Amendment proposed by Charlier and Germain to the Resolution on Algeria

[p064] Amendment proposed by Charlier and Germain to the resolution on Algeria Today the Trotskyist movement is unanimous in its assessment of the current situation in Algeria. After the June 19 coup d’état, however, the limited 114 importance of the change in the government make-up led some militants to ask whether the character of this coup had not been exaggerated; since, after all, it Fourth International, Winter 1969/70

[p065] did not exceed the dimensions of a palace revolution. Subsequently, the majority agreed that the coup was the qualitative expression of a molecular deterioration which had occurred in the last period of President Ben Bella’s regime. But in view of the rapidity with which the state bureaucracy accentuated its right turn, a second question arose: Had the Trotskyist movement exaggerated the advances of the Algerian revolution in February 1964 when it characterized the Ben Bella government as a workers’ and peasants’ government? This is the question which must be answered now. And there is nothing academic in our taking up this question. Since 1954, the world Trotsky- ist movement has engaged in unconditional support of the revolutionary struggle of the Algerian people. After independence was won, a number of the move- ment’s cadres put themselves at the service of the Algerian people and, until 1965, their government. At the World Reunification Congress in July 1963, although this work was directed by cadres belonging to a tendency that was subsequently to leave the mainstream of the movement, it was approved unani- mousiy by the movement’s highest authority. In undertaking this labour of self-criticism, the Fourth International is applying the Leninist rule that ‘The seriousness of a revolutionary party is measured by the attitude it takes toward its own errors’. These considerations are by no means intended to minimize the real advances which marked the development of the Algerian revolution during the first years after independence. They are not intended either to denigrate the real anti-imperialist and anti- capitalist actions of the Ben Bella government and, more precisely, the limited team around Ben Bella, which on several occasions went outside the insti- tutional framework to make concessions to the masses. The process of legalizing the conquests of the masses by decrees, going beyond the established institutions, is an example of this. This way of operating is comparable to that which any workers’ and peasants’ government must resort to in operating within the structures of a bourgeois state while not hesitating to come into conflict with them. To answer the question concerning the nature of the Ben Bella government, it is, however, likewise necessary to take into account the fact that the masses in movement that won self-management were the permanent workers on the large estates that later became self-managed farms; that is, the agricultural proletariat in the true sense of the word. After the summer of 1962, this agricultural proletariat was the only sector of the masses in motion. It was this mass that formed the Ben Bella team’s social base. This relatively narrow social base enabled the Ben Bella government to play a Bonapartist role. The masses of poor peasants could have offered a broader social base, but they were atomized during the crisis of the summer of 1962. These masses have not been able to mobilize themselves to this day. The Fourth International did not correctly weigh the importance of this void and therefore tended not to see this major difference between the situation in Algeria and the situation which led to the establish- ment of a workers’ state in Cuba less than two years after the Castroist team took power. (A comparable risk would have existed if the Cuban leadership had split into three or four opposing fractions in January 1959 and found itself unable to mobilize immediately Pabloite Congress: Algeria all the exploited masses in the country through the rapid and radical implementation of the land reform, the urban reform, the major nationalizations, and the general literacy campaign, etc.) , In this situation, a revolutionary leadership pos- sessing an adequate instrument, a revolutionary party, would have been able to quickly attempt to re-establish contact with the masses. But in Algeria, the FLN was never a ‘party’ in the class sense, Moreover, it no longer existed after 1958, except as an organization in the federation of France and as a government in the GPRA. For all other purposes it had abdicated in favour of the ALN. This erroneous analogy with the Cuban situation subsequently led the Trotskyist movement to minimize the seriousness of certain events, such as the Khider apparatus’ gangster-like attack on the UGTA congress. The falseness of this analogy was made worse by a wrong assessment of the nature of the ALN, especially after the application of the Evian agreements, and by the conception, maintained primarily by the Pablo tendency, that in the concrete Algerian situation of 1962-3 the army could play the role of the party. The grave consequences of the delay in organizing an Algerian revolutionary vanguard were seriously underestimated. In view of the qualitative difference between the limited mobilization of the Algerian masses in 1963 and the general mobilization of the masses in Cuba in 1959-61, the analogy with the Cuban revolution was methodologically false. It was the narrowness of the Ben Bella team’s social base also which little by little, as no other sector of the masses moved in to reinforce the agricultural workers, resulted in Ben Bella’s becoming a prisoner of his own state apparatus. The Trotskyist movement never used this category in the Algerian context as a synonym for a dictator- ship of the proletariat. Such a variant of a workers’ and peasants’ government is only one among others. The state structures were always correctly analyzed as bourgeois, except by the comrades of the Pablo tendency. These comrades used confused formulas like ‘anti-capitalist state’ or ‘semi-workers’ in the press of the International. They underestimated the weight of the bourgeois apparatus and its ability to halt or reverse the dynamic of permanent revolution. This capacity proved decisive. But although the International correctly applied the designation of workers’ and peasants’ government to the Ben Bella regime, it did not sufficiently stress the imperious necessity of establishing independent organs of political power by the urban and rural proletariat. Such bodies, moreover, would have been the best instruments for a general mobilization of the masses and the sole means for making the process of permanent revolution irreversible. It was primarily the comrades of the Pablo tendency—who at the time controlled the journal of the French section—who made this incorrect analysis of the dynamic of the Algerian revolution. They assigned the mass mobiliza- tion essentially the role of supporting the Ben Bella tendency and realizing the FLN programme, ‘failing to understand that their hope for a gradual change in the nature of the Algerian state was a utopian and non-Marxist conception. A concomitant error was committed in May 1964 when the International Executive Committee set the task for the revolutionary Marxists of collaborating 115

[p066] in the formation of a revolutionary socialist left ‘led by the FLN’ (the IEC resolution, ‘The International Situation and the Tasks of the Revolutionary Marxists’, QI, July 1964) instead of stressing the need to work among the ranks first to create a revolutionary Marxist organization linked to the Algerian masses. The lesson of the events in Algeria is of consider- able importance. The victory of the socialist revolution in Algeria was possible. But a decisive factor was lacking: the revolutionary party. Within the frame of this self-criticism it must be added frankly that if the participation of the Trotsky- ist movement in the Algerian revolution, its support to the struggle and to the most progressive tendency after 1962 were considerable, too little was done in carrying out the specific function of the Trotskyist movement—to form the nucleus of a future Algerian revolutionary party, The work of training and recruit- ing Algerian militants was considerably neglected for work at the top. Doubtless, during an initial phase, in view of the smallness of our forces, it was correct to con- centrate cn a campaign of practical support for the revolution which was creating a climate favourable to the spread of our ideas. But after a given point the formation of an organized nucleus should have been given priority. The International recognized this at its Seventh World Congress. It did not, however, make the necessary effort to impose this line. Thus, it shares the blame for this error with the comrades of the Pablo tendency, who were the main ones respon- sible for this work and for the false orientation as regards building a revolutionary nucleus. g g eC [s) [e) a a : é : Lu! : 9 WHAT IS THE N 5 SOVIET UNION ny 3 Oe sr WHERE 3 © IS IT GOING? 0 i + @ iJ = = ;| TROTSKY ; a a NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. _ 186a CLAPHAM HIGH STREET, LONDON, S.W.4 116 Fourth International, Winter 1969/70

[p067] Subscribe to Fourth International FoURTH INTERNATIONAL is the theoretical journal of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work of Lasour REVIEW which concluded its 12th year of publication with its issue of Summer 1963, the fifth number of volume 7. FouRTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work and traditions of Revolutionary Communism since the death of Lenin. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL represents the unbroken chain of theoretical journals in the Bolshevik tradition, whose continuators were the Left Opposition led and inspired by Leon Trotsky. FouRTH INTERNATIONAL follows in the traditions of that Opposition and in the traditions of the Fourth International of Leon Trotsky. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL is the product of decades of continuous struggle of Marxists in the Inter- national Labour movement against Stalinism, Reformism and Revisionism. FouRTH INTERNATIONAL represents the successful fusion of Marxist trends in this International Labour movement, from Trotskyist to Com- munist, Social-Democratic and Trade Union movements. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL, With its first issue, com- menced a new period of activity in the Inter- National Labour movement and continues to prepare and equip the Marxist movement for its future intervention in the battles of the working class which promise to eclipse and transcend all previous struggles both in their depth and scope. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/draft for £ s. d. to pay for issues of FourTH INTERNATIONAL. Volume.... No..... Price 4/- (postage 6d. per issue) weeeeneee eee eee eee oe eseeeeeoeneeneewesene Some writings by Leon Trotsky The First Five Years of the Communist International Vol. 2 (soft cover) 12s. 6d. (hard cover) 18s. Od. The New Course 3s. 6d. The Permanent Revolution (soft cover) 15s. Od. (hard cover) 25s. Od. Draft Programme of the Communist International A Criticism of Fundamentals, 1928 Is. Od. Where is Britain Going? 7s. 6d. Whither France? 5s. Od. Stalinism and Trotskyism in the USA Is. 6d. Stalinism and Bolshevism 6d. Radio, Science, Technique and Society Is. Od. I Stake My Life! (Dewey report of the Moscow Trials) 6a. The Russian Revolution (The Copenhagen Speech) 4d. Culture and Socialism and Art and Revolution 2s. 6d. Death Agony of Capitalism (Transitional Programme) 1/- The Intelligentsia and Socialism Is, Od. In Defence of Marxism (soft cover) 10s. 6d. (hard cover) 21s. Od. Platform of the Left Opposition 5s. Od. Through What Stage Are We Passing? 2s. Od. Young People Study Politics ls. 9d. The Struggle for State Power (1917) 2s. Od. To: New Park Publications Ltd.. 186A Clapham High St., London, S.W.4. I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/ draft for £ s. d. to pay for errrereerrrrrerrrr eS Tee Eee eee eee Perr rrr rrr rer ererer rere rr eee ee reece ere

[p068] Subscribe to Fourth International FourTH INTERNATIONAL is the theoretical journal of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national. FouRTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work of Lapour REvieEW which concluded its 12th year of publication with its issue of Summer 1963, the fifth number of volume 7. FourRTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work and traditions of Revolutionary Communism since the death of Lenin. FourTH INTERNATIONAL represents the unbroken chain of theoretical journals in the Bolshevik tradition, whose continuators were the Left Opposition led and inspired by Leon Trotsky. FourTH INTERNATIONAL follows in the traditions of that Opposition and in the traditions of the Fourth International of Leon Trotsky. FourRTH INTERNATIONAL is the product of decades of continuous struggle of Marxists in the Inter- national Labour movement against Stalinism, Reformism and Revisionism. FourTH INTERNATIONAL represents the successful fusion of Marxist trends in this International Labour movement, from Trotskyist to Com- munist, Social-Democratic and Trade Union movements. FourTH INTERNATIONAL, With its first issue, com- menced a new period of activity in the Inter- National Labour movement and continues to prepare and equip the Marxist movement for its future intervention in the battles of the working class which promise to eclipse and transcend all previous struggles both in their depth and scope. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 1864 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 [ enclose cheque/postal order/money order/draft for £ 8 d. to pay for issues of FourTH INTERNATIONAL. Volume.... No..... Price 4/- (postage 6d. per issue) Some writings by Leon Trotsky The First Five Years of the Communist International Vol. 2 (soft cover) 12s. 6d (hard cover) 18s. Od. The New Course 3s. 6d. The Permanent Revolution (soft cover) 15s. Od (hard cover) 25s. Od Draft Programme of the Communist International A Criticism of Fundamentals, 1928 Is. Od. Where is Britain Going? 7s. 6d. Whither France? 5s. Od. Stalinism and Trotskyism in the USA Is. 6d. Stalinism and Bolshevism 6d. Radio, Science, Technique and Society Is. Od 1 Stake My Life! (Dewey report of the Moscow Trials) 6a. The Russian Revolution (The Copenhagen Speech) 4d. Culture and Socialism and Art and Revolution 2s. 6d. Death Agony of Capitalism (Transitional Programme) 1/- The Intelligentsia and Socialism ls. Od. In Defence of Marxism (soft cover) 10s. 6d. (hard cover) 21s. Od. Platform of the Left Opposition 5s. Od. Through What Stage Are We Passing? 2s. Od. Young People Study Politics ls. 9d. The Struggle for State Power (1917) 2s. Od. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High St., London, S.W.4. I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/ draft for £ s. d. to pay for ererrrrrrr Terr rrr rrtirrrri it ie