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_ FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
ENGLISH - LANGUAGE EDITION OF THE THEORETICAL ORGAN OF THE
INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
THE SUMMIT CONFERENCE
AND KHRUSHCHEVIAN POLICY
With de Gaulle's visit to the United States the cluding a possible rapprochement with the preparations among the "Westerners" for the 16 USSR.
Number 9
Editorial May summit conference have been completed. These preparations were laborious and difficult, for substantial differences divide the front of the "Atlantic" nations. To the degree that the economic power of international capitalism is rebuilt, revived competition and the struggle for markets are all the more sharply renewed. The stronger capitalism becomes, the more it is divided.
In the struggle for markets it is Germany and the countries of the Common Market, as well as Japan, which are stepping up their advance, in comparison with Great Britain, the other countries of the "Seven," and even the United States. But even inside the Common Market it is especially Germany which is making progress and seems to be threatening to dominate that market. From this situation several consequences arise, some of which have come fully to light during the preparations for the summit conference.
Macmillan went to the United States especially to bring. Washington to a better understanding of vital British interests in connection with the expected strengthening of the Common Market. Britain fears a considerable reduction in its substantial exports to Benelux and Germany (which represent two-thirds of its total exports to the Common Market) if the dispositions for the "speeding-up" of the Common Market go into effect in July, raising customs duties in both Benelux and Germany. On a longer-term basis, it is the whole essential trade of Britain with the countries of the Common Market that is at stake. British reactions are therefore sharp, going to the extent of threatening all sorts of reprisals, in-
Spring 1960
As for the United States, which is witnessing a drop in its international trade and a decline in its exports, it is, in this question, pulled one way by its political interest in cementing a unified continental Europe, including Germany, and in another by its own economic interests, which are beginning to suffer from the competitive dynamism of the Common Market, and of Germany in particular. Indeed, Germany is, by its continuing expansion, worrying even its partners in the Common Market — for instance, France. From this fact there arises another consequence which has played a role both in the transactions among
"Westerners" and in the outlook for the summit conference: the nearly common interest of both the "Westerners" and the Soviets not to strengthen Germany further, by maintaining the status quo of the present partition. question of Berlin he Westerner, the sm al have reached on this question an agreement based on the supposition that a "firm" attitude on their part will not produce any really dangerous reaction of the part of the Kremlin - whence their decision to stand firm on the present status quo in Berlin.
Thus the situation on the eve of the summit conference is as follows:
The "Westerners" are ready to swap the status quo of the general situation in Germany against a recognition by Khrushchev of the status quo in Berlin. Their soundings-out of Khrushchev seem to have convinced them that he will accept this. deal for a while longer.
2
Under these conditions the summit conference vill fall back on "disarmament," where up till now the impasse has been total, but where it is hoped that there will be limited agreements about stopping tests (at least, certain tests) and other opinion the impression of a maintenance of Public dispositions capable of putting over on
La beginning of measures of "disarmament."
Thus in the best of cases the summit conference might end without an abrupt break, by keeping up the dialogue even without any real agreequestion. It would thus ment on any essential express, on the plane of the correlation of forces, the prolongation of an equilibrium preserving the status quo.
In reality, however, there is not exactly an equilibrium of forces imposing the strict maintenance of the present status quo. The combined strength of the workers' states, the colonial revolution, and the workers' movement in the metropolitan countries is able — on condition that it be taken under a revolutionary leadership — to make imperialism retreat still further.
It is the policy of the Kremlin and the Communist Parties which is granting capitalism advantages that scarcely result from its intrinsic existence" present. The theme of "peacetul copower at which Khrushchev's policy is at present based does not exploit any of the real weaknesses of capitalism so as to advance the revolution throughout the world. On the contrary, it operates fundamentally in favor of capitalism.
It causes the workers' states not to exploit their present military superiority to obtain possible concessions from imperialism without necessarily driving it to war.
It puts the revolutionary movement in the colonial and dependent countries in tow to the national bourgeoisie and its heroes, the Nehrus, Sukarnos, Nassers, Kassems, Lotts, et al, who all have profited to a greater or lesser extent from the unconditional support which the Communist Parties, under the Kremlin's instigation, have accorded them, to consolidate their power, install their dictatorship, and — invariably -against the masses, and even against the US S R or China, and once more draw close to imperialism.
Lastly, it liquidates the revolutionary proletarian movement in the advanced capitalist countries, to the degree that it abandons the prospect and fighting methods of the socialist revolution and settles down into the practice of parliamentary neo-opportunism, even in so extreme a case as the Gaullist dictatorship in France, with its phantom parliament.
The "theoretical" justification of this policy of liquidating revolutionary possibilities is given by
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL the "argument" that the US S R is now "catching up with" and will soon "surpass" the United States in economic production, and that by that fact the henceforth incontestable superiority of the Soviet system will be universally established. The universal victory of that system will then spread contagiously - almost automatically and peacefully. From this follows the supreme need in the meantime - at any cost, with every sort of opportunist compromise, every sort of alliance, etc — to preserve "peace."
But, first of all, "to catch up with and surpass" the per capita economic prodúction of the United States — which, though it has fallen behind the US SR in its rate of development, still also continues to go forward - would still require a couple of decades. It is hardly likely that imperialism and the colonial bourgeoisie would in the meantime stand passively watching this victorious march of "socialism" in the USSR, or that the international situation would congeal, without explosions here and there in the limits of the current status quo, and would not bring about developments escaping from the strict control of both the Kremlin and the imperialists.
In reality the Kremlin's policy is determined, not by the vision of a completed "socialism" achieved "peacefully" in the US SR, but by the specific interests of the conservative bureaucracy in the US SR, and the no less specific situation of its present political leadership. The Soviet bureaucracy has no liking for a flowering of revolutionary possibilities throughout the world, which would finally imperil its own position as a privileged caste in the US SR. It likes only limited gains, which it is in a position to control and digest, or to which it is driven in order to defend itself against imperialism.
The special situation of the present political leadership, namely the Krushchev fraction, reenforces this conservative trend of the Soviet bureaucracy. The Khrushchev fraction hammered out its victory in the US SR by staking on the deep repulsion of the Soviet masses for the abuses and crimes of Stalin and for the horrors of war. But the victory of the Khrushchev fraction is not and never could be definitive. The struggle is probably still going on both inside the Soviet bureaucracy and in the international Stalinist bureaucracy.
Noteworthy was the virulence of a new attack - against Stalin and against the "anti-party" Malenkov, Molotov, Kaganovich, "themselves compromised in the abuses and crimes" of the Stalinist period - launched by the Soviet press on the occasion of the recent anniversary of Lenin's birth. Equally noteworthy on this same -occasion was the series of articles that the Chinese press devoted to fighting against illusions about
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL "peaceful coexistence" and against Khrushchev's way of "prettying-up" imperialism.
Throughout the world at present powerful new revolutionary forces are operating, which may cause blow-ups, explosions, in the status quo setin chatthly mainalins and the remitearepted in carefully maintaining. Chinese Revolution is maintaining and extending the experiment of the Communes, which are bringing to the fifth part of humanity the most profound revolutionary overturn in history. The fact, furthermore, that China is not participating in the conferences and meetings that bring together the other countries of the world, is per se an enormous limitation of the scope of their "agreements" and their labors, and keeps up a ferment of revolutionary instability which will go on increasing.
In Africa the Algerian revolution raises the question of either a substantial retreat by French imperialism or an extension of the war, which kindle further flames throughout all Africa.
In Latin America the Cuban revolution, the chronic revolutionary crisis in Argentina, the continuance of the Bolivian revolution, the events in Venezuela, the difficulties in Brazil - these are all so many focal points in mutual interaction Which are preparing a higher stage of the anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist revolution in that region of the world.
The economic prosperity of the advanced capitalist countries themselves is only relative and fragile, especially in the United States. The di-
"boom" expected alter the steel strike, building up through the whole of the current year, have already been reduced modest proportions. "The revolution of rising great expectations" is over. The year began gloomily: a slight decline in industrial production in February and March, an increase in unemployment, a drop in steel production and building. In March it was even thought that we were seeing the beginning recession." It will perhaps be avoided this year, but it threatens to occur in 1961.
For it is now recognized that it is possible that the American again reached "maturity," and that "it will be more and more difficult to find the effective demand needed to achieve full employment." (The Economist, 23 April 1960.) It is also recognized
3 that each postwar recession has been a little worse than the one before and that each recovery has left the economy with a higher level of unemployment; that there appears to be a gradual widening of the margin between capacity and output in industries for which measurements are made; that high and rising imports and the "export of jobs through foreign investment are scarcely bullish for employment; in short, that the economy has, after all, been spurred by artificial stimulants for the last twenty years and that the real test is only now beginning. [Ibid]
The British economy may also soon find itself out of breath again.
There remain only the German "miracle" and the currently more general one of the Common Market. But this "miracle" is exploiting conditions which, while still tavorable, are conjunctural rather than eternal: broadening of the European market; extension in foreign markets at the expense of other imperialisms, including Great Britain and even the United States.
The hour of "maturity" of the German economy and that of the Common Market is also coming. It is a question of taking all these factors into account for a revolutionary policy resolutely pretation of "peaceful coexistence", offered ery hostile to the paralyzing illusions, Khrushchev and the real revisionists who follow him. Everywhere it is necessary to work up a programme and an organizational tactic of à transitional nature, which would help the masses and their vanguard to carry on struggles with the prospect ot the victory of socialism.
The rhythms and forms of this struggle will differ in the colonial and semi-colonial countries from those in advanced capitalist countries, dıtter within each group; but the general orientation is everywhere the same: a concret transi-
It is also in this way thạt "peace" can be really guaranteed by disarming imperialism through th steady spread of the victorious socialist revolu25 April 1960