AGAINST ATOMIC WEAPONS ;
FOR UNILATERAL ATOMIC DISARMAMENT
Important advances in public opinion have taken independently of a coming "summit" conference and place in England and are also beginning in Germany. its possible results.
Pronouncements have been made against the manufacture and stocking of atomic weapons, against tests thereof, against the building of launching ramps, and against flights of planes carrying atomic arms.
Their logical conclusion is unilateral and unconditional atomic disarmament, ie, disarmament independently of the policy of other nations in this field,
That is the meaning —eminently progressive, moreover— of these movements, which there is a tendency to qualify as "pacifist."
But this "pacifist" defeatism, under present condiions, when what is in question is the preparation of a war by imperialism against the workers' states and against revolution in all its forms, has a progressive
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL content to which it is necessary unhesitatingly to give critical support. In two directions: if these movements are to come to something, they must be given a backbone, constituted by the organized labor movement, both political and trade-unionist, raising the struggle to the level constantly broader and more determined; these struggles must be lighted by the perspective of a workers' and peasants' government, the only one able both to guarantee the victory of the movement and effectively to face up to the "danger" of a "Soviet occupation" resulting from "atomic" non-resistance to an eventual "aggression" of the USSR.
Let us explain these points further:
In both England and Germany, the spearhead of the movement consists, not of the official leaderships of the workers' parties and the trade unions, but of sectors of the rank and file, of public opinion, and of figures who represent genuine "integral pacifism" in the face of atomic weapons: unilateral atomic disar-
On the other hand the leaderships, whether of the Labour Party or of the SPD, subjected to the pressure of "pacifist" opinion among their rank and file, have been forced to put themselves at the head of the movement, while trying to castrate it by considerations of a disarmament postponed till after, and conditional upon the results of, the "summit conference," etc. They moreover want to channel the movement into harmless forms of "pacifist" struggle, referenda, meetings, signature campaigns, which take the edge off the masses' fighting spirit and threaten them with an ordeal of attrition and lassitude.
That is why it is necessary to organize a movement at the base, both in the so-called workers' parties and in the trade unions, and, in alliance with any "integral pacifist" movement and with any public figure -eg, men like Canon Collins, Bertrand Russell or Stephen King-Hall— to construct a national network of committees for immediate unilateral atomic disarmament, which will fight tirelessly and in every form till victory.
Basing themselves on such a broad and combative movement, the left tendencies in the parties and trade unions will have a greater chance of maintaining an increased pressure on the leaderships to make them shift their policy to positions of "integral atomic pacifism," and to struggle effectively to impose these positions.
The immense danger of atomic war hangs over a
5 humanity ruled by capitalist cliques who are at bay and therefore capable of the worst irresponsibilities, the worst madnesses.
Far from being awed by the prospect of such a war, these cliques never stop arming and extending atomic armament. The the manufacture of atomic arms, of the installation of launching ramps, of planes carrying atomic bombs, is being raised in country after country of the NATO. In its turn, Adenauer's Germany has just decided in favor of possessing atomic weapons and launching ramps.
To minimize in any way this danger is to blind oneself to the immensely catastrophic fatal outcome of such a race by men who are unrestrained, irresponsible, and devoid of perspectives.
We must base ourselves on the sectors of public opinion which are alert to these dangers in order to build a powerful movement constantly struggling against atomic catastrophe. Naturally, this struggle can have a chance to succeed only if it is more and more carried on by broad and determined forms of mass action —marches, strikes, national mass protests - and ends up with the installation of a workers' government.
Such a government would be a guarantee of both the success of the struggle for unilateral atomic disarmament and against a possible "Soviet occupation." For a workers' government, setting up a genuine regime of democratic socialism in an advanced European country, would enormously hasten the crisis of the Soviet bureaucracy and eliminate any danger of seeing Stalinist or neo-Stalinist bureaucratism spread and consolidate itself internationally.
The revolutionary Marxist tendencies integrated in the mass movement have the duty to understand thoroughly the eminently progressive character of this "pacifist defeatism," which, in the face of atomic dangers, is appearing in broad mass currents, and the duty to bring it all possible support by the organized vorkers' movement, to raise it to higher forms of mass action, to light its path by the perspective of a workers' government applying a democratic socialist programme, and to prevent the movement, as a result of manœuvres by the opportunist and capitulationist leaderships, from bogging down in formal demonstrations and thus wearing out and disappointing the masses.
This is a combat of capital importance, that it is possible and necessary to win.