Statement by the International Committee of the Fourth International

[p040] A STATEMENT BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL IMPERIALISM can only retain its hold in Ceylon as in other colonial and semi-colonial countries through the medium of native ‘national’ leaders. In Ceylon the native capitalist parties are no longer able to govern alone; the economic and _ political crisis has raised the question of workers power, in alliance with the peasantry. Capitalist rule is being maintained only because the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, a workers’ party, which has until now claimed membership of the Fourth International, has entered into a coalition with the capitalist Bandaranaike government, with the purpose of disciplining the working class. The programme of the Fourth International and of Trotskyism has been completely abandoned by the majority of the LSSP. Its leaders have deserted to the side of imperialism. The International Committee condemns them as traitors and enemies of the working class. It welcomes the decision of a minority to form the new LSSP Revolutionary Section. Since the split in the Fourth International, after which the International Committee was formed, the LSSP has adhered to the International Secretariat until recently led by M. Pablo. While the Inter- national Secretariat has acclaimed the LSSP as ‘the only really mass Trotskyist party in the world, etc.’ the opportunist and parliamentary degeneration of the LSSP went on behind its public adherence to the Fourth International. Pabloism consists essentially of an abandonment of the perspective of constructing independent Marx- ist parties, relying instead on the inevitable ‘left’ development of the petty-bourgeois revisionists and of the Labour bureaucracies. This formed the ‘theoretical’ and political cover for the capitulation of N. M. Perera and the LSSP leaders. After the LSSP entered the coalition, the Unified Secretariat of the Pabloite revisionists expelled the three ministers, Perera, Anil Moonesinghe and Cholmondely Goonewardene, and suspended the 504 delegates who voted for the coalition. These were the fruits in Ceylon of the ‘re-unification’ of the Pabloites and others exactly one year ago. Pablo himself had been suspended from the Unified Secretariat along with his supporters on the Executive Committee only a few weeks earlier. In the European sections of the Pabloite Fourth Inter- national new splits are on the way; Frank and Germain who led the suspension of Pablo are openly going over to a programme of structural reforms which has developed in the ‘left’ social- democracy and the reformist Italian Communist Party. Pablo and his immediate clique are openly capi- tulating to Khrushchev, whilst Frank and Germain tag along with centrist currents in Western European social democracy and the Stalinist Parties. There is no basic difference in revisionist method between the two groups. They both serve different wings of the corrupt bureaucracies of Stalinism and Social- Democracy. When the Wnified Secretariat, consisting of the Pabloite International Secretariat and some former members of the International Committee was formed in June 1963 with the support of the Socialist Workers Party of the United States, the International Committee opposed this unification. We insisted that unification without political discussion and agreement was unprincipled and would, in fact, only prepare future splits weakening and not strengthening the Trotskyist movement. The procedure of unification without discussion flowed naturally from the Pabloite revisionism of FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SUMMER 1964

[p041] 86 DOCUMENTS INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL A STATEMENT BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL IMPERIALISM can only retain its hold in Ceylon as in other colonial and semi-colonial countries through the medium of native ‘national’ leaders. In Ceylon the native capitalist parties are no longer able to govern alone; the economic and political crisis has raised the question of workers power, in alliance with the peasantry. Capitalist rule is being maintained only because the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, a workers’ party, which has until now claimed membership of the Fourth International, has entered into a coalition with the capitalist Bandaranaike government, with the purpose of disciplining the working class. The programme of the Fourth International and of Trotskyism has been completely abandoned by the majority of the LSSP. Its leaders have deserted to the side of imperialism. The International Committee condemns them as traitors and enemies of the working class. It welcomes the decision of a minority to form the new LSSP Revolutionary Section. Since the split in the Fourth International, after which the International Committee was formed, the LSSP has adhered to the International Secretariat until recently led by M. Pablo. While the Inter- national Secretariat has acclaimed the LSSP as ‘the only really mass Trotskyist party in the world, etc.’ the opportunist and parliamentary degeneration of the LSSP went on behind its public adherence to the Fourth International. Pabloism consists essentially of an abandonment of the perspective of constructing independent Marx- ist parties, relying instead on the inevitable ‘left’ development of the petty-bourgeois revisionists and of the Labour bureaucracies. This formed the ‘theoretical’ and political cover for the capitulation _ of N. M. Perera and the LSSP leaders. After the LSSP entered the coalition, the Unified Secretariat of the Pabloite revisionists expelled the three ministers, Perera, Anil Moonesinghe and Cholmondely Goonewardene, and suspended the 504 delegates who voted for the coalition. These were the fruits in Ceylon of the ‘re-unification’ of the Pabloites and others exactly one year ago. Pablo himself had been suspended from the Unified Secretariat along with his supporters on the Executive Committee only a few weeks earlier. In the European sections of the Pabloite Fourth Inter- national new splits are on the way; Frank and Germain who led the suspension of Pablo are openly going over to a programme of structural reforms which has developed in the ‘left’ social- democracy and the reformist Italian Communist Party. Pablo and his immediate clique are openly capi- tulating to Khrushchev, whilst Frank and Germain tag along with centrist currents in Western European social democracy and the Stalinist Parties. There is no basic difference in revisionist method between the two groups. They both serve different wings of the corrupt bureaucracies of Stalinism and Social- Democracy. When the Wnified Secretariat, consisting of the Pabloite International Secretariat and some former members of the International Committee was formed in June 1963 with the support of the Socialist Workers Party of the United States, the International Committee opposed this unification. We insisted that unification without political discussion and agreement was unprincipled and would, in fact, only prepare future splits weakening and not strengthening the Trotskyist movement. ‘The procedure of unification without discussion flowed naturally from the Pabloite revisionism of FOURTH INTERNATIONAL SUMMER 1964

[p042] DOCUMENTS Marxism and the abandonment of the building of revolutionary parties. The betrayal in Ceylon only one year after the unification together with the suspension of Pablo has overwhelmingly confirmed our position. Discussion of differences was not permitted. Criticism of the LSSP or any other section was forbidden on the grounds that it would impede the unity of the Trotskyist movement. Pabloism thus consciously and directly prepared the betrayals of Perera and the LSSP majority. In the name of Trotskyism a defeat for the working class was organised.