[As part of the preparations for the founding congress of the Fourth International, held in September 1938, the Socialist Workers Party sent a delegation to Coyoacán, Mexico, to consult with Leon Trotsky in March 1938. The delegation consisted of James P. Cannon, " Rose Karsner, Vincent R. Dunne and Max Shachtman.
[During the series of meetings, shorthand notes were taken of the conversations. The notes were incomplete and the stenograms remained uncorrected by the participants.
[Some of the stenograms have been published. However, the following one of a meeting held on March 20, 1938, never happened to be included among them as a whole. (An extract was included in the recently issued second edition of The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution by Leon Trotsky published by Pathfinder Press.) It is printed by permission of Pathfinder Press from the forthcoming 1937-38 Writings of Leon Trotsky, second edition, 1975. (Copyright 1975 by Pathfinder Press, Inc.) We have taken the liberty of correcting obvious typographical errors, and have made some changes in punctuation.
[Of particular interest in this stenogram are Trotsky's estimates of some of the European leaders of the Fourth International and figures close to the movement. Trotsky wanted Cannon, upon whom he relied to take charge of carrying through the preparatory work in launching the Fourth International, to know what judgments he had reached on the individuals who had to be taken into account in particular ways.
Besides the conversations that were partially recorded, like this one Trotsky held private conversations with Cannon in which he undoubtedly went into these and related questions in more detail.]
Leon Trotsky. All the sections have had discussions about the events in Spain, the Sino-Japanese war, the class character of the USSR -and some sections have October 7, 1974
urth Inter even had their paring the text for the conference.
tional conference?
national section.
in Unser Wort [Our Word].
and its French section.
'national splits, like the German section. Your theses are known by all the sections and the same holds true of the French theses. 2 The question now is only a matter of putting the texts in order.
James P. Cannon. There remains the question of pre-
Trotsky. We have here prepared the draft of the program —it's possible to get it ready within two to three weeks, then to translate it into English and French. Can your declaration of principles be used for the interna-
Max Shachtman. No, it's more the declaration of a
Trotsky. Adolphe has sent out his draft of the statutes. The German section has prepared the thesis on the character of the Fourth International. It was sent to every section three months ago and it is now published
Shachtman. We haven't received Unser Wort for some months.
Trotsky. Perhaps because in your sojourn in the Socialist Party you lost your international connections and you haven't yet been able fully to reestablish them.4
You've also had the thesis of Diego Rivera.5 The only objection to be made against it is that it is too long for the conference. I read your suggestion that I write on the war question in the light of the latest events. I accept this suggestion with readiness-to supplement and concretize our thesis in the light of recent events. We have something of importance to do. It can be done in the next few days. We have here a draft but not enough persons who can translate from the Russian.
But what is missing is a program of transitional demands and slogans. It is necessary to make a summary of concrete, precise demands, such as workers control of industry as opposed to technocracy. From time to time it is mentioned in the paper but only in passing. But I believe it is one of the slogans that is very important for the U.S.
Lundberg writes a book about the 60 families. 6 The Annalist says that his statistics are exaggerated. We must ask for the abolition of commercial secrets -that the workers have the right to look into the bookkeeping - partially outdated. Partially it is very good, and is to be replaced by our conference.
Then I also have a draft of a thesis concerning democracy. The gist of it is that democracy is the most aristocratic form of rule. Only those countries are able to conserve democracy that have slaves in the world, like Great Britain, whose every citizen has nine slaves; France, whose every citizen has one and a half slaves; and the U.S. - I can't reckon the slaves, but it's almost the whole world, beginning with Latin America. The poorer countries, like Italy, gave up their democracy.
It's an analysis of democracy in the light of new events. What is fascization of democracy? The petty-bourgeois democrats become bankrupt. Only the big ones, the greatest robbers, the richest slaveholders, etc., remain democrats.
Such a posing of the question is especially useful for the U.S. Naturally it is not to be written in favor of fascism but in favor of proletarian democracy. Even for the richest country, like the U.S., democracy is becoming less and less workable.
I believe these are almost all we have as propositions for the international conference. The other important questions, the burning questions of the class character of the Soviet Union, the Sino-Japanese war, the question of Spain, have already been discussed by all the sections.
Notes
1. The founding convention of the Socialist Workers Party, held in Chicago December 31, 1937-January 3, 1938, adopted a declaration of principles, a constitution, and a series of resolutions ("theses"), on contemporary political problems, many of which were subsequently printed in the weekly Socialist Appeal.
2. The second congress of the Parti Ouvrier Internationaliste (POI- Internationalist Workers Party), held in Paris October 30-November 1, 1937, adopted a number of resolutions on the important issues facing the Fourth Internationalist movement
3. Adolphe was the pseudonym of a young German revolutionist, Rudolf Klement, who had served as Trotsky's secretary in Turkey and France, and who was now in charge of preparations for the founding congress of the Fourth International. In July 1938 he was kidnapped by agents of Stalin's secret police; his headless body was later found in the Seine.