Editorial

[p004] EDITORIAL 1969 will undoubtedly mark a decisive stage in the crisis of international capitalism, a stage which must produce an enormous upsurge in the class struggle throughout Europe and North America. This stage is marked, essentially, by the new relationship between American and European capital. The boom of the post-war years was sustained above all by the strength of American capital, reflected in the pre-eminent position of the dollar as the leading world currency. From 1945 onwards, America was able to intervene at every critical stage and shore up the weaker capitalist economies of Western Europe. This strength was decisive, producing a general, if uneven, expansion in the world economy on which the stability of each capitalist state rested. Recent months have witnessed a fundamental evolution in these relationships. No longer is the ‘strength’ of American capital and the dollar sufficient to overcome the mounting and acute problems of the European ecogomy. Further- more, in order to ‘improve’ its balance of pay- ments position and ‘strengthen’ the dollar, American imperialism now requires to launch an unprecedentedly severe economic and _ financial war against Europe, a war which it is in the course of actively preparing. The fundamental weaknesses of the dollar which make this onslaught necessary can be traced back to the late 1950s. It was at this time that the American balance of payments surplus began to disappear, to be replaced by an in- creasingly large deficit. The massive responsibili- ties which rested on the shoulders of American Editorial capital—calling for large military and ‘aid’ ex- penditure overseas—had begun to take their toll. The problem was seriously aggravated by the massive export of private capital abroad, especially into Europe. This was necessary in order to avoid pressure upon the rate of profit in the United States. Despite some attempts under Kennedy to ease the crisis by squeezing the ‘underdeveloped’ countries in the early 1960s, little was done to tackle the root of the problem. From 1964 American policy was designed to sustain sterling through massive loans and credits made available to the Wilson govern- ment. In doing this the Johnson administration was largely concerned with the crisis which would ensue for the dollar should sterling be forced to devalue. The November 1967 devalua- tion of the pound thus marked a decisive stage in the evolution of the crisis. Not only was it a major blow at the economic and financial poli- cies of the Labour government, it was also a severe setback to the strategy of American capital. From November 1967 onwards, the dollar was in ‘the front line of the currency crisis. Johnson’s State of the Union message in January of last year recognized this. Johnson made proposals for tax increases to halt inflation, for strict limitation on foreign tourism and for heavier taxation on capital in- vested abroad. But these measures proved totally inadequate to halt the wave of speculation against the dollar which followed sterling de- _ valuation. By March, the dollar itself came perilously near to devaluation in the panic

[p005] buying of gold—much of it by American finan- cial interests. The ‘two-tier’ system which was hurriedly produced could solve nothing. It was a temporary measure taken until the divided American ruling class could work out a more decisive strategy. No sooner had this ‘arrangement’ been worked out than a new force was to enter the scene— the working class of Western Europe. The May- June events in France enormously aggravated an already serious situation. Despite the betrayals of leadership by Stalinism, the de Gaulle regime was forced to make large wage concessions to the working class. These concessions, through their impact upon the balance of payments, pro- -duced a serious crisis for the French franc which came to a head in the closing months of 1968. This crisis now in turn threatens the stability of the entire monetary system of Western Europe. Although loans were made available to the de Gaulle regime, no solution was forthcoming from the bankers and industrialists. In fact dis- unity and division amongst the various capitalist interests threatened to dominate. Despite pres- sure from the Americans, British and French, the German government refused to revalue the Deutsche-mark. It was hoped that this would at least have brought a temporary respite to the enormous speculative movement of capital. The abortive series of talks at Bonn and Basle in November and December of 1968 indicate deep rifts within the capitalist class of almost every major capitalist country. In Germany, for example, the bankers appeared to favour a mark revaluation, while the industrialists opposed such a move, fearing that it would price them out of key export markets on which the entire German economic miracle has rested. . Similarly in the United States. There are now deep divisions between the economic advisers of Johnson on the one hand and those of the incoming Nixon administration on the other. After giving repeated assurances that the exist- ing dollar price of gold would be defended to the end, Nixon’s advisers have pointedly refused to commit themselves to the continuation of such a policy. But a dollar devaluation, which is now widely feared would lead to a major currency war on a far higher level than in the disastrous ‘devaluation cycle’ of the 1930s. Alongside this must go, an increasing “pene: tration by the Americans of European capital. The taxation on capital export has led, over the past year, to the establishment of innumerable American banks in London and other European financial centres. American capital is now em- barked upon economic war with its weaker European rivals which will mean the elimination, rationalization and centralization of large areas of European capital under American dominance. This, then, is the immediate implication of this new stage in the crisis: the intensification of the trade war between all the major capitalist powers. Already France and Britain are em- barked upon vicious deflationary policies to defend their currencies and a similar policy of deflation, tighter credit, restrictions on imports and a drive for more exports will mark the policies of the Nixon administration. With three major capitalist countries involved simultane- ously in deflationary programmes there must be a severe check on the rate of expansion in world trade. This is now recognized by the most optimistic of capitalist commentators. Superimposed upon this crisis is an impending breakdown in the world monetary system. The plans devised by Keynes and others at Bretton Woods at the end of the war are now on the very edge of disintegration. From March on- wards the ‘unofficial’ price of gold has rarely fallen below 40 dollars an ounce. This itself is equivalent to an effective 15 per cent devalua- tion of the dollar. In these circumstances the trend towards a formal dollar devaluation is irreversible. At the centre of the crisis stands the working class. Each capitalist class of Europe now stands alone in battle against its own working class, in a desperate struggle for survival. Only through a decisive confrontation with the working class can this crisis be ‘solved’. De Gaulle’s massive attacks upon the French working class, together Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p006] with his warnings about ‘indiscipline’ show the way for the ruling class of Western Europe as a whole. In Britain, the ruling class is also pre- paring for massive political changes. Despite its plans for further attacks on the unions, there is no doubt that a decisive section of this ruling class is preparing to get rid of the Wilson gov- ernment. Any major confrontation between the unions and the state would almost certainly provoke another sterling devaluation but would also bring about the Labour government’s down- fall. A General Election would see the return of a Tory government with a substantial majority ready to carry out extreme right-wing policies. At the same time, the working class faces this unified economic and political crisis after almost 25 years of boom during which it has forced up its wages considerably compared with those of IN OFFERING for sale at 25s. ‘The Basic Writings of Trotsky’, New Park Publications are providing Marxists with a real bargain. This volume, priced normally at 42s., gives extracts from nearly every one of Trotsky’s major works and also includes a number of less well-known pieces. Excellently pro- duced, it covers much of the enormous range of Troisky’s writings, from the 1905 Revolution to the fight against the Moscow Trials. Thus we get a picture of the career of a revolutionary and the destiny of the Russian Revolution itself. Among the passages not readily available elsewhere are ‘Thermidor and Anti-Semitism’ and an essay on the French novelist Céline. Pre- viously untranslated into English are an extract from ‘1905’, a tribute to Gogol and a passage from Trotsky’s unfinished ‘Life of Lenin’. Anyone just beginning to read Trotsky’s work would do well to buy this book at once. price 25s. NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 Editorial the 1930s. To solve its crisis the capitalist class must endeavour to break the resistance of the working class. 1969 must be a decisive year for the working class in Western Europe as it enters this new stage of its development, with it many rich political lessons. For the revolutionary movement it is not enough merely to rest on this undoubted strength of the working class. This power of the working class can only be realized given a successful struggle against the false and treacher- ous leadership of Stalinism and social-democ- racy. This was the lesson of France. 1969 must be the year in which the parties of the Inter- national Committee of the Fourth International respond in a fresh and urgent way to the new stage in the class struggle which the intense crisis of capitalism has already opened up. otuced by IRVIEG HOWE 91

[p007] Imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy in crisis Political revolution in Czechoslovakia Statement by the International Committee of the Fourth International 21 October 1968 . 92 Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p008] Imperialism . and the Soviet bureaucracy in crisis Political revolution in Czechoslovakia Statement by the international Committee of the Fourth International 21 October 1968 92 Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p009] Unconditional support for the Czechoslovak people and working class The political revolution in Czechoslovakia THE NATURE of the Soviet bureaucracy has not changed. The Czech proletariat is experiencing in a very bitter way just how much the slick ‘theories’ of the middle class and the renegades from the Fourth International about ‘the gradual democratization and re-absorption of the Soviet bureaucracy’ through a succession of reforms are really worth. The Soviet bureaucracy and the satellite bureau- cracies of the Democratic Republic of Germany, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria sent their armies to occupy Czechoslovakia in order to crush the Czech working class. With the dislocation of the Czech bureaucratic apparatus, which was dependent on Moscow, the way was opened for the political revolution. The working class was already formulating its demands. It was able to establish its own methods of organization and political expression. Such are the beginnings— from now on the classical beginnings—of the political revolution, which the workers in those countries where the capitalists have been expropriated of the principal means of production must carry out in order to seize political power, drive out the parasitic bureaucracy and run the planned economy in their own interests. The Hungarian revolution of workers’ councils was coming to life again on Czech soil. What determined the armed intervention of the Soviet bureaucracy was neither a threat of the restora- tion of capitalism nor so-called ‘Soviet imperialism’. It was a question of a brutally repressive political action in self-defence. The development of the political revolution cannot be confined to Czechoslovakia, its impetus drives it towards Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In struggling for political power, the Czech prole- tariat disturbed the precarious balance of class forces in Europe and internationally. The crisis of the bureaucratic regime in Czechoslovakia is an expression of the linked crisis of imperialism and the Soviet Political revolution in Czechoslovakia bureaucracy. It means that the working class is taking up the struggle for political power throughout Europe, and that it tends to merge into a single process the social revolution in the capitalist countries and the political revolution against the parasitic bureaucracies, and thus lays the foundations for the United Socialist States of Europe. The general strike in France and the beginnings of the political revolution in Czechoslovakia re- introduce into the struggle for socialism its real content—universality. The armed intervention of the Soviet bureaucracy against the Czech proletariat is the iron fist of the counter-revolution, which attempts to smash the drive of the working class towards socialism. Neither the Soviet bureaucracy nor imperialism can tolerate the fire of proletarian revolution being kindled right in the centre of Europe, no more than they could permit the French general strike to be victorious. In intervening militarily in Czechoslovakia, the Soviet bureaucracy acts as the agent of international counter-revolution. It intervened there for the same reason that it supports de Gaulle, one of the main factors in the ‘maintenance of order’ in Europe. The ‘norms’ of the counter-revolutionary Soviet bureaucracy THE MOSCOW diktat imposed on the leaders of the Czech state and Communist Party specified that : ‘An agreement has been reached on the measures to be taken with a view to normalizing the situa- tion as quickly as possible in the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. The Czech leaders have in- formed the Soviet party of the measures they are now taking for this purpose.’ What ‘normalizing the situation’ in the language of the Soviet bureaucracy really means is tragically illustrated by its entire history: it means recon- structing, at any cost and by any methods, the

[p010] Unconditional support for the Czechoslovak people and working class The political revolution in Czechoslovakia THE NATURE of the Soviet bureaucracy has not changed. The Czech proletariat is experiencing in a very bitter way just how much the slick ‘theories’ of the middle class and the renegades from the Fourth International about ‘the gradual democratization and re-absorption of the Soviet bureaucracy’ through a succession of reforms are really worth. The Soviet bureaucracy and the satellite bureau- cracies of the Democratic Republic of Germany, Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria sent their armies to occupy Czechoslovakia in order to crush the Czech working class. With the dislocation of the Czech bureaucratic apparatus, which was dependent on Moscow, the way was opened for the political revolution. The working class was already formulating its demands. It was able to establish its own methods of organization and political expression. Such are the beginnings— from now on the classical beginnings—-of the political revolution, which the workers in those countries where the capitalists have been expropriated of the principal means of production must carry out in order to seize political power, drive out the parasitic bureaucracy and run the planned economy in their own interests. The Hungarian revolution of workers’ councils was coming to life again on Czech soil. What determined the armed intervention of the Soviet bureaucracy was neither a threat of the restora- tion of capitalism nor so-called ‘Soviet imperialism’. It was a question of a brutally repressive political action in self-defence. The development of the political revolution cannot be confined to Czechoslovakia, its impetus drives it towards Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In struggling for political power, the Czech prole- tariat disturbed the precarious balance of class forces in Europe and internationally. -The crisis of the bureaucratic regime in Czechoslovakia is an expression of the linked crisis of imperialism and the Soviet Political revolution in Czechoslovakia bureaucracy. It means that the working class is taking up the struggle for political power throughout Europe, and that it tends to merge into a single process the social revolution in the capitalist countries and the political revolution against the parasitic bureaucracies, and thus lays the foundations for the United Socialist States of Europe. The general strike in France and the beginnings of the political revolution in Czechoslovakia re- introduce into the struggle for socialism its real content—universality. The armed intervention of the Soviet bureaucracy against the Czech proletariat is the iron fist of the counter-revolution, which attempts to smash the drive of the working class towards socialism. Neither the Soviet bureaucracy nor imperialism can tolerate the fire of proletarian revolution being kindled right in the centre of Europe, no more than they could permit the French general strike to be victorious. In intervening militarily in Czechoslovakia, the Soviet bureaucracy acts as the agent of international counter-revolution. It intervened there for the same reason that it supports de Gaulle, one of the main factors in the ‘maintenance of order’ in Europe. The ‘norms’ of the counter-revolutionary Soviet bureaucracy THE MOSCOW diktat imposed on the leaders of the Czech state and Communist Party specified that : ‘An agreement has been reached on the measures to be taken with a view to normalizing the situa- tion as quickly as possible in the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. The Czech leaders have in- formed the Soviet party of the measures they are now taking for this purpose.’ What ‘normalizing the situation’ in the language of the Soviet bureaucracy really means is tragically illustrated by its entire history: it means recon- structing, at any cost and by any methods, the 93

[p011] ip tt At the Bratislava talks (above) the Kremlin bureaucracy demanded the ‘normalization’ of the situation in Czechoslovakia, the real meaning of which was seen some weeks later when Soviet tanks rolled into Prague.

[p012] bureaucratic machine, which weighs down like a mill- stone on the proletariat, restoring its rigidity and its monclithism, putting back into shape this apparatus which is completely subordinate to the Kremlin. The Soviet bureaucracy is a parasitic layer of society. It came into existence as a result of the delay in the world proletarian revolution. The absence of revolutionary parties comparable with Lenin’s Bol- shevik Party and the betrayal of the social-demicratic parties, especially in the economically developed countries, saved capitalism in Europe and _ interna- tionally, and isolated the Russian proletariat, already relatively weak and worn out by four years of im- perialist war plus three years of civil war. This resulted in a contradictory situation. Capitalism was expropriated in the Soviet Union, and yet the working class had not the strength to hold on to political power. A parasitic layer took shape, which monopolized political power and ran, in its own interests, by deforming them, the social and economic forms which came out of the October Revolution. The bureaucracy’s management of the re- volutionary conquests of October constitutes a con- tradiction, a constant source of economic and social convulsions, which necessarily find a reflection in its own ranks. The bureaucracy, social and _ historical monster, is forever ‘normalizing the situation’. When it first came into existence and became con- scious of its own specific interests, the bureaucracy secured its rule by ‘normalizing the situation’, by destroying Lenin’s party under the aegis of Stalin. It reduced to silence and excluded from the Bolshevik Party all opposition to its rule. Its power and privi- leges are incompatible with the existence of any form of political expression that could be used by the working class. The exclusion, imprisonment and banishment of the generation of revolutionaries who carried through the October Revolution, of those leaders who worked closely with Lenin, was not enough. Their liquidation and political disgrace were indispensable to the rule of the counter-revolutionary bureaucracy. This is the reason for the deportations, falsified trials and down- right assassinations of the 1930s, the decade during which Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin and so many others were murdered, judicially or otherwise, and which led up to the assassination of Leon Trotsky in August 1940. But the fundamental contradiction—that between bureaucratic rule and the conquests of October— continues to operate and is expressed within the bureaucracy. The purges extended to whole layers of the bureaucracy. Even top leaders, including Stalin’s ‘companions’, were struck down. ‘Normalization of the situation’ required that this be carried out: any crack in the apparatus—and cracks are constantly appearing—would allow the proletariat to find its own political expression. The extension of the social and economic rela- tions of October to the East European states, fol- lowing on the disintegration of German imperialism Political revolution in Czechoslovakia and the thrust forward of the masses at the end of the Second World War, added to the instability of the Soviet bureaucracy and deepened its internal contradictions. From 1947-1953, the bloody purges on the Communist Parties of Eastern Europe, parties which, nonetheless, -had taken power as agents of the Kremlin, were the means by which the ‘situa- tion was normalized’, according to the requirements of the parasitic Soviet bureaucracy. In Russia itself Stalin had continually to ‘normalize the situation’. The liquidation of the Leningrad group’, amongst others, was but a prelude to a gigantic new series of blood purges of extraordinary brutality, which Stalin was preparing on the eve of his death, as shown by the arrest of the ‘white-coated assassins’ and the preparation of their ‘trials’. The crisis which erupted within the Soviet bureau- cracy on Stalin’s death clearly demonstrated what has now become a law of the class struggle: whenever. a breach is made in the international apparatus of Stalinism, the proletariat surges forward and sets in motion the process of the political revolution. The revolutionary movements which took place in June 1953 in East Germany, in Poland in October 1956, and the Hungarian revolution of workers’ councils in November 1956, were swallowed up in cracks in the apparatus. ‘Normalization of the situa- tion’ in East Germany and Hungary was _ secured by the tanks of the bureaucracy. Bloody repression and massive purges were indispensable, if the bureau- cratic apparatus, dismantled by the action of the working class, was to be re-built. In Poland the apparatus was momentarily. shaken, but it managed to regain control and ‘normalize the situation’ and consolidate itself, under the leadership of the ‘liberal’ Gomulka, because of the crushing of the Hungarian revolution by the Soviet bureaucracy. The Moscow Diktat MOSCOW’S diktat is unequivocal : ‘It has been declared by the Czech Party that the entire work of the organs of the Party and the state will be directed, by every means, towards the application of effective measures to ensure socialist rule, the leading role of the working class and the Communist Party, the development and strengthen- ing of friendly relations with the Soviet people and the whole socialist community.’ Nothing remains of the impudent lies of ‘Pravda’, or Malik’s statements to the United Nations claim- ing that the Warsaw Pact troops were occupying Czechoslovakia at the request of the Czech govern- ment, to fight against the restoration of capitalism and imperialist penetration. The language of the Soviet bureaucracy is only too easy to understand: ‘socialist rule’, ‘the leading role of the Communist Party’, ‘friendly relations with the 95

[p013] bureaucratic machine, which weighs down like a mill- stone on the proletariat, restoring its rigidity and its monolithism, putting back into shape this apparatus which is completely subordinate to the Kremlin. The Soviet bureaucracy is a parasitic layer of society. It came into existence as a result of the delay in the world proletarian revolution. The absence of revolutionary parties comparable with Lenin’s Bol- shevik Party and the betrayal of the social-demicratic parties, especially in the economically developed countries, saved capitalism in Europe and _ interna- tionally, and isolated the Russian proletariat, already relatively weak and worn out by four years of im- perialist war plus three years of civil war. This resulted in a contradictory situation. Capitalism was expropriated in the Soviet Union, and yet the working class had not the strength to hold on to political power. A parasitic layer took shape, which monopolized political power and ran, in its own interests, by deforming them, the social and economic forms which came out of the October Revolution. The bureaucracy’s management of the re- volutionary conquests of October constitutes a con- tradiction, a constant source of economic and social convulsions, which necessarily find a reflection in its own ranks. The bureaucracy, social and _ historical monster, is forever ‘normalizing the situation’. When it first came into existence and became con- scious of its own specific interests, the bureaucracy secured its rule by ‘normalizing the situation’, by destroying Lenin’s party under the aegis of Stalin. It reduced to silence and excluded from the Bolshevik Party all opposition to its rule. Its power and privi- leges are incompatible with the existence of any form of political expression that could be used by the working class. The exclusion, imprisonment and banishment of the generation of revolutionaries who carried through the October Revolution, of those leaders who worked closely with Lenin, was not enough. Their liquidation and political disgrace were indispensable to the rule of the counter-revolutionary bureaucracy. This is the reason for the deportations, falsified trials and down- right assassinations of the 1930s, the decade during which Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin and so many others were murdered, judicially or otherwise, and which led up to the assassination of Leon Trotsky in August 1940. But the fundamental contradiction—that between bureaucratic rule and the conquests of October— continues to operate and is expressed within the bureaucracy. The purges extended to whole layers of the bureaucracy. Even top leaders, including Stalin’s ‘companions’, were struck down. ‘Normalization of the situation’ required that this be carried out: any crack in the apparatus—and cracks are constantly appearing—would allow the proletariat to find its own political expression. The extension of the social and economic rela- tions of October to the East European states, fol- lowing on the disintegration of German imperialism Political revolution in Czechoslovakia and the thrust forward of the masses at the end of the Second World War, added to the instability of the Soviet bureaucracy and deepened its internal contradictions. From 1947-1953, the bloody purges on the Communist Parties of Eastern Europe, parties which, nonetheless, had taken power as agents of the Kremlin, were the means by which the ‘situa- tion was normalized’, according to the requirements of the parasitic Soviet bureaucracy. In Russia itself Stalin had continually to ‘normalize the situation’. The liquidation of the Leningrad group’, amongst others, was but a prelude to a gigantic new series of blood purges of extraordinary brutality, which Stalin was preparing on the eve of his death, as shown by the arrest of the ‘white-coated assassins’ and the preparation of their ‘trials’. The crisis which erupted within the Soviet bureau- cracy on Stalin’s death clearly demonstrated what has now become a law of the class struggle: whenever a breach is made in the international apparatus of Stalinism, the proletariat surges forward and sets in motion the process of the political revolution. The revolutionary movements which took place in June 1953 in East Germany, in Poland in October 1956, and the Hungarian revolution of workers’ councils in November 1956, were swallowed up in cracks in the apparatus. ‘Normalization of the situa- tion’ in East Germany and Hungary was _ secured by the tanks of the bureaucracy. Bloody repression and massive purges were indispensable, if the bureau- cratic apparatus, dismantled by the action of the working class, was to be re-built. In Poland the apparatus was momentarily shaken, but it managed to regain control and ‘normalize the situation’ and consolidate itself, under the leadership of the ‘liberal’ Gomulka, because of the crushing of the Hungarian revolution by the Soviet bureaucracy. The Moscow Diktat MOSCOW'S diktat is unequivocal : ‘It has been declared by the Czech Party that the entire work of the organs of the Party and the state will be directed, by every means, towards the application of effective measures to ensure socialist rule, the leading role of the working class and the Communist Party, the development and strengthen- ing of friendly relations with the Soviet people and the whole socialist community.’ Nothing remains of the impudent lies of ‘Pravda’, or Malik’s statements to the United Nations claim- ing that the Warsaw Pact troops were occupying Czechoslovakia at the request of the Czech govern- ment, to fight against the restoration of capitalism and imperialist penetration. The language of the Soviet bureaucracy is only too easy to understand: ‘socialist rule’, ‘the leading role of the Communist Party’, ‘friendly relations with the 95

[p014] Soviet people’ are so many cynical euphemisms for: restoration of bureaucratic rule, re-construction of the monolithic apparatus, unconditional submission to the Kremlin—conditions without which the situation can- not be ‘normalized’. The rule of the Soviet bureauc- racy is incompatible with the existence of political liberties which would allow the proletariat to organize itself and express itself politically. Freedom of the press, the elements of political life providing the masses with the opportunity to organize politically, had been imposed on the Czech bureaucracy, which was breaking up. ‘The basic Leninist principles of party organiza- tion, i.e. principles of democratic centralism, and unity of the party on the ideological and organi- zational front were denied in practice. The party was on the point of legalizing factional groups from “autonomous” organizations with practically no connection with one another,’ wrote ‘Pravda’. The Congress of the Communist Party of Czecho- slovakia was due to open on September 9. Proposed statutes recognized in practice the right of factions within the party. The apparatus was breaking up, the single-party system could not be maintained. The working class was in a position to organize and express itself politically. It was winning the rights of workers’ democracy within the trade unions, the right to strike, demanded by numerous manifestos and declarations, echoes of which are to be found in the ‘2,000-word’ manifesto, a paragraph of which reads as follows: ‘Under dreary-looking headlines a hard battle is being reflected in the press—the battle of democ- racy versus soft jobs. The workers . . . can inter- vene in this battle by electing the right people to management and workers’ councils. And .. they can help themselves best by electing as their trade union representatives natural leaders, able and honourable men without regard to party affiliation. ‘Let us demand the departure of people who abused their power, damaged public property, acted dishonourably or brutally. Ways must be found of bringing them to resign. To mention a few: public criticism, resolutions, demonstrations, collections to buy presents for them on their retirement, strikes and picketing at their front doors. ‘Let us form committees for the defence of free speech. At our meetings let us have our own staffs for ensuring order...’ But if this quotation of the ‘2,000-words’ manifesto reflects the pressure of the will of the masses to regain their socialist conquests and from that point of view expresses their needs and therefore represents a call for the mobilization of the masses, the Inter- national Committee of the Fourth International also sees in that the expression of the internal contradic- tions of the political revolution on its way. Inadequate and ambiguous as it is in its content and in the slogans it puts forward, contradictory in some of its aspects to the needs of the political revo- lution, the ‘2,000-words’ manifesto would only repre- sent a stage that the masses and the vanguard should overcome through the struggle for the construction of the revolutionary party on the basis of the pro- gramme of the Fourth International. The political revolution had begun, in the course of which the proletariat would confront the remains of the parasitic bureaucracy, and the remains of the expropriated and now re-emerging bourgeoisie, in a situation where the balance of forces would be weighted heavily in its favour because of the collective ownership of the principal means of production in Czechoslovakia, the severity of the linked crisis of imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy, at its sharpest in Europe, right after the general strike in France. It was necessary to crush the Czech proletariat, the vanguard for the time being of the international proletariat. The Czech working class, the heart of the resistance BUT THE FIRST effect the entry of Soviet troops had was to complete the disintegration of the apparatus. Illustrating the real relationship of forces between the different layers of society in Czechoslovakia, the Soviet bureaucracy could not find a single bureaucrat to openly take its side. Above all, the resistance was organized from the factories. The working class was the backbone, the class force behind which the resistance of the entire Czech people took shape. The 14th Congress of the Czech CP, an emergency Congress, was held in a factory, under the protection of the working class. At this point the Czech Com- munist Party disintegrated as a Party directly linked to Moscow by breaking its links with Moscow. It tended towards becoming a centrist party. The 14th Congress of the Czech CP was thus forced to respond to the pressure and resistance of the working class. The Kremlin bureaucracy, to achieve its aims, must now re-build a new Stalinist party depending directly on the Kremlin. It must massively purge the Czech CP of its members and cadres who at a decisive moment, giving in to the pressure of the masses, here led to a break of the Czech CP with the Kremlin bureaucracy. The Czechoslovak CP, which was breaking from the Kremlin at the 14th Congress, did not become a revolutionary party, but disintegration of the Czech CP and bureaucracy was leading in the 14th Congress to the formation of trends which were tending to- wards expressing the programme of political revolu- tion, an integral part of the world socialist revolution. Dubcek, who for a time vacillated under the pres- sure of the masses and then refused to break with the Kremlin bureaucracy, has led to the capitulation of his tendency to the Kremlin. Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p015] Soviet people’ are so many cynical euphemisms for: restoration of bureaucratic rule, re-construction of the monolithic apparatus, unconditional submission to the Kremlin—conditions without which the situation can- not be ‘normalized’. The rule of the Soviet bureauc- racy is incompatible with the existence of political liberties which would allow the proletariat to organize itself and express itself politically. Freedom of the press, the elements of political life providing the masses with the opportunity to organize politically, had been imposed on the Czech bureaucracy, which was breaking up. ‘The basic Leninist principles of party organiza- tion, i.e. principles of democratic centralism, and unity of the party on the ideological and organi- zational front were denied in practice. The party was on the point of legalizing factional groups from “autonomous” organizations with practically no connection with one another,’ wrote ‘Pravda’. The Congress of the Communist Party of Czecho- slovakia was due to open on September 9. Proposed statutes recognized in practice the right of factions within the party. The apparatus was breaking up, the single-party system could not be maintained. The working class was in a position to organize and express itself politically. It was winning the rights of workers’ democracy within the trade unions, the right to strike, demanded by numerous manifestos and declarations, echoes of which are to be found in the ‘2,000-word’ manifesto, a paragraph of which reads as follows: ‘Under dreary-looking headlines a hard battle is being reflected in the press—the battle of democ- tracy versus soft jobs. The workers .. . can inter- vene in this battle by electing the right people to management and workers’ councils. And .. they can help themselves best by electing as their trade union representatives natural leaders, able and honourable men without regard to party affiliation. ‘Let us demand the departure of people who abused their power, damaged public property, acted dishonourably or brutally. Ways must be found of bringing them to resign. To mention a few: public criticism, resolutions, demonstrations, collections to buy presents for them on their retirement, strikes and picketing at their front doors. ‘Let us form committees for the defence of free speech. At our meetings let us have our own staffs for ensuring order .. .’ But if this quotation of the ‘2,000-words’ manifesto reflects the pressure of the will of the masses to regain their socialist conquests and from that point of view expresses their needs and therefore represents a call for the mobilization of the masses, the Inter- national Committee of the Fourth International also sees in that the expression of the internal contradic- tions of the political revolution on its way. Inadequate and ambiguous as it is in its content and in the slogans it puts forward, contradictory in some of its aspects to the needs of the political revo- lution, the ‘2,000-words’ manifesto would only repre- 96 sent a stage that the masses and the vanguard should overcome through the struggle for the construction of the revolutionary party on the basis of the pro- gramme of the Fourth International. The political revolution had begun, in the course of which the proletariat would confront the remains of the parasitic bureaucracy, and the remains of the expropriated and now re-emerging bourgeoisie, in a situation where the balance of forces would be weighted heavily in its favour because of the collective ownership of the principal means of production in Czechoslovakia, the severity of the linked crisis of imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy, at its sharpest in Europe, right after the general strike in France. It was necessary to crush the Czech proletariat, the vanguard for the time being of the international proletariat. The Czech working class, the heart of the resistance BUT THE FIRST effect the entry of Soviet troops had was to complete the disintegration of the apparatus. Illustrating the real relationship of forces between the different layers of society in Czechoslovakia, the Soviet bureaucracy could not find a single bureaucrat to openly take its side. Above all, the resistance was organized from .the factories. The working class was the backbone, the class force behind which the resistance of the entire Czech people took shape. The 14th Congress of the Czech CP, an emergency Congress, was held in a factory, under the protection of the working class. At this point the Czech Com- munist Party disintegrated as a Party directly linked to Moscow by breaking its links with Moscow. It tended towards becoming a centrist party. The 14th Congress of the Czech CP was thus forced to respond to the pressure and resistance of the working class. The Kremlin bureaucracy, to achieve its aims, must now re-build a new Stalinist party depending directly on the Kremlin. It must massively purge the Czech CP of its members and cadres who at a decisive moment, giving in to the pressure of the masses, here led to a break of the Czech CP with the Kremlin bureaucracy. The Czechoslovak CP, which was breaking from the Kremlin at the 14th Congress, did not become a revolutionary party, but disintegration of the Czech CP and bureaucracy was leading in the 14th Congress to the formation of trends which were tending to- wards expressing the programme of political revolu- tion, an integral part of the world socialist revolution. Dubcek, who for a time vacillated under the pres- sure of the masses and then refused to break with the Kremlin bureaucracy, has led to the capitulation of his tendency to the Kremlin. Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p016] The Czech working class could only take its place at the head of the peasantry and the socialist intelli- gentsia along the path of independent revolutionary leadership and the political revolution. In the sub- sequent days, Dubcek and the section of the bureau- cracy in which the workers reposed their confidence because they gave way to the pressure of the masses, became the instrument of the next stage of the domination of the Kremlin. This was an inevitable consequence of their political position. Only the in- dependent power of the working class in workers’ councils, led by a revolutionary party, could have transformed the situation. The main advantage for the bureaucracy lies in the uneven development of the processes of political revolution in Eastern Europe, and of social revolution, the absence of revolutionary parties and an Inter- national, as expressions of the unity of the struggle of the European and the world working class, able to inspire class solidarity in the international proletariat and unite its struggle against imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy. The concentration of Soviet forces, supported by imperialism, the fear of a bloody holocaust, added to the vicious methods of physical pressure already em- ployed by Stalin to force a number of party members to capitulate, allowed the bureaucracy to impose the Moscow diktat on Dubcek and his group. The statements made by the Czech leaders who counter-signed the Moscow diktat prove that the Moscow bureaucrats employed highwaymen’s methods. On his return from Moscow, Dubcek was so worn out, mentally and physically, that he had to interrupt his speech on the radio to recover. Arrested by the Kremlin, Dubcek spent hours in solitary confinement. He left the prison only to be taken straight into the room where the Stalinist bureaucrats were sitting. He may even have been beaten and tortured. Anyway, Simkovsky’s speech on August 30 make it quite clear: ‘We knew that the world sympathized with us, but that the great powers would prefer to accept a compromise.’ In other words, imperialism was giving the green light to the Soviet bureaucracy to impose its diktat. ‘We could have rejected any compromise (the diktat) and let things develop with all that that entails for the sovereignty of the state, political rights, the economy, including the possibility of lives being lost (i.e. a boodbath). Please believe me that our personal fate in these circumstances became a secondary consideration, although we did not cease to worry about it.’ In other words: ‘we were put through it and our lives depended on accepting the “compromise”, and Political revolution in Czechoslovakia although this was a secondary consideration, it did play a part in our acceptance of the diktat’. ‘By every means at its disposal’?-a bloodbath! THERE CAN be no doubt about the meaning of re-establishing a ‘normal situation’, ‘by every means at its disposal’. The leaders of the Czech state and party are held as hostages by the Kremlin. They have to cover up for re-building the apparatus which takes its orders from the Kremlin. Their moral authority will be used to repair the shackles to hold down the Czech work- ing class. The reconstruction of the bureaucratic apparatus dependent on Moscow demands the use of hitherto unparalleled repressive measures. The whole of the state machine must be purged and re-cast. Even if the external trappings of the Czech CP are preserved, there has to be a new party built. Those party members, factory workers and trade unionists who organized the resistance, have to be purged and smashed. The intellectuals must likewise be purged and broken. There is not a single aspect of social, economic and political life that has not to be purged and put back in the shackles. Of course, the remains of the Czech apparatus will be assembled and used for this purpose by the Kremlin. The scope of the purges and the repression yet to be undertaken is revealed by ‘Pravda’,. which on August 31 called for ‘The liquidation of 40,000 nerve centres of counter-revolution’, whilst ‘Neues Deutschland’ of the same day declared ‘The Czech counter-revolutionaries are preparing for a lengthy underground struggle’. Indeed, no matter what cover is employed, it is the Kremlin machine that will have to take in hand the state apparatus and the party apparatus and exer- cise a real protectorate by a system of white terror. The Minister for Internal Affairs has already been sacked, and according to ‘L’Humanité’ of September 2: ‘The second Minister for Internal Affairs in Czechoslovakia, Jan Lamba, committed suicide on Friday . . He had previously refused to hand over to the Russians the dossiers and documents belonging to his Ministry.’ A whole people, of which the decisive social force is the working class, has to be atomized by the Soviet 97

[p017] The Czech working class could only take its place at the head of the peasantry and the socialist intelli- gentsia along the path of independent revolutionary leadership and the political revolution. In the sub- sequent days, Dubcek and the section of the bureau- cracy in which the workers reposed their confidence because they gave way to the pressure of the masses, became the instrument of the next stage of the domination of the Kremlin. This was an inevitable consequence of their political position. Only the in- dependent power of the working class in workers’ councils, led by a revolutionary party, could have transformed the situation. The main advantage for the bureaucracy lies in the uneven development of the processes of political revolution in Eastern Europe, and of social revolution, the absence of revolutionary parties and an Inter- national, as expressions of the unity of the struggle of the European and the world working class, able to inspire class solidarity in the international proletariat and unite its struggle against imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy. The concentration of Soviet forces, supported by imperialism, the fear of a bloody holocaust, added to the vicious methods of physical pressure already em- ployed by Stalin to force a number of party members to capitulate, allowed the bureaucracy to impose the Moscow diktat on Dubcek and his group. The statements made by the Czech leaders who counter-signed the Moscow diktat prove that the Moscow bureaucrats employed highwaymen’s methods. On his return from Moscow, Dubcek was so worn out, mentally and physically, that he had to interrupt his speech on the radio to recover. Arrested by the Kremlin, Dubcek spent hours in solitary confinement. He left the prison only to be taken straight into the room where the Stalinist bureaucrats were sitting. He may even have been beaten and tortured. Anyway, Simkovsky’s speech on August 30 make it quite clear: “We knew that the world sympathized with us, but that the great powers would prefer to accept a compromise.’ In other words, imperialism was giving the green light to the Soviet bureaucracy to impose its diktat. ‘We could have rejected any compromise (the diktat) and let things develop with all that that entails for the sovereignty of the state, political rights, the economy, including the possibility of lives being lost (i.e. a boodbath). Please believe me that our personal fate in these circumstances became a secondary consideration, although we did not cease to worry about it.’ In other words: ‘we were put through it and our lives depended on accepting the “compromise”, and Political revolution in Czechoslovakia although this was a secondary consideration, it did play a part in our acceptance of the diktat’. ‘By every means at its disposal’?-a bloodbath! THERE CAN be no doubt about the meaning of re-establishing a ‘normal situation’, ‘by every means at its disposal’. The leaders of the Czech state and party are held as hostages by the Kremlin. They have to cover up for re-building the apparatus which takes its orders from the Kremlin. Their moral authority will be used to repair the shackles to hold down the Czech work- ing class. The reconstruction of the bureaucratic apparatus dependent on Moscow demands the use of hitherto unparalleled repressive measures. The whole of the state machine must be purged and re-cast. Even if the external trappings of the Czech CP are preserved, there has to be a new party built. Those party members, factory workers and trade unionists who organized the resistance, have to be purged and smashed. The intellectuals must likewise be purged and broken. There is not a single aspect of social, economic and political life that has not to be purged and put back in the shackles. Of course, the remains of the Czech apparatus will be assembled and used for this purpose by the Kremlin. The scope of the purges and the repression yet to be undertaken is revealed by ‘Pravda’, which on August 31 called for ‘The liquidation of 40,000 nerve centres of counter-revolution’, whilst ‘Neues Deutschland’ of the same day declared ‘The Czech counter-revolutionaries are preparing for a lengthy underground struggle’. Indeed, no matter what cover is employed, it is the Kremlin machine that will have to take in hand the state apparatus and the party apparatus and exer- cise a real protectorate by a system of white terror. The Minister for Internal Affairs has already been sacked, and according to ‘L’Humanité’ of September 2: ‘The second Minister for Internal Affairs in Czechoslovakia, Jan Lamba, committed suicide on Friday . . He had previously refused to hand over to the Russians the dossiers and documents belonging to his Ministry.’ A whole people, of which the decisive social force is the working class, has to be atomized by the Soviet 97

[p018] bureaucracy. It can only achieve this by utilizing, in cold blood, the same methods and means that it used, in an emergency situation, against the Hungarian Revolution of workers’ councils. The sycophants and the traitors are satisfied with the ‘Moscow comprom- ise’, Whatever may have been the reasons impelling the leaders of the Czech state and CP to ratify the Moscow diktat, it cannot ‘be ratified by the inter- national proletariat, .working-class militants, or by unions and parties claiming to be socialist. = -~ The fight has not finished, it is just beginning. More than ever the IC of the FI calls for: UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR THE CZECHOSLOVAK PEOPLE AND WORKING CLASS. We must fight for: @ IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL OF THE OCCUPYING TROOPS ; @ THE RIGHT OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK PEOPLE TO DECIDE ITS OWN FUTURE; @ FOR WORKERS’ COUNCILS. FOR A REVO- LUTIONARY PARTY OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA. Bankruptcy of the ‘theory’ of Socialism in one country (I) The occupation of Czechoslovakia: part of a whole political approach THE FI takes up it political position in relation to the international class struggle. It has no interests other than those of the world working class and the proletarian revolution. Despite the criminal Stalin-Hitler Pact, the FI refused to condemn the occupation of part of Poland by the Red Army. At the outbreak of a war, in which German im- perialism would inevitably attack Soviet Russia, although it was entirely Stalin’s responsibility that this threat was hanging over the Soviet Union, the occu- pation of part of Poland was indispensable to the defence of the conquests of October. From exactly the same standpoint the IC of the FI calls for un- conditional support for the Czech people and Czech proletariat against the Soviet bureaucracy. The occupation of Czechoslovakia is an integral part of the politics of the Soviet bureaucracy, politics which are determined by the fear that the crisis of imperialism and its own crisis may bring about the social revolution and the political revolution, par- ticularly in Europe. These politics can only assist pro-capitalist forces in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states, as well as strengthening in- ternational imperialism. Caught in the iron grip of the conflict between the fundamental class forces, the proletariat and the capitalist class, the Soviet bureaucracy attempts to prolong its privileged existence by retreating step by step before imperialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, whilst at the same time unconditionally and ‘gratuitously’ supporting the bourgeoisie and im- perialism against the working class throughout the world. For a long time now, the Soviet bureaucracy has manoeuvred between the two main classes on the international arena and played on inter-imperialist rivalries. The ‘theory’ of ‘socialism in one country’, the way the bureaucracy runs the planned economy, the line of ‘peaceful co-existence’, all express the attempts by the Soviet bureaucracy to confine in a strait-jacket the social antagonisms within the Soviet Union, and then in the Eastern European countries, and to manoeuvre between these forces on the inter- national arena. , These politics had reached their peak at the very moment that they were becoming impossible and dragging the Soviet Union towards the abyss. Simul- taneous with the arrest of the ‘white-coated assassins’, heralding a new wave of purges, Stalin published Economic Problems of Socialism. In this work, he explained that following on the transformation of the economic and social structure of the countries of Eastern Europe and the Chinese Revolution, two independent world markets had come into existence. He also stated that the law of value no longer oper- ated within the Soviet economy. He predicted that the distortions in the Soviet economy would be resolved by ‘communist public works’ and proposed to do away with the backward state of agriculture by setting up ‘agro-cities’. Bureau- cratic ravings have reached their peak, but what seems —and, indeed is—pure madness, corresponds to a frantic effort to hold in check the immense social and economic distortions in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries it controls. The Soviet bureaucracy is a parasitic excrescence which arose from the unstable equilibrium between the classes resulting from the First World War, the Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p019] bureaucracy. It can only achieve this by utilizing, in cold blood, the same methods and means that it used, in an emergency situation, against the Hungarian Revolution of workers’ councils. The sycophants and the traitors are satisfied with the ‘Moscow comprom- ise’. Whatever may have been the reasons impelling the leaders of the Czech state and CP to ratify the Moscow diktat, it cannot be ratified by the inter- national proletariat, working-class militants, or by unions and parties claiming to be socialist. The fight has not finished, it is just beginning. More than ever the IC of the FI calls for: UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR THE CZECHOSLOVAK PEOPLE AND WORKING CLASS. We must fight for : @ IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWAL OF THE OCCUPYING TROOPS ; @ THE RIGHT OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK PEOPLE TO DECIDE ITS OWN FUTURE; @ FOR WORKERS’ COUNCILS. FOR A REVO- LUTIONARY PARTY OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA, Bankruptcy of the ‘theory’ of Socialism in one country (If) The occupation of Czechoslovakia: part of a whole political approach THE FI takes up it political position in relation to the international class struggle. It has no interests other than those of the world working class and the proletarian revolution. Despite the criminal Stalin-Hitler Pact, the FI refused to condemn the occupation of part of Poland by the Red Army. At the outbreak of a war, in which German im- perialism would inevitably attack Soviet Russia, although it was entirely Stalin’s responsibility that this threat was hanging over the Soviet Union, the occu- pation of part of Poland was indispensable to the defence of the conquests of October. From exactly the same standpoint the IC of the FI calls for un- conditional support for the Czech people and Czech proletariat against the Soviet bureaucracy. The occupation of Czechoslovakia is an integral part of the politics of the Soviet bureaucracy, politics which are determined by the fear that the crisis of imperialism and its own crisis may bring about the social revolution and the political revolution, par- ticularly in Europe. These politics can only assist pro-capitalist forces in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states, as well as strengthening in- ternational imperialism. Caught in the iron grip of the conflict between the fundamental class forces, the proletariat and the capitalist class, the Soviet bureaucracy attempts to prolong its privileged existence by retreating step by step before imperialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, whilst at the same time unconditionally and ‘gratuitously’ supporting the bourgeoisie and im- perialism against the working class throughout the world. For a long time now, the Soviet bureaucracy has manoeuvred between the two main classes on the international arena and played on_ inter-imperialist rivalries. The ‘theory’ of ‘socialism in one country’, the way the bureaucracy runs the planned economy, the line of ‘peaceful co-existence’, all express the attempts by the Soviet bureaucracy to confine in a strait-jacket the social antagonisms within the Soviet Union, and then in the Eastern European countries, and to manoeuvre between these forces on the inter- national arena. These politics had reached their peak at the very moment that they were becoming impossible and dragging the Soviet Union towards the abyss. Simul- taneous with the arrest of the ‘white-coated assassins’, heralding a new wave of purges, Stalin published Economic Problems of Socialism. In this work, he explained that following on the transformation of the economic and social structure of the countries of Eastern Europe and the Chinese Revolution, two independent world markets had come into existence. He also stated that the law of value no longer oper- ated within the Soviet economy. He predicted that the distortions in the Soviet economy would be resolved by ‘communist public works’ and proposed to do away with the backward state of agriculture by setting up ‘agro-cities’. Bureau- cratic ravings have reached their peak, but what seems —and, indeed is—pure madness, corresponds to a frantic effort to hold in check the immense social and economic distortions in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries it controls. The Soviet bureaucracy is a parasitic excrescence which arose from the unstable equilibrium between the classes resulting from the First World War, the Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p020] Russian Revolution and the isolation of the Revolu- tion. It made this equilibrium into the ‘norm’. Stalin conceived the planned economy as a means of escaping from the world market and the inter- national division of labour. He thought he could arbitrarily decide economic processes according to the wishes of an all-powerful bureaucracy. He thought he could neutralize the pressure of imperialism by playing a game of balancng between the various im- perialist powers and using the international working class as a diplomatic instrument, through the control exercised by the international Stalinist apparatus. As early as the first five-year plan, economic con- fusion and social antagonisms increased to an enor- mous extent in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was only saved from disaster by the social and political crisis and the explosive rivalries between the great imperialist powers stimulated by the economic crisis of 1929. There was a very heavy price to be paid, however. The purges and the exterminations of the 1930s strengthened the social antagonisms which were be- coming sharper in the Soviet Union and finding a reflection inside the bureaucracy. The politics of manoeuvring between the big im- peralist powers, the sterilization of the revolutionary struggles of the Chinese, German, French and Spanish proletariats to suit the diplomatic requirements of the Kremlin, the bureaucracy’s fear of successful revolu- tionary struggles by the working class, particularly in the advanced countries, all these factors made it easy for imperialism to prepare the Second World War. It was only the heroic resistance of the Russian working class and the effectiveness of the social and economic relations established by the October Revo- lution which made it possible for all the resources to be channelled into the war effort, and the divi- sions within imperialism, that saved the Soviet Union from being destroyed by German imperialism. Paradoxically, at the end of the war, the bureau- cracy reached the summit of its political power. To it accrued all the prestige of the victory of the Soviet Union over German imperialism. Whereas the Russian working class, exhausted by the war (20,000,000 dead), had not the strength to challenge the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Stalinism’s international apparatus exercised a decisive influence over the European and world working class. Finally, world imperialism urgently required its political assistance in holding back the mounting revolutionary tide in Europe and internationally. The occupation of the major part of Europe by German imperialism, and its collapse, in Asia the collapse of English, French and Dutch imperialisms con- fronted with Japanese imperialism, and of the latter in front of American imperialism, brought about a powerful revolutionary crisis. Co-operation between the economic might of US imperialism and the political strength of the bureau- cracy proved to be the only means of stemming the revolutionary flood-tide of the European and world Political revolution in Czechoslovakia working class. The West European Communist Parties, controlled by the Kremlin, collaborated in restoring the bourgeois state. Through occupation and the canalization of the masses under its direct control in Eastern Europe, and through the division of the European working class, going right through the heart of Germany, the bureaucracy was able to exploit in its own interests the crisis of the capitalist class in those countries. All of this adds up to the politics of ‘peaceful co-existence’. Bankruptcy of Stalinism HOWEVER, US imperialism came out of the war considerably strengthened. German, Japanese and Italian imperialisms collapsed, British and French imperalisms were greatly weakened. The hegemony of US imperialism enabled it to discipline the weaker imperialist powers and force them to work out a relatively unified policy. The economic, political and military pressure of world imperialism on the Soviet Union was about to be rapidly increased. The bureaucracy replied with the elimination by its own military-bureaucratic action of bourgeois elements in the Eastern European governments under its control. It completed the job of expropriating capitalism of the principal means of production. It subordinated the economy of Eastern Europe to the immediate needs of the bureaucratically- run Soviet economy. It put on real political shackles. Dreading the prospect of proletarian revolution, particularly in the advanced countries, the Soviet bureaucracy embarked on a hopeless race with im- perialism in the economic and military spheres, pillag- ing the economic resources of the Eastern European countries, accepting and reinforcing the separation from the world market and the international division of labour. The policy of frantic industrialization was increas- ingly unsuited to the harmonious and balanced de- velopment of the productive forces of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states. It was de- termined by the economic and political pressure of imperialism. Under these conditions social and national antagonisms were bound to increase to bursting point. At a time when the growth in the productive forces itself demanded increasing partici- pation by the masses in working out and controlling socialist planning, planning necessarily became more bureaucratic and unreal, and as a result there was a huge increase in waste, irresponsibility, losses, mal- practices, distortions, robbery, bungling and down- right falsification. Even their successes were achieved at an enormous cost and were a further source of economic distortion. The Soviet Union took only a few years to pro- duce the A- and H-bombs, whereas in 1953 agricul-

[p021] Russian Revolution and the isolation of the Revolu- tion. It made this equilibrium into the ‘norm’. Stalin conceived the planned economy as a means of escaping from the world market and the inter- national division of labour. He thought he could arbitrarily decide economic processes according to the wishes of an all-powerful bureaucracy. He thought he could neutralize the pressure of imperialism by playing a game of balancng between the various im- perialist powers and using the international working class as a diplomatic instrument, through the control exercised by the international Stalinist apparatus. As early as the first five-year plan, economic con- fusion and social antagonisms increased to an enor- mous extent in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was only saved from disaster by the social and political crisis and the explosive rivalries between the great imperialist powers stimulated by the economic crisis of 1929. There was a very heavy price to be paid, however. The purges and the exterminations of the 1930s strengthened the social antagonisms which were be- coming sharper in the Soviet Union and finding a reflection inside the bureaucracy. The politics of manoeuvring between the big im- peralist powers, the sterilization of the revolutionary struggles of the Chinese, German, French and Spanish proletariats to suit the diplomatic requirements of the Kremlin, the bureaucracy’s fear of successful revolu- tionary struggles by the working class, particularly in the advanced countries, all these factors made it easy for imperialism to prepare the Second World War. It was only the heroic resistance of the Russian working class and the effectiveness of the social and economic relations established by the October Revo- lution which made it possible for all the resources to be channelled into the war effort, and the divi- sions within imperialism, that saved the Soviet Union from being destroyed by German imperialism. Paradoxically, at the end of the war, the bureau- cracy reached the summit of its political power. To it accrued all the prestige of the victory of the Soviet Union over German imperialism. Whereas the Russian working class, exhausted by the war (20,000,000 dead), had not the strength to cHallenge the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Stalinism’s international apparatus exercised a decisive influence over the European and world working class. Finally, world imperialism urgently required its political assistance in holding back the mounting revolutionary tide in Europe and internationally. The occupation of the major part of Europe by German imperialism, and its collapse, in Asia the collapse of English, French and Dutch imperialisms_ con- fronted with Japanese imperialism, and of the latter in front of American imperialism, brought about a powerful revolutionary crisis. _ Co-operation between the economic might of US imperialism and the political strength of the bureau- cracy proved to be the only means of stemming the revolutionary flood-tide of the European and world Political revolution in Czechoslovakia working class. The West European Communist Parties, controlled by the Kremlin, collaborated in restoring the bourgeois state. Through occupation and the canalization of the masses under its direct control in Eastern Europe, and through the division of the European working class, going right through the heart of Germany, the bureaucracy was able to exploit in its own interests the crisis of the capitalist class in those countries. All of this adds up to the politics of ‘peaceful co-existence’. Bankruptcy of Stalinism HOWEVER, US imperialism came out of the war considerably strengthened. German, Japanese and Italian imperialisms collapsed, British and French imperalisms were greatly weakened. The hegemony of US imperialism enabled it to discipline the weaker imperialist powers and force them to work out a relatively unified policy. The economic, political and military pressure of world imperialism on the Soviet Union was about to be rapidly increased. The bureaucracy replied with the elimination by its own _ military-bureaucratic action of bourgeois elements in the Eastern European governments under its control. It completed the job of expropriating capitalism of the principal means of production. It subordinated the economy of Eastern Europe to the immediate needs of the bureaucratically- run Soviet economy. It put on real political shackles. Dreading the prospect of proletarian revolution, particularly in the advanced countries, the Soviet bureaucracy embarked on a hopeless race with im- perialism in the economic and military spheres, pillag- ing the economic resources of the Eastern European countries, accepting and reinforcing the separation from the world market and the international division of labour. a The policy of frantic industrialization was increas- ingly unsuited to the harmonious and balanced de- velopment of the productive forces of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European states. It was de- termined by the economic and political pressure of imperialism. Under these conditions social and national antagonisms were bound to increase to. bursting point. At a time when the growth in the productive forces itself demanded increasing partici- pation by the masses in working out and controlling socialist planning, planning necessarily became more bureaucratic and unreal, and as a result there was a huge increase in waste, irresponsibility, losses, mal- practices, distortions, robbery, bungling and down- right falsification. Even their successes were achieved at an enormous cost and were a further source of economic distortion. The Soviet Union took only a few years to pro- duce the A- and H-bombs, whereas in 1953 agricul- 99

[p022] tural production was visibly at the same level as in 1913. Even science and art did not escape the edicts of the bureaucracy. Stalin decided questions of biology, linguistics, art . . . etc. Although this seems crazy, it was absolutely necessary to the existence of the bureaucracy. Science and art are not independent of society. They feed on the actual fabric of society and demand freedom of creation and expression. They are, as a result, channels for social criticism, even if indirect criticism, particularly in a transitional society, where a parasitic, counter-revolutionary bureaucracy has arisen on a base of socialist production relations. The Soviet bureaucracy impedes the development of the productive forces, demanded by the new social relations, through bureaucratic management and by enclosing them in national boundaries. But science and art are nourished by the growth of the produc- tive forces which they in turn fertilize. Their full flowering is continually blocked by obstacles placed there by the parasitic bureaucracy, which they must necessarily challenge. Stalin’s madness expressed the predicament of the Soviet bureaucracy, engaged in a hopeless race with imperialism and obliged to shackle the working class ever more tightly and brutally to silence all forms of expression, all potential powers of criticism, to weigh down more heavily on the countries under its rule. Stalin’s death coincided with the necessity for a brutal re-assessment of its policies by the bureaucracy, if it was to avoid destroying itself in a wave of apocalyptic purges, which were themselves necessary to crush the social antagonisms, following on from a completely crazy economic policy, which had lost all contact with reality, as shown by the ‘communist public works’ which proposed to trans- form nature in order to resolve the economic crisis the origins of which were social. The New Course WAS Stalin’s death one of the consequences of the impasse reached by the bureaucracy, or was it the contingency which set in motion processes which had already matured? Whichever is true, it was the start of a profound revision of policy by the bureaucracy. Its previous course would, sooner or later, have brought it to catastrophe. The content and the direction of the new policy can be defined simply as a search for a modus vivendi with imperialism, an attempt at integration into the world market and the international division of labour, revision of socialist planning to allow free play to the forces of the market, a change in the economic relations of the Soviet Union and the East European states so as to leave them correlatively a wider margin for direct participation in the world market and the international division of labour. 100 This policy was equivalent to a bankruptcy note for ‘socialism in one country’ and the bureaucratic con- © ception of planning. It asserted itself with a series of jolts, the curve of its development was broken and irregular. Indeed, it was not a question of techniques, but of social relations expressing themselves in the economic sphere. It developed within the framework of the international class struggle, as both a manifes- tation and component part of this struggle. The revision of the Soviet bureaucracy’s policy gave rise to unremitting internal struggles and discord. The Stalinist apparatus nationally and internationally was cracking and giving way. Stalin’s death was the signal for enormous struggles within the bureaucracy, struggles which were con- stantly being renewed and which were all the more violent for taking place in the shadows, deep in the inner circles. Malenkov, Beria, Bulganin, Molotov, Khrushchev, were successively eliminated. These confrontations corresponded to conflicts taking place at all levels of the bureaucracy and intensified the conflicts. These conflicts immediately assumed dramatic violence and scope in the East Europeean countries. It was no accident. All the conditions were there, in profusion, to make the crisis of the bureaucracy at its most explosive in those countries. The caricature-bureaucracies THE parasitic bureaucracies of Eastern Europe are artificially produced and imposed from outside by the Kremlin. Their national roots are weak. Even the Communist Parties have constantly to be purged, right up to the highest levels: big purges like those of the 1930s were inflicted on the parties in 1948: the Rajk, Slansky, Kostov trials, etc. At the same time, each national bureaucracy has its own specific interests and each reproduces in the form of a caricature the traits of the Soviet bureaucracy. Thus, each bureaucracy, over and above the Soviet bureaucracy’s plunderings, goes in for ‘socialism in one country’ in its own separate country, and goes in for fantastic industrialization plans tending towards self-sufficient economies. The separation of these economies from the rest of Europe and the world has had catastrophic effects. The economy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is clearly only a fraction of the German economy, which is itself extremely dependent on the world economy and the international division of labour. The Czech economy occupies a position of first importance on the world market and within the international division of labour. Poland, which is economically backward and essentially agricultural, Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p023] tural production was visibly at the same level as in 1913. Even science and art did not escape the edicts of the bureaucracy. Stalin decided questions of biology, linguistics, art . . . etc. Although this seems crazy, it was absolutely necessary to the existence of the bureaucracy. Science and art are not independent of society. They feed on the actual fabric of society and demand freedom of creation and expression. They are, as a result, channels for social criticism, even if indirect criticism, particularly in a transitional society, where a parasitic, counter-revolutionary bureaucracy has arisen on a base of socialist production relations. The Soviet bureaucracy impedes the development of the productive forces, demanded by the new social relations, through bureaucratic management and by enclosing them in national boundaries. But science and art are nourished by the growth of the produc- tive forces which they in turn fertilize. Their full flowering is continually blocked by obstacles placed there by the parasitic bureaucracy, which they must necessarily challenge. Stalin’s madness expressed the predicament of the Soviet bureaucracy, engaged in a hopeless race with imperialism and obliged to shackle the working class ever more tightly and brutally to silence all forms of expression, all potential powers of criticism, to weigh down more heavily on the countries under its rule. Stalin’s death coincided with the necessity for a brutal re-assessment of its policies by the bureaucracy, if it was to avoid destroying itself in a wave of apocalyptic purges, which were themselves necessary to crush the social antagonisms, following on from a completely crazy economic policy, which had lost all contact with reality, as shown by the ‘communist public works’ which proposed to trans- form nature in order to resolve the economic crisis the origins of which were social. The New Course WAS Stalin’s death one of the consequences of the impasse reached by the bureaucracy, or was it the contingency which set in motion processes which had already matured? Whichever is true, it was the start of a profound revision of policy by the bureaucracy. Its previous course would, sooner or later, have brought it to catastrophe. The content and the direction of the new policy can be defined simply as a search for a modus vivendi with imperialism, an attempt at integration into the world market and the international division of labour, revision of socialist planning to allow free play to the forces of the market, a change in the economic relations of the Soviet Union and the East European states so as to leave them correlatively a wider margin for direct participation in the world market and the international division of labour. 100 This policy was equivalent to a bankruptcy note for ‘socialism in one country’ and the bureaucratic con- ception of planning. It asserted itself with a series of jolts, the curve of its development was broken and irregular. Indeed, it was not a question of techniques, but of social relations expressing themselves in the economic sphere. It developed within the framework of the international class struggle, as both a manifes- tation and component part of this struggle. The revision of the Soviet bureaucracy’s policy gave rise to unremitting internal struggles and discord. The Stalinist apparatus nationally and internationally was cracking and giving way. Stalin’s death was the signal for enormous struggles within the bureaucracy, struggles which were con- stantly being renewed and which were all the more violent for taking place in the shadows, deep in the inner circles. Malenkov, Beria, Bulganin, Molotov, Khrushchev, were successively eliminated. These confrontations corresponded to conflicts taking place at all levels of the bureaucracy and intensified the conflicts. These conflicts immediately assumed dramatic violence and scope in the East Europeean countries. It was no accident. All the conditions were there, in profusion, to make the crisis of the bureaucracy at its most explosive in those countries. The caricature-bureaucracies THE parasitic bureaucracies of Eastern Europe are artificially produced and imposed from outside by the Kremlin. Their national roots are weak. Even the Communist Parties have constantly to be purged, right up to the highest levels: big purges like those of the 1930s were inflicted on the parties in 1948: the Rajk, Slansky, Kostov trials, etc. At the same time, each national bureaucracy has its own specific interests and each reproduces in the form of a caricature the traits of the Soviet bureaucracy. Thus, each bureaucracy, over and above the Soviet bureaucracy’s plunderings, goes in for ‘socialism in one country’ in its own separate country, and goes in for fantastic industrialization plans tending towards self-sufficient economies. The separation of these economies from the rest of Europe and the world has had catastrophic effects. The economy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is clearly only a fraction of the German economy, which is itself extremely dependent on the world economy and the international division of labour. The Czech economy occupies a position of first importance on the world market and within the international division of labour. Poland, which is economically backward and essentially agricultural, Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p024] depends on its ability to export its agricultural pro- ducts and Silesian coal on the world market, so as to import industrial products and raw products which are indispensable for its own industrial development. The same can be said of Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria. Forced collectivization is no less harmful than industrialization as conceived by the satellite bureauc- racies. On the other hand, the working class in these countries has a long tradition of struggle and the fight for national independence is traditionally closely linked with the class struggle. The intelligentsia has always played an important part in the class struggle and the fight for national independence. Finally the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and industrialization, even as conceived by the bureau- crats, have reinforced the fighting potential of the working class. The working class is de facto the dominant social class in any revolutionary movement, even if it is not the first to openly take up the struggle. The first stage in the political revolution and its defeat IN JUNE 1953 the international apparatus of the Soviet bureaucracy was shaken up and this gave the working class of East Germany the chance to rise up and struggle for its demands, and opened up the historical period of the political revolution, which made a further development in October 1956 in Poland, and assumed its full scope and significance in Hungary with the Hungarian Revo- lution of workers’ councils in November 1956. The Soviet bureaucracy dampened the first flames of the political revolution in a river of blood. It did not, for all that, resolve the economic and social contradictions which are at the root of the struggle required for the political revolution. Quite the opposite. It made them worse. The crushing of the Hungarian Revolution was the first important victory for imperialism in the inter- national class struggle since the end of the Second World War. In 1946-1947 the political power of the Soviet bureaucracy was challenged. Against Stalin’s orders the Chinese CP led the Chinese Revolution. In 1948 the CP of Yugoslavia, which led the revo- lutionary war in Yugoslavia, rose up against the Kremlin’s edicts. In 1953 the political weakening of the Soviet bureaucracy gathered momentum. The Soviet working Political revolution in Czechoslovakia class grew in numbers and in cohesion, and strikes broke out in the Soviet Union. Criticisms of Stalin went ahead up to and including the famous secret report of Khrushchev to the 20th Congress of the Soviet party. Writers and artists wanted the right to create freely. Scientists abandoned the ‘decisions’ of the CC on scientific questions. The French working class, over the heads of the bureaucratic apparatus, including the CGT apparatus, and over the head of the French CP, carried out a general strike in August 1953. The crushing of the Hungarian Revolution intensi- fied the change in the relations between the inter- national working class and the international apparatus of Stalinism, between the bourgeoisie, imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy. The Soviet bureaucracy, in crisis and searching for a new political axis to safeguard its privileged caste interests against the world proletariat and the work- ing class in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, was forced to rely on imperialism and the pro- capitalist forces and strengthen them. Planning reforms THE EXCUSE given by the Soviet bureaucracy for intervening in Czechoslovakia was ‘economic reform’ and the economic ties which Czechoslo- vakia was attempting to develop with the world market. But ‘economic reform’ in Czechoslovakia only expresses what is already going on in Russia itself. As soon as the running of the planned economy by Stalinist methods becomes impossible, the bureau- cracy is forced to orientate itself towards regulating the economy through laws expressed in the internal and the world market. In fact it was distinguished Soviet economists, such as Liberman and Trapenikov amongst others, who developed the ‘theories’ of straightforward adaptation to the laws of the market, profitability, etc. If the pressure of imperialism is very strong in Eastern Europe, the entire responsibility for this must be laid at the door of the Soviet bureaucracy. It stands in the way of the only means of safeguarding the planned economy, i.e. the Balkan Socialist Feder- ation, a transition stage towards the United Socialist States of Europe. It cannot do otherwise, because the Socialist Federation of the Balkans poses in an entirely different way the mutual relations of the Eastern European states, their relations with the Soviet Union and with the rest of the world. By regulating the national relations of the Eastern European peoples, the Socialist United States of the Balkans would put an end to the tutelage of one people over another, and would not accommodate to the 101

[p025] depends on its ability to export its agricultural pro- ducts and Silesian coal on the world market, so as to import industrial products and raw products which are indispensable for its own industrial development. The same can be said of Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria. Forced collectivization is no less harmful than industrialization as conceived by the satellite bureauc- racies. On the other hand, the working class in these countries has a long tradition of struggle and the fight for national independence is traditionally closely linked with the class struggle. The intelligentsia has always played an important part in the class struggle and the fight for national independence. Finally the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and industrialization, even as conceived by the bureau- crats, have reinforced the fighting potential of the working class. The working class is de facto the dominant social class in any revolutionary movement, even if it is not the first to openly take up the struggle. The first stage in the political revolution and its defeat IN JUNE 1953 the international apparatus of the Soviet bureaucracy was shaken up and this gave the working class of East Germany the chance to rise up and struggle for its demands, and opened up the historical period of the political revolution, which made a further development in October 1956 in Poland, and assumed its full scope and significance in Hungary with the Hungarian Revo- lution of workers’ councils in November 1956. The Soviet bureaucracy dampened the first flames of the political revolution in a river of blood. It did not, for all that, resolve the economic and social contradictions which are at the root of the struggle required for the political revolution. Quite the opposite. It made them worse. The crushing of the Hungarian Revolution was the first important victory for imperialism in the inter- national class struggle since the end of the Second World War. In 1946-1947 the political power of the Soviet bureaucracy was challenged. Against Stalin’s orders the Chinese CP led the Chinese Revolution. In 1948 the CP of Yugoslavia, which led the revo- lutionary war in Yugoslavia, rose up against the Kremlin’s edicts. In 1953 the political weakening of the Soviet bureaucracy gathered momentum. The Soviet working Political revolution in Czechoslovakia class grew in numbers and in cohesion, and strikes broke out in the Soviet Union. Criticisms of Stalin went ahead up to and including the famous secret report of Khrushchev to the 20th Congress of the Soviet party. Writers and artists wanted the right to create freely. Scientists abandoned the ‘decisions’ of the CC on scientific .questions. The French working class, over the heads of the bureaucratic apparatus, including the CGT apparatus, and over the head of the French CP, carried out a general strike in August 1953. The crushing of the Hungarian Revolution intensi- fied the change in the relations between the inter- national working class and the international apparatus of Stalinism, between the bourgeoisie, imperialism and the Soviet bureaucracy. The Soviet bureaucracy, in crisis and searching for a new political axis to safeguard its privileged caste interests against the world proletariat and the work- ing class in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, was forced to rely on imperialism and the pro-. capitalist forces and strengthen them. Planning reforms THE EXCUSE given by the Soviet bureaucracy for intervening in Czechoslovakia was ‘economic reform’ and the economi¢ ties which Czechoslo- vakia was attempting to develop with the world market. But ‘economic reform’ in Czechoslovakia only expresses what is already going on in Russia itself. As soon as the running of the planned economy by Stalinist methods becomes impossible, the bureau- cracy is forced to orientate itself towards regulating the economy through laws expressed in the internal and the world market. In fact it was distinguished Soviet economists, such as Liberman and Trapenikov amongst others, who developed the ‘theories’ of straightforward adaptation to the laws of the market, profitability, etc. If the pressure of imperialism is very strong in Eastern Europe, the entire responsibility for this must be laid at the door of the Soviet bureaucracy. It stands in the way of the only means of safeguarding the planned economy, i.e. the Balkan Socialist Feder- ation, a transition stage towards the United Socialist States of Europe. It cannot do otherwise, because the Socialist Federation of the Balkans poses in an entirely different way the mutual relations of the Eastern European states, their relations with the Soviet Union and with the rest of the world. By regulating the national relations of the Eastern European peoples, the Socialist United States of the Balkans would put an end to the tutelage of one people over another, and would not accommodate to the 101

[p026] bureaucratic tutelage of the Kremlin. This would make possible the development of economic planning which would, in turn, provide a much firmer foundation for participation in the world market and the inter- national division of labour, a much more balanced way, although, of course, this would not itself be enough to achieve socialism or eliminate the pressure of imperialism. But the Soviet United States of Eastern Europe would open the way for the proletarian revolution in Europe; it would be a first correct response to the problem of unification of Europe within the Socialist United States of Europe. The relations established by the Soviet bureaucracy increase national tensions. These relations are based on the power of the bureaucracies, which, in turn, depend for their existence on the framework of national states and subservience to the Kremlin. They lead to an economic impasse. Thus, Czechoslovakia -accumulated 20 years of technological backwardness as regards steel production, whereas, before the war, it had had one of the most advanced economies in the world. Over the last ten years, the rhythm of economic development has been continually slowing down in all the East European countries. There was even the beginning of a recession in Czechoslovakia in 1966 and 1967 when national income fell. In these con- ditions it is inevitable that imperialism should exert increasing pressure. During the last few years all the East European countries have attempted to adapt their economies to the demands of international competition and the world market. They have all acquired patents, sought loans, and signed agreements for building factories, dealing with the capitalist countries and private firms, thereby effectively opening the door to capitalist penetration. This process has reached an equally advanced stage in Poland and Hungary as it has in Czechoslovakia and Rumania. It is a direct consequence of the tutelage of the Kremlin, which leans on the satellite bureaucracies. Czechoslovakia, whilst still in the grip of Novotny, Kadar’s Hungary and before that Rumania, following in the footsteps of the Kremlin, were preparing to open diplomatic and political relations with the Federal German Republic in order to facilitate and develop their economic ties with that country. The Soviet bureaucracy, supported by the bureauc- racies of Eastern Europe and Poland, forced them, at a conference held at Karlovy Vary, to revoke this step. But besides the fact that it thus recognized West Germany, the Kremlin did not stop imperialist penetration of Eastern Europe, as is proved by Poland and Hungary. The only result has been to intensify the social crisis and the economic impasse which have assumed the form of an explosion in Czechoslovakia. 102 The Czech proletariat, as the link between the proletariats of East and West Europe OVER a long period, the Kremlin endeavoured to maintain a rigidly firm bureaucratic apparatus in Czechoslovakia as unshakable as in East Germany. Czechoslovakia and East Germany, of course, are natural bridges between the political revolution in the East European countries and the social revolution in the West. The bureaucratic machine in Czechoslovakia finished up by cracking. The Kremlin had to give up supporting Novotny and what he represented. They could no longer succeed in mastering the crisis in the Czech apparatus by their usual methods, because it was the most advanced expression of its own crisis, and the crisis sweeping all the East European bureau- cracies. Loewe Movements of students and intellectuals came to the surface in Polahd and Russia before they appeared in Czechoslovakia. Their importance lies in the fact that, particularly in the countries where ‘capitalism has been expropriated, they reveal an intense social crisis reaching down right into the depths of society. The internecine conflicts and tensions as between the ‘national’ bureaucracies of Eastern Europe are another manifestation of the crisis. Reproducing caricaturally the deformations which bureaucratic rule imposes on the planned economy and the workers’ state in the Soviet Union, the East European states and their economies are unviable and monstrous. The Czech working class in taking political power carried through what the stranglehold of the bureaucracy of Eastern Europe had previously pre- vented from happening: it made possible the organiz- ation of the United Socialist States of the Balkans, a first step in the direction of the United Socialist States of Europe. After the fall of Novotny, the disintegration of the bureaucratic apparatus gave free scope to the play of class forces, the working class decisively took the lead. Through its own armed intervention, the Soviet bureaucracy intends to force a new strait-jacket on the social antagonisms in Czechoslovakia and re-build the apparatus. It can only increase the social, economic and political crisis, and thereby the pressure of im- perialism. It can only tip the balance of class forces in favour of the pro-capitalist forces. Its intervention plays right into the hands of imperialism and the pro-capitalist forces in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, as indeed the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution has already done. Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p027] bureaucratic tutelage of the Kremlin. This would make possible the development of economic planning which would, in turn, provide a much firmer foundation for participation in the world market and the inter- national division of labour, a much more balanced way, although, of course, this would not itself be enough to achieve socialism or eliminate the pressure of imperialism. But the Soviet United States of Eastern Europe would open the way for the proletarian revolution in Europe; it would be a first correct response to the problem of unification of Europe within the Socialist United States of Europe. The relations established by the Soviet bureaucracy increase national tensions. These relations are based on the power of the bureaucracies, which, in turn, depend for their existence on the framework of national states and subservience to the Kremlin. They lead to an economic impasse. Thus, Czechoslovakia accumulated 20 years of technological backwardness as regards steel production, whereas, before the war, it had had one of the most advanced economies in the world. Over the last ten years, the rhythm of economic development has been continually slowing down in all the East European countries. There was even the beginning of a recession in Czechoslovakia in 1966 and 1967 when national income fell. In these con- ditions it is inevitable that imperialism should exert increasing pressure. During the last few years all the East European countries have attempted to adapt their economies to the demands of international competition and the world market. They have all acquired patents, sought loans, and signed agreements for building factories, dealing with the capitalist countries and private firms, thereby effectively opening the door to capitalist penetration. This process has reached an equally advanced stage in Poland and Hungary as it has in Czechoslovakia and Rumania. It is a direct consequence of the tutelage of the Kremlin, which leans on the satellite bureaucracies. Czechoslovakia, whilst still in the grip of Novotny, Kadar’s Hungary and before that Rumania, following in the footsteps of the Kremlin, were preparing to open diplomatic and political relations with the Federal German Republic in order to facilitate and develop their economic ties with that country. The Soviet bureaucracy, supported by the bureauc- racies of Eastern Europe and Poland; forced them, at a conference held at Karlovy Vary, to revoke this step. But besides the fact that it thus recognized West Germany, the Kremlin did not stop imperialist penetration of Eastern Europe, as is proved by Poland and Hungary. The only result has been to intensify the social crisis and the economic impasse which have assumed the form of an explosion in Czechoslovakia. 102 rw . the Czech proletariat. as proletariats of East and West Kurope OVER a long period, the Kremlin endeavoured to maintain a rigidly firm bureaucratic apparatus in Czechoslovakia as unshakable as in East Germany. Czechoslovakia and East Germany, of course, are natural bridges between the political revolution in the East European countries and the social revolution in the West. The bureaucratic machine in Czechoslovakia finished up by cracking. The Kremlin had to give up supporting Novotny and what he represented. They could no longer succeed in mastering the crisis in the Czech apparatus by their usual methods, because it was the most advanced expression of its own crisis, and the crisis sweeping all the East European bureau- cracies. Movements of students and intellectuals came to the surface in Poland and Russia before they appeared in Czechoslovakia. Their importance lies in the fact that, particularly in the countries where capitalism has been expropriated, they reveal an intense social crisis reaching down right into the depths of society. The internecine conflicts and tensions as between the ‘national’ bureaucracies of Eastern Europe are another manifestation of the crisis. Reproducing caricaturally the deformations which bureaucratic rule imposes on the planned economy and the workers’ state in the Soviet Union, the East European states and their economies are unviable and monstrous. The Czech working class in taking political power carried through what the stranglehold of the bureaucracy of Eastern Europe had previously pre- vented from happening: it made possible the organiz- ation of the United Socialist States of the Balkans, a first step in the direction of the United Socialist States of Europe. After the fall of Novotny, the disintegration of the bureaucratic apparatus gave free scope to the play of class forces, the working class decisively took the lead. Through its own armed intervention, the Soviet bureaucracy intends to force a new strait-jacket on the social antagonisms in Czechoslovakia and re-build the apparatus. It can only increase the social, economic and political crisis, and thereby the pressure of im- perialism. It can only tip the balance of class forces in favour of the pro-capitalist forces. Its intervention plays right into the hands of imperialism and the pro-capitalist forces in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, as indeed the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution has already done. Fourth International, Winter 1968/1969

[p029] (IIT) Kremlin policy serves imperialism Immediate aid to imperialism WORLD imperialism was not taken in. Johnson, de Gaulle and Wilson stated once again that ‘co- existence must continue’ and they could do noth- ing for Czechoslovakia. Moscow’s representative at the UN took pains to explain that the military intervention in Czechoslo- vakia was an integral part of the policy of ‘peaceful co-existence’. As if that were not enough, Moscow sent ambassadors to Washington, London, Paris, Bonn and even to Athens, to explain first the reasons for the military intervention, and secondly the content and significance of the Moscow diktat, to all the capitalist governments. World imperialism took immediate advantage of the counter-revolutionary action of the Kremlin. It attempted to throw the international working class into confusion. US imperialism, in search of a quick solution to the Vietnam question, had already used Soviet policy to force the government of North Vietnam and the NLF to accept a political agreement guaranteeing its own presence. The US was afraid that the working class in Japan, the United States and Europe might embark on far-reaching revolutionary struggles, challenging imperialism at its foundations, whilst it was engaged in a counter-revolutionary war against the Vietnamese people. Now, of course, it can carry on its counter- revolutionary war that much more confidently and its political demands will be that much steeper, because it will feel it has a freer hand in the class struggle in the advanced capitalist countries. French capitalism, of course, is not averse to exploiting ‘communist aggression in Czechoslovakia’, to develop the offensive against its own working class. Germany can only benefit from the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. The division of the working class and the hatred of the German working class for Stalinism are essential elements, without which German capitalism would have been unable to hold back the development of the class struggle in West 104 Germany. There can be no doubt that the German bourgeoisie is now in a position to bring in tougher measures against the German working class.