After the Reunification Congress of 1963, there were only two national organizations of any significant size or political influence claiming to be Trotskyist that stayed outside the Fourth International. One was the OCI [Organisation Communiste Internationaliste- Internationalist Communist Organization], linked to the AJS [Alliance des Jeunes pour le Socialisme- Alliance of Youth for Socialism], led by Pierre Lambert in France. The other was the SLL [Socialist Labour League] in Great Britain led by Gerry Healy. These two organizations were linked together in an "International Committee," whose declared aim was to "reconstruct" the Fourth International, allegedly "destroyed" by the "Pabloites." A split has just occurred between these two formations.
On October 12 a statement was published, signed by Lambert, the Bolivian Guillermo Lora, and the Hungarian B. Nagy, in which the SLL was accused of capitulating to pressures of a Pabloite type. 1 In response, the SLL, in association with a few politically insignificant groups in various countries, published a statement October 24 declaring that the OCI had finally carried through to an open break a split that it had begun at the Essen Conference in July 1970.2 At this conference, the statement said, Lambert had voted, along with the POUM [Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista- Workers Party of Marxist Unity], among others, against a document proposed by Healy.
The OCI published its statement in the form of a leaflet distributed by the tens of thousands. In the November 5 issue of its organ Workers Press, the SLL devoted a two-page spread to an English translation of the OCI document along with a reply four times longer than the text itself.
Despite the attempt by the protagonists of the dispute to give their quarrel mass publicity, it is of no interest to the working class. This affair does hold a certain interest, however, for vanguard militants, in particular for members of the Fourth International dedicated to building their worldwide organization and its national sections. The polemic between Healy and Lambert (I will use the names of the leaders from here on for the sake of convenience) will probably not be limited to the October 12 and 24 documents. But these two texts, already published, make it possible to identify the differences clearly and raise some questions.
The Lambertist leaflet has very little political content in the true sense of the word. It is primarily a vociferous defense of the Lora POR [Partido Obrero Revolucionario - Revolutionary Workers party), which it claimed assured the "class independence" of the People's Assembly in Bolivia by forcing the pro-Moscow Communist party to accept a united front.
Those who criticized Lora were supposed to be the "hidden and open enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat." In attacking the POR, the statement said, the SLL had capitulated to "enormous pressures" (in particular from "Pabloites of all shadings").
Healy's document has much more political content, constituting a condemnation of Lambert's policy as a whole. This condemnation goes all the way back to the 1950s, because during the Algerian war, Lambert supported Messali Hadj. On the question of the Vietnam war, Healy reproaches Lambert for associating with the American National Student Association, a right-wing organization that put forward the slogan of "Sign a Peace Treaty With Vietnam" at the Lambertist conference in Essen. Likewise, he scores Lambert for refusing "to campaign in support of a victory for the National Liberation Front, because of its Stalinist leadership. ... This led to a situation on the eve of the 1968 Tet offensive where comrade Berg openly stated an abstentionist position on Vietnam."
Healy also denounces Lambert for "years of refusal to support the struggle of the Palestinian people for self-determination, and inability to take the side of the Arab revolution against Zionism and US imperialism. ..." After this, the statement continues, Lambert glorified the Irbid "Soviet." Healy concludes that this line represented "inability to fight against the Stalinists and petty-bourgeois nationalists in a real fight for independent leadership in the anti-imperialist struggle, and at the same time an abstract demagogy about the victory of the workers and peasants. ..."
On the question of the Lora POR, Healy is unmerciful. He notes that it was Lambert himself who formulated the first public criticisms of Lora in 1970 for his collaboration with the pro-Moscow CP at the congress of the COB [Central Obrera Boliviana-Bolivian Labor Federation]. Healy also pointed out, citing Lora's own words as evidence, that the Bolivian leader himseli admitted aiter Banzer's coup that he had thought General Torres's government would give arms to the masses in order "to neutralize" the right-wing officers.
But it is on Lambert's policies in France that Healy's attack is especially severe. It warrants being quoted at length because the whole story, or almost the whole story, is there.
In the first place, Healy accuses Lambert of having drawn such pessimistic conclusions from de Gaulle's rise to power that he was incapable of preparing for May 1968 and that as a result he tail-ended during the events them selves.
"May-June 1968, with the French workers on General Strike, themselves striving for an alternative government, was the greatest testing time for the OCI. But what did the strike reveal?
"It revealed the theoretical bankruptcy and political impotence of the OCI whose leadership- guided by a superficial impressionist analysis of de Gaulle's coup in 1958 — had exaggerated the strength and viability of the Fifth Republic, abandoned its revolutionary perspective and written off the revolutionary capacities of the French working class.
"This defeatist conception, which extended even to the Vietnam war, was summed up in the rationalization of Lambert that the French working class was 'decisively defeated in 1958'. This pessimistic and essentially middle class outlook expressed itself in all the organizatior and agitational work of the OCI and the AJS before and after 1968. It is an undeniable fact that at no time during the General Strike did the OCI leadership advance a socialist programme. Nor did it attempt to undermine the political credibility of the Stalinist leadership by critically supporting the demand of the Renault workers for a 'popular government' by advancing the demand of a CP-CGT government. Instead, the OCI leaders tail-ended the working class and restricted the political scope of the strike by demanding a central strike committee. This was a complete evasion of the political [emphasis in the original] responsibilities of revolutionary leadership."
This same tail-ending tendency, Healy said, was shown in the 1969 presidential election. In practice the Lambertists split, some voting for Duclos, others for Deferre, and still others, like Lambert himself, abstaining.
"Even from this 1968 experience the lessons were not learned. In fact the abstentionist methods and omissions of the General Strike period were continued into the presidential elections of 1969.
"In the referendum in March of the same year, the OCI had correctly campaigned for a vote against de Gaulle, in contrast to the abstentionism of the Pabloites. However, the gains from this correct turn were lost in the presidential elections, the class character of which was ignored by the OCI. Basing themselves on their fraudulent theory of the 'United Class Front', the OCI leaders used the failure of the CP and Socialist Party to agree on a single candidate as a pretext for not supporting the CP candidate, Duclos, against Pompidou.
"The task of revolutionaries was to raise the consciousness of Stalinist rank and file by critically supporting Duclos and pointing out that the main enemy was Pompidou. The OCI should have campaigned throughout the labour movement to demand that the CP candidate be pledged to a socialist policy against the banks and monopolies. To carry forward this fight, while calling for a massive vote for Duclos, was the best way to exposing the Stalinists and their programme of 'advanced democracy' and fighting for alternative revolutionary leadership. Any other course leaves the Stalinist control undisturbed. It was also necessary to expose the SP candidate whose party refused to vote for Duclos in the second ballot and supported the bourgeois candidate, Poher.
"The OCI leaders did none of these things. Some members voted for Duclos, others for Deferre (SP) and others, including comrade Lambert, abstained. What was worse, the OCI attacked the Stalinists for having dared to stand a candidate in the elections despite the fact that the Stalinists in the previous presidential elections in 1965 did not do so and instead supported Mitterand [Mitterrand], a bourgeois politician."
In Healy's opinion these were not accidental errors, because Lambert has oriented not toward the workers influenced by the Stalinists but toward the more backward ones following the Social Democrats: "At no time has the OCI been able consistently to put forward a pol icy and programme to bring it close to the mass of t French workers who vote for the Stalinists and are oi ganized around the Stalinist-led CGT. Instead they have orientated towards those sections still supporting the socialdemocrats, primarily in the older industries."
This orientation toward the Social Democracy has recently been intensified. After all, isn't it necessary to "save" Mitterrand's Socialist party?
After long denying all revolutionary perspectives, Lambert has now discovered "the imminence of revolution." This turn, which to my knowledge was made without any serious explanation, has not changed the Lambertist policy. As before, this policy still consists in calling for a "united class front." Healy denounces this as abandoning the perspective of building a revolutionary party:
"Now the OCI, using the formula, 'imminence of revolution', elaborating a schema of natural stages through which the working class passes on the road to power, distorting the tactic of united front of the working class, has taken the road of liquidationism laid down by these revisionists."
Earlier in the document, Healy says: "Within this framework the OCI's position on the 'united class front' becomes a complete liquidation of the party and its subordination to the Stalinist and social democratic parties and union apparatus. Lenin and Trotsky saw the united front as a tactic [emphasis in the original] and not a strategy as the OCI claim. They saw it as a relationship between mass workers' parties of a temporary character for the purpose of winning the masses to the Communist Party. The OCI has transformed this into an overall 'unity' of the class achieved on the basis of its present leadership, without the participation in the united front of our party. This 'united class front' more and more, in their theorizing and practice, takes over the role of the revolutionary party itself."
Finally, to mask this opportunist policy, Healy says, Lambert has been reduced to trying to pull off spectacular bluffs. This is what Healy writes about the Essen demonstration:
"The Essen rally itself was conceived and carried through by the OCI as a diversion from the unresolved problems of their work in the French working class. An artificial formula was constructed which made W Germany the focal point of the workers' struggle in Europe, and then the OCI led their youth movement to a rally where less than 200 German youth participated, and real political work to build sections of the FI was replaced by demagogy and showmanship."
A few days after these lines were written, the Lambertists were still bluffing, making a claim of 40,000 participants in the October 31 demonstration in Paris, a figure which their own press cut to 20,000 the week after. In fact, the actual number was far lower. 3
All of the criticisms Healy raises-tail-ending in the class struggle in France, orienting toward the Social Democracy, opportunism in limiting their policy to a "united front" line, bluffing, refusing to struggle in support of Vietnam, etc.- are very similar, if not identical, to those long expressed by the Ligue Communiste. In particular, these criticisms have been formulated in Comrade Henri Weber's pamphlet Qu'est-ce que l'A.J. S. - Contribution à l'analyse de l'extrême-gauche [What Is the AJS- A Contribution to the Analysis of the Extreme Left], which is to be published shortly.
It will be interesting to read what Lambert writes in reply to this very vigorous settling of accounts by Healy. But while a number of the SLL leader's criticisms are correct, this does not mean that all that he says in his attack is free from error, particularly where he mentions "Pabloism," which for him means the Fourth International.
Furthermore, in some cases Healy does more than commit errors! For instance, on the matter of the 1969 presidential election, he curiously forgets about Krivine's campaign, which redounded to the credit of Trotskyism. He is careful also to avoid saying anything about the position of the Fourth International and its adherents in May 1968, about their defense of Vietnam and the Arab revo lution, or about their effective participation in mass mobilizations in France such as the "Guyot affair," the demonstrations against the Burgos trial, and the counterdemonstration against the Ordre Nouveau meeting, and others. 4
On each of these occasions, the Ligue Communiste took a clear position and conducted a vigorous campaign. At the same time, the Lambertists followed an abstentionist line that was a pale reflection of the one taken by the PCF [Parti Communiste Français-French Communist party].
In the case of Bolivia, Healy falsifies the facts. It is not true that Lora was "the major supporter of Pablo in Latin America in 1952." At the time of the 1952-53 split in the Fourth International, Lora was in no way concerned with what was going on in the international movement (in which his interest was always only relative). At that time he was involved in a split from the Bolivian section of the Fourth International.
Lora did not expand his horizons beyond the Bolivian national scene until the 1960s, when he took a trip outside Latin America. At that time, he thought he saw the possibility of finding "allies" in the "International Committee," among other places, against the Bolivian section of the Fourth International and its leader, Comrade Hugo González Moscoso.
Moreover, and this is even graver, Healy chose to lie outright when he said that the "international Pabloites" -meaning by that what is called the POR-González in Bolivia - had the same policy toward the Torres government that Lora had. In his own document, Healy cites a statement by Lora that, by condemning the "ultraleftists and the Pabloites" for their policy toward Torres, proves exactly the opposite of this assertion. Healy cannot be unaware of the many statements by Comrade Gonzalez that leave no doubt about the policy followed by the section of the Fourth International in Bolivia. He cannot be unaware that Lora allied himself with the pro-Moscow CP in order to block the admission of the POR-González to the People's Assembly, along with the peasant organization led and, insofar as possible, armed by the POR. Healy cannot be unaware of these facts. They were reported in English publications that he follows regularly.
While waiting for the development of the split now made public to give Healy and Lambert a chance to formulate their differences, and thus their respective political lines, still more clearly, I should like to raise two important points.
First: Healy has accused Lambert of capitulating to "Pabloism," and vice versa, Lambert has accused Healy of the same thing. Poor Pablo would certainly like to meet all these "Pabloites" haunting Healy and Lambert! In fact "Pabloism" is an invention dating from 1952-53, when it was used in an attempt to explain the split. This concept represented an incorrect extrapolation of the policy advocated by the Fourth International at the time. Lambert and Healy preserved this invention and tried to use it as a master key instead of striving to understand events as they are, to understand the analyses of these events made by the fourth International, and to grasp the political line it deduced from them.
Anyone who claimed to be a Trotskyist and did not share the positions of the men of the "International Committee" was a "Pabloite," including the comrades of Lutte Ouvrière, who must certainly wonder what they ever did to deserve this charge. Today, even in breaking with each other, Healy and Lambert remain prisoners of their invention. Let us wager that if they are unable to free themselves from it, they will end up by finding "Pabloism" springing up everywhere in their own ranks.
The most important question, however, is not "Pabloism." Healy and Lambert claimed to be "reconstructing" the Fourth International, an international whose Trotskyist orthodoxy would be equal to any test. In this attempt, they have disregarded the real Fourth International, whose sections and supporters-like the Socialist Workers party in the United States- have been making notable progress for some years and becoming a factor in the political life of some countries.
For years Healy and Lambert together claimed to be "reconstructing" the Fourth International. The axis of their strategy for accomplishing this was a struggle against the "Pabloite International." All those who joined Healy and Lambert's organizations started out by going through a course of education that denounced "Pabloism" as enemy No. 1. It must be assumed that this education was defective, because now both Lambert and Healy are supposed to be infected with "Pabloism."
But the main question that arises now is: With whom does either of them contemplate "reconstructing" the Fourth International? As long as they were united, as illusory as their project was in reality, it might have deceived some people, helped to create insignificant groups here and there. Now that Healy and Lambert are in conflict with each other, the unreality of this undertaking seems indisputable, save for incurable sectarians. The latter, of course, will prefer self-justifying formulas rather than an attempt to comprehend the reality and to search for true explanation for this rupture between Healy and Lambert.
These two leaders opposed the reunification of 1962-63 under pretext that it was carried through without all of the problems of the past having been clarified. "Pabloism" had to be cauterized out before there could be any question of Trotskyist reunification. At the same time, they rejected the answers that the reunifying forces had reached on the new problems posed by postwar developments. They clung to every letter, every word, every comma of the Transitional Program.
But the letter of the texts was not enough. What held Healy and Lambert together was their sectarian, shopkeeper concept of organization. In terms of their political ideas, Healy leans toward ultralettism (not the Maoist or spontaneist but the "Third Period" Stalinist type), while Lambert is by nature an opportunist.
For years Healy and Lambert managed to collaborate in opposing the "Pabloite International," although not without occasional friction. New events and the new perspectives opened up to Trotskyists since May 1968 have finally broken the agreement between these two antagonistic political currents that were united against "Pabloism."
In contrast to this, the Fourth International has not indulged in a mere repetition of formulas but has striven to carry the Trotskyist movement forward by offering appropriate answers to the new problems. In this it has succeeded, not by making big publicity campaigns around certain dates arbitrarily set for the convenience of some political propaganda shop, but through continuous internal discussion and through involvement in the class struggle. The Fourth International is not concerned with the declarations of sects hurling their excommunications to the four winds. It is indefatigably building new revolutionary leaderships and thus accomplishing the task it set itself at its foundation.
November 10, 1971
Notes
1. See the November 1 issue of Intercontinental Press for the full text.—IP
2. See the November 22 issue of Intercontinental Press for the full text.—IP
3. The police estimate, according to the November 2 Le Monde, was 5,000.—IP
4. The arrest and sentencing of a young high-school student, Gilles Guyot, in Paris in late February 1971 led to some of the largest mobilizations of youth against police repression since the spring of 1968. For the facts, see "Paris High-School Students Win in Huge Street Demonstrations," Intercontinental Press, March 8, p. 199. On the Burgos demonstrations in support of the Basque nationalists being tried before a Franco court, see "What the Basque Solidarity Demonstrations Showed," Intercontinental Press, February 1, p. 82. The counterdemonstrations against the Ordre Nouveau mass public meeting February 26, 1970, were aimed at preventing the rise of a new fascist movement in France.—IP
5. There are two organizations in Bolivia named "Partido Obrero Revolucionario." In Bolivia and elsewhere in Latin America, they are commonly identified as the "POR de Lora" and the "POR de Gonzalez" or "POR-Lora" and "POR-Gonzalez" after the two main leaders, Guillermo Lora and Hugo Gonzalez Moscoso. In France and England, Gonzalez is often referred to as "Moscoso." In translating Pierre Frank's article, we have corrected his references to correspond with Hispanic-American usage.—IP