THE WORLD CRISIS OF STALINISM AFTER THE 22n0 CONGRESS by ERNEST GERMAIN
The 22nd Congress of the CP of the USSR did not provoke the present world crisis of Stalinism; it simply gave it a much sharper form. In the final analysis, the origin of this crisis lies in the contradictions between the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy and the logic of the world upsurge of the revolutionary forces. While for the moment this latter is expressed above all by the progress of the colonial revolution and the economic, technical and cultural progress realised by the Workers' States, it is equally opposed to the traditional structures of Stalinism, in matters effecting both the relations of bureaucracy and proletariat in the Workers' States, and the relations between the Soviet CP and the CPs of other countries. When the upsurge of the world revolution again sweeps into its vortex the proletariat of the more advanced imperialist countries, it will carry the crisis of Stalinism to its last paroxysm and shatter the last vestiges of subordination of the proletariat to the bureaucracy, as much in these countries as in the Workers' States. The international socialist revolution and the political revolution in the USSR will flow in together with the colonial revolution to carry soviet democracy to its highest and most mature level. TWO PRINCIPAL SOCIAL FORCES
Superficially, the present phase of the crisis of Stalinism seems to be marked above all by the tension between Moscow and Tirana, which is only a sim. ple reflection of the tension between the leadership of is inspired in the last analysis by motives of self-defence, it must be remembered! — shows that neither tendency can be considezed as more progressive than the other on a global scale, that the positions of both wings bring the masses important concessions, which tied to extremely dangerous positions from the point of view of the overall interests from the Revolution and communism, and that only our Trotskyist movement definitively offers a valid, complete solution to the problems today confronting the international communist movement. More correctly: to the extent that, under the impulse of the two social forced mentioned above, more and more progressive ele ments and tendencies begin to differentiate themselves within the various communist parties, they each in their own way "rediscover" revolutionary Marxism, and tend more and more towards the position of the 4th International.
Awakened after twenty years of torpor under the Stalinist dictatorship, the Soviet proletariat seeks primarily a standard of living more in conformity with the immense possibilities of the Soviet economy today, and next an increasing participation in the leadership of the State and the economy. Analysis of the draft programme submitted to the 22nd Congress of the CPSU allowed us to discover the reflection (undoubtedly deformed) of a pressure of the Soviet workers as citizens, which had just added itself to the pres. sure of these same workers as consumers, the principal motivating force of "destalinisation"
The events unfolded at the Congress have given a shattering confirmation of the Soviet CP and that of the Chinese CP. In reali- this analysis. ty, this crisis reflects essentially the disintegrating influence which two progressive social forces in the world today exercise on the ideas, apparatus and traditional system of Stalinism: the Soviet prolettariat (and to a lesser degree the proletariat of other industrially advanced Workers' States), and the colonial masses. The action and influence of these two forces are parallel in the sense that they both, objectively, strike harder and harder blows at Stalinism. But they are not identical, in so far as the ends which they see immediately before them are not the same and even appear in some cases — provisionally — contradictory.
It is the play of these two social forces which in the final analysis explains the increasing polarisation of the Communist Parties into a Khrushchevian wing and a "Chinese" wing. The manner in which the bureaucracy reacts to them - which
Under this pressure, the Khrushcher fraction represents the most flexible and intelligent wing of the Soviet bureaucracy, the wing which has understood that any other policy on its part would in fact end at very short notice in a formidable explosion. Wanting to go into reverse, wanting to halt "destalinisation" or even to partially rehabilitate the dead tyrant, as asked for by the leaders of the Albanian CP, certain leaders of other "people's democracies" and, at least sotto voce by some of the Chinese communist leaders, would the Soviet masses as preparations to reintroduce the massive police terror, the human and barbarous punishments for minor infractions of the "labour code". a ferocious squeeze on the standard of living in favour of a frantic (and for that reason yielding little profit) development of heavy industry. The Soviet masses,
6 today, are not prepared to tolerate or to witness passively any such return to the past. Khrushchev knows it, and gives them guarantees in this regard - postponing momentarily the date of reckoning when they will demand guarantees of much more substantial soviet democracy, and when they will end by smashing the very foundations of the bureaucracy's power in the economy and in the State.
There is therefore no base, in the Soviet reality of today. for any support of the Albanian or Chinese theses hostile to "destalinisation" inasmuch as the most ossified, most conservative and most reactionary layers of the bureaucracy, completely cut off from the people, no longer constitute a serious base for any political tendency. sense, the positions adopted by the Albanian and Chinese CPs on "destalinisation", which in fact identify "destalinisation" with "concessions to im. perialism" — whilst in reality it is a matter of making concessions to the Soviet proletariat! — are fated to remain absolutely isolated in the USSR and amongst the masses of the "peoples' democracies". Khrushcher knows this very well. Every time he needs to reinforce his popularity or his prestige in the eyes of the Soviet masses in front of his Soviet or foreign critics, it suffices for
"re-start" the destalinisation and to lead it to a higher stage, to attain his end for the moment.
But as soon as the positions adopted by the Chinese CP on questions other than "destalinisation" are examined, we find a completely different picture. Let us pass over to the question of world war, and more precisely world nuclear war, a question on which certain Chinese leaders have effectively adopted in the past an indefensible adventurist position. We do not know how far they have shifted their ground in this regard but a certain evolution can be seen; this appears evid.
We must moreover recall that the leaders of the Chinese CP have never ceased to defend openly the Soviet disarmament proposals; they cannot very well be reproached for having nourished illusions as to the possibilities of realising them in practice. We will return to this problem
As for the essence of the questions which today animate and excite the masses of the colonial and semi-colonial countries throughout the world the position adopted by the Chinese CP are infinitely closer to the preoccupations of these masses and to a correct Marxist revolutionary answer to these preoccupations, than the positions adopted by the Khrushchev fraction and by the majority of Communist Parties which follow this fraction.
Whether it concerns the problem of the roads which the liberation of the colonial peoples will take; or the help which the world communist movement should render to the colonial revolu-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL tion; or the dangerous and demobilising of a "peaceful co-existence" with imperialism, allegedly capable of definitively suppressing the danger of world war — the position of the Chinese CP remains much more to the "left" , much more "Trotskyist" than that of Khrushchev, before or after the 22nd Congress.
When, at the second conference of Afro-Asian writers in Cairo (mid-February, 1962), the repres entatives of the Khrushchev line extend themselves in rhapsodising about "disarmament", and the spokesmen of the insurgent colonial masses of Africa reply that what interests them at the moment is not abstract "disarmament" but, on the contrary, armament, and call for guns to combat the barbarous repression of the colonialists, the "Khrushchevians" are just as disarmed in face of this argument as are the Albanians in face of the preoccupations of the Soviet workers. When, at the conference of the Latin-American peoples, the representatives of the various Latin-American CPs repeat one after the other that it is possible to achieve socialism "by peaceful roads", and that it is necessary to effect a "bloc" with the national bourgeoisie, then Fidel Castro, in his "second Declaration of Havana". • asserts that revolution is inevitable in this part of the world, asserts that
"experience has proved that the national bourgeoisie is paralysed by fear of the social revolution" asserts that the peasants, whilst constituting the main body engaged in the revolution,
"by reason of the culture-less state in which they are kept and the isolation in which they live, need the revolutionary and political leadership of the working class and of the revolutionary intelligentsia"
When he concludes by summarising the whole dilemma in the formula: "imperialism or revolution", he is not only enunciating "Trotskyist" theories: he is also expressing the preoccupations of 99% of the poor masses of the colonial countries, and completely disarms, in this milieu, the representatives of the Kremlin line.
The present crystallisation of positions is such, on both sides, that it threatens to Last a long time. On the basis of the present positions, the Soviet CP has no change of dislodging the Chinese CP from preponderant influence over the workers' movement in the colonial countries, and the Chinese CP has no chance of winning by its theses an important part of the Soviet working class. it does not end in an open rupture between parties and an open rupture between States (a rupture which we would denounce and combat as a crime against the interests of the international proletariat), this division will remain deep. insurmountable, until the separation of a tendency which
combines the most advanced positions on the po- rupted revolution", they
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL litical revolution arising in the USSR, with most advanced positions on the colonial revolution.
Mechanist minds will assert that, when all is said and done, the positions of the two fractions only reflect "the objective conditions" which prevail respectively in the USSR and China. The USSR, having acquired a higher economic base, "can permit itself destalinisation"; China, confonted with a still-heartbreaking poverty, numerous economic difficulties and a dramatic agricultural situation (*), "cannot afford the luxury of destalinisation". There is naturally a grain of truth in this explanation. But it is too simplistic and too mechanistic to account correctly for a much more complex reality. THE CHINESE CP IS NOT STALINIST
To begin with, the Chinese CP is by no means "Stalinist" in the strict meaning of the term. it is true that the experience of the "hundred flowundoubtedly convinced Mao that it was premature to institute too "liberal" a regime in the Party and in the country; if it is also true that second phase, the movement called the "People's Communes" gave birth to excesses com. parable with those of the Stalinist forced collectivisation, it remains no less true that, neither by radition nor experience. are the present leader i the uhinese UP exemplary admirers of th late master of the Kremlin. Must we recall that " and power contrary to Stalin' formal "COUDand "directives"? That after 1953 and above all on the morrow of the 20th Congress, they were much further advanced in "destalinisation" and that Mao's theory "contradictions amongst the people" comes closer to the roots of Stalinism in a far more serious way than the insipid formula of "the cult of personality"?
There is more. Actually, no taboo exists in China concerning the name, works or theories of Stalin. Economists like Tung Chou and Liu Chihpai have been able to defend the definition given by Stalin of the "fundamental economic law of socialism"; an economist like Yu Feng-tsoun has been able to oppose at one and the same time Stalin and his backward disciples. And a still more important fact: the Chinese communists have begun to revise one of the immutable "theoretical" dogmas of Stalinism, namely the theory of "revolution by stages" in backward countries, they have drawn nearer to the Trotskyist theory of the permanent revolution, which they call "uninter-
January 19g2, production of wheat in 1961 Was only th January 5.51% higher than that of 1957, and production of rice only 0.9%.
7 are formulating a revolutionary credo which has many things in common with that of Fidel Castro and, pursuing this road, they end up revising in passing even the Stalinist history of the 2nd Chinese revolution of 1925-7. (**)
In fact, one rather has the impression that the leaders of the Chinese CP have formed an unprincipled bloc with Molotov, Enver Hoxha and and this for simple reasons of fractional convenience.
If they all undoubtedly adopt positions hostile to the policy of "peaceful co-existence" as Khruscchev has conceived it — that is the only common ground uniting them - they each do so for different reasons and diverse ends: some because they are defending exorbitant privileges which the least reduction in police control risks destroying; others because they miss the happy days of complete bureaucratic arbitrariness; the Chinese (like the Cubans) because they see in the international spread of the revolution the best means of loosening the grip in which they are held by imperialist pressure and by their economic difficulties.
To argue on data from the "objective condialone, is to disregard besides the global, world aspect of the problems which today confront every Communist leadership, and to disregard the common and global interests which in practice bind together the proletarians of every sector of the
It could perhaps be questioned whether a raising of the Soviet worker's standard of living is compatible with a truly "egalitarian" apportioning of resources between the USSR and China; but there is no evidence that the Chinese have posed the question in these absolute and extrem-
But can it be seriously doubted that it is in the interests of the Soviet proletariat, as much as in those of the Chinese masses colonial masses in general, that the major part of the resources which, for the (illusory) aims of prestige and so-called "peaceful co-existence" diplo are today diverted towards the aid of the colonial bourgeoisie, should go rather to the colonial revolution and the Chinese (Cuban, North Vietnamese, etc.) Workers' And can it be seriously doubted that the political revolution in the USSR, putting an end to wastage and permitting a new "leap forward" in Soviet economic growth, corresponds to the real interest of these same Chinese and colonial masses?
(**) See particularly the series of articles by Li Wei. "Red Tem (Nose of 1952), in which it is early stated member of the CC of the Chinese CP, in the Peking hat either the proletariat will lead the peasantry to victory in the revolution, or else the latter will remain under the direction of the national bourgeoisie, and in this case the revolution will be defeated, to the careful reader, this is a scarcely veiled approval of Trotsky's criticism of the StalinBukharin policy the 2nd Chinese revolution.
8
It may be admitted that, in their present condition, these masses still cannot comprehend the global problem, in all its complexity. But is it not precisely the task of communists to represent continually, within the existing movement. "the interest of the movement as a whole" , to "bring out in the various national struggles of the proletariat the common interests of the proletariat in its entirety, independent of its nationality", as the "Communist Manifesto" so well puts it? To have forgotten this fundamental principle, in confusing the interests of a nationalist bureaucratic caste with those of its proletariat and State, something which has already cost the Soviet Com. munists very dearly. To-morrow, it could cost the whole world communist movement more dearly still. *PEACEFUL CO-EXISTENCE AND WORLD
REVOLUTION
If the theses of the Chinese CP are more to the left than those of the Khrushchev fraction on the colonial revolution and "peaceful co-existence" they nevertheless suffer from a double defect: complete failure to recognise the problems posed by the Soviet proletariat on the one hand; an answer only partially and not totally correct, to the Khrushchevian argument on the question of "peaceful co-existence".
"The lamb and the wolf absolutely cannot coexist peacefully", , avows Mao-tun, President of the Association of Chinese Writers, at the 2ud Confer ence of Afro-Asian writers. And he introduces a subtle distinction between "peaceful co-existence based on the five principles" and "unconditional peaceful co-existence" • This latter would be characterised especially by the fact that it does not consider the destruction of colonialism a preliminary condition to paceful co-existence.
Feigning a polemic with "certain heads of State at the recent (Belgrade) conference of non-aligned
, but in reality crossing swords with the Khrushchev fraction, Kuo Chi-chou writes in the Pekin "Red Flag" (No. 1, 1962) that
"the armed struggles waged by the oppressed nations against imperialism arise from the armed oppression by imperialism of the people of these countries... Wherever there is imperialist oppression and exploitation, there will be people to rise up and make a revolution. It is the noble internationalist obligation of socialist countries to support the national liberation movements in every way possible. Lenin gave the advice that the proletariat which has already seized po-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL wer should unite, on the one hand with the proletariat of all countries, and on the other hand with the oppressed nations of colonial and semicolonial countries, in order to lead resolute struggles against imperialism and consolidate and develop the revolutionary cause of the proletariat"
Replying to "Red Flag" whilst feigning a polemic with Enver Hoxha, the Khrushchevian theoretician Alexei Roumiantsev asserts that peaceful co-existence does not exclude vigilance, that it implies "the growth in power of the socialist camp", "consolidation of the independence of countries which have freed themselves from the colonial yoke", struggle against "the imperialist policy which tries to export counter-revolution". ', "cohesion growing firmer and firmer of all the forces of peace" (La Nouvelle Revue International, No. 1, 5th year, January 1962, p. 15). But by surreptitiously substituting the word "colonialism" for the word "imperialism", Koumiantzer dodges the real problem posed by Kuo Chi-Chou: what is the attitude of the Khrushchevians with regard to the inevitable, armed revolutionary struggles of the colonial and semi-colonial peoples to secure their complete liberation with regard to imperialism?
But in his turn, Kuo Chi-Chou dodges a central problem in asserting that it suffices to ensure the reality of the "five principles" (and hence the national independence and sovereignty of all nations), for "peaceful co-existence" to become valid. reality, this co existence remains illusory even after the disappearance of the last colony, as long as there remain imperialist powers of great industrial strength, armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction. The Khrushchevian position is that imperialism can be "paralysed" by the external strength of the "forces of peace"; the Chinese po sition is that it can be paralysed by the victory of the colonial revolution. The revolutionary Marxist position, which is also, moreover, the only realistic one, is that the danger of war, the risk of war, and therefore the risk of nuclear extermination of the human species will exist, as long as an important imperialist burgeois class exists: only the victorious socialist revolution in the principal capitalist countries of the world will remove the spectre of war.
In confining themselves to a sterile debate on "the struggle for peace" instead of conceiving the struggle against the dangers of war as one of the principal levers in the struggle for the overthrow of capitalism in the imperialist countries, the Khru. shchevians and Chinese moreover remove every possibility of progress being made in these countries by the Communist Parties, whose condition is in general most grievous.
which carefully examines every argument from a Whilst officially the "cult" commenced in 1934,
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL THE DIALECTICAL CHARACTER OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST DISCUSSION
If at the moment there are two principal poles in the discussion launched on the morrow of the 22nd Congress in the Communist Parties of the entire world, the Khrushchevian pole and the Chipole, this does not at all mean that the discussion can be summed up as a debate between these two positions. Quite the contrary: one of the principal characteristics of this debate is the extraordinary diversity of the positions to which it is continually giving birth.
We have the impression of a process of uninterrupted differentiation, in which the interaction between the "national" factors (experience of past defeats, predominant objective conditions, national traditions, the particular sharpness with which certain problems are posed, points of departure, particular structure of the "national" workers' ment, etc. etc.) and the "international" features (effects of "destalinisation" and the Pekin-Moscow debate; particular relations with the Soviet bureaucracy; particular sensitivity with regard to such and such a position adopted by another CP; inter. national fractional affinities, etc). produce an infinite variety of positions.
A great number of examples could be cited. Let us restrict ourselves to the main examples.
The position of Enver Hoxha himself is not as "spotless" as it has appeared to some. His clique is odious and continues to employ vile means of domination. When it identifies the revelations about the crimes committed by Stalin against thousands of Soviet Communist with a "concession to imperialist propaganda", it goes beyond the limits of contempt. But even this clique, placed in quite new and exceptional conditions, abruptly cut off from the "Guiding Party" , at odd times strikes a note which cannot be characterised as "Stalinist" In his speech of 7th November, 1961, Hoxha poses the question:
"Is it correct to attack a party after having heard the arguments from one side only, and deny the other side an expression of its point of view? Or must new principles be introduced into the communist movement, according to which the great must be heard but not the small, according to which the great are always right and the small always wrong?".
The question is not badly posed, and on this particular occasion we cannot help sympathising with the man who poses it... while sending the ball back to him ,and asking why he accepted the condemnation of the Yugoslav Communists so cheerfully when there had been no session of this "international forum of Workers' and Communist Parties,
Party and examines all its activity", the convening of which for submission of the Albano-Soviet disagreement he now demands in vain!
And when Hoxha reproaches Khrushcher using brutal methods of pressure and blackmail to oblige the "brother parties" to fall into line with the positions of the Soviet CP, he is not tar wrong. Yet could he explain why it is inadmissible to employ these methods in relations between Communist Parties, whilst it is perfectly normal to employ them within a Party like the Albanian
Let us take two other examples of Communist Parties in power: that of the Czech Party and that of the Polish Party. The Czech Party has a tradition of particular servility with regard to the Soviet Party. Thus the first move of the Prague leaders is for an imitation of Khrushcher taking on a grotesque form. Did Khrushscev remove Stalin's corpse from the Mausoleum in the Red Square? Novotny will immediately remove Gottwald's corpse from the mausoleum in Prague. The matter could have rested at that... if the year 1961 had not been a particularly bad year agriculture and in basic industry, if the provisioning of the population had not deteriorated certain domains, if a growing tension between workers and bureaucrats had not appeared in various sectors and regions. Thus, the 22nd Congress in an unforeseen way precipitated a serious crisis in the leadership of the Party, which was ended (for the moment) by the elimination of Barak and his
To imitate the "turn" of the Soviet Party to strict "socialist legality" , there had to be a comic turn in Prague.
The Polish Party was less shaken by the revelations of the 22nd Congress than most of the other Communist Parties. The "secret report" to the 20th Congress has circulated widely inside it. Moreover, there was a suggestive addendum in the shape of Gomulka's report to the 9th Plenum of the POUP in October 1956. The militants and workers therefore knew for the most part Khrushchev revealed to Communist public opinion for the first time at the 22nd Congress. letter provoked two reactions in Warsaw: an attempt to deepen the explanation of the "origins of the cult of personality"; a timid effort to "restart destalinisation" in Poland itself.
The interventions at the Plenum of the CC of the POUP which discussed the 22nd Congress are known about and especially those of Oscar Lange and Gomulka. No one is satisfied with the official formulas on the "cult of personality"; but no one dares go to the heart of the matter. Gomulka, however, once more exceeds the limits of "deviation" as far as the past is concerned.
10 Gomulka traces its roots to the forced collectivisation, that is to say, he commences with the year 1930. The allusion to Polish agricultural policy, which must be defended, is transparent. But if Stalin were wrong in 1930, was Bukharin right? And Trotsky? How are these questions not to be raised?
We said that attempts to "re-start" destalinisation in Poland itself were timid. The way in which the 1956-7 upsurge was quelled left a bitter taste among the worker and student youth, not to speak of the intellectuals. In recent times, the political police seem to have dangerously increased their power in the country. Thus it is above all such "untouchable" personalities as the economist Lipinski, L. Infeld, and Tadeusz Kotarbinski who can permit themselves to give battle for a greater freedom of expression in the scientific, artistic and other fields. But it is the old Communist Stanislav Brodzki who, in the illustrated weekly Swiat, has gone furthest. He drew the inference from the 22nd Congress of, in particular, "three principles of internal development in socialist countries: first elimination of the straitjacket of ideological conformism... an unlimited freedom of scientific discus. sion... second, going past purely formal popular democracy to real democracy, which should be determined as much by the workers as by Parliament; third, the widest democracy and freedom of discussion within the political forces which control the Socialist States and within the Workers' and Communist Parties"
This platform does not lack audacity, and must be regarded as "adventurist" in the other "peoples' democracies". But would it be by chance that Brodzki was unexpectedly imprisoned a little later (he was quickly released, but the intimidation was carried out)?
Among the Communist Parties in the imperialist countries, the case of the Italian CP is partic. ularly revealing. Because of the peculiarities of the country (existence of a socialist party which is fairly strong and less "right wing" than in most countries of Europe ;interpenetration of socialist and communist "tendencies" within the GCIL; the already pronounced effects of the 22nd Congress; a real widening in influence of the Trotskyist organisation, etc.), the repercussions of the 22nd Congress began by being particularly wide and rapidly became sensational. There was the famous debate within the Central Committee, which was made public, on the origins of the "cult of personality"; the "penal rehabilitation" of Trotsky, proclaimed by one of the Party secretaries; much more progressive still, the discussion in the Young Communists' paper "Nuova Generazione", which openly expressed the need to revise the traditional posi-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL tion on Trotsky's role during and after the October Revolution. There was the general reinforcement of a climate of freedom of discussion, of quasidemocracy, within the communist workers' movement, which, grafted on to a real resumption of struggle, arrived at an abundance of audacious ideas.
However, the dominant tendency in the Italian CP, which has led and channelled this whole movement of critical revision, is thoroughly "right wing", Khrushchevian. One can even say that in the matter of "destalinisation" as in the matter of "peaceful roads to socialism", it is simply more Khrushchevian than Khrushchev. It is true that it bitterly criticises the criminally passive positions of the French CP with regard to the Algerian revolution, and that at the Moscow Congress of the WFTU, it was the only one to constitute an "open opposition" to the official line, also on this question. Nevertheless, the fundamental orientation of this tendency is right wing, and this characteristic rapidly gained the upper hand over the positive aspects of "the offensive of destalinisation™ upheld by Amendola-Pajetta. And when the Italian bourgeoisie outlined its "opening to the left-centre, that is to say to neo-capitalism, the lamentable bankruptcy of this tendency caused palpable damage to the whole Italian workers' movement. The positive residue from the repercussions of the 22nd Congress resides less therefore in a real straightening out of the PCI, which can only be a political straightening out on class lines, than in the strengthening of a climate of workers' democracy which facilitates the blossoming and strengthening of critical left tendencies within the Party itself. RIGHT TO TENDENCIES AND THE
INTERNATIONAL
The monolithism of the communist movement
But it has parties which are opposed as such one to the other: "Russians" against "Chinese" "Yugoslavs" against "Albanians". ', "Italians" against "French", etc. The extreme bureaucratisation of the parties, the absence of a tradition of normal communist discussion, has seen to it that even when the lid is lifted most of the militants, having acquired the right to speak, have found nothing very interesting to say (with the
They again how to think for themselves.
This situation however cannot be prolonged indefinitely without confronting the international
of working out a correct policy: these elementary 10th March, 1962
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL communist movement with the most serious threats: that of transforming the conflict between parties into a conflict between States, and particularly that of striking a blow at the Sino-Soviet alliance. The monolithism retained on the national level thus turns on the "Guiding-Party" which inspired and installed it. There is no remedy for this situation other than a return to freedom of tendencies within the Communist Parties, which will quickly result in the formation of international tendencies, infinitely more compatible with State alliances than the monolithic "national" tendencies.
It could be asserted that the present debate within the international communist movement reflects revolutionary Marxist positions in a "broken" way, as the crystal breaks up the sun's rays into the spectrum of colour which it contains. the Trotskyist position are to be found again amongst the various participants in the debate, but no present tendency adopts them all: the Russian liquidate the Stalinist heritage, the Chinese come close to the theory of permanent revolution, the Cubans boldy assert that a Workers' State must appeal to the proletarians of other countries to extend the revolution internationally, the Yugo slavs explain that the management of the factories must be in the hands of workers' councils, the Italians (and to a lesser extent the Polish) return to the Leninist tradition of free discussion within the Party and the unions, the Albanians proclaim the principle of equality of rights for all Communist Parties, great or small, and necessity for settling disputes through frank and loyal interna. tional discussions. Only one basic position of revolutionary Marxism is still not defended by any of these parties, remains a "monopoly" of our Trotskyist movement: the absolute necessity for a revolutionary International, based on democratic centralism, to co-ordinate and guide the international communist movement.
And yet, practical experience imposes the necessity for a World Party in a more and more pressing manner on all communists. Not only because it is quite definitely the only means of maintaining international unity of action in the move ment and preventing the State conflicts from which only imperialism would profit, but also because this remains the only way to secure correct political elaboration, which is based on practical experience as much as on doctrinal criteria. international organisation, no international practice; without international practice, no correct analysis of the international situation; without a correct analysis of the international situation, no correct analysis of the national situation and no possibility
11 truths, communists will painfully learn again in the months and the years to come.
The idea of a new communist international at first sets many communists aback. Who speaks of an International speaks of centralisation, they think, and who speaks of centralisation speaks of bureaucratisation impelled from the centre. argument is not even valid for the past. It is not bureaucratisation of the Communist International which is at the bottom of the degeneration of the international communist movement, it is the bureaucratisation of one "national" party (the Russian party) which is at the bottom of the degeneration of the International. If the latter had had a greater independence with regard to the Russian party - if its centre had, for example, been established outside Russia — not only would several communist parties have escaped the later bureaucratisation, but the Communist International would undoubtedly have been a force to brake and thwart to a certain extent the bureaucratic suffocation of the Bolshevik Party.
A truly democratic International ,an International which tolerates within itself various tendencies and which is the arena in which the international revolutionary experiences are freely collated, within the framework of a freely accepted discipline — what a magnificent consummation this would be of the extraordinary richness and variety of the revolutionary processes throughout the world today. No one has yet found a better solution for combining political elaboration and unity of action in their highest and maturest form. This is the solution which we will continue to propound.
For the moment there prevails the impression of fragmentation and disorder, and even perfectly honest and devoted communist workers can miss the epoch of Stalin, "when all was so clear and so simple" . But the disorder and fragmentation today are precisely the product of the fictitious unity of yesterday, based on the stifling of discussion, thought and proletarian reality. Through the present fragmentation and disorder, the world communist movement makes its way inexorably, according to its own laws, towards a unity and an organisation at a higher level, towards a Communist International constituted on the basis of the Leninist programme, adapted to the reality of our epoch. li is by working with this aim that com. munists will demonstrate in practice that if there is a crisis, and a death-bed crisis, of stalinism, there is not, there will never again be, a crisis of com. munism.
THE SECOND DECLARATION OF HAVANA
The Second Declaration of Havana which we are reproducing here, in response to the call that this Declaration addresses to all the friends of the Cuban Revolution throughout the world, is concrete proof of the revolutionary spirit which continues to anim. ate the leaders, the cadres and the militants of the Fidelist movement in Cuba, as well as the revolution. ary masses of the whole island.
The "trotskyist" accents of this Declaration are incontestible. For the first time since the October Revolution here is in fact a Socialist Revolution which, having triumphed in one country, does not restrict itself to the national task of economic reconstruction, which does not transform the inevitable transitory compromises with Imperialism into a strategy based on "peaceful co:existance" Imperialism, a revolution the leader of which does not hesitate to call on the workers — the poor peas ants of the countryside and the workers of the cities - to take up arms, and to overthrow the domination of the ruling classes through the revolutionary,
Just at the Yugoslav revolution constituted a progress in relation to the practice of the Stalinist parties in the workers states born on the morrow of the second world war, so the Cuban revolution now opens up bold perspectives that not one of the new workers states dared until now to open up.
This substantial progress is explained by both objective and subjective causes.
Objectively, it arises from the fact that the people of Cuba have built a workers state in the very heart of the world zone dominated by Imperialism, at the gates of the most powerful Imperialist met ropole, those of the United States. The help of the other workers states has undoubtedly been vital to allow Cuba to subsist up till now. But this help alone does not suffice to break the Imperialist siege and the leaders of the Cuban revolution are absolutely correct in not having illusions concerning the importance of the military assistance they would receive from the Soviet bureaucracy in case of new imperialist aggression. That is why life itself obliges them to put their hopes primarily on the help of the Latin American working masses, to see in the international extension of the revolution in Latin America the best means of defence of the Cuban revolution, to see in the constitution of a Second Front in the Andes the best counter-attack against new counter-revolutionary interventions of American Imperialism.
Subjectively, it arises from the fact that Fidel Castro and his team have never been Stalinist, that they first came to Marxism and then to Leninism on the basis of their own experience; that their doctrinal thought is infinitely more flexible, more living, much closer to the sources of revolutionary socialism than the pragmatic and (more and more revisionist) dogmas codified by the successive groups which have led, and still lead, the Soviet bureaucracy.
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