[The following three items appeared in the January 12 issue of Rouge.]
Tendency A
Workers United Front and the LCR 'Unity Policy'
Our line of strategy for the working class cannot be reduced to and does not even just amount to unity of the working-class organizations (political and trade-union) alone. It is aimed at an objective that concerns the whole class, and it is the opposite of the policy of the traditional leaderships. The movement for workingclass unity is a weapon against the SP and CP's policies of division and class collaboration.
We propose that the tactic of the workers united front be employed regardless of its immediate chances for success, which depend on the relationship of forces, and that only then should we consider what initiatives to take to help us advance in that direction. This conception of the workers-united-front tactic is the exact opposite of the one which was christened, in the theses of the LCR's First Congress, as "initiative/unity in action/outflanking" (a conception entirely dependent upon the relationship of forces).
The theses of the LCR, like the current policy supported by Tendency D, are based essentially on an analysis of the "broad vanguard." The objective is not to trace a path for the masses to follow starting from an analysis of their objective needs, and fighting to unite the broad masses of Socialist, Communist, and independent workers in struggle; it is to "instrumentalize" a part of the working class-that section supposedly "breaking with reformism" and known as "AGOL," the "Avant-Garde Ouvrière Large" [Broad Workers Vanguard]. In view of the absence of a revolutionary party, the idea is to utilize the AGOL as a "lever," to achieve a better relationship of forces with the mass organizations.
This conception of the need to make a "detour" in order to confront the reformist apparatuses inaugurated a line, in the theses of the LCR's First Congress, in the "European Documents" of the Fourth International, and in the documents of TD, of "winning hegemony in the broad vanguard." It very quickly resulted in a sectarian course of turning our backs on the tactic of the workers united front. This line has been reduced to a policy of giving priority to common activity with currents that we characterize as "centrist" (currents oscillating between reformism and a revolutionary program). These currents were supposed to represent the link with the "AGOL."
In Portugal and Italy, where setting priority on alliances with the centrists took the form of the FUR (Revolutionary United Front) and "Proletarian Democracy," Trotskyists ended up in coalitions in which our hands were tied, at crucial moments in the class struggle, by unprincipled agreements. In France, a "front of revolutionists" on the same basis would be equally unacceptable-that is, on the basis of scrapping our analysis of the counterrevolutionary role of the reformist apparatuses and the tasks that must be carried out to confront them. Today, a line of "working-class unity" must be the basis for any agreement. This rules out any line of "people's unity," of "people's control," or of a "popular front from below."
This means a clear approach to the question of unity: no exclusion! For a systematic search for unity in action in all the fields of mass work (for the fusion of the trade unions, for a single student union, for setting up single mass committees to defend imprisoned soldiers or to free political prisoners East and West, for a single women's movement, for a united union of soldiers, etc.). The criterion of common mass work must prevail. This implies a kind of unity in action in practice that is integrated with and not in contradiction to our overall tactic of the workers united front. This is what guides our relations with Lutte Ouvrière [LO- Workers Struggle], the OCI [Organisation Communiste Internationaliste-Internationalist Communist Organization], or the PSU (to the very limited degree that the marked evolution of the latter group towards the Union of the Left still allows them to have discussions and engage in real mass work with us).
Today, in France, two organizations (LO and the OCI) that consider themselves Trotskyist have made overtures toward the Fourth [International]. For our part, we can and should undertake the particular tasks of discussion and united action with them.
The LCR should not "water down its platform," but should fight against any sectarianism and seek out the best areas of concrete cooperation with the centrist currents. The elections are an important occasion for exposing the
class-collaborationist policy of the SP and CP. To do this, we should submit, in full view of all currents—nationally, with no exclusions and no preconditions-a single LCR platform that leaves no essential element in the political situation unmentioned. Agreements should then be reached if they do not contradict the line of workers unity and if they are accompanied by real unity in action in several areas.
Tendency B
What Kind of Unity With the Reformists?
We must achieve unity in action with the reformists. This is necessary in order to be able to fight their influence in the working class and in order to struggle on a day-today basis, particularly in the trade unions. We must therefore make proposals for action to the reformist leaderships. The three tendencies agree on this and criticize the positions of the ultralefts, who reject unity in action with the reformists.
But on the other hand we do not agree with the current orientation of the LCR. As readers have observed in Rouge, the leadership frequently calls upon the CP and SP to "break with the bourgeoisie," "move in the direction of workers power," for "a real workers government," "open the way to the dictatorship of the proletariat," etc. This orientation, which Tendency D says we should maintain, bolsters illusions in the reformist leaderships. What we should say instead is that the CP and the SP will never open the way to the dictatorship of the proletariat. That is why we want to build another party, a revolutionary party.
The tactic of unity must not lead to our suggesting to the reformists that we make a revolution together! This flows from the tactic of trying to expose them and put them on the spot, a tactic which, as we have said before, is ineffective and dangerous since it strengthens the illusions in the reformist leaderships held by those few proletarians who listen to us. We must never deceive the working class.
On Revolutionary Unity
With the far-left organizations, by way of contrast, we should employ a different king of unity tactic, because they have undertaken the same effort as the Ligue—building a revolutionary party which can lead us to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
In the first place, there are many types of actions that can be successfully carried out jointly, actions that each of the groups would not be able to carry out on its own.
Secondly, an ongoing discussion should be initiated, not only with respect to actions with limited perspectives (which, we repeat, the reformists should also be approached with), but also on the major questions, such as how to intervene politically in the working class, how to work in the trade unions, how to build a solidly based party (and not the municipal elections).
Our tendency believes that there is no revolutionary group that can claim to be the embryo in itself of the party that has to be built; none of these groups is deeply rooted in the working class. We must draw up a balance sheet of the far left from 1968 to today. This is the burning task for all revolutionists. It should be possible to discuss this balance sheet together. We need to have a thorough discussion. Of course, this should be done without fostering illusions in the chances of overcoming the differences quickly, but with the conviction that it is necessary to move toward a basic reconstitution of the far left. We offer these proposals with no restrictions; still, among the existing groups, we feel that priority should be given to an approach to Lutte Ouvrière, the OCT, and the PSU, as well as to local groups of worker militants who are not affiliated to any national organization. As far as this choice is concerned, we do not agree with the present orientation, the one supported by Tendency D, which places special emphasis on the PSU-right at a time when the majority of that organization is making more and more overtures toward the Union of the Left. We disagree even more sharply with Tendency A, which puts priority on the organizations that stand on the "Transitional Program" written by Trotsky in 1938.
This type of policy does not mean to imply the dissolution of the individual organizations. We believe that if the Ligue were reoriented along the lines of our tendency it would be even stronger and in a better position to carry it out, while, of course, putting priority on our own mass work and sinking roots in the working class.
Tendency D
From Unity in Action to Building the Party
In Europe, over the last ten years, the workers movement has been rebuilt from the ground up. The crisis of Stalinism and the gradual rise of struggles has encouraged the development of a spectrum of currents that reject reformism. The still peripheral role of revolutionary communists has enabled these currents to oscillate, to one degree or another, between critical support to the reformists and a revolutionary line. They are a long-lasting component of the workers movement. Thus, the building of the revolutionary party will not come about simply through the growth of the LCR, but through fusions and regroupments.
Our unity policy, based on this analysis, aims at promoting clarity on program and revolutionary practice, as well as at unity in action in carrying out the tasks required by the situation. We are struggling to bring about a front of all workers and all workers organizations, but not all of them play the same role. The reformists are an obstacle to the workers' revolutionary struggle; those groups which reject reformism are plagued by inconsistency. An agreement with the latter on the need to struggle for the destruction of the bourgeois state, on tacties to employ in relation to the reformists, and on a conception of the party would represent important progress toward revolutionary unity and building the revolutionary party.
Among the spectrum of currents "to the left of reformism," this common characteristic is not all that counts. In addition to their programs, they differ in their way of acting, their relations with the workers' radicalization, and the role they play in the reconstitution of the workers movement. The PSU, Lutte Ouvrière, and the OCT, to one degree or another, are a pure expression of the radicalization and reconstitution of the workers movement, particularly since 1968. These are the groups with whom joint action in the mass movement is least difficult and a discussion on strategy most fruitful. The OCI, on the other hand, is far removed from the working-class radicalization. It broke with the Fourth International in the downturn of the 1950s, and has remained tied to the Social Democratic bureaucracy (FO [Force Ouvrière-Labor Force], FEN [Fédération de l'Education Nationale-National Education Federation]) during the period of rising struggle. This is evident from the positions it took on May 1968 and on the Portuguese revolution. The Maoist groups, PCR [Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire- Revolutionary Communist party], and HR [l'Humanité Rouge], are not identical. HR lines up so closely behind the Chinese leadership that it has refused to support the soldiers' committees because they might weaken the army's ability to confront the USSR (!). The PCR, despite its divisive line in the unions, is less insensitive to the mass radicalization.
The priority that we are assigning to the PSU, LO, and the OCT does not, however, justify excluding other groups. It is made necessary by the fact that the number of people who can be mobilized by the unity in action of the far-left organizations greatly exceeds their total membership.
TA [Tendency A] opposes our policy. They recommend that we switch our alliances. Based solely on programmatic criteria, they say we should place a priority on the organizations claiming to be Trotskyist. Thus, in their last column, having condemned all the other currents for rejecting an "SP-CP government," they kept silent about one organization, the OCI. Does their silence imply agreement? It's quite plausible, since these comrades, following the OCI's example, see the "non-Trotskyist" far left as an obstacle to building the party, and thus are opposed in principle to any united-front agreement with them, whatever its political basis.
The policy that we are proposing, by way of contrast, fits into the framework of a process of rapprochement and discussion with the PSU, LO, and the OCT. The struggle against the repression aimed at the soldiers' committees and the CFDT [Confédération Française et Démocratique du Travail-French Democratic Confederation of Labor] activists has shown how we can involve significant sections of the workers movement in action, by combining our own intervention with a unity tactic toward other groups, and with which groups we can do this. Likewise, seeking an electoral agreement with LO and the OCT is a fruitful approach. It can demonstrate the revolutionary alternative to a much larger number of workers than would be the case if each group waged a scattered campaign, and offers the different lines and orientations a chance to confront one another in a fraternal way.