Long live the struggle of the Czechoslovak Working Class!

[p027] Long live the Struggle of the — Czechoslovak working class! Extracts from the resolutions passed by the . conference of militant revolutionaries of E. Europe Fourth International, Summer 1970

[p028] Long live the struggle of the Czechoslovak working class! Extracts from the resolutions passed by the conference of militant revolutionaries of E. Europe Fourth International, Summer 1970

[p029] WE ARE militant Czechoslovaks, Poles, Yugoslavs and Hungari- ans who have been fight- ing in the _ recent struggles of workers and youth in our countries. We assembled in Switzer- land from December 27, 1969, to January 3, 1970, in a Conference organized by the International Committee of the Fourth International. As conscious participants in the struggles led in our countries by the workers, the youth and the intellectuals, we have drawn the conclu- sion that our struggle must be organically linked to the struggle of the international working class. That is the real meaning of our conference. In the light of the conclu- sions we and our comrades of the International Committee of the Fourth International have drawn, we turn towards Czechoslovakia where the struggles of the workers in all our countries has found its highest expression. It is our duty to make this turn—especially today when massive repression is gripping the workers and youth of all the E European countries. This repression is particu- larly ferocious in Czechoslo- vakia where more than a thousand arrests and purges show the Stalinist apparatus’s determination to establish a reign of terror, to ‘normalize’ the situation. @ Hands off the Czecho- slovak working class and its militants Defend We call on the whole workers’ movement, in par- ticular the militant communists who have condemned the in- tervention, to defend the Czechoslovak workers and militants. They must demand that their party leaders, particularly in France, Italy and Great Documents from the Soviet Opposition Britain, take a stand in defence of the arrested and threatened militants. These leaderships condemned the _ intervention. Let them now take on their responsibilities. The struggle of the Czecho- slovak working class, youth, intellectuals and students be- gan as a fight for workers’ democracy based on socialist conquest. Their struggle is the con- tinuation of the 1917 October Revolution betrayed by the Stalinist bureaucracy, whose rule is incompatible with this democracy and therefore with socialism; it is the same as the struggle waged by the working class of E Germany, of Poland, of Hungary from 1953 to 1956, with the same objective and the same enemy. We are fighting this same struggle which is now develop- ing in all the E European coun- tries. Their struggle is the pro- cess of the political revolution in Poland, Yugoslavia and the USSR itself and which in Czechoslovakia has made the overthrow of the parasitic bur- eaucracy the order of the day. The struggle of the working class, ‘the intellectuals, the students and the whole Czech- oslovak people forced the bureaucracy to get rid of the most compromised section of the leadership. * Using this more favourable situation, the masses enforced freedom of speech and criti- cized the bureaucratic regime mercilessly. Faced with this mobiliza- tion, the bureaucracy was forced to retreat more than it ever intended to; in the April programme, while broadening democratic _liber- ties and beginning a_ timid criticism of the compromised Novotny faction, it also tried to fix the limits of its con- cessions. But instead of calling a halt to their movement, the workers and youth once again marched forward. Even at the moment of its creation, the April pro- gramme had been outstripped. Faced with the pressure of the masses for their own democracy, the bureaucratic apparatus started to fall apart. This new stage was ex- pressed in the battle for the democracy, the bureaucratic extraordinary 14th Congress of the Communist Party and the free election of delegates. The new Dubcek leadership was once again forced to follow the movement by pro- mising to satisfy its demands. The leadership defined its policies by the formula ‘socialism with a human face’. Because the Dubcek leader- ship represented a retreat by Dubcek : His leadership defined its policies by the formula ‘socialism with a human face’. the bureaucracy betore the masses, they gave this leader- ship their full support, be- lieving that ‘socialism with a human face’ meant the full realization of their hopes. The military intervention in- augurated a new stage in the development of the mobiliza- tion of the workers and it revealed the extreme limita- “tions of the Dubcek leadership. The whole working class lined up against the interven- tion and against all those who supported it. The stories spread before the invasion about the leading role of the intellectuals and students were sharply contra- dicted: the leading force of the political revolution is the working class. Protection It is precisely because of the mobilization of this class that militant communists were able to dislocate the Stalinist apparatus and recall the extra- ordinary 14th Congress of the Communist Party, under the direct protection of the work- ing class. A non-Stalinist party was born. Breaking with the Mos- cow bureaucracy, this Party organized the resistance. But the break with the Soviet bureaucracy by no means transformed it into a revolutionary party. It based itself on the same ‘socialism with a human face’ that the Dubcek leadership determined as the ultimate concession to the masses and as its means of deflecting them from the revolutionary road. In reality, ‘socialism with a human face’ is only a ‘better’ policy of the same ruling bur- eaucracy and not socialism, which the working class wins and expresses in and through the rule of its councils. These councils (Soviets), in opposition to the rule of the bureaucracy, can only be established throu the de-- struction of the bureaucracy and its organs of political power by the political revolu- on, The political revolution, be- cause it is a manifestation of and an organic part of the world revolution, requires an international leadership to express and organize the 17

[p030] struggle of the world pro- letariat. But contrary to this, the 14th Congress, like the Dubcek leadership, based its policies on ‘socialism in one country’, under the banner of ‘socialism with a human face’. That is why the struggle against the Czechoslovak bur- eaucracy was checked by the 14th Congress, which consoli- dated the ranks of the bureau- cracy around the slogan ‘social- ism with a human face! CONSCIOUS militants then started to draw the first lessons of this experience which was marked by the The struggle for the Czechoslovak workin of Hungary from 1953 to 1956, with the 18 collapse of the Dubcek leader- ship. Attempts were made to dis- cover a solution by analysing the recent and historic experi- ences of the Czechoslovak workers and people. It was not because of the militants’ lack of determination or ability that these analyses could not go beyond a certain point— which was itself the product of the conditions of their struggle. On the one hand, these analyses conceived of tne struggle of the Czechoslovak workers as an isolated, special struggle within a _ national context. Consequently, their * g class against Stalinism is th e same struggle waged by same objective and the same enemy. Top: Soviet tanks i posed solution is also limited to this narrow perspective. Even when they recognized the connection between the Czech- oslovak workers’ struggle and struggles being waged in other countries, their analysis re- mained formal because they looked at this relationship as one struggle added to another rather than as an _ organic whole. The organic link between social revolution in the cap- italist countries and_ political revolution in the E European countries is determined by, among other things, the coun- ter-revolutionary world alli- ance of imperialism and the bureaucracy against the inter- national working class and its conquests. On the other hand, and stemming from this narrow- ness, these analyses did not see the struggle of the Czech- oslovak and other eastern workers as the continuation of the 1917 October Revolution. History Instead, they saw it either as a continuing §historical- national struggle or as having no history at all. Because these attempts rested on the concept of ‘socialism in one _ country’, with the struggle of the inter- national proletariat as a secon- dary factor, they remained the working class of E Germany, of Poland, n Prague, August 1968. Above: Poland 1956. Fourth International, Summer 1970

[p031] within the same bounds as the Dubcek leadership and the 14th Congress in spite of their wish to go further. Consequently, in their search for political leadership in the struggle, the militants were inevitably led back to- wards the bureaucracy by such analyses. Our own experiences in our countries have confronted us with these same problems and we have looked for their solution. The only clarification we have found is the following: The international unity of the class struggle and the unity of the social revolution and the political revolution, as well as the continuity of victorious Developed THE STRUGGLE _ against revisionism was born’ and developed in the Fourth In- ternational. It resulted in the formation of the International Commit- tee of the Fourth International in order to preserve the con- tinuity of its programme and organization against the at- tacks by the _liquidationist revisionists. Because of this crisis, the Fourth International could not fully play its part in the development of the _inter- national struggle of the work- ing class between 1953 and 1956. Comment AS USUAL the revisionists are content to comment on the development of the politi- cal revolution in Czechoslo- vakia and the other countries of E Europe. They no longer dare to propagate their true position— that of subordinating the struggle to the bureaucracy— openly, as they did from 1948 to 1956 and they refuse to put forward the concrete and indispensable perspective of a revolutionary programme and a revolutionary party to militants. Formulate IN SPITE of their loathing of perspectives, the development of the struggle in Czechoslo- vakia forced the Pabloites to formulate their objectives. The perspective they put forward to militants—accord- ing to them the ‘Marxist and revolutionary’ left— is the forming of so-called organs of workers’ ‘self management’. This is how they degrade the working class and its role. Whereas the working class is the leading force of the revolution and its councils are, and must be, the organiz- ational form of its power, the revisionists advise that these Bolshevism of October 1917, are expressed and embodied in the programme and organiz- ation of the Fourth Inter- national. Consequently, only a party founded on this programme as part of the Fourth Inter- national, taking the place of the bankrupt leaderships, can express the hopes of the masses and lead them to the victory of the political revolution. Defeats BUT THE Fourth Inter- national was founded in a time of great defeats of the proletariat. Under conditions of isola- tion, the pressure of the bour- geoisie and Stalinism gave rise to the development of revisionism even in the leader- ship of the Fourth Inter- national. Bureaucracy THIS revisionism (called Pabloism after its spokesman, Michel Pablo), held that the fundamental antagonism was not between the international proletariat and world imper- ialism, but between the latter and the Stalinist bureaucracy, thus awarding the bureaucracy an historic mission and deny- ing this decisive, revolutionary role to the proletariat. The tendency that aims to subordinate the politics of the Fourth International to the Stalinist apparatus derives from this position which is opposed to. the programme of the Fourth International. According to this programme, bureaucracy must be thrown out and its power destroyed. Feb 1948: Armed workers’ militia mobilized to break capitalism in Czechoslovakia. Forward to the political revolution in Eastern Europe! Documents from the Soviet Opposition 19

[p032] councils be established as ‘in- dustrial’ appendices of the bureaucracy as in Yugoslavia. IN THIS fundamental differ- ence on the role and meaning of workers’ councils and the proletarian party all militants can measure the abyss that separates us as Marxists from the revisionists who abuse the name of the Fourth Inter- national. Party MILITANT communists and socialists, we think that all experience shows that the van- guard of the Czechoslovak working class and of all the E European countries must build the class party of the political revolution. We think that this in- dependent party can only be founded on the programme of the Fourth International as a member of this International. The party will then embody the international unity of the working class, organizing the struggle of the working class for the taking of power in the entire world. Czechoslovak militants can and must renew the struggle of those like Zavis Kalandra who, from 1936, answered the call of Leon Trotsky and denounced the Moscow Trials. people! THE CAMPAIGN of. suicide by fire in Czechoslovakia, started on January 16, 1969 by Prague student Jan Palach as a protest against the un- warranted interference in the internal affairs of the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia, is not over. On February 21 a new ‘living torch’—but living only for a moment — burned in Wenceslas Square. This protest, which takes such a horrible form, is first of all directed at us, the Soviet people. It is the unsolicited and completely unjustified pre- sence of our troops that is provoking such anger and such despair among the Czecho- slovak people. Not in vain has Jan Palach’s death aroused all the Czecho- slovak workers. 20 of the party requires militants experiences and link them with The condemnation of Kalandra to hanging meant the victory of the Stalinist bureaucracy in Czechoslovakia. In the same way, the devel- opment of the struggle of the Czechoslovak workers in 1968 necessarily meant the reappear- ance of the name of Kalandra, leader of the Fourth Inter- national, before workers and militant Czechoslovaks. The Stalinist bureaucracy has long understood that its principal enemy is the Fourth International. It knows that the only alter- native to its power, the only path for the workers’ struggle, is the Fourth International. That is why it leads the offensive against ‘Trotskyism’, even if the militants accused are not Trotskyists and are not familiar with the pro- gramme and organization of the Fourth International. All communists, all militant workers must draw this con- clusion: build the party of the Fourth International, the party of Kalandra! Continuity The task of the construction that clarify their own We bear the full weight of responsibility for his death, and for the deaths of other Czechoslovak brothers who have committed suicide. By approving, by justifying the military intervention, or simply by remaining silent, we allow more living torches to burn in the squares of Prague and other cities. The Czechs and _ Slovaks have always considered us their brothers. Are we going to let the word ‘Soviet’ be- come synonymous with the word ‘enemy’ for them? Citizens of our country! The greatness of our coun- try does not lie in the might of its armies brought down on ai small freedom-loving people, but in its moral force. Are we going to continue to great the experiences of the inter- national proletariat within the context of the continuity of Bolshevism. Such clarification can only take place within an organized context, by continuing the struggle by the side of the workers, by joining’ the struggle of the international proletariat. This also means that the party can only be constructed if it is part of the Fourth In- ternational. The victory of the International, leader of the world revolution, will mean the formation of the Socialist United States of Europe and will at the same time resolve the national question. An important stage on this road will be the Socialist Federation of Central and E Europe which will begin to settle the problem of nation- alities and nations, particularly important in this part of Europe. Because the Soviet bureau- cracy’s relationship to the Czechoslovak bureaucracy, and to other eastern countries, takes the form of national oppression, the struggle of the workers against the Kremlin bureaucracy is a struggle for national liberty. National demands, as a con- for democratic rights, are part of the struggle for the political Long live the heroic Czechoslovak Appeal to the citizens of the Soviet Union from Piotr Grigorenko. look on in _ silence as our brothers perish? It is now clear to all that the presence of our troops on the territory of the Socialist - Republic of Czechoslovakia is not in the interest of the de- fence of our country or in the Jan Palach revolution and can only be defended in alliance with the workers of the Soviet Union and not on a national basis. @ Long live the Czechos- lovak working class and youth! @ Immediate iiberation of all arrested militants @ Reinstatement of all mnilitants dismissed from their jobs @ Unconditional with- drawal of the occupation troops @ Defence of the democra- tic rights won by the Czechos- lovak workers @ Long live the Socialist Federation of Central and E Europe, an important stage on the road to the Socialist United States of Europe! @ Militants! Forward to the construction of the party of the political revolution @ Long live the Fourth International Switzerland, December 27, 1969 to January 3, 1970. interest of the countries of the socialist community. Will we not have enough courage to admit that a tragic error has been committed and do all we can to rectify it? It is our right and our duty! We call on all Soviet citizens to use every legal means at our disposal, while avoiding hasty and ill-considered action, to bring about the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czecho- slovakia and the renunciation of interference in the internal affairs of this country. Only in this way can friend- ship between our two peoples be re-established.