THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION AND
OUR TASKS
(Adopted by the Reunification Congress of the 4th International, June 1963)
SINCE 1960 the over-all relationship of continued to rapidly increase its resources
On the economic plane, imperialism has of the immense risk of self-destruction and
PREAMBLE forces has continued to
• evolve to the disadvantage of imperialism. After the victory of the Cuban Revolution, which precipitated a prerevolutionary situation in a good imperialism overcame the recession of 1960many Latin-American countries, the achieve- 61 and its leaders are trying to accelerate ment of independence conquered by the its expansion by a considerable increase in Algerian masses after seven years of bloody struggle opened up the social phase of the Algerian Revolution and created a center revolutionary inspiration for all of Africa and the Arab world. In SouthEast Asia, the colonial revolution, after some years of stalemate, has resumed its march forward, particularly in Laos and South. Vietnam. Despite a slowing_down in growth in China, in the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia and Poland, industrial production in the workers states as a whole has continued to develop at a more rapid rate than in the capitalist countries as a whole.
For its part, the proletariat of the imperialist countries of Europe has shown growing militancy during the past three years in defence of its standard of living; and important economic struggles have repeatedly shaken the political stability of regimes, a despite the climate of relative "prosperity," particularly in Belgium, Spain, Italy and Great Britain. Even in France, markable capacity to resist when its standard of living is at stake (the miners' strike).
Despite the continued deterioration of the relationship of forces as a whole, a fact well known to its leading layers, world imperialism has nevertheless held on to such economic, military and political forces that it has by no means lost its capacity to counter-attack in face of the rising forces of the world revolution in all its diverse forms.
on the European continent and in Japan, although the rate of this expansion has
American state expenditures, thereby increasing inflation and weakening the international position of the dollar. Un the milliary plane, imperialism continues to increase its arsenal of nuclear arms, forcing the USSR in turn to engage in an accelerated armament drive in this field. In face of the new progress of the colonial revolution, imperialism has reacted both by wars of " local intervention (Laos, South Vietnam, Cuba, military missions in Latin America) and by reinforced attempts to bind the colonial bourgeoisie closer through increased financial and political aid (India, Brazil, Venezuela, Iran, the Congo, etc.). Neither of these methods will prove viable in the long run, but they can hold back the final socialist outcome for some years. As to the growing interimperialist contradictions, especially among the various European imperialist powers and between some of these powers and American imperialism, this has not paralyzed world imperialism volution.
Under these conditions, the danger of a third world war remains real and cannot be definitely removed except by a proletarian victory in the principal imperialist bastions themselves, a victory that is being prepared in the present stage by the whole weakening of imperialism due to the progress of the colonial revolution and every gain of the workers imperialist countries. What is delaying the outbreak of this war is primarily the awareness which both the imperialist and Soviet leaders have
30 the suicide of all of humanity which a nuclear world war implies. That is why it is probable that imperialism will not dare to unleash this war except as a final resort, when it has the impression that all the odds are against its survival and its vital interests are immediately threatened, while it still retains the main potential of attack. This means that the Revolution still has a period in which it is a question of weakening imperialism to the maximum on a world scale and of preparing the maximum possibilities for a proletarian victory in the imperialist countries, in order to be able to paralyze and overturn imperialism in time within its bastions.
The most important political conseyuences of the latest gains of the Revolution have taken place in the heart of the international workers movement itself. The victory of the Cuban Revolution was the first since 1917 to be led by a political force independent in origin from the international Stalinist world; the first also since 1917 in which the leadership was led by the objective conditions in which it found itself, as well as its own level of consciousness, to call openly for the international extension of the Revolution. In Algeria the conditions are growing increasingly favourable for a repetition of the Cuban experience. The unity of the bureaucracy in the workers states has been shattered, precipitating a political struggle, most sharply expressed in the Sino-Soviet conflict, that increasingly poses all the fundamental questions of strategy and tactics before the militants of the world Communist movement.
This means that the progress of the colonial revolution as well as that of the political revolution in the degenerated or deformed workers states has begun to escape and more from the petty-bourgeois, centrist or bureaucratic forces which have sought to canalize them during the past decade. The pressure of the colonial masses to assure a socialist outcome to their revolution; the effort of the vanguard intellectuals, the youth and the workers to develop de-Stalinization beyond its Khrushchevist phase towards a genuine return to Lenin; the attempt of the Chinese to establish an international left faction in the ranks of the Communist movement, placing in question the fundamental orientation of the "peaceful road to socialism" in the imperialist countries and the "bloc with the national bourgeoisie" in the colonial and semicolonial countries: the appearance of a new vanguard in various imperialist countries—all these phenomena indicate the progress realized along the road to constructing a new revolutionary international leadership, key task in assuring a rapid success of the world revolution and avoiding a third world war. If the construction and growth of sections of the Fourth International remain fundamental elements in this process, also involved are necessary fusions everywhere with indigenous revolutionary forces that have made important progress along the road of revolutionary Marxism.
I. THE WORLD ECONOMIC SITUATION
The American economy emerged from the 1960-61 recession, experiencing a. covery, which if it is more sluggish than foreseen, has nevertheless made it possible to surmount without major damage most serious Wall Street crash since 1929. What is most significant in the current evolution of the American economy is not so much the crash as the fact that after each recession the number of jobless who cannot find employment and the idle industrial productive capacity tend to become greater. On the other hand, the conversion of economic crisis into recessions of more limited extent and duration is paid for by a continual : increase in public expenditures, above all in military expenditures, the fundamental reason for the progressive decline in value of the dollar. The effort of the Kennedy administration to accelerate the rate of growth of the American economy with the aid of a large budgetary deficit can only sharpen the contraditions of the economic policy of American imperialism during the next years, again increasing the deficit in the balance of payments and provoking a new rise in prices which will weaken American imperialism's competitive capacity on the world market.
In the long run, there is no other solution for American imperialism, confronted with the task of assuring an economic growth enabling it to hold back a little the outcome
31 of being "overtaken" by Soviet economy while constantly increasing military expenditures and assuring financial and military aid to the colonial bourgeoisie, above all the government "allies" of Latin America, than a real freezing of the wages of American workers, if not an attack on the standard of living gained by these workers. The pressure of massive unemployment, the transfer of American capital to countries where "labour costs" are lower, the sapping of trade-union strength and the governmental attacks against certain union privileges, together with the objective effects of automation, create progressively favourable conditions for such an attack, the social and political consequences of which could be incalculable.
The capitalist economies of Western Europe and of Japan (with the exception of and Belgium managed second time to avoid a recession while one occurred in the United States and Canada (this was also the case in the recession of 1957-58). The factors of long-term growth, above all the very high level of investments in modernizing and rationalizing industry, and the scope of the durable consumers goods industry, which explain the exceptional boom of these capitalist economies for the past ten years, likewise explain the reasons which have enabled them to escape this recession.
However these factors of long-term expansion are beginning little by little to exhausted. The steel and iron industry has suffered real stagnation for three years, the result of progressive stackof capital investment. mobile industry, which already experienced a preliminary warning in the very sharp drop in 1960-61, is for the moment recovering but a flattening out of the auto market is expected by 1965. At the same time, symptoms of excessive capacity are more and more evident in the economy of capitalist Europe, thus demonstrating that despite the absence of grave crises, the phenomenon of overproduction remains inherent in capitalist economy, and is simply finding new expressions.
It is to be expected then that in all the capitalist countries of Europe as well as
Japan a progressive slackening in the rate of growth will occur, a saturation of the market for durable consumers goods and products," an increasing equalization of the level of production in most of the big industrialized capitalist countries, an inevitable exacerbation of interimperialist competition, and the progressive reappearance in the capitalist economy of Europe, too, of recessions and unemployment. The rate at which the atmosphere of boom will give way to a more "normal" cycle will, however, vary from country to country, and without doubt countries like Italy and especially Japan, which still have available a great industrial reserve army and whose bourgeoisie therefore have the advantage of a much lower wage scale than their competitors in the USA, Great Britain or West Germany, will be able to prolong the phase of exceptional "boom."
One of the most characteristic features of the present stage of the world capitalist economy is the fact that the colonial and semicolonial countries represent a relatively narrower and narrower outlet for the industry of the imperialist countries and partly for world commerce, interimperialist trade increasing to the same proportion (especially as a result of the establishment of the Common Market). The fundamental cause of this phenomenon resides, of course, in the feudal-capitalist structure of these countries which constitutes an objective obstacle to their economic development both in industrialization and in genuinely raising the miserable standard of living of the masses. In 1960-63, as in the preceding period, despite all the boasts about "aid" for the underdeveloped countries, and despite all the "alliances for progress," the role of these countries in world commerce has continued to decline. whether because of the deterioration of the terms of exchange which lower their buying power on the world market, or because of specific phenomena like inflation, the growth in military expenditure and the flight of capital abroad. There thus occurs a slowing down in the already absolutely insufficient process of bourgeois industrialization in some of these countries, particularly in Argentina, India, and even in Venezuela. The recent increase in prices of certain" raw has not fundamentally changed this situation.
32
As the investment boom ends in most countries of capitalist Europe, and industries that produce plant equipment search with greater and greater anxiety for new markets, a new effort to finance the industrialization of the underdeveloped countries by means of credit will undoubtedly be undertaken by these imperialist countries in economic correspondence with their effort to stabilize a neocolonialist regime in most of these countries. Without minimizing the possi bilities of temporary success which such a policy may hold, it will eliminate none of the factors which feed the discontent of the masses; and the driving forces of the colonial revolution will therefore continue to operate fundamentally throughout the colonial and semicolonial countries.
During the same period, the economy of the workers states has continued to develop in an uninterrupted way-except for Chinaalthough at different rates. It is primarily the industry of the most developed workers states (the USSR, Poland and especially the German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia) which have undergone in the last year or two a more or less pronounced slowing down in growth; in countries like Rumania, on the contrary, the rate of growth has been spectacular. plans have even substantially failed, particularly the seven-year plan of the German Democratic Republic (which was going to make it possible "to surpass West German per capita production in 1965,") the Czech Plan and the plan for the chemical industry in the USSR. Nonetheless, it appears that the Soviet seven-year plan will be realized in its main lines in 1965.
While agriculture continues to undergo violent fluctuations from year to year, under the effects of bad weather, lack of supplies, shortage of investments and the lack of interest among the peasant masses in cooperative production, the effects of the lack co-ordination and international integration among the economics of the different workers states are felt more and more. The Soviet bureaucracy has thus been obliged to make an important turn in this respect and has begun to seek to transform the COMECON into an organism for international economic integration, including integrated planning (at least in certain fields) and international commerce and international multilateral payments. An improvement in international division of labor within the framework of the workers states would without doubt give fresh vigor to the i industrial growth of countries like the German Democratic Republic, Poland and Czechoslovakia which have suffered most from the "autarchic" tendencies thal characterize the planning of each national bureaucracy.
Yugoslavia has overcome the crisis of 1961-62 which, brutally interrupting a period of exceptional economic growth, came as a consequence of bad harvests and mistakes in excessive decentralization which went so far as to undermine the monopoly of foreign trade and provoke a serious deficit in the balance of payments. This year a rate of growth of ten per cent or even higher will be once again reached, after the central control on foreign trade has been adjusted.
As for the People's Republic of China, it has experienced three consecutive somber years because of exceptional natural calamities but also because of the harmful consequence of the excesses committed at the time of the creation of the "people's communes." At present, although handicapped by the cutting off of Soviet aid and by the lack of international aid or credits, the rectification of the situation appears under way, assured by a radical reversal of economic policy which flatly grants priority to agriculture and light industry and considerably slows down the development of heavy industry.
The world economic situation, taken as a whole then, still displays the main specific features underlined in previous documents of the International:
- A growing contradiction between the accelerated economic development of the imperiallst countries and the retardation of colonial and semicolonial countries which is constantly widening the gap between the level of economic development and the standard of living of the masses in these two principal zones of the capitalist world economy, providing the objective basis for constant enlargement of the colonial revolution.
- A growing contradiction between the blockade, or by a combination of the two
33 contralictions and compeition, due to the genera lecline in the rate of profit and progressiv shrinking of markets.
II.
EVOLUTION OF INTERNATIONAL
POLITICAL RELATIONS
The Kennedy administration came to power at the end of a phase of the evolution of international relations filled with pronounced and numerous defeats and backs for Yankee imperialism: victory of the Cuban Revolution, establishing workers state at the very gates of the United States; downfall of the American puppets Synghman Rhee and Menderes under the pressure of popular demonstrations; violent anti-American demonstrations in Latin America (the Nixon tour) and in Japan; the spectacular advance made by the USSR in the field of outer space devices. In addition, the Soviet bureaucracy, by again posing the question of Berlin, and seeking to force the withdrawal of American troops from West Berlin, gave the impression that it sought not only to consolidate the shaky regime of Ulbricht but even to set going a tendency at the expense of imperialism in methods; by strengthening the political alliance with the colonial bourgeoisie, even at the expense of the European imperialist allies; by defending American imperialism's own economic interests in relation to allies and competitors, notably by imposing on them a greater part of the "common" military and political costs ("aid" to the colonial bourgeoisie. At the same time,
Kennedy administration has made emphatically clear its readiness to launch a nuclear world war in order to block any considerable deterioration in the relationship of forces as a whole, insofar as the deterioration results from the direct initiative of the Soviet bureaucracy (Berlin, Cuba). It is incontestable that in a good many areas, American imperialism has succeeded, thanks to this political strategy which even more than that of Dulles goes "right up to the brink," in winning several tactical successes. It still holds its positions in West Berlin, and in fact Khrushchev has retreated on this question, satisfying himself with a "wall" to stop the massive exodus from the German Democratic Republic and possibly a change in the flag under which the occupation troops remain in West Berlin. It has caused the Soviet bureacracy to withdraw from the Congo and to withdraw its rockets from Cuba. It has momentarily prevented a new extension of the revolution in the cases of Venezuela and Santo Domingo. It has the only sector of the world where, for the partially overcome its backwardness in the past ten years, development had taken an opposite course-the sector of European capitalism.
Surrounded by a brain trust representing New York finance capital and the most conscious layers of the imperialist bourgeoisie, the Kennedy administration has sought to react against this constant deterioration of the international situation at the expense of imperialism in various ways: by stepping up the arms drive, both in the field of nucclear rockets and conventional arms, by striving through a combination of politicomilitary pressure and increased financial to isolate socialist Cuba and thus prepare the overthrow of the workers state either by military intervention, by economic technical field of space flights, and it has maintained its quantitative superiority in the field of nuclear arms. However, examined from a strategic point of view, the international situation during the past two years has not ceased to evolve at the expense of American imperialism. The continual attempts to overthrow the Cuban workers state, including by invasion, have failed. In neither Brazil, Maxico, nor Chile has imperialism succeeded in compelling the bourgeoisie in power to make a complete break with Cuba, because of the extremely wide sympathy of the masses for the Cuban Revolution. Serious political and social crises have developed in a number of Latin-American countries, the
movement of the masses is becoming strong- the brakes to the revolutionary struggle of er there and guerrilla war 1s now current in many of these countries. The contradictions within the imperialist alliance have become aggravated and interimperialist relations are now more strained than at any time since the Suez crisis of November 1956. The technological and economic progress of the USSR continues to outpace the slower and much more unequal growth of the American economy. New epicenters of the colonial revolution have appeared, particularly in South-East Asia (Laos, South Vietnam) compelling imperialism more than ever to disperse over numerous sectors its military, financial and economic resources which are not unlimited. The Algerian Revolution gained independence from French imperialism, and one of its first results has been a new rise of the masses in the Arab world, who in a contradictory way nonetheless bring Arab unity closer and by this fact directly threaten the immense wealth of Anglo-American petro leum companies in Saudi Arabia, in the Sultanates of the Persian gulf, in Iraq and even in Iran.
In face of the immense revolutionary possibilities opened by events since 1960, the fundamental political line of the Soviet bureaucracy has remained deeply conservative, in fear of the dynamics of the world revolution and its repercussions Soviet Union itself. The "general line" of bureaucracy still remains "peaceful coexistence" and "economic competition," implying a bloc with the colonial bourgeoisie and "the exploitation of imperialist contraditions" as the basic elements of long-term strategy. in place of the revolutionary mobilization of the masses and resolute support to the most advanced movements of the colonial revolution struggling to convert it into a socialist revolution. But to the extent that this general line comes increasingly under criticism even within the ranks of the bureacracy, particularly under the pressure of the Chinese CP, it can no longer be applied in a vigorous way without any exceptions. Thus if the Soviet bureaucracy did not give substantial aid to the Algerian Revolution, and hesitated up to the eve of independence to grant it official recognition, if the French CP displayed criminal passivity during the Algerian war; if the Latin-American CP's have applied
34 the masses—the best aid to the Cuban Revolution-the Kremlin has nonetheless been obliged to grant economic and military aid to the Cuban workers state, permitting it to resist the blockade and the first attempts at imperialist invasion. In the same way, if the Soviet bureaucracy is associated with the "neutralization of Laos", and if it seeks to slow down the revolut ionary struggle in South-East Asia it has nonetheless protected the Pathet Lao forces against direct American imperialist military intervention in Laos.
It is in its attitude with regard to the Sino-Indian frontier dispute (supplying MIG's to Nehru, eulogies to the "peaceful policy of Nehru") as well as in the attitude of the Khrushchevist faction of Danger within the Indian CP (ideological and political capitulation before its own bourgeoisie) that the conservative line of the Kremlin has assumed the most revolting forms during the last period.
As in the past, the progress of the colonial revolution has been accompanied by almost uninterrupted counter revolutionary military interventions or counter-revolutionary wars of imperialism in the past three years (in the Congo, Angola, the Dominican Republic, in South Vietnam and Laos, in South Korea, West New Guinea, Yemen, North Borneo, etc.)
It is the duty of the international workers movement and the workers states to give maximum political, economic and military aid to these developing revolutions, which at the moment are the forces dealing the most blows to imperialism.
At the same time, as in the past, the nuclear arms race continues despite all the "disarmament" conferences. It is true that a new series of nuclear tests seems to have been completed by both the Soviet bureaucracy and American imperialism. This facilitates reaching a new atomic "truce" which is to be greeted, since nuclear tests endanger the common biological capital of mankind and constitute elements of diplomatic nuclear blackmail. However, even if this truce is actually concluded-specially insofar as it corresponds to a common
interest which both the Kremlin and Wall Street have in stopping the spread of nuclear arms throughout the world—it would in no way constitute a guarantee or even a of actual nuclear disarmament. It would actually be nothing but a truce between two phases of accelerated nuclear rearmament. As long as international imperialism, above all American imperialism, holds a largely intact economic and military potential, all real nuclear disarmament remains largely utopian. This signifies that the risk of total nuclear war will exist as long as the potential of American imperialism exists, and that the final struggle against the nuclear danger is the struggle to overturn the imperialist bourgeoisiea struggle which can only be brought to a successful outcome by the proletariat of the imperialist countries, the weakening of this bourgeoisie by the colonial revolution constituting at the present stage a major con tribution to this future disarmament. It is in this spirit that the revolutionary Marxists have the duty to participate in an energetic manner in all the movements for unilateral disarmament in the imperialist countries.
The inter-imperialist contradictions which have become accentuated during the past few years express primarily a modification in the relationship of economic forces between imperialist powers. American imperialism has lost the position of absolute superiority which it acquired in the imperialist camp immediately following the second world war. British imperialism has seen its world position decline almost without interruption.
On the other hand, the imperialism of the West European countries (above all West German imperialism, and to a lesser degree French and Italian imperialism) and Japanese imperialism have considerably improved their relative economic positions in the world market. This evolution is expressed both by the relative figures of production and by the relative roles of the various powers in world trade.
The politico-military relationship forces has not evolved, however, in perfect symmetry with the relationship of economic forces. American imperialism has even strengthened its monopoly of nuclear arms
35 since Great Britain abandoned the Skybolk project. It continues to dominate the inter-imperialist alliances like NATO and SEATO overriding the particular interests of its alles (Congo, Katanga, West New Guinea, etc.) and taking the initiative at decisive moments even without consulting them (the the Caribbean crisis of October 1962). The growing tensions in the heart of the imperialist alliance, and above all the Franco-American tension which broke out atter de Gaulle refused to permit the entry of Great Britain into the Common Market expressed in the final analysis this contradiction between the all-powerful military position and the relative decline in economic superiority of American imperialism.
If each of the major imperailist states fics e particular objectives in this conthe fundamental sentiment of inter-imperialist solidarity in the face of the progress of the revolution and the workers states remains predominent, however, and a real "reversal of the alliance" (that is to say, an alliance of one or more imperialist countries with the USSR against American imperialism) is excluded. Some temporary manoeuvers, above all in the commercial field, do not contradict this fundamental orientation (refusal of Great Britain to recognize the American export ban on certain so-called "strategic" products to the workers states; Canandian breach of the blockade against Cuba, etc.)
Since the end of the Algerian war, de Gaulle has pursued the aim of constituting a second imperialist bloc in Europe equivalent to that of the United States and associated with it on the basis of full equality. His "force de frappe francaise" (core of an autonomous European nuclear striking force) and his policy of refusing to extend the Common Market-which Washington would like to see dissolved in an "Atlantic Zone of free trade"-aim at this objective. This ambition, however, does not correspond io either the real specific weight of French imperialism, nor to the strategic and economic interests of West German imperialism which already feels restricted in "little Europe," even taking into account its prolongation in Africa (African states associated with the Common Market). The most probable development is, there-
fore, a progressive association of the other polarization between the forces seeking to
36 big imperialist powers in the actual leadership of the Atlantic Alliance and a slow enlargement of the Common Market, rather than a genuine prolonged and deepening conflict between an "imperialist European bloc" and American imperialism.
II. THE PROGRESS OF THE COLONIAL REVOLUTION
Since 1960, the colonial revolution has continued to develop in various epicenters: Cuba and the Latin-American revolution; Algeria and the Arab revolution; South Africa and the African Revolution; Laos and South Vietnam and the revolution in South East Asia; the Sino-Indian conflict and the Indian revolution.
The creation of the Cuban workers state constitutes the first victory of a proletarian revolution led by a political force free from the forces dominated or influenced by the Soviet bureaucracy. It marks also the arrival in power, for the first time since October 1917, of a revolutionary leadership which, in relation to objective necessity and its own conscious understanding, has systematically sought the international extension of the socialist revolution, at least throughout Latin America. For these two reasons; that is, both the objective attractive force which Cuba exercizes on the disinherited masses of Latin America and the progressive differentiation which "Castroism" has brought about within the workers vanguard and the nationalist petty-bourgeois movement, the Cuban Revolution has powerfully stimulated the revolutionary rise throughout this continent:
Against this it has likewise brought about a change in the policy of American imperialism, which was characterized in the period from 1932 to 1957 above all by indirect intervention and economic and neighbour Pressure financial (the so-called "good policy). Now Yankee imperialism is resorting more and more to direct economic, political and even military intervention in Latin America.
As for the Latin-American bourgeoisie, it has undergone a process of growing neutralize the mass movement by ostensibly adapting itself to the anti-imperialist sentiments and by carrying out certain reforms which, however, never put in question the semicolonial structure of the economy and society, and the forces that seek to directly suppress the mass movement which potentially threatens capitalist property, including that held by the "national" bourgeoisie.
It is the combination of these two tendencies-the drive of the revolutionary movement of the masses under the influence of the Cuban victory, and the reactions of imperialism and the bourgeoisie in face of this drive—-that explains the political and social evolution of Latin America during the past three years.
The drive of the mass movement has been particularly marked in countries like Peru, Chile and Ecuador, while in Argentina the workers movement has undergone numerous revivals, retaining intact its capacity to launch powerful strikes, in a climate of increasing economic and political disintegration of the regime (nonpayment of government workers and functionaries; continual military coups d'etat, etc.). Even the most relatively stable country-Mexico has been shaken by periodic explosions of peasant revolts.
On the other hand the Alliance for Progress, which was to have been the key piece in Yankee intervention in Latin America, has proved impotent up to now, as much on the economic level (where inflation among other things has seriously slowed down industrialization) as on the political level. The incapacity of American imperialism and the "national' bourgeoisie to eliminate the objective causes of the revolutionary rise, coupled with the absence of an adequately formed revolutionary leadership, have provoked prolonged crises, of which the most typical is the one that has lasted ten years in Bolivia. The nationalist reout and undergo a press or late ning and increasing polarization, caught as they are between the socialist revolution and the pro-imperialist counter-revolution. A wider margin for manceuvre, however, exists for imperialism in the three countries where the bourgeoisie is relatively stronger than
in the rest of the continent: namely, Mexico, itself through the management and exploi-
Brazil and Argentina. In the latter country, the national bourgeoisie, backed by imperialism, may again seek to utilize Peronism -which is stronger than ever among the masses--as a block against socialist revolution.
The sharpest revolutionary crises are maturing in Venezuela, where the situation remains very tense but where Yankee imperialism has enormous interests which it will defend by all means; in Chile, where a major confrontation can occur in the elctions of 1964 in view of the expectant mood of the masses in relation to these elections; and in Peru where the mass movement has reached a very advanced stage both in the cities and in the countryside.
The Algerian Revolution in its process of socialist transformation is destined to exercise tremendous attractive power on the poverty-stricken masses of the Arab people, those in the Maghreb as well as those in the Arab East balkanized into seven states (without mentioning the various Sultanates and Sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf and the colony of Aden). The nationalist bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie of these semi-colonial states will not have the slightest chance of resisting this attractive power unless they play the game of Arab unity to the end offering against a genuinely socialist Algeria some kind of big united Arab republic in which the size-and the oil resources— would finally stimulate the development of the productive forces. They will have a tendency to rally round Nasserism, which serves them at once as an instrument for anti-imperialist mobilization of the masses and as a means of channelling and organizing them in a very narrow and bureaucratic way. The most developed tendencies appear in Egypi itself, where it has unquestionably hit the economic positions of imperialism very hard, thanks to the support of the masses, but where it has in other respects maintained the mass movement under a control that has stifled all spontaneity as well as all self-action of the workers movement, giving birth to a "state capitalism" in the sense in which Engels employed this term the former bourgeoisie transforming itself into a class of estate rentiers" the petty, bourgeoiste enriching itself and progressively!!! bourgeoisifying
37 tation of the nationalized sector.
That is why the victories of the "unionist" political forces in Iraq, in Syria, the struggle of the masses in Jordan and the revolution in Yemen can be considered at one and the same time as the first repercussions of the Algerian Revolution in the Arab world and as a first reaction against that revolution by the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois poliscal forces. It is above all due to the catastrophic political errors_committed by the Communist parties of Iraq and Syria that this drive toward Arab unity has been marked temporarily by a weakening instead of strengthening of the workers movement. But the latest successes of the Algerian Revolution, as well as the narrow limits which the "socialism" of Nasser imposes on the play of the productive forces of the United Arab Republic, will create propitious conditions for a new march forward of the workers movement in the Arab world, just as the progress of the Algerian Revolution will also stimulate the workers movement in Tunisia and Morocco.
The Ben Bella leadership of the Algerian Revolution has clearly demonstrated its resolution to support the various revolutionary movements of black Africa, particularly in the Portuguese colonies, above all Angola and South Africa. In this way Algeria is on the road to becoming a center of impulsion for the revolutionary movement throughout Africa.
After the spectacular successes of the struggle for political independence in 1960, the revolution marked time for a while in Black Africa. This was due particularly to the victory of neocolonialist forces in almost all of former French Black Africa and in the Congo, the murder of Patrice Lumumba and of Moumie, of a certain neocolonialist evolution in Kenya and a setback for the masses in Ghana and Guinea. If in general, the direct or indirect interfactor in this victory, it must likewise be vention of imperialism dominant ascribed to the power of tribal forces (especially in the Congo, Ghana, Kenya), which has delayed the creation of parties of really national consciouness, and to the ultra rapid growth of neo-bourgeois forces since independence was "gained, especially
38 in the government, among the political personnel and in the commercial sector and the "services."
Under these conditions, the revolution in black Africa moved forward again first of all in Angola, the Rhodesias and above all South Africa. In the latter country explosive materials have accumulated comparable to those in Algeria before November 1954, but still further heightened by the more ferocious degree of segregationist legislation and economic exploitation. Thus armed struggle is inevitable from the very beginning. The particular character of the indigenous population, semiproletarianized in big part, its level of cultural development and technical skill, superior to that of the other countries of Black Africa, make of the approaching South African revolution a future center of socialist revolution for all of Black Africa.
After the lull following the "peace of Geneva" and the dividing up of Vietnam, the revolution in South East Asia has in recent years resumed its march forward under the impetus of the partisan movement in South Vietnam and the civil war in Laos. The attempt of Washington and Moscow to stop this civil war has run against the reservations of Peking and Hanoi and the attractive force of the Pathet Lao on the so-called "neutralist" forces. On the other hand, the progress of the revolution in South Vietnam and in Laos has created a prerevolutionary situation in the vast frontier zone of Thailand.
An economically privileged situation and a mass of rather prosperous small peasant proprietors, as well as exploitation of the national conflict between China and Malaya, have permitted the neocolonialist masters of Malaya to momentarily subjugate the revolutionary movement in this country. The scope of the movement in Singapore forced the Malayan compradore bourgeoisie to elaborate the project of a Greater Malaya, both to contain the revolutionary pressure in Singapore and the better. repulse the effects of the advance of the revolütion in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand; However, the project of a Greater Malaya ran into the violent opposition of the masses in North Borneo, giving rise to a new movement of national agitation in Indonesia.
C030P7
Indonesia remains the key country of the revolution in South East Asia. volution has stagnated there for a long period, although one cannot speak of any stabilization whatever of the bourgeois regime or of a profound setback of the mass
The Sukarno regime has been able to maintain itself only thanks to the ultra opportunist policy of the Indonesian CP on the one hand, which has undertaken nothing against Sukarno but placed complete confidence in him, absolutely excluding a struggle for power, and on the other hand thanks to adroit exploitation of the national sentiments of the masses in relation to various separatist movements, first in western New Guinea and then in North Borneo.
Finally the lamentable attitude of various Indian parties of the socalled left (Indian Communist party, Revolutionary Socialist party, Socialist party, etc.), their shameful capitulation in face of the chauvinist pressure and their acceptance of a "sacred union" with the bourgeoisie, enabled the Nehru regime to inflict a heavy defeat on the workers movement on India in connection with the Sino-Indian frontier conflict. Despite the spectacular retreat of the Chinese forces which had heavily defeated the Indian bourgeois army in the frontier battle, the capitalist government was able to impose on the masses the cost of veritable militarization of the country, which likewise condemned the third five-year plan to failure. Nevertheless, the objective consequences of this effort at rearmament (inflation, rise in the cost of living, spectacular growth of taxes) create favourable conditions for a revival of the workers movement, if the vanguard political forces understand the necessity of combining the struggle for the defence of the living conditions of the proletariat and of the pauperized intellectuals with agitation in favour of a genuine agrarian revolution.
In general, all the latest progress of the colonial revolution will place more and more on the order of the day the transformation of this revolution into a socialist revolution. This has already begun to occur in Algeria: A new qualitative modification in the relation of over-all, forces will occur when this transformation affects the key countries of
39 entire geographic zones such as Indonesia, India or Brazil.
IV.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE CLASS
STRUGGLE IN THE IMPERIALIST
COUNTRIES n general, the main propelling force o he class struggle in the imperialist countrie stems from the consequences of exacerbated inter-imperialist competition, which sets off periodic attacks against the workers, standard of living. The inevitable reply of the workers to these attacks—-fostered by the atmosphere of relatively full employment continuing in most of the countries of capitalist Europe--can take an economic form, remaining limited solely to demands for wage increases, or to a reduction of hours and longer paid vocations, necessary defence measures in face of a constant intensification of labor that exhausts the physical and nervous forces of the proletariat. It can also take a more militant and politicalized form from the moment that a sufficiently large vanguard succeeds in educating the most combative layers of the labouring masses on the necessity of engaging in combat for transitional demands. In this case the struggle can lead to a big test of strength with the bourgeoisie, creating a pre-revolutionary situation and causing a rapid maturing of the problem of power, the disappearance of the climate of relative "prosperity" not being a necessary requisite.
Despite widely different specific national conditions, the big struggles unleashed by the Belgium proletariat (general strike of December 1960—January 1961), by the Spanish • proletariat (miners' strike in Asturias, April 1962, followed by a wave of solidarity strikes throughout the country), by the Italian proletariat (big metal workers' strike in the summer of 1962), by the British proletariat and by the Finnish proletariat (strikes in the winter of 1962-63) all took place in an saw the appearance of a new layer of young militants who participated with marked combativeness in the battle. These characteristics likewise applied to the strike of a hundred thousand metal workers in southwest Germany, the first revival of working-class militancy in this country, in a context resembling that of the general framework described above. Everywhere, in the last analysis, it was the relative strength of the vanguard, its influence on the masses and the level of demands which it launched, that proved to be the factor determining whether the struggles were kept on a strictly "trade unionist" level or were permitted to rise toward putting in question the capitalist economy and the bourgeois state as a whole.
Even in France, the only country in western Europe in which the proletariat suffered a very grave defeat-when the bonapartist regime of de Gaulle was established in May 1958 without serious opposition-the miners? strike on 1963 showed that the working class is ready to make a touch defence of the standard of living acquired during the "boom," and that such a struggle creates favourable objective conditions for even a revival of the workers movement. addition, the policy of the Gaullist regime, by placing the socialist party in the opposition and menacing the positions which it holds in the parliamentary regime, helped foster a rapprochement between the Socialist and Communist parties and consequently a united front of the workers. Also, thanks above all to the resistance of the Algerian Revolution, and to a certain renewal of the workers movement, the Gaullist regime was not able to become consolidated in a profound and durable way, and consequently remains at the mercy of any brusk deterioration of the economic and social conjucture, of any unresolved structural problem abruptly placed on the agenda, which in turn can suddenly touch off the class struggle, creating the possibility of a great revival of the workers movement. In a general way the bourgeoisie sought to profit from the temporary lull in the class struggle and a certain depoliticalization of working class by reinforcing its repressive arsenal, "regulating" the right to strike and thus accelerating its evolution toward a "strong state."! But this evolution ran up against ferce resistance from the workers vanguard everywhere, a resis-
tance sufficiently influential to delay (Ger- The CP, condemned to an underground
40 many) or upset to a large extent (Italy, Belgium) the plans of the bourgeoisie. If this resistance can merge with the firm economic combativity seen for some years, it will then become an important factor in repoliticalizing the workers struggles.
Besides this, the bourgeoisie, especially in some countries, projected an orientation that sought, under different and even apparently opposed policies, a certain amount of pruning and rationalization of the economy, indispensable even from the point of of the interests of capitalism, and an increasing "integration" of the working class, above all the trade unions, in "neocapitalist" solutions. Begun in France under the Mendes-France government, developed more organically in the de Gaulle period, spelled out in the most audacious way In Italy with the left-center, this policy has not, however, succeeded in its aims despite the opportunistic and confused attitude of the traditional workers parties. This was clearly demonstrated by the economic struggles of 1962-63 (Italian strikes, which witnessed the mobilization of sectors that had been stagnant for some years, French miners strike, etc.) and by such significant events as the Italian elections of April 1963. The reply of the revolutionary Marxists and of the militant wing of the workers movement to new experiments of this kind must continue on two levels: on the one hand, to reject any "wage freeze,' open on inited pened indicy pretex pretext maintaining complete freedom of action for the union movement to profit from full employment to improve the standard of living of the workers; on the other hand, to concentrate propaganda on transitional demands like workers control and a workers and peasants government (with its concrete specific content in each country, making it easier to unmask the bourgeois character of the so-called "left-center" solutions.
[wo cases in particular deserve to be inderlined, West Germany and Great Britain.
In West Germany the organizations and political consciousness of the workers haye been deteriorating for more than ten years.
existence and to carrying all the weight of the unpopularity of the Ulbricht regime in the German Democratic Republic, is completely isolated and reduced to an impotent group of militants. The small centrist groups have been progressively dissolved, and the new centrist currents expelled from the Social-Democracy remain mostly paralyzed in their isolation from the masses. The Social-Democracy has undergone an extremely rapid evolution to the right since the Congress of Bade-Godesberg, ending in the abandonment of the vestiges of its socialist program in correspondence with the transformation of its social composition— petty-bourgeois circles, functionaries and even bourgeois elements having replaced the workers as the activists most engaged in the daily work of the party which has become an ordinary electoral machine. It nevertheless remains by far the main rallying center of the West German working class.
However, the unions, above all the big. federations (metallurgy, chemical, public services) have maintained and even relatively increased their strength, and this development has occurred against a background of fifteen continuous years of annual wage increases won by means of negotiations and without big open struggles. low level of German wages at the beginning: in 1949, and the extraordinary industrial expansion were at the bottom of this evo-
More and more pronounced objective obstacles are now being encountered: intens tied international competition, leading position now acquired in the Common Market due to low German wages, increasing weight of unproductive expenses (especially military) in which the costs are borne more and more by the labouring masses. The bosses will be compelled to refuse the "annual round" of wage increases, and even impose a reduction of real wages through a rise in the cost of
The recent disturbed situation in metallurgy which ended in # strike and a lock-out in south-west Germany clearly showed that this moment is close. When this occurs, the most probable outcome, even if the German Socialist party has meanwhile formed part of the government, will be a violent encounter between the unions and the bosses; pronounced radicalization of the
unions and the bosses, pronounced radicalization of the union vanguard and at least the possibility of rapid politicalization of this vanguard.
In Great Britain the evolution as a whole has been the reverse during the past years. The increased sensitivity to certain political problems, above all that of nuclear disarmament; the fierce resistance to the attempts of Gaitskell to impose his revision of "point four" in the Labour Party program; the economic bankruptcy of the Tories who imposed years of economic stagnation on Great Britain; the freeze on wage increases proclaimed by Selwyn Lloyd; the reappearance of massive unemployment and the efforts at industrial rationalization at the expense of the working class--all this has created an atmosphere of social tension and of progressive repoliticalization which today renders the British labour movement more powerful than it has ever been. The return to power of a Labour government will occur under conditions in which the masses and the militants would not tolerate without revolt mere continuation of the Tory military and economic policy; after a brief interval a new push would, without doubt, be given to the left in the Labour party.
In Spain and Portugal the dictatorships continue to grow weaker, in the one instance through a real revival of the mass movement, in the other through a colonial revolution which is widening in the Portuguese colonies. The downfall of these two regimes has now been placed on the order of the day.
In Japan, the bourgeoisie succeeded in stabilizing the political situation after the grave crisis which occurred in 1960, pri• marily by exploiting the extraordinary economic expansion and the rise in the standard of living accorded to the workers under these conditions, especially in the big expanding private industrial sectors. Japanese capitalist society remains characterized by a fundamental structural weakness; that is, the existence side by side of a modern industrial sector and of an archaic sector, of relatively high wages and of starvation wages, and it is undergoing in addition the consequences of the structural decline of certain branches (coal, naval construction), as well as the attractive force emanating from the Chinese Revolution and the power of the anti-nuclear war sentiment of the masses. These conditions as a whole remain favourable to a revival of the mass movement.
In the United States, despite the increase of unemployment and the distress in various "depressed areas," the labor movement taken as a whole remains stagnant. From time to time strikes have broken out, some of which have been long and tenacious, but which were in general defensive in character (above all against the consequences of automation) and which flowed from the growing tendency of the bosses to reinforce the anti-labour position in the general economic climate described above (creaping inflation and deteriorating competitive conditions in relation to the European competitors). This situation will not be fundamentally modified until the American bourgeoisie decide that the generally unfavourable economic evolution requires a major attack on the standard of living and wages of the proletariat in the United States. This attack can cause an outburst leading to a rupture in the alliance between the Democratic party and the trade unions, a part of the union bureaucracy taking the initiative to launch a labor party. The rate at which the New Democratic party progresses in Canada, including the electoral level, will likewise contribute to this process in the United States.
Meanwhile, if the labour movement remains stagnant in the United States and has even lost ground, the struggle for racial equality has experienced great impetus. The Negro people have taken the initiative for a whole series of reasons: industrialization of the South, emigration to the North, effects of the war, status in industry, repercussions of the colonial revolution. It is necessary to underline the growing tendency of the younger generation to question the status quo, to organize demonstrations, and to establish more and more militant organizations. To this has been added a tendency of great importance: the reappearance of nationalist aspirations, apparent above all in the progress of the Black Muslim movement,
The extreme left in America has under- Colombia).
in Brazil, (largely limited to capitalist Europe, to gone a profound decline as a whole under the pressure of long years of relative economic prosperity, combined with an erosion of democratic rights and the worst witchhunt the country has ever known. Only the the American Trotskyists have succeeded in holding their own in face of such unfavorable circumstances. With the victory of the Cuban Revolution, the American vanguard underwent an awakening. was felt above all in the universities. The new generation of the American vanguard is now being formed under the influence of the colonial revolution, the process of deStalinization, the antinuclear movement, the struggle for racial equality, and the incapacity of American capitalism to offer an assured future to the youth.
V.
THE EVOLUTION WITHIN THE
LABOUR AND REVOLUTIONARY
INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT
The evolution within the labour and revolutionary international movement has been dominated since 1960 by the appearance of a Castroist current on the one hand and by the growing consequences of the Sino-Soviet dispute on the other.
The victory of the Cuban Revolution, which was made not only without the leadership of the Cuban Communist party even against its resistance and the line that it followed right up to the eve of Fidel Castro's entry into Havana, was an extremely hard blow to the Khrushchevist line of Communist parties in all of the colonial countries, above all after the establishment of a workers state in Cuba and the implicit recognition of this state of affairs by the leadership of the Soviet bureaucracy. the Castroist current exercises an attractive force on the student and working-class youth of the workers states (especially in the USSR itself, in Czechoslovakia and Poland) it is above all in the Latin-American and African countries that it has had profound and lasting repercussions. In some countries splits have taken place in the traditional Communist movement under the combined influence of the Cuban revolution and the "Chinese line" (particularly
In other countries the CP's have felt obliged to make a wide turn to the left and to adopt either the line of armed insurrection (Guatemala, Venezuela), or even the line of armed insurrection with a very advanced program (South Africa). Besides, some autonomous forces outside of the CP have adopted the same line (the MIR in Venezuela, Juliao in Brazil, etc..)
The attractive force of the Castroist line, in face of the passivity and revolving opportunism of the traditional Stalinist leaderships, begging for a "front with the national even when they are sending them to prison, has been such that a large part of the vanguard youth in the LatinAmerican countries have been profoundly impressed (in Africa, the influence of the Algerian Revolution and the influence of the "Chinese line" have had a similar effect). This generally explosive situation has led, in the absence of experienced and politically mature cadres, to ill-considered military actions in some places (particularly in Venezuela).
The Sino-Soviet dispute generally acted in the same progressive way during its first phase, above all in the colonial and semi-colonial countries. the CP's of the workers states and the imperialist countries (above all the mass CP's such as the Italian and French), it was the new impulsion given to de-Stalinization after the Twenty-second Congress, which made it possible to deepen the discussion and to broach several of the key problems of revolutionary Marxist strategy in our epoch. Two currents, diametrically opposed to each other, rapidly separated out within the current favourable de-Stalinization: a Khrushchevist or "Togliattist" current, which is fundamentally a Communist right current, revisionist and neoreformist, and a Communist left current, for which "de Stalinization" is only a point of departure for fighting in favor of a revolutionary Leninist reorientation of the Communist International movement.
The significance and the dynamics of the Sino-Soviet conflict are dealt with elsewhere in a separate resolution.
The mass Social-Democratic movement
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42
Japan and to Australia) and the reformist dence of the working class in its own forces the course of events, increasing the confi- ened. The Fourth International warns the trade-union bureaucracies, which, outside of the previously mentioned countries, hold very powertul positions in North America, have especially telt the contradictory influence of the capitalist "prosperity" on the one hand, and of the more or less vigorous class framework of this "prosperity", on the battles which within the other hand. Most of the Social-Democratic leaderships have continued to evolve towards the right, not only in the domain of international politics, where they identify themselves more and more with the American line but still more in the field of economic
43 and the outcome of the struggles it engages in. It was this factor particularly that determined the exceptional scope of the Belgian general strike of December 1960January 1961; it is the same factor which could come into play tomorrow in Great Britain and even in West Germany, when an important revival of the class struggle occurs there.
On the other hand in the countries where the labor movement is dominated by the Communist parties, the evolution of the Socialist parties cannot follow the same
Thus in Italy we have witnessed and social policy, where they throw over- trajectory. board the lemnants of Marxist phraseology and align themselves wholesale on a neocapitalist line of the Keynesian type.
But within these parties, left currents have generally appeared, either in opposition to lining up with the policy of Atlantic rearmament (including nuclear rearmament), or in opposition to the antisocialist orientation as a whole. The strength of these left currents is proportionate to the strength and the violence of the class struggle; that is to say they are stronger in Belgium than in the Netherlands, in Great Britain than in West Germany, in Denmark than in Sweden, in Finland than in Austria. several cases, some small left or centrist Social-Democratic parties have been born through splits provoked especially by the opposition to acceptance of rearmament by the reformist bureaucracy (Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands) whose influence in the mass movement remains insignificant (except for Denmark), but which play the role of serving a warning and of exerting electoral pressure on the Social-Democratic leadership.
To the extent that this socialist left becomes organized and links itself to the trade unions, absorbing the most progressive currents, in them, acquiring a real mass base and formulating a coherent program opposing altogether the capitulationist policies of the Social-Democracy as a whole, it prepares ly in the absence of a mass Communist party and an old mass Communist tradition -and it can in this case profoundly influence an evolution of the Socialist party of Nenni to the right during the past few years, the right wing of this party completely assimilating the traditional foreign reformist currents, the "left" falling under the debilitating influence of Togliatti's neoreformism. France the PSU (Parti Socialiste Unifie) was born as a center for the regroupment of Social-Democratic and centrist forces, for whom the traitorous role of the MolletLacoste-Lejjeune leadership during the Algerian beganic taterand. the rise of de Gaulle
But the return of Mollet to the opposition with regards to Gaullism after the end of the Algerian war and the slow evolution towards an SFIOPCF united front has taken away from the PSU its reason for being in the eyes of the traditional Social-Democratic elements.
VI.
### OUR TASKS
On the basis of the above analysis and that of the special resolution on the situation in the workers states, the main tasks of the Fourth International at this stage are as follows:
The Fourth International continues to warn the masses of the entire world that imperialism, engaged in a nuclear arms race which moreover constitutes one of the which could take the form of nuclear war when it feels its immediate existence threat-
masses that a nuclear war would constitute - a catastrophe for humanity and that it is a prime task to prevent it from occurring.
The weakening of imperialism, which is taking place today on a world scale primarily through the colonial revolution, constitutes the most effective preparation for its future disarmament. This can ultimately be done only by toppling imperialism through the action of the proletariat of the big capitalist countries.
It is the duty of Revolutionary Marxists to participate in the forefront if not to take the initiative in launching movements for the unilateral disarmament of their own bourgeoisie, nuclear disarmament in the first place—-movements directed against both the presence of nuclear arms and the establishment of NATO bases on the soil of these countries (America, West German, or "intergrated" bases). These movements must be conceived as very large mass movements, assembling all of the dynamic elements (primarily the youth) of all the tendencies of the labor movement (including the Christian labor movement) and widening even this movement to include petty-bourgeois and intellectual strata. The dangers of degeneration in these movements do not lie in widening them, but in choosing incorrect political objectives, or succumbing to increasing passivity of leadership.
The revolutionary Marxists will strive to move ahead with the most militant strata of the participants in these movements towards more radical and effective forms of action than mere demonstrations; they will try to orient them in the direction of political solution based on the conquest of power by the labor movement and they will strive to convince the masses that only the complete disarmament; that is to say, the toppling of capitalism, consttutes in the last analysis an effective solution to the problem of disarmament.
The colonial revolution is at this stage the principal sector of the world revolution. The participation of the International and its sections in leading, defending and aiding the colonial revolution constitutes therefore an essential task for our movement. Taking into account the objective situation in certain
44 countries and the forces which the revolutionary Marxist movement has at its disposal the Fourth International places priority on the following sectors: (A) Algeria:
This is incontestably the country which, of all those currently engaged in the colonial revolution, has gone furthest in transforming its revolution into a socialist revolution and moving toward establishment of a workers state. The forces of the International, primarily those in Europe, will help mobilize the aid of the labor movement for the Algerian Revolution. At the same time, they will continue to warn the Aigerian and international masses that final victory is not possible on this level without breaking monetarily and financially with imperialism, without maintaining the revolutionary mobilization of the masses, without the creation of a state apparatus based on the political organizations of democratic self-government by the masses of the countryside and of the cities. (B) The Peru-Bolivia group:
It is here that the Latin-American bourgeoisie and oligarchy seem the weakest, that the mass movement has already gone through extremely rich experiences, that the situation remains prerevolutionary, that the Marxist revolutionary forces have the best possibilities to gain, in a relatively short time, a predominant position, much among the peasant movements as the trade unions and the labor movement. The organization of land seizures with armed defense occupied land (in the tradition of Hugo Blanco) and the creation of a new trade-union federation, constitute in central task for the present stage in which all our Latin-American forces muct co-operate. In Bolivia our forces will struggle especially to create a real left-wing leadership in the COB which can help unify the working class and peasant movements.
The revolutionary Marxists in Latin America, in general, will act as the best defenders of the Cuban Revolution and will seek to integrate themselves in the Fidelista currents, ( combatting the orientation of the traditional parties, and insisting on the fact
that revolutionary struggle is the best way to defend Cuba. They will help organize the poor peasants, who will be the decisive factor in assuring the victory of the revolution in the majority of countries. While frankly warning against adventures and putschism, they will support guerrilla movements, above all in Peru and in Venezuela where they already exist. (C) South Africa and Angola:
These two countries, but especially South Africa, now have the most explosive situation in the whole of Black Africa, with the presence simultaneously of objective forces (importance of proletarian and semiproletarian strata) and subjective forces (level of theoretical development of the leaders of the MPLA, presence of important revolutionary Marxist cadres in South Africa), favoring in the highest degree a rapid evolution of the revolution, which is on the point of breaking out, in a socialist direction. adoption of a correct political orientation by our movement in South Africa along the road of armed self-defense, and also the the adoption of a correct policy in regard to other currents of the mass movement who are oriented in the same direction-that is to say, an orientation of steady initiative in forming an anti-imperialist and anticapitalist united front, would enable it to play a key role from the first stage of the coming revo-
Inevitably the South African revolution will in the beginning take the form of a general revolt of the masses against the aparthied regime; that is to say, against the state, the army and the laws upholding racial segregation. We must avoid every attitude toward this national democratic character that the struggle will take in its first phase, but understand that it will also from the beginning take the form in the countryside of a struggle for the land, and in the cities a struggle against a capitalist state and army, and express inside and in the forefront of this democratic struggle of the masses the final socialist objectives which it will realize.
(D) The International will likewise have to follow with special interest the activity of its parties in Asia, which hold levers for profoundly modifying the objective situation and for assuring a leap forward for our movement.
45
Our Ceylonese section has progressively corrected the wrong orientation adopted in 1960 of supporting the liberal-bourgeois government of the SLFP. Since the masses began to go into action, it has not hesitated to place itself at their head against its electoral allies of yesterday. A deeper self-criticism of the past errors would nevertheless be useful, insofar as they were founded in the last analysis on an overstimation of the purely electoral aspect, of the struggle for power in Ceylon, which could be the source of new errors, in a different form, at another stage of the class struggle in Ceylon. The LSSP must orient today in the direction of a united front of the working class organizations (the LSSP-CP-MEP and the trade unions, including the CWC and DWC, which have organized the overwhelming majority of the plantation workers) and in the direction of the formula of a really socialist united-front government, which constitutes the most effective solution for change as against the different types of bourgeois governments which have succeeded one another in Ceylon since independence. It is necessary to launch this orientation in an aggressive way, to make it penetrate into the broadest masses, to center it, not on simple negotiations at the top, but on the creation of united-front committees at all levels of political life (state, province and district), and give it at the same time a precise class character by fighting for a program for the united front which will express our class position, both on the problems of power, the relations with the Commonwealth and with the workers states, the nationalization of the principal means of production, and the language problems. Conceived in this spirit the campaign of the LSSP for the united front and a government of the united front, will broaden the party's audience and its mass base, the authority which it possesses in the working class, and will block any manouvres of possible opportunistic partners in the front. Other tasks which the LSSP should consider include elaborating a platform of concrete immediate and transitional demands for the poor population of the countryside, drawing all the conclusions which the defeated military d'etat imposes, and assuring the recruitment and regular political and theoretical education of militants and worker cadres.
(E) The Fourth International resolutely supports the struggle which the partisans in South Vietnam and Laos are waging in order to overthrow the regimes of the big land owners and compradore bourgeoisie, the agents cf American imperialism. calls for the rejection of all formulaes that stall the revolution half way, and for a firm orientation towards the conquest of power by the poor peasants and workers.
In India the revolutionary Marxists pursue intransigeant struggle against the bourgeoisie, its Congress party and its top figure: Nehru. It denounces the treason of the Dange wing of the Communist party and the American agents of the PSP, which have formed a "sacred union" with the Indian bourgeoisie, not only against the Chinese workers state but also against the revolutionary workers and peasants of their own country persecuted by the Nehru regime. They will continue the work of clarification and of revolutionary regroupment, orienting themselves more and more in the direction of a liason with the left in the CP and elaborating a program of transitional demands which corresponds to the aspirations of the poor masses of cities as well as of the countryside.
In Indonesia the revolutionary Marxists fight against the regime of the national bourgeoisie of Sukarno and criticize the CP for its submission to Sukarno and his policies. They will strive to open a socialist perspective and elaborate a program of transitional demands leading to socialism.
On a world scale, the revolutionary Marxists today must participate in the broad discussion inside the Communist movement, in order to progressively help clarify the ideas and the strategic orientation of the Communist movement, to work for the formation of a strong. more or less integrated left Communist current and to prepare in this way precious cadres for a new revolutionary leadership in the colonial revolution, in the workers states, and in the imperialist countries.
3.
This participation must take place under our own flag, with the whole of the ideas of Trotskyism, of the program of the Fourth International, without making concessions
46 to any tendency, because we are convinced that only our program, the authentic program of revolutionary Marxism, offers satisfactory answers to the questions that are posed and will be posed more and more by the Communist militants. Our participation has a twofold aim: persistent integration in the real mass movement, in order to win guiding positions in it; continual struggle for the construction of a new revolutionary leadership of the international proletariat. It is in order to carry out these sought for aims that our participation in the Sino-Soviet dispute therefore imports, along with critical analysis of the position of both sides, tactical choices in order to conclude alliances which bring us nearer to the construction of new revolutionary mass parties.
It is not a matter then of choosing allies within the bureaucracy, but rather within the mass movement, and these allies can only be the left Communist currents; that is, the Castroist and "Chinese" currents in the CP's of the capitalist countries (colonial, semi-colonial and imperialist), and the currents to the left of the Khrushchevist tendency (wanting to push de-Stalinization further than the bureaucracy) in the CP's of the workers states.
The effectiveness of this participation will depend, aside from its principled character the coherent defense of our positions, on the correct understanding of a series of progressive preoccupations of Communist militants engaged in the dispute, and of the possibility of responding to them correctly. This includes:
(a) An effort to prevent imperialism from profiting from the dispute. With this in mind, we must insist on the necessity of separating relations between CP's from the relations between workers states, on the necessity of maintaining the Sino-
Soviet alliance despite the heat of the discussion, on the necessity of ending the economic reprisals of the People's Republic of China by the USSR, etc. In the same way we must also insist on the idea of an international conference of all the
CP's prepared by an extensive democratic discussion with the publication of all the documents, a discussion and conference that would include the Yugoslav Communists and all revolutionary . Marxists tendencies, the Trotskyists among them.
Trotsky and all the victims of Stalin's terror in every country in Europe.
(b) An effort must be made to get the discussion out of its scholastic and Byzantine character by formulating strategic and tactical problems with which the world Communist movement is confronted
(in the workers states as well as in the capitalist countries) and by proposing solutions to these problems inspired not only by the classical tradition of revolutionary Marxism but also by a broad synthesis of the immensely rich revolutionary experience of the last decades.
Likewise with this in mind, we must not hesitate at proposing solutions to new problems which have not received adequate answers in the past (examples; the problem of the role of armed struggle in the colonial revolution, the problem of formulating new transitional demands in the present economic situation of the imperialist countries; the problem of the reciprocal relations between party, workers councils, and trade unions in states; the problems of international planning of the economy, etc). Every theoretical effort undertaken by movement in this sense is assured today of a large response in the international
Communist movement.
The situation created by the Twentieth Congrese of the CPSU and still more by the I wenty-second Congress eminently tavorable for the revival of our movement in the workers states themselves. We must multiply our activities in helping the elements most advanced along the road of Leninism with appropriate ad hoc material, the collaboration of prepared and enthusiastic cadres, with a special "pedagogy" and tactics, which will facilitate spreading our ideas among vanguard circles of the workers states; especially the youth.
An important place must be given to the campaign for the rehabilitation of Leon
47
5.
In capitalist Europe the revolutionary Marxists will continue to integrate themselves in the mass movement. Generally, they will render their slogans and their actions more precise in two fields; that of the anti-nuclear struggle, and that of European economic "integration" and the Common Market. A series of transitional demands should today complete the traditional slogans of the Socialist United States of Europe; they must be sought for, on the one hand through an appeal for closer economic collaboration with the workers states and for disinterested aid to the countries of the colonial revolution, and through elaboration of plans in this sense which can assure full employment; and, on the other hand, through extending the public sector (nationalization without compensation or redemption, and under workers control, of the trusts having branches and plants in different countries, etc). The idea of an economic plan for the development of all of Europe, to be claborated by a congress of workers organizations, in opposition to the neocapitalist "programming" that the Common Market envisages, must also be popularized. The revolutionary Marxists will likewise demand the convocation of this congress of workers organizations (trade union and political within the framework of the Common Market alone, in order to respond to the need for a common strategy of the labour movement in face of the attacks of the bosses and the governments against the living and working conditions of the masses. revolutionary Marxists must openly consider all the conclusions to be drawn from the Belgian strike of 1960-61, of the strike of the miners of Asturies, and the strike of the French miners, which show that the enomic effect of these really impressive strikes 1s more and more neutralized by a more rapid and free international circulation of commodities than in the recent past, and that out of this fact, united trade-union on a European scale, as well as the organization of effective international solidarity, become more and more the conditions for effective strike action
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