THE DECISIVE HOUR OF THE ALGERIAN REVOLUTION
(A letter written by M. Pablo to the FLN from prison in Amsterdam)
Dear comrades, dear brothers of the FLN.
I address this letter to you on the day after the conlemnation of Sal Santen and myself to fifteen months im. prisonment for "illegal" activities on behalf of the FLN.
The Algerian revolution is now virtually victorious. The last delays and manoevers of Imperialism can retard the hour of liberation but the latter is certain and relativ-
This victory is above all the work of the Algerian workers and peasants who for seven years have not spared their blood, with immense and multiple sacrifices.
In seven years of atrocious war, the Revolution has spread its roots deep in the Algerian people, and the FLN "the national revolutionary leadership which this people has produced - has developed into a formidable politicomilitary organisation of the masses, with international con nections. This victory is equally the result of the material and moral aid received from the Arab masses, from the African masses, and from the workers states, from China, from Yu. goslavia and the other "people's democracies"
The international revolutionary context, the new balance of forces established already on a world scale for many years has not ceased to evolve against Imperialism, enormously favouring the victory of the Algerian revolution. Jarger and
Groups, at first rather small, larger in the European and French workers movement have contributed equally to this victory. Certainly in this sphere, the European workers' movement, still led by the traditional socialist and communist parties has shown and still shows great slowness in general, by comparison with the revolutionary struggle of its brothers in the colonial coun tries. This can be seen clearly in France not only with the shameful attitude of the SFIO, as executioner of Imperialist policy and principal supporter in the workers' camp of the Gaullist dictatorship, but equally in the attitude of the French CP to the revolution both during its first years and even now where it contents itself with a purely verbal opposition to De Gaulle and the pursuit of the war in Alger is this frankly treacherous and fundamentally opportur nist attitude of the major organisations representing the proletariat, which has forced a number of militant workers and revolutionary intellectuals to envisage means and forms of aid to Algerian revolution of an exceptional nature and which cannot possess the same aspect and the same content as in the case of a genuine revolutionary action by the masses.
The fact remains however that these initiatives and activities of a confined vanguard in France and elsewhere have been valuable, awakening workers and democratic opinion in France and in Europe of the Algerian question and stim ulating reactions from larger sections of the population.
This can be seen today with the increase of protest in France and even in Algeria against the continuance of the Imperialist war and the more powerful response in favour of the Algerian revolution which has developed in the European capitalist countries.
The French trotskyists and the whole IVth International, as you are well aware, have since the beginning of the Rev. olution, contributed, modestly it is true, to this evolution.
Some among us, with dozens of other militants and in. tellectual revolutionaries, both French and European, with various political orientations, at the danger of losing their life and undergoing imprisonment have already shown their of. tachment to the Algerian revolution and beyond that to the colonial revolution in general .
Certainly these sacrifices are nothing in comparison with the enormous sacrifices undergone by the Algerian people. But if I mention this, it is simply to explain that we have some small right to speak to you frankly, as sincere friends of the revolution, on the eve of total liberation.
You will have before you a major choice. What are you intending to make of the victory of the Revolution?
In 1954 the Algerian people rose as a mass movement for the primordial objective of national independance, liberation from Imperialism.
For seven years, the struggle has been waged by the major forces of the peasantry, the workers, the "intelligent. sia" without precise social differentiation. These social forces once brought on the scene have determined the dynamics of the revolution and have realised their consciousness in a profoundly agitated and revolutionary national and inter-
It is not only the harsh consciousness of a nation which has been forged in this struggle. In however confused a in differing degrees, the social strata who have supported the revolution and the war, the peasants of the mountains and of the villages of Algeria, the agricultural proletariat, workers and "intelligentsia" of the Algerian cities and in metropolitan France itself have become aware af their own social aspirations and ideals which now largely transcend the framework of national independance, pure and simple.
The revolution began inevitably in the form of a Na. tional Front.
In its first phase, beliefs, customs, traditions have played even a progressive role in developing and reinforcing the consciousness and national solidarity in face of Imperial. itself, coming from nations such as Tunisia and Morocco despite independance are still in submission to feudo-
However imperceptibly moved by its oun dynamics, Revolution has raised itself to higher levels. Today after seven years of war against the main forces of a powerful Imperialism, the spirit of the Algerian masses has been strongly affected by the ideas, the aspirations, the dominant socialist, and revolutionary ideas of the epoch. No one can overlook this fact of capital importance for the future of the Revolution.
The latter is developing at the moment in a world of incredibly radical, profound and accelerated transformation. The recent progress of science and technology in the spheres atomic energy, automation, and space research have pushed back the frontiers of the actual and potential power of humanity beyond all previous imagination.
material power to produce abundance, to raise and transplant mountains, to make deserts flourish.
This new industrial revolution which opens the way to a new civilisation, materially possible and necessary for the first time in the history of humanity, is combined with prodigious political and social changes.
There is thus an interaction between these two processes, destined to coalesce at a higher level of development.
The material and military power of the URSS, of China, of Yugoslavia, of the other workers states, has not ceased to increase and impress its seal on world production and
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL on the balance of forces between Imperialism and the nascent socialist world. from nations formerly yoked to Imperialism.
Consider the changes since the Algerian revoltuion in Africa. This continent, formerly the most backward, is now involved from one end to the other in a revolutionary upheaval extending to the most primitive peoples of the forest and the tropical jungles.
From Egypt to Morocco, from Nigeria to Tanganyka, from North Africa to South Africa, through Mali, Guinea, Kenya at the threshold of its revolution, the Congo, Angola "New Algeria" _ the whole African continent is a prey to a revolutionary fever. This will continue until total and effective liberation from Imperialism and the social, economic and national restructuration of this region.
In this historic process, the heroic struggle of the Al. gerian people has played and continues to play a very considerable role of which it is not yet fully conscious.
In the Middle East the revolutionary fever is no less profound, whether it be in Turkey, or Iran where the Shah and the feudal capitalist comprodor class desperately at the last hour to delay the inevitable explosion, or Iraq, in midstream under a Bonapartist regime a la Kerensky, unstable, and transitory...
The deterioration of the situation in the Far East for Imperialism is perfectly illustrated by the progress of the revolution in Laos, in South Vietnam, workers movement in Japan and in Indonesia, the chronic crisis in South Korea.
It will not be long before the Revolution makes further progress in this part of the world, more and more dominated by the shadow of Red China.
As for Latin America, the success of the Cuban revolution in the immediate proximity to the United States, citadel of Imperialism, literally in the "Jaws of the monster" is particularly significant... This success illustrates the new balance of forces established on a world scale between Imperialism. and the world socialist revolution, and signifies, historically speaking not only the beginning of the Latin American, but equally that of the North American -evolution - that is of the Pan American socialist revolution.
The revolutionary impetus which is affecting the masses of Latin-America and the instability of the feudo-capitalist regimes are notable throughout almost the whole continent. In reality only the lack of parties and of audacious revo lutionary leaderships who can draw intelligently and boldly upon the revolutionary potential of the peasant and worker masses of all these countries and areas of the world retards an ever greater acceleration of the revolution.
Naturally we have to bear in mind the delay of the advanced capitalist nations of Western Europe and of North America, in comparison with the changes and the revolut. ionary progress in the colonial, semi-colonial countries and the workers states.
But the economic euphoria which is at the base of the relative social stability of these countries is fragile and conjunctural. The prosperity of these countries has devel. oped and maintained itself for several years — once the reconstruction following the second world war was com. pleted — on the basis of a complex interaction of three essential factors: the thanks to the scientific and technological progress which characterises the present "industrial revolution", the exploi. tation to the advantage of the industrial sector of each country, of the peasantry, and the exploitation of the colonial and semi-colonial nations by the body of the industrial nations.
The increase of productivity has allowed the simultane.
31 ous increase of real wages and of accumulated reinvested capital.
The exploitation of the peasantry of each industrial nation and of the colonial and semi colonial nations by the body of the industrial nations has maintained the high level of profits of the industrial sector while securing for it the necessary market for its expansion, for the realisation of accumulation.
However as this in the last analysis means that the peasantry and the colonial and semi-colonial countries are experiencing a relative impoverishment, and that the capitalist economy is burdened with the heavy expenditure entailed by armaments which is constantly inflationary, the downturn in this economy and financial crisis are equally in the long run inevitable. The downturn is already visible, as much in the case of the USA and Canada as in England, from which at the moment the other capitalist nations, with Germany at their head benefit.
The weakening on the other hand of the various currencies, including the dollar and the real threat of a world financial crisis, illustrate perfectly the fragility of the present capitalist prosperity. In reality, the capitalist world, with the United States at its head has entered into irrevocable economic and military decadence, a process destined to be accelerated irreversibly. Each year will bring striking proof of this.
It is in such a world of revolutionary transformation that the Algerian revolution reaches its hour of victory, its hour of decision.
Imperialism and its external and internal allies are alive to the danger of seeing the Algerian revolution take the "Cuban" road that could proceed to profound social, economic and political transformations which would give Algeria a socialist structure.
In Cuba similarly, as in Algeria, the revolution is based essentially on the struggle of a revolutionary army recruited from the peasantry and was conducted in the absence of a Marxist revolutionary party. Yet this revolution has advanced in its actions and its achievements much more rapidly and with greater audacity than the timid communist parties in their political programmes.
It is to the interest of French Imperialism and its "bourguibist" allies of various sorts outside and within Algeria and its revolution, to "embourgeois" in some way the revolution and to contain it within the limits compatible with an Algerian capitalist regime allied with Imperialism. This is the object at which de Gaulle, the Americans and all the feudo-capitalist forces of the American and Arab countries plus the "bourguibist" elements within Algeria itself, are aiming in this decisive period.
The wealth of the Sahara, the financial "aid" of France for the proposed "industrialisation" of Algeria under the Constantine Plan, the presence of European "elites" in Algeria, the Algerian emigration in France, all these aspects of the Algerian problem are evoked as an illusion and a mirage of a better future, to direct the solution in a bourgeois and pro-Imperialist direction.
Will you be tempted to fall into such a trap?
In brief Algeria at the hour of victorious revolution has the choice between a solution a la Tunisia or a la Cuba.
"Bourguibist" Tunisia is a country which has found its formal national independance but which has resolved none of its fundamental problems: real independance in relation to Imperialism, solution of the agrarian problem, industrial. ization, abolition of unemployment and illiteracy, liberation of women. It remains a feudo-capitalist underdeveloped nation, an ally and subject of Imperialism.
Cuba, on the contrary, a little country almost in the "Jaws of the monster" with one blow, has been genuinally freed from Imperialism, has resolved the agrarian problem, embarked on major plans for industrialisation, and the
----- photo credits and running heads -----
1111
32 complete abolition of unemployment and illiteracy, and the liberation of women. international significance and has placed itself in the By this fact, this little country has already obtained vanguard of the great Latin-American revolution and even an - historically speaking — of the Pan American revolution. Cuba thanks to the intelligence and the supreme audacity of the bold leadership of the revolution has entered the historic path of nascent socialism.
An equally unique achievement is possible now for the Algerian revolution. In entering upon the socialist transformation of Algeria, it would place itself in the leadership of the inevitable Arab and Pan-American revolution.
Do not argue that this is difficult or impossible, by drawing upon arguments borrowed from the arsenal of the ideologists of Imperialism, of capitalism, of opportunism.
The true solution of the fundamental problems of the Algeria of tomorrow cannot be found outside a socialist solution. The best lands in Algeria, stolen by Imperialism are to be found in the hands of rich colons and Imperialist enter. prises. The communal lands and individual plots which remain to the Arab Algerians are limited, have poor soil and are inadequately cultivated due to lack of financial, material and technical assistance.
But the vast majority of the Arab Algerian population is composed of peasants with or without land.
These masses were and remain the essential force of the revolutionary army and of the revolution.
The latter cannot refuse or even delay giving the land to the peasants without betraying them.
Such a policy requires the annulling of peasant debts, the confiscation of the land of the rich colons and of the Imperialist enterprises, the distribution of a part at least of the reconquered lands to the poor peasants and landless peasants, the cooperative exploitation of other lands belong. ing to the state by the democratic collective of the agricultural workers, the consolidation of communal lands, and financial, material, and technical aid from the state of the peasants. But this radical agrarian reform will have no future if it is not combined with the diversification and reorientation of the agrarian economy and the intensive industrialisation of the country according to a plan.
Algeria is a rich nation in itself even without the Sahara. By including this region which contains extremely valuable raw materials for a great and rapid industrialisation, Algeria can face this problem with confidence and vigour.
The financial means necessary for such an economic plan would be furnished by the productive investment of the profits from the nationalised imperialist enterprises, aid from the workers states, the surplus from the labour of the at present enormous unemployed sector of the popu. lation, the exploitation of the riches of the Sahara.
But it is for the State to mobilise and organise all these resources on the basis of a predominantly national. ised economy and according to a long term plan. An essential aspect of this policy whose validity is widely recognized, by bourgeois specialists on the economic development of the underdeveloped nations, is the state monopoly of foreign trade.
It is significant that a number of the most qualified specialists from Myrdal to Higgens have abandoned the classical theories of "laisser faire" and "spontaneous equilibrium" of the liberal capitalist economy in favour of a planified development for the underveloped nations, propelled and in great part controlled by the state, including measures of nationalisation, of agrarian reform, monopoly of foreign trade... Certainly there can be question in the case of Algeria or any other nation of an
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL orientation towards an autarchic and totally nationalised economy from the start. Such an orientation would only retard for a whole period the necessary raising of the level of life of the masses and provoke dangerous social tensions.
The planified economic reconstruction of the country must profit as much as possible from the resources of the world market, including the use of foreign capital if the latter is granted for the purposes of economic development on a long term basis and under advantageous conditions.
Neither is it a question of proceeding immediately to the collectivisation of agriculture, and to the complete nationalization of industry, commerce, and the various crafts, Such a policy would have the result of lowering the level of productive forces which should on the contrary be raised speedily and throwing important social layers into opposition to the regime. What is necessary and sufficient at the beginning is that the state nationalises the key banking, industrial, agricultural and commercial enterprises, that it fixes a maximum size for land acquisition by in. dividual peasants, without the right of resale, and that it forms a monopoly of foreign trade. The extension of the nationalised and planified economy to those sectors available to private exploitation should be done gradually according to the material and technical possibilities provided by the state and the maturing of the consciousness of the masses.
It is in the framework of such a total conception that the question of the Sahara and that of relations with the European minority and France can find a solution. The Algerian state should promote the exploitation of the Saha. ro with the nearby African states and also with French capital under a specific form which would preserve Algerian sovereignty on Algerian Sahara and the preponderant control of the Algerian state. The latter should be equally disposed to arrange preferential long term agreements with France so that this country may contribute to the economic development of Algeria, thanks to financial aid and contracts for equipment from French factories and enterprises. This is a possible formula of association, reciprocally advantageous between ex-metropolitan and liberated countries.
Such aid - which excludes political ties, misdirected investment and scandalous profits bleeding the recipient of "aid" would not only benefit the liberated countries, but would guarantee full employment to the workers of the ex-metropolitan countries.
Such a rearrangement of the relations between Algeria and France would easily resolve the problem of the European minority in Algeria by the maintenance on a footing of complete equality all the elements desirous of accomodating themselves to the structure of the new Algerian state and eventual indemnity to those whose property is expropriated, and indemnity shared jointly by the French and Algerian governments from the proceeds of exploiting the Sahara. But the longer Imperialism delays its departure from Algeria and the hour of liberation, the risk of losing the advantages of such solutions grows greater.
For such radical reforms in structure to be possible, it is necessary to form a new state power, organ of the Al. gerian workers and peasants and of their revolutionary army. This authority must be based on the democratically elected organisms of the Councils, Committees, in the vil. lages, towns and regions, a constituent National Assembly, a government responsible to Councils, Comittees and Assem. bly. The various representative organs of the politico-military administration which have arisen during the revolution should serve as the embryo political power of tomorror.
But the key to all the political and social future of Algeria lies for practical purposes in the future of the FLN.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
The FLN has developed as a recognised leadership in the very struggle and revolution of the Algerian people. From this point of view it has aquired a prestige and an immense influence which it will retain in every way for many years. The FLN has developed as a politico-military organisation sui generis, a unique front of all the elements and tendencies of the Algerian people struggling for the essential objective of national independance.
But in reality the FLN has been practically transformed during this struggle into a political organism through which is expressed the dynamism and the aspirations of the Revolution.
It is high time that the FLN transformed itself effect. ively into a party political structure with a better articul. ated and more clearly defined political and social programme.
This programme must be that of a socialist, revolution. ary and democratic party. It is only in so far that the FLN becomes a revolutionary socialist party that it will know how to express adequately the ideas, the ideals, the aspirations of the worker and peasant masses of the revolution, and so not betray them.
On the other hand it is only in the degree to which it operates as a democratic party that it will maintain legitimately its monopoly of political power, in the first phase at least of the Algeria of tomorrow. To be demo. cratic means to allow the free confrontation of ideas and tendencies within the organisation, which reflect inevitably in the case of the single party, the ideas and tendencies, heterogeneous from the cultural and even material and social standpoint, of the popular forces at the base of the revolution.
This monopoly of the single party should not prolong itself however by preventing the existence of other parties who adhere to the fundamental conquests of the Revolution and operate within the constitutional framework of New Algeria. By accepting this, the single party will owe its justification entirely to the confidence of the masses and not to the monopoly of the state by this party. Such a monopoly could lead to the bureaucratisation of the party and the state and to the degeneration of the popular теgime issuing from the revolution into a dictatorship of the single party over the masses and even of the leadership of this party over the party itself and the masses. During the first transitional phase, it is possible that the revolutionary party, obliged to make certain compromises with Imperialism and to deal with the destruction inflicted on the nation plus the lack of cadres plus the low cultural level will disregard certain of these rules. But it is of primary importance for the revolution that these principles are clearly defined and proclaimed by the revolutionary party and that the latter does not identify itself with the policy day to day of empirical compromises by the state or justify this policy.
It remains for me in closing this letter to treat this last question: that of the pressure on the Algeria revolution of the customs and beliefs inherited from the past.
This heritage is certainly a heavy burden on all these peoples and particularly on peoples who have passed from centuries old feudalism to Imperialist domination. Customs and beliefs express the accomodation of the masses to the mode of a particular social regime and from this point of view contribute in a certain degree to organize more economically the life of the individual and of the family within the community and to safeguard ethnic cohesian. It does not prevent this situation being a retarding factor on the evolution of this particular society which essentially benefits the dominant native and foreign ruling classes and castes.
In Arab society for reasons which belong to the struc ture and the historical evolution of this society, the weight of customs and beliefs, particularly those of religion remain
33 very great. The revolution cannot suppress by a stroke of the pen all this and open individual and social life to the knowledge and the rational organisation at the level of the demands of the XXth century. To abolish and combar effectively anachronistic, barbarous and irrational customs and beliefs, including religion, it is necessary to extirpate material and cultural backwardness, the division of society into classes, to approach the level of a world communist society. Therein is the music of a very distant future.
The revolution cannot administer a superior culture by propaganda alone - certainly very necessary — and by the forbidding of such and such a practice by individuals or by families in the absence of an adequate material level and of a natural cultural maturity. To intervene bureaucratically in the life of the individual or of the family to "reform manners" administratively, would risk on the contrary perpetuating their force and throwing into opposition to the regime a number of backward elements and strata. As long as social reality is characterized by material penury, low cultural level, absence of real democracy for the masses, the latter will maintain their customs and their beliefs and will always find in religion a consolation for the defeats of real life, for their unsatisfied aspirations and hopes, for their ignorance of the world of nature and society.
But to make a pretext on the other hand of this weight of the past to halt the Revolution halfway, to retard the decisive structural reforms and accept compromise solutions would be an unpardonable fault. Un the contrary it is necessary to exploit the immense enthusiasm of the Revolution at its moment of victory when the enthusiasm is still vibrant, when the energy, the will, the aspiration of the masses for a radical change in their human condition is extremely vigorous, so that with one leap they can jump decisive stages.
The Revolution should declare religion and religious practices a strictly private affair.
The Revolution has already achieved a considerable amelioration of conditions for the young and for women within the ancient patriarchal family. This is the just tri. bute paid by the Revolution to the role they have played, to the immense sacrifices made by these masses. The victorious revolution must consolidate and amplify this amelioration, particularly in relation to women by liberating them in a genuinely economically, socially, sexually. The impetus which such a programme and such achievments of the Algerian revolution would give to the revolution in the Maghreb, to the entire Arab nation and to Africa would be an incalculable historic landmark. It would be particularly effective in the Maghreb pivoting around an Algeria flanked by Tunisia and Morocco, countries formally independant but submissive to a feudo-capitalist, pro-western, pro-imperialist regime. It would stimulate the whole Arab nation which extends from Morocco to Iraq and which is seeking unity via intermediary federative forms. Until now this unity has been prevented because of the geographical dispersion of the Arab nation, the diversity of social structure, the historic evolution of its various components, and the role of world Imperialism. There is no doubt however that historically this unity is the essential task of the socialist Arab revolution, of which the Algerian revolution should be glorious and decisive beginning.
The panafrican consequences of the Algerian socialist revolution would be no less important and historic. In Black Africa, in particular, we are dealing with a primitive peasant society, still profoundly marked by tribal economy and customs, yet revolutionized by the penetration of imperialist merchant capital. The native peasant and bourgeois merchant strata are generally limited and much less important than the analogous strata of the Arab nations of the Middle East, Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. In these countries which have secured their independance, the state
34 apparatus is in many cases still embryonic and their social destiny remains undetermined. Everything still depends on the state power. Their social basis, largely composed of poor peasants and detribalised elements who have entered the use to which these politically limited elites will put the towns, plus the revolutionary impulses from the present international context impell these elites towards a nationalised, planified, socialist economy. On the other hand the native bourgeois or potentially bourgeois elements plus Imperialism impell them towards a comprador capitalist regime in the image of the evolution of the Latin American nations since their independance.
The division already outlined between "reformist" Africa hinging on the present governments of the lvory coast, of Senegal, Nigeria, and "revolutionary" Africa whose axis is Guinea, Mali and even in part Ghana is characteristic of these tendencies. The choice which the Algerian revolution will make at its hour of victory will effect tre. mendously the immediate destinies of the whole of Africa.
Neither can one understimate the influence which the Algerian socialist revolution would have on those European states bordering the Mediterranean. The dictatorships of Franco and Salazar are already shaken by the actions of the olonial revolution in Africa, in Cuba and in Latin America. The victory of a Algerian socialist revolution and its after effects could well precipitate their downfall.
Even in France, the heroic struggle of the Algerian seople has acted as a powerful stimulus which has reactiv.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL ated the workers and revolutionary movement in this courhindered the consolidation of the Gaullist dictatorship. and beyond that, checked the march of Fascism. There is no doubt that the victory of the socialist Algerian Revolution can become the prologue to the French socialist so illustrating the intimate dialectical relation which exists at present between the historic march of the colonial revolution and the revolution in the advanced capitalist nations.
History in its dialectic unforseen by the classic thinkers of Marxism has made its own the precept of the founder of Christianity: "The last shall be first".
There is the awesome historic destiny dependant on the decision of the Algerian revolution at its hour of victory.
What will you do with this victory?
Consider the unique example given to revolutionaries by the profound intelligence of the Cuban leadership which has understood the direction and the opportunities of history in the present epoch.
Do not hesitate a single instant on the path to follow, do not subordinate at any price the future of the Revo. lution to the fetish of an abstract unity of the nation or immortal favour.
Do not retreat, under any pretext in face of this task.
18 July 1961. она: