Resolution of the International Secretariat
ON THE EVENTS IN TIBET
Documents
The events in Tibet, which this year brought about a conflict between the military and civil authorities of the central government of the People's Republic of China and the Tibetan armed forces, have given rise to diverse interpretations, including in our own ranks. Imperialist propaganda has seized on these events for the obvious purpose of impairing the drawing-power of the Chinese revolution, especially among the Asian masses, and also of compromising the Pekin government in Asian "neutralist" opinion, especially in the eyes of the Asian and world colonial bourgeoisie, whose good graces and alliance Pekin - following the Kremlin's example - is seeking.
The precedent of Hungary provided this propaganda with facile analogies, that were, however, obviously superficial.
In order to clarify the questions raised by the recent events, a reminder of certain facts of a historic and social nature is necessary.
Especially since the XIlIth century and up until the XIXth century, Tibet was administratively a part of the Chinese national empires and never appeared during this period as an independent state. In the XIXth century it became a protectorate of British imperialism, which - at the time of the liberation of India - transferred its rights to that country, but continued to keep its own agents on the spot, working against the Chinese
In 1951 the armies of the Chinese revolution entered Tibet, and Pekin reached an agreement with the local authorities "on the measures for the peaceful liberation of Tibet." In 1945 the Nehru government yielded its rights over Tibet to China, and Nehru himself then (15 May 1954) declared: "I am not aware that at any time during the last few hundred years, Chinese sovereignty, or if you like, suzerainty [over Tibet] was challenged by any outside country.
Within the limits of the Chinese empires, especially since the XIlIth century, the Tibetan people, ethnically distinct from the Han people, the Chinese people properly so called, lived side-by-side with other national minorities, the Mongols, the Uighurs, the Chuags, the Miaos, the Koreans, ete (to the number of about 50) who constituted the multinational country, historically formed as such, known by the name of China.
These historical facts -as well as the fact that Tibet, detached from China since the XIXth century by imperialism, had become in an unquestionable way an imperialist platform against the security and unity of China - justified the effort undertaken by the victorious Chinese People's Republic.
What is more, there has not been, especially in these last years, any proof of the existence of à Tibetan movement of national independence from China.
This country is marked by the existence of an extremely anachronistic and barbarous feudo-theocratic social and political regime. Some two to three hundred families of nobles hold - directly themselves and by their preponderant role in the government - about two-thirds of the land, the other third belonging to the monasteries ruled by the higher clergy. More than a million serfs, that is, the overwhelming majority of the country's population, labor on these lands, in the service of the secular and ecclesiastical nobility, as peasants, shepherds, and servants, in conditions of extreme ma-
. cultural destitution.
In order to spare the country a revolution by its laboring masses, and not to compromise its relations with the Asian ruling classes, especially those of India, and the opinion of Asiatic Buddhism, Pekin carefully overturning the existing social order by basing itself on revolutionary mobilization and organization. In fact what it based itself on was just what it is now denouncing, namely the higher social strata crowned by the government and the Dalai Lama; it was from the "reeducation" and "understanding" of these strata that Pekin was awaiting the gradual introduction of reforms.
This opportunist policy completely failed. The strata of the ecclesiastic and secular nobility, fearing after all the inevitable process of structural assimilation with the rest of China, were concerned only with indefinitely postponing the reforms, to gain time and to pair up with imperialism to defend their "independence.
It is naturally possible that these efforts found a certain echo among the most backward elements in the country, disappointed by the de facto support accorded by Pekin to the feudalists instead of stirring up civil war and backing the masses of the serfs against them.
It was in these conditions that the Chinese armed forces stationed in Tibet were harassed by white bands long before the more massive attack to which they were subjected in Lhassa itself last March.
At that time, the Chinese army had not "invaded" an "independent" country, but had been for several years on the spot, and according to all available proofs (including those of imperialism and the letters written by the Dalai Lama and later recognized as genuine by Nehru himself), it was subjected to the assault of forces trained and prepared by the feudalists.
Thus the analogy with the case of Hungary, where a workers' state, formally independent, was invaded by the Soviet army in order to crush a workers' uprising
aimed against the political, bureaucratic, and police regime whose allegiance was to the Kremlin, is superficial and therefore null and void.
Quite apart from any criticism about the previous attitude of the Pekin government toward Tibet, at the moment of the conflict itself revolutionary Marxists define their position by taking into account the social forces facing each other: who is fighting whom. From of the armles of the are use revolution the victory the Chinese. revolution against the armed forces of feudal reaction.
'he mass character of the latter, although problem tical in the concrete case ot libet because not based or tangible proofs, enters the question only as an element to determine the future solution once the feudal reaction has been beaten and the victory of the revolutionary army assured.
Taught by experience, forced by events, Pekin is at lureson in Tige to proceed finale so hand by destroying the positions of property and power of the ecclesiastical and secular nobility.
Revolutionary Marxists support this action,
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL organizations of the country - committees, trade unions, militias, parties - and that it be carried out in the framework of a real regional autonomy for Tibet, including the right of complete separation from the rest of the Chinese Republic.
The Tibetan people being obviously a separate nationrevolutionary Marxists recognize this people's right of self-determination, including the rigth to separate from China. In order that this right be exercised, it is necessary that the majority of the entire Tibetan people clearly express its opinion, tor the proclamation of Tibetan independence by the feudal leaders does not represent a proof of this desire. Between the recognition of the right to independence and the active struggle of revolutionary Marxists for this right, there is, however, a difference.
In Tibet itself, any revolutionary Marxist forces vould, however, have to support the position that the country remain fraternally united, on a basis of equality, with the other nationalities and autonomous territories of the People's Republic of China.
THE INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT OF THE FOURTH