." The existence of such tendencies has been demonstrated in various forms and under varying circumstances, but for the moment still in a rather embryonic stage (studies to rediscover the genuine history of the Russian Revolution, hostility to the intervention in Hungary, etc).
Various strata of the bureaucracy, especially the highest ones, have both undergone a limitation of the most outraexorbitant of their privileges, and obtained some stability, a guarantee of being alive tomorrow, unknown in Stalin's day. There are no longer mass purges. The question of being "in the line" has a more and more formal character. The most important consideration "efficiency" in one's post, under pain of being sent down to a lower rung of the ladder.
The present liberalism does not mean that the bureaucracy as a whole has a voice in policy. Only a few very high functionaries are associated with the discussions which take place in the party's Central Committee. Only this organism has recovered, compared to the Presidium (exPolitburo), some rights that it had completely lost; it was thanks to the C C that Khrushchev was able to put an end to the "anti-party" tendency which had put him in a minority in the Presidium. The state apparatus, including the Supreme Soviet, is only an instrument for carrying out the decisions of the C C.
The new conditions of easing social relationships cause the party apparatus — which is the only political cement of Soviet society — to be more isolated than ever from the various strata of society. Nevertheless, since this apparatus, more specifically the C C, is the only really political organism in the country, it is probable that it is within it that, at the beginning, a great political crisis of Soviet society
56 will find expression. The present C C, with rare exceptions, is made up of new figures, without political pasts and without genuine political attachments.
The importance accorded and the insistence shown by the Soviet leaders in combating in the party press the conceptions advocated by the Chinese, the warnings on this subject spread through the party organisms, permit thinking that there are in the CP of the USSR currents that share the viewpoint of the Chinese or are turning in the same direction in regard to the policy of "peaceful coexistence" and its results. Nothing justifies the assertion that this was a matter of ex-Stalinists, partisans of the old so-called "anti-party" tendency. It seems rather to be a matter of manifestations coming from new layers, thus proving that since the XXIst Congress an evolution has taken place, the ripening of a new phase in the crisis of Stalinism in the first workers' state.
The political atomization of the masses which is the basis upon which the absolute domination of the bureaucracy is based is now beginning to be replaced by some tendencies among the masses to make demands and by the creation of some study and discussion centres among the vanguard. The growth by leaps and bounds of the Soviet economy is preventing any stabilization of the administrative apparatus and is forcing it to adapt itself; by doing this, it lays itself open to criticism.
Administrative problems and openly discussed by the Soviet press. society is constantly jarring The colonial revolution is having a strong effect on Soviet society.
SITUATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTIES IN
CAPITALIST COUNTRIES
6. Pretty much everywhere in these parties, the 1956-57 crisis had taken spectacular forms, and in certain cases it had even been necessary to proceed to changes of leaders or of leading staffs. Afterwards the beginning of a tendency struggle appeared. Then, in a general way, the leaderships of the parties recovered their control over the Communist organizations. But since the 1956-57 crisis a deepening of the erisis in the CPs could be observed everywhere, within parties of greater or lesser importance, even if the aspects of this crisis were no longer spec-
Where Communist Parties are mass parties, there was nowhere a profound deterioration of the party ties with the working masses as a consequence of the discussions linked with the "personality cult." But there is a constant crisis characterized by a weakening of the leaderships' authority, the expression of doubts among more or less important strata in these parties concerning the policy followed by these leaderships, and sporadic demonstrations of opposition arising up to now in rank-and-file organisms when some circumstances in the country contribute thereto.
Concerning smaller Communist Parties whose influence among the masses was weak, the 1956-57 crisis expressed itself almost everywhere through walk-outs and an preciable loss of influence. Since then contradictory developments could nevertheless be observed. Thus, the case in Great Britain and Australia, due to a certain radicalization among the working class, and in relation with the Labour Party, certain Communist Parties could win new elements and recover the ground they had lost. On the contrary, it has been seen how in Denmark the former main leader of the party, Axel Larsen, built a centrist party, the PSP, and succeeded in winning election victory mainly at the expense of the Danish C.P.
Several factors are from now on tending to deepen the international crisis of Stalinism and the crisis each Communist Party, i e, the crisis of capitalism which raises problems which the Moscow policy does not answer,
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL the mass movements, the Sino-Soviet dispute and more generally the internal fights of the bureaucracies resulting from the progress of events and the movements of the masses. Those elements are now weighing most heavily on the parties of the colonial and semi-colonial countries. In some cases, the development of the colonial revolution has eliminated the Communist Party from political life. The most striking example is that of Algeria where the Algerian CP has literally paid with its own existence -the fact of having been an instrument of the French CP and of its "national" policy even on the Algerian problem. In mosi cases the Communist Parties of the colonial and semi-colonial countries are undergoing with more or less intensity the pressure of the mass movement of their own country while they simultaneously undergo pressure either from Moscow or from Pekin. This has caused the formation in these parties of diverging currents, opposed tendencies India, Brazil) and sometimes splits
Communist Parties of advanced capitalist countries, especially the big parties, are much more influenced by their alignment with Kremlin policy, by the rightist and opportunist character of their policy. A new and broad development of the crisis in these parties can result either from the spur they could receive from a new important especially a crisis in the USSR itself, or from a new rise of the working-class movement and its effects on the medium and rank-and-file cadres of these parties who can make up their minds to express an opposition only in case that mass pressure offers them a real prospect for a militant policy, a left-opposition policy. As a result of the effects of the Sino-Soviet dispute on the Communist Parties, we are now more and more confronted by parties whose policies will differ country to another and which will consequently need an appropriate orientation in each case. In the case of parties in which the Moscow influence is predominant, it will be against a rightist and opportunist policy that the fight must be made, by setting up in opposition thereto first of all the action programme dictated by a policy of left opposition. In the case of parties or tendencies in the parties influenced especially by Pekin, a left centrism of a new type which could, if we did not we shall be faced by adopt a correct attitude towards it, become an obstacle to our own development during a certain period. In such cases, we must take as starting point the progressive positions reached by these parties, to put forward the necessity for the militants and currents following such an orientation to conduct a consistent theoretical and political fight, that is to say, go beyond the positions already reached to arrive at the positions of revolutionary Marxism.
In any case, we must start from the general consideration that contradictions will continue to grow in the Communist world. that national and international problems reciprocally act within it and that all Communist Parties, whatever their present policy may be, will constitute a more and more favorable field for the growth of the revolutionary Marxist ideas of the Fourth International.
Among the important Communist Parties in the capitalist countries, there can be observed the fan-like extent of all these different manifestations of the crisis of Stalinism:
The French Communist Party, which has the most Stalinist leadership and the strongest apparatus, presents a fallacious appearance of unity of views. A heavy is rife in its ranks and among its cadres. The leadership is aware of the existence of oppositionals who "are waiting for their hour" (Thorez dixit). The exacerbation of the political situation in France or a new manifestation of open crisis in international Stalinism would not fail to stir up a big crisis in this party.
The Italian Communist Party is the one that follows a systematically right-wing policy (with, in case of need,
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL left turns), while yer showing a certain liberalism concerning internal political life.
The
The Brazilian Communist Party, which has experienced several very serious crises in the past, is again divided by a big tendency fight, in which divergences created by Brazilian polities are combined with problems stirred up by the Chinese-Soviet dispute.
The Indonesian Communist Party, which has also experienced serious crises in the past, has in the last period gone through abrupt variations (within the general limits of a policy of support to Sukarno), variations that are probably explicable as a reflection of divergences among the party tops.
Even if the visible effects of the Chinese-Soviet dispute in the form of an open crisis are at present limited to the Brazilian CP and to a few other parties in the colonial and semi-colonial countries, it is inevitable that in the long run this dispute — which the Chinese and Soviet leaderships have not succeeded in smoothing out — will nurture all the contradictions that exist in the Communist Parties, and will tend to make big crises emerge. First, because it raises problems concerning the general policy of the Communist Parties on the national and international scale. And second, because of the immense weight of China on the world stage.
THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AND THE NEW PHASE IN THE CRISIS OF STALINISM
7. The new phase in the crisis of Stalinism which is now ripening confirms the fundamental analyses of the preceding World Congresses and their main perspectives. It renders more imperious the task of our movement to exploit this new phase in order to bring circles which, in both the capitalist and the workers' states, form the richest reserve of worker miliclose to revolutionary Marxism - the advance of our ideas, to hasten the formation of sections of the Fourth International in the workers' states, of mass revolution-
Marxist parties, and thus to prepare the political revolution in the workers states and the revival international leadership of the mass movement.
a) In the Soviet Union and the Workers' States. Most of the points formulated in the 1938 Programme of the Fourth International and in the Theses of the Vth World Congress remain on the agenda for a programme of action in the workers' states:
The struggle against social inequalities, for only a few too flagrant abuses have disappeared. In this field, the "return to Lenin" more than ever requires the limitation of salaries to the wage of a skilled worker.
The struggle against political oppression, which has not disappeared with the suppression of the omnipotence of the secret police. All the organizations and institutions in the US SR are not free organisms, independent of the state power. The restoration of workers' democracy remains the principal task of the political revolution: the reëstablishment of essential freedoms (of meeting, of association, of the press), the autonomy of the trade-union organizations, and the right to a plurality of soviet parties. Without the existence of these rights, there cannot be genuine soviets and a genuine soviet democracy.
vithout soviet democracy there cannot be a reorgani ation of the soviet economy that puts it under the effec tive administration of the producers.
reëstabltshment of truth about the history of the U SS R, the Bolshevik party, and the Communist Internacional, is not simply an exigence of scientific honesty, but an indispensable political necessity in order to allow the Soviet masses and the Communists of the entire world to
57 rediscover an orientation which really ties up with Leninist policy of the first years of the October Revolution.
Without questioning the need for the Soviet power negotiate with the capitalist states and to work with a view to avoiding a new world conflict, the Chinese-Soviet dispute intense present interest the demands of the 1938 Programme for a revolutionary international policy, for unconditional support to the workers' movements and the movements of the colonial masses, against any attempt, by the procedures of secret diplomacy, to reach a global agreement with imperialism at the expense of the interests of the masses in any country whatever.
b) In the Mass Communist Parties. The orientation work defined as a result of the Third World Congress (entrism sui generis) has proved justified both by which the crisis of Stalinism has developed, within existing organizations and not by massive splits in the results which were shown in the crisis years of 1956-57, i e, of oppositional formations tending in organize themselves to carry out a tendency struggle inside the Communist Parties. The paths to the formation and organization of tendencies inside the Communist are entirely different from those inside the Social-Democratie Parties, for they require as a precondition a long period of clandestine, illegal, work.
The more and more evident manifestations of conflicts among the leaderships of Communist Parties of different countries cannot fail to contribute to aiding the formation of tendencies within any given Communist Party, for every member of a party is or should be a communist before being French, Italian, Soviet, Chinese, Jugoslav, etc. One of the first demands on this subject is that there be placed a: the disposal of party members a complete and honest documentation on the questions in dispute, by the publication of texts even of leaderships that are opposed. That is the first condition for the pariy members being able themselves to discuss and to judge for themselves, and not to of discipline, the viewpoints of their national Icadership.
Such a conception cannot fail to lead to the need for an international organization of the Communist movement and to clarify the idea of a worid party of the socialist revolution based on democratic centralism. The evolution of the relations among the Communist Parties since the dissolution of the Third International has been marked by a series of failures of the Soviet bureaucraty (formation of the Kominform, bilateral relations, and now occasional conferences among a greater or lesser number of leaderships). All these failures testify to the growing and ever more difficult necessity for the bureaucracy to dodge the . objective requirement of a new international leadership of the communist vanguard. The Moscow Conference of the 81 Communist and Workers' Parties is, it its own way, an involuntary homage paid to the need for a world party based on democratic centralism, which at present only the Fourth International represents, not only theoretically but practically, in the international working-class movement.
Honest information, democratic discussion among the rank and file, international confrontation of divergences - these are the general demands in the Communist Parties, at the same time that we put forward our essential positions for bringing together a left current on a large scale in the mass Communist Parties. The general lines of such a programme are rendered more and more specific by the great problems of the international situation and by the divergences that it has already aroused between the Sovie!s and the Chinese: the struggle for peace through a struggle to disarm capitalism by driving it out of power; unconditional support for colonial revolutions and help to the revolutionaries of the colonial countries for the creation of independent workers' and peasants' organizations carrying
58 out specific class action; denunciation of the concept of he peaceful and parliamentary paths, return to the coneptions advocated by Lenin in State and Revolution; struggle for power in the capitalist countries on the basis the urand front of all he work bry organ of the tactic of
In conclusion, the events since the end of the Second World War have more and more confirmed the Trotskyist hesis that Stalinism, i e, the subordination of the Comnunist movement to the Soviet bureaucracy, was a phenomenon incompatible with any great revolutionary development. The Jugoslav revolution very quickly found itself breaking with Stalinism. Then, in the USSR and in the ther workers' states of Eastern Europe, a series of contractions appeared about the masses' immediate demand hich caused explosions (the Polish and Hungarian Octo
### FOURTH INTERNATIONAL ber). Despite all the Khrushchev leadership's attempts to reabsorb the crisis by a "reformism" not lacking in dynamism and based on the Soviet Union's immense economic cially bacical dranes evelopment ot one chinese, revo-
Up till then, each of these crises was accompanied by limited demands which were contained in the general programme of the Fourth International or which went in the direction of these demands. At present the new phase of the international crisis of Stalinism raises a constellation of problems which are those of the world revolution and of the international transition toward socialism, and, behind them, that of the new mass international leadership. The now phase in the crisis of Stalinism that is ripening will thus be eminently favorable to the progress of Trotskyism and its organization, the Fourth International.
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see also, on page 4, the congress Resolution on the case oj ur imprisoned comrades Michel Ravtis (Pablo) and Sal Santen.