FRANK SPEAKS IN LONDON
*y Brian Gormley
Londoners recently | had an opportunity to hear Pierre Frank, a leader of the French Trotskyist movement and a member of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. He addressed several meetings in “England on an invitational basis and on March 4 gave a public lecture on the topic, "The Havana Tricontinental Conference and the - World Congress of the Fourth International. .
Analyzing the world situation, the speaker pointed to the escalation of the war in Vietnam and the number of military coups in various countries recently as evidence of the increasing lack of inhibition in the drive of American imperialism to contain and push back the colonial revolution. It follows from this, he maintained, that the revolutionary movement in each country must have an international strategy, a world approach to the solution of its tasks.
He. cited statements made. by the Cuban evolutionists to the’ effect that if uprisings occurred in other countries, American imperialism would not be able to do what it is doing in Vietnan. Such declarations at the Tricontinental Conference , he held, indicated the need for a world outlook.
The basic weakness of the conference in Havana, Frank told the audience, lay in the fact that many of the delegations, instead of representing independent revolutionary movements, came from workers states or states that have won 'a measure of political independence from imperialism, thus being limited by the conservative bureaucratic outlook or passing diplomatic needs of the ruling layers of these countries. Consequently, despite its many positive achievements, the Tricontinental Conference was unable to work out a consistent world strategy of revolutionary struggle.
Castro's attack on Trotskyism, which came at the end of the Tricontinental Conference, was considered at length by Pierre Frank.: He cited the points made in reply by the United Secretariat in an Open Letter to Fidel Castro.
_ Turning to the recent world congress held by the Fourth International, the second since the International Secretariat and International Committee. _gjoined forces at the Reunification Congress in +1963 » and the eighth congress since the founding of the Fourth International in 1938, Frank stressed its differences from a gathering like the one held in Havana.
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The delegates at the congress of the Fourth International had no ‘government ties but were linked directly to the masses and political opposition movements in a number of countries, including ‘the workers states. Because of this, they could expand and develop their ideas in a free and democratic atmosphere.
He described the long preparatory discussion in the International on the basis of five documents submitted by the United Secretariat. The culmination of this discussion was a debate at the congress in which delegates were free to alter the documents or bring in new ones as they saw fit. He called special attention to the document on the African revolution as an example of the effort of tne Fourth International to consider and to find answers to some very, complex problems in the continent of Africa.
‘The audience, which was composed in good. part of representa~ tives of colonial, freedom movements living in London, engaged ina~ lively discussion with the speaker following his presentation.
The West German. government ‘announced March Ze, that it has. agreed to underwrite a credit of $87,500,000 on a $150,000,000 steel mill for the People's Republic of