Letter from Jose Valdes, Santiago de Chile, March 1968

[p055] Letter from Jose Valdes Santiago de Chile, March 29, 1969 To the Delegates Dear Comrades: Our comrades of Chile send fraternal and Fourth Internationalist greetings to the comrade delegates. Because of the impossibility of travelling, we are sending some notes for your consideration. José Valdés (1) We have resolved to support in general the Draft Resolution presented by Comrade L. [Livio Maitan]. (2) We reject the document of Comrade J.H. [Joseph Hansen]. (1) We approve in general the document of Com- rade L. because we hold that it contains not only a correct political analysis of the L.A. situation and its perspectives and provides a clear line of orientation for the construction of the revolutionary vanguard, but also because it constitues a step forward in our F.I. movement with regard to the decision that the Trotskyists of Latin America and other parts of the world prepare politically and technically to integrate themselves into the armed struggle or to accelerate the beginning of the insurrection. We Trotskyists have represented the continuity of the revolutionary Marxist tradition, betrayed by Stalinism and the Social Democracy, we have made programmatic, theoretical and political contributions, many of them accepted at the present time by other revolutionary currents, and we represent historically the interests of the proletariat. But the absence of a decision to prepare ourselves militarily in specific favourable political conjunctures to organize a plan for the insurrection of which Trotsky spoke to us in the ‘Russian Revolution’ and in his ‘Military Writings’ caused our movement to lose incomparable opportunities in various countries to convert our- selves into the real vanguard of the revolution, It is time to ask ourselves: What would have happened if the Trotskyist movement had resolutely decided to prepare itself, and to prepare the worker and peasant vanguard, in order to initiate an armed insurrection in Bolivia and Ceylon, countries in which the Trot- skyist movement had gained an appreciable mass influence? The document of L. contains not only this impor- tant strategic decision (which for some is of a techni- cal character but which for us is fundamentally poli- tical because it is intimately linked to the construction of the party and the triumph of the Socialist Revolu- tion), but also correctly characterizes the present situ- ation as prerevolutionary, reaffirms the continental character of the Revolution, gives a correct long and prolonged perspective to the armed struggle funda- mentally because of the imperialist reaction and intervention (case of Santo Domingo). The document of L. clearly defines the Cuban Revolution and the Castroist current, delimiting itself from some of its The Future of the Fourth international positions and foquista guerrilla deviations, correctly indicating the basic orientation for integration into the Castroist movement in order to construct the revolutionary Marxist party. The document warns about impatience and spontaneism and is careful to indicate that the transitional programme must be adapted by each section to the specific situation of the country. In other pages included herewith, we propose some additions and corrections to the document of L. (2) We reject the document of Comrade J.H. for the following reasons: (a) It leaves our L.A. movement disarmed, or at least paralyzed, since the L.A. sections of the F.I. are already carrying out a policy that coincides in general lines with the Draft Resolution presented by Comrade L. In this sense the criticism’s of Comrade JH constitute a criticism of the present orientation of the LA sections of the FI. Comrade L. in this case would be the ‘Albania’ of the polemic. (b) He does not make any concrete analysis of the present political conjuncture in LA nor indicate either perspectives or precise tasks that would help us to carry out a policy and strategy for constructing the party. (c) He does not indicate a clear policy with regard to Castroism and the rest of the revolutionary left concerning the continental nature of the LA revolution. His criticisms of Castroism and its revolu- tionary tactics leads to political confusion, lamentable in the case of Comrade J.H. who contributed so much in his articles in recent years to clarifying a correct position on the Cuban Revolution. Now comrade J.H. has come to place in doubt whether the Cuban leader- ship has contributed in a decisive manner to the maturing of a new revolutionary left. The Castro- Guevarist leadership has committed errors, but no one can place in doubt that its orientation and influ- ence have provoked a crisis among the traditional parties of the left and have contributed to liberate new revolutionary forces which today constitute the most viable and real alternative for accelerating the LA Socialist Revolution. (d) The position of Comrade J.H. with regard to armed struggle and guerrilla war is frankly tradi- tionalist and, in some cases, hardly serious when he ridicules the action of the guerrilla groups, approxi- mating in his criticisms, made from a rightist angle, the pamphlets against Debray written by the theo- reticians of reformism and Stalinism. It would have been more fruitful if Comrade J.H. had drawn a balance sheet of the errors committed by the Guate- malan, Venezuelan, Colombian, Peruvian, and Boli- vian guerrillas in place of opening a discussion in the abstract on guerrilla war. 105

[p056] (e) He does not indicate a clear orientation for constructing the revolutionary Marxist party, limiting himself to posing generalities on which we are all in agreement, such as the necessity for carrying on work in the fronts of the masses, based on the transition programme. Comrade J.H. says that the crucial question for the FI is to link itself to the youth. We agree. But to win the vanguard of the Latin-American worker, peasant, student youth, which is Castro-Guevarist in its great majority, it is necessary to have a clear policy to facilitate the integration, something that Comrade J.H. does not do; just the contrary, all his arguments could block us from this integration and lead us to isolate ourselves from the youth. Comrade J.H. says that the document of Comrade L. distracts attention from this key problem for the FI. To the contrary, the document of Comrade L. is precisely an effort to give a policy that expresses the concerns of the Castroist Latin-American youth. Comrade J.H.’s entire policy reduces to proposing the possibility of a united front with OLAS. In some LA countries it would be suitable for the sections of the FI to pose a united front with the Castroist organization. (We should not speak of the OLAS in the abstract because this organism has not been constituted in hardly any country; it is more concrete to refer to the revolutionary group that is closest to and linked with Castroism.) In other countries, there are incomparable conditions for becoming integrated into the new revolutionary left. The precise position of J.H. of opposing integration into the Castroist current would close the possibility of applying this line, which would lead in some countries to our isolating ourselves from the vanguard. Integration into the Castroist current must not be understood as an application of the old tactic of entryism, since we would not be integrating ourselves into a reformist grouping but into a revolutionary nucleus which in fact, although not in words, accepts the theory of the Permanent Revolution and the propositions of the Second Declaration of Havana, the March 13, 1967 speech of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara’s letter to OLAS on ‘creating two, three, and many Vietnams,’ documents in which the socialist character of the Revolution is specified. We integrate ourselves in order to apply this programme in revolu- tionary action and insofar as is possible to win the leadership of this movement with our best cadres in order to guarantee the application of this programme. (f) Comrade J.H. says that the document of Comrade L. is in contradiction with the document on the world situation presented to the WC [World Congress] in which it is indicated that the present revolutionary process tends to approach the ‘classical’ model or norm, This estimate, which is debatable and which ought to be specified, would in any case be a tendency of present concrete armed struggles and guerrilla wars of Asia, Africa and LA. 106 (g) The document of Comrade J.H. could be of interest in opening a polemic on another level on problems of revolutionary strategy, but it contributes very little towards a WC bringing: out a positive resolution that would effectively help the possible work of the sections of the FI. Although the document of Comrade J.H. is rejected, we propose that it be included as discussion material for a debate which the sections of the FI should resolve to initiate now on questions of strategy in the armed struggle. (h) He distorts the document of Comrade L. when he says that the Draft Resolution on LA ‘simply proposes a continental tactic or strategy of technical preparation in a rural guerrilla war for a prolonged period.’ On page 1, we have pointed out the political contributions of this document, with which we believe that we have demonstrated the unilateral criticism of Comrade J.H. He also distorts when he says that the document of Comrade L. is a ‘faithful reflection of the publicly expressed views of the Cuban leader- ship on this question’ (of guerrilla war). In reality, Comrade L. tries to indicate his differences with the Castro-Guevarist theory of the ‘foco’ and polemicizes with the thesis of Debray, without naming it, We propose that the WC agree to incorporate into the discussion on insurrectional strategy (which we pro- posed in the previous paragraph should be opened after the WC) a document criticizing the theory of the ‘guerrilla foco.’ A documented debate, conducted without haste on the subject, would be of great benefit to the sections of the FI and would avoid the super- ficialities of Comrade J.H. in demanding that Comrade L. ought to pose the tactic of guerrilla war for all continents. (i) Comrade J.H. criticizes Comrade L. because he supposedly suggested in a different article, ‘An Insufficient Document,’ that the resources of the FI should be concentrated so that one of its sections could place itself at the head of an insurrection. No one can deny that the Trotskyist movement would qualitatively increase its prestige if it contributed decisively to the triumph of a Socialist Revolution. But this cannot come from an act of will without the objective and subjective conditions to carry it out in practice. If these conditions were to obtain in some country we do not have the least doubt that a genuine praxis of proletarian internationalism would concentrate forces—not only economic ones— for such an aim. International aid and solidarity are not only empirical and pragmatic objectives, in face of accomplished facts, such as taking up collections for sections suffering repression or propaganda for freeing political prisoners. If it were only for this, that kind of proletarian internationalism would be an _inter- nationalism for the stage of defence and defeat. There can and must be also a proletarian internationalism to prepare the offensive and victory of the armed in- surrection, the only road for the triumph of the Social- ist Revolution. Fourth International, Winter 1969/70

[p057] CHINA