crisis, some people again advanced the thesis that China is undergoing a Stalinist cycle analogous to that of the USSR after Lenin's death.
_Without repeating all the arguments advanced by the resolution of our last world congress, we can note, however, that the international political orientations of the Chinese CP, however much we have criticized them, cannot be equated to the traditional Stalinist lines of policy; and as for domestic policy, particularly economic policy, the specific traits that we have emphasized many times still exist. In addition it must not be forgotten that despite the use of ideological terrorism at present, no reliable source has reported the arrest up to now of critical elements who, as a rule, appear to remain members of the party and, in certain cases, of the Central Committee. As for relations with the masses, the methods peculiar to the Maoist leadership, more inclined to bureaucratic paternalism than to measures of repression, have not been abandoned and it is particularly significant that one of the most frequent ideological themes advanced by the ruling group is the one dealing with equalitarianism which the Soviet bureaucracy has condemned since the thirties as inspired by petty-bourgeois concepts. But above all it should be noted that after Lenin's death, the bureaucracy rose victoriously, succeeding in consolidating its hegemony ~- if only temporarily from the historic point of view -- against the forces that resisted it. The Chinese events of today are unfolding within the framework of the world crisis of the bureaucratic system that opened up with the break between Stalin and Yugoslavia, exploding in the Polish and Hungarian crisis of October 19, 1956, and reaching a new stage with the Sino-Soviet conflict of the sixties and all its multiple repercussions.
(8) The current crisis has been marked up to now much more by the intrabureaucratic conflicts than by confrontations between the masses and the bureaucracy as a whole. It expresses in the final analysis the limits and contradictions in the concepts and attitudes which the Chinese leaders have adopted since the period of 1958-59, under the pressure of national and international events. It also reflects the pressure of factors which are relevant today, be it only as general tendencies, and most strongly those which characterize the present international situation; to wit, the crisis of the Communist movement and the imperialist aggression in Vietnam.
As the Fourth International stressed from the time when first indications of the -conflict between Moscow and Peking became manifest, the specific objective conditions in which it occurred impelled the Chinese leadership to adopt more progressive overall positions than the concepts of the CP of the USSR, a posture more likely to get a favor- ‘able response from the left-wing currents in the international workers movement. But since the Chinese leadership remained within the framework of a bureaucratic regime, its relatively more progressive positions could not go beyond certain limits; moreover at a given moment these progressive features tended inevitably to become dissipated and the Chinese bureaucracy could not avoid growing difficulties and a genuine impasse.
In the field of international policy, it was particularly in relation to the crisis in Indonesia and the course of the war in Vietnam that the Chinese positions underwent a severe test. The maintenance, despite criticisms leveled against Khrushchevism, of out-and-out opportunist orientations with regard to certain national bourgeoisies of the colonial or ex-colonial countries, and the determination to subordinate to a large degree the needs of the anticapitalist revolutionary struggle of the masses to the diplomatic needs of the state unquestionably contributed to the tragic defeat of the Indonesian CP, the most faithful ally of the Chinese OP for a number of years. The rejection a priori of a united front with the USSR and the other workers states on the Vietnam war seriously injured the cause of the National Liberation Front and the defense of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and, in the final analysis, of the Chinese People's Republic itself, threatened as it likewise is by imperialist aggression. All this -- together with the utilization of odious methods of pressure and even blackmail (for instance, on the matter of rice for Cuba, and the reprisals against the Japanese CP) -contributed in a decisive way to the growing isolation of the Chinese leaders in the international Communist movement, the organizations and groups that support them being
in almost all cases sects without real influence, headed by bureaucrats much more concerned about faithfully echoing the official thesis promulgated by Peking than in-elaborating a new revolutionary orientation for the workers movement of their countries.
In the economic field, the great leap forward was rather rapidly abandoned and even the commune movement underwent serious rectifications. But the course followed during the past five or six years, while making possible an unquestionable reorganiza-— tion and a palpable recovery and even important gains in some scientific and military fields, involved quite modest rates of growth, insufficient to assure the expansion needed by the Chinese economy. The orientations of the new plan do not yet seem to be fully determined; in any case, without profound changes, multiple difficulties will arise at various stages.
In the field of culture, after the rectification following "the 100 Flowers" campaign, the Maoist leadership has oscillated between a relative and strictly limited liberalism and an absolutely rigid control, justified by Zhdanov-like arguments. The consequence was that the leadership has not been able to prevent critical concepts from emerging within the top bodies of the party and the state as well as elsewhere. In addition the leadership provoked grave tensions when it tried to fill in the breaches which it considered in various ways to be very dangerous.
All these contradictions could not help but arouse conflicts. within the leadership itself as it sought new ways to get out from under. These conflicts and the methods which the Mao group has applied in its campaign against its adversaries, particularly in the recent phase, aggravated the crisis by further stimulating critical attitudes with regard to the leaders among broad masses of activists and cadres, creating a situation in which antibureaucratic tendencies are emerging, even if only spontaneous and incipient ones. This could be the prelude to a new stage in which the tensions between the bureaucracy and the masses would take precedence over the intrabureaucratic confrontation. :
(9) The Fourth International maintains that the crisis in recent months has confirmed its estimate that the Chinese leadership, despite the positive role it played in criticizing the leadership of the CPUSSR and the majority of the Communist parties, remains a bureaucratic leadership. The struggle for proletarian democracy against such a leadership cannot bring about a qualitative change in the political regime. except by means of a profound mobilization of the masses capable of breaking through the framework of the bureaucratic system, and by the action of a new Marxist revolutionary vanguard able to orient the mass movement towards establishing a democratic proletarian power.
At the present stage, the Fourth International reaffirms the need to establish a united front of all the workers states and parties on a platform of consistent struggle against the American aggression in Vietnam. While the Fourth International maintains its severe criticism of the major responsibility of the Soviet bureaucracy; while we hold that the distrust on the part of China can be explained by a whole series of positions by Moscow (extending from its passive attitude in Vietnam to its equivocal policy in Europe and from military aid to the reactionary Hindu bourgeoisie to the loan granted the militarist government of Brazil); while we believe that a Soviet leadership measuring up to its duties would reaffirm its alliance with China in the hour of danger and make clear to imperialism without any possibility of misunderstanding that a war against China would be considered an attack against the Soviet Union, it likewise condemns the outright rejection by Mao-Lin Piao of a united front and joint action.
As for the economic problems, while the Fourth International rejects any Libermantype technocratic solution, involving in reality a strengthening of various particular layers of the bureaucracy and an accentuation of inadmissible social inequality in a workers state, we likewise hold that a balanced economic growth in China is not possible except by instituting workers management, by applying the methods of democratic centralized planning, and by the democratic coordination of economic planning in the workers state.
The Fourth International maintains that a workers state must adhere to equalitarian concepts -- in the concrete historic sense outlined by Marx and Lenin -- and abolish all forms of privilege. With regard to the current propaganda of the Chinese CP, we denounce first of all the gap between ideological expressions and reality and call attention next to the fact that in the final analysis real communist equality cannot be established except on the basis of a very high level of the productive forces, and to the fact that in the transitional period the only means to approach this aim is by fighting against any form of bureaucratic domination and leadership and for the widest internal democracy in the party, in the unions, in the mass organizations, in the activities of the state and in the administration at all levels.
In.the field of culture, the Fourth International while rejecting the deformation of the positions of Trotsky and the Trotskyists by the official organs of the Soviet bureaucracy reaffirms that the struggle against the ideology of the past and against the possible distortions emanating from the influence of the class enemy cannot be conducted effectively through administrative measures and the imposition of stereotyped slogans or ossified norms. It must be won on the basis of the autonomous development of the potentialities of the new society, from an expansion of the genuinely critical spirit and the free confrontation of varying orientations and concepts. In particular the practice of a leadership cult carried to its most grotesque expression, must be condemned in the most emphatic way, since this practice threatens to stifle any spirit of independent judgment, to cripple any collective teamwork, thereby making impossible a really democratic life in the labor movement and in the state.
With regard to the problems of the international workers movement, the Fourth International holds that a whole series of recent experiences -- in the first place the catastrophe in Indonesia -- must be critically probed to the bottom. Those responsible for the policy which led to the disastrous defeat must be mercilessly denounced. The renovation of the world Communist movement in a new mass international -- to the formation of which the Fourth International has made and will continue to make an indispens-— able contribution -- is not possiple without the most complete internal democracy, and real equality among all sectors of the movement, without the rejection of any direct or indirect imposition of weight by the most powerful workers states. Only along this road will it be possible to develop a strategic and tactical line corresponding to the burning necessities of our times and to assure enthusiastic single-minded discipline in action.
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