Editorial: The International Committee and the struggle for power

[p004] EDITORIAL The International Committee and the struggle for power ‘THE LAWS of history are stronger than the bureaucratic apparatus.’ In these words of the Transitional Programme of the Fourth Inter- national in 1938, Leon Trotsky summarized the essence of the political preparation that would be necessary to ‘resolve the crisis of revolu- tionary leadership’. At that time, the Second World War was only months away, made inevit- able by the betrayals of Stalinism in Germany and Spain. The cream of the international revolutionary leadership, the great majority of it in the Soviet Union, was being ruthlessly physically destroyed by the Stalinist machine. In the struggle to build the Fourth Inter- national on the theoretical foundations laid by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, the Stalinist apparatus has had to be fought with every ounce of energy for what it has always been, the principal counter-revolutionary force in the world. Not only did the Stalinists engage in direct collaboration with the imperialists during World War II, and in the capitalist coalitions which ruled Western Europe after the war. Not only did they themselves draw up with the imperialists and militarily establish the division of Europe and of Germany, they performed such an essential task (from the capitalist standpoint) in ‘stabilizing’ the post-war world that they were instrumental in reviving the fortunes of the long discredited social-democrats or reformists in the international labour movement. The great importance to the imperialists since 1945 and today of men like Willy Brandt, Guy Mollett and Harold Wilson would be as nothing were it not for the fact that the boom conditions in which these men have thrived politically were established on the basis of the counter-revolu- tionary world role of Stalinism at the end of World War II. Without Guy Mollet and Jules Moch, the French reformists, the ten years of relative stability for French capitalism under de Editorial Gaulle would not have been initiated in 1958. Without Wilson and his Labour predecessors, the British Tories would not have had the time and opportunity to change their political clothes and start the offensive they began in 1970 in Britain and Ireland. Without Brandt, constitu- tional crisis would have coincided with the revival of workers’ militancy and economic Tecession in Germany. And in Italy, the social- democrat Saragat has been allowed room to work for endless government combinations while the Stalinist trade union leaders have restrained and diverted the succession of general strikes. The social-democrats after 1945 were the main proponents of the economic policies of John Maynard Keynes. Having long since abandoned socialism, they deluded themselves that govern- ment manipulation could iron out the contradic- tion of capitalism and lay the basis for social peace. They were actually talking about a sufficiently high degree of ‘economic growth’ to assure that the workers were not thrown into common action as a class, and that bureaucrats of their own type would become a permanently necessary committee of management for a nicely- functioning system. The new historical per- sonalities of this golden age were to be the administrator, the public relations man, the welfare expert, the ‘whizz-kid’, and at the rough edges, the ‘trouble-shooters’, and even the ‘ombudsman’. On the ‘left’ were the followers of Marcuse and every variety of revisionist who accepted that this was a new stage of capitalism or a ‘neo-capitalism’. They were Suitably morally outraged at the ‘consumer society’, as the victims of advertising, at the growth of a plastic world, at the restraints on ‘freedom’. They made obscure references to the darkening of humanity’s horizon and they had every fear that 57

[p005] what had happened in Stalin’s Russia ‘proved’ that socialism was no better than capitalism. President Richard Nixon’s great historical place will be that, without understanding one word of all this, he was ‘chosen’ to give it the death-blow! On August 15, after reacting to the continuous and mighty pressure of the con- tradictions which had accumulated for the dollar giant, he formally closed a chapter of history. The dollar would no longer even ‘theoretically’ be exchangeable against gold, and fixed currency parities were dismissed. Behind this lay the awful fact that the claims against the dollar on an international scale had grown to four times the total stock of gold held in the United States! All the talk about ‘de-monetizing’ gold and the creation of new currencies js not a ‘technical’ discussion but a frantic turning away from this chasm opening up before capitalism’s eyes: a chasm of non-value, of the sudden deathly verdict that what was wealth yesterday will mean nothing today or tomorrow. Bretton Woods is a dead letter. Nixon’s other measures have an immediate impact which pulls the bottom out from under all the reformists and the Stalinists who have provided the international conditions for their continued life. The 10 per cent surcharge on imports into the United States with powers to increase it, is an open and certain return to protectionism of the modern imperialist type. It means mass unemployment in every other capitalist country. The manufacturing industries of Japan and Germany particularly, suffer immediately. And here, where the past deeds of Stalinism and fascism had helped in ‘domes- ticating’ the labour force for the productive expansion of the boom, now the workers, far from being in any mood to accept the burden of the plunge into recession, are feeling the strength put into their veins by the years of full employment, and are forcing their unions into struggle, just as are the workers of Britain and France. DomeStically, Nixon is at last forced to heed those capitalist advisers who want an ‘incomes policy’, but it is brought forward in virulently nationalistic and reactionary form. The American trade unionist is promised price control in exchange for a wage standstill. This wage stand- still, in combination with Nixon’s other measures, is sold as an insurance policy for the products of American labour receiving their true reward in fair competition on the world market. The American worker is invited to share with his corporate employers the joys of showing the rest of the world who is really the master. Already the price control has collapsed, as was inevitable. And the American workers will fight in their unions. with a strength of which their employers are mortally afraid, but still do not grasp even fractionally. Keynesian policies, and the brokers’ job carried out by a generation of Social Democrats who lived on borrowed time, are dead. Britain and West Germany best exemplify the political implication. In these two countries—and the experience is being repeated in all other coun- tries in different forms, because of the univers- ality of the crisis and the depth of its political effect—the struggle for Marxist theory now takes place under conditions where the prepara- tions of the revolutionary minority can be made to coincide with the unavoidable shocks to the lives and consciousness of the masses. In the 1930s unemployment and depression, and above all the disastrous consequences of Stalinism, brought in the aftermath of MacDonald a consolidation of the extreme right wing (Attlee, Morrison, Bevin) in the Labour Party and this right wing carried through their counter-revolutionary task in the post-war settlement. The working class, betrayed again nationally and internationally by the Stalinists after 1945, left the proletariat no alternative other than to express its strength through the unions and through the Labour right wing elec- torally. But the working class’s strength has been maintained. We approach the consequences of the slump now under way in a situation entirely different from that of the workers’ movement in 1929-1931. On the one hand we have the objec- tive factors producing a proletariat undefeated and recognizing that all its historic gains, its basic rights won in struggle, are involved in the defence of what has been won during the boom. And on the other hand, the subjective factor, the successful struggle for the continuity of the Fourth International, the principal content of which has been to develop and deepen our theoretical and practical understanding, that the construction of independent revolutionary par- ties of the working class is the key question of our whole epoch, is the only basis for the development of Marxism. Thus we enter the struggle for power, inevit- ably engendered by the economic crisis, with a Trotskyist movement already armed in Britain with a daily revolutionary newspaper and inter- nationally with the consciousness that Marxist cadres can and will be trained on the bedrock of the struggle for dialectical materialism. As we go to press, the engineering workers of Western Germany record their massive majority for strike action for their 11 per cent wage claim. Capitalist opinion is insisting that to concede this wage claim would be to open the floodgates for the whole working class at a time when the employers cannot afford concessions. Why? Because, as the London Times expresses it ‘international currency factors’ and the US import surcharge, together with rising costs, have forced a profits drop in 1970-1971, for some major German companies of 80 per cent! In these circumstances the ruling class and its organs grow fearful for the stability of the West German coalition, and particularly for its Fourth International Winter 1971/72 mend hanes

[p006] snr ES OIENY NSS A OWN NOD ONION 17 DE pM Warren TVET” rn GP Heer YOY vranin economic high priest, the Social Democrat Karl Schiller. Just as in England, they demand state intervention to prevent strike action, i.e. to prevent the beginning of a series of actions by the organized working class which would bring down the coalition. Meanwhile in Britain, the same Times lectures its readers on the necessity for a strong Labour Party! In each case the same object: to find every means of beheading the working class, so that however severe the capitalist crisis, the strongest capitalists will emerge supreme at the end of the day. The International Committee of the Fourth International will now realize the tasks set in the Transitional Programme, to build mass_ parties based on Marxist theory. The hour has struck for the break in the workers’ movement from Stalinism and reformism to Trotskyism. The implacable struggle of the International Com- mittee for correct Marxist theory is now exemplified in the struggle against the position Editorial . of the POR* in Bolivia. The documents pub- lished here reveal beyond all question that a minority of the IC smuggles into IC formula- tions about united struggles against imperialism at the cost of Marxist theory. These formula- tions become the ideological justification for entering a bourgeois coalition in Ceylon, for capitulation to bourgeois nationalism in Cuba, and for the abandonment of any working class perspective in favour of ‘students’ power’ and ‘national liberation’ politics. Bolivia, for which the documents here are published in full, was but the tragic culmination of this series of betrayals. We therefore ask all our readers to study very carefully the international documents and at the same time to pursue the theoretical and philosophical questions broached in this issue of the Fourth International, as the conscious pre- paration for the future. * Workers Revolutionary Party.

[p007] Statement by the International Committee of the Fourth International 1. A new period for the Trotskyist movement a The Fourth International, founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938, now faces the greatest change and the greatest chal- lenge in its history. Capitalism’s international economic crisis entered a completely new stage on August 15, 1971, when President Nixon administered the death blow to all the economic and political relations imposed by the ruling class, assisted by the Stalinist bureaucracy, in 1944-1945, In the new conditions, the working class is everywhere driven into struggles for power, and the Trotskyist movement has now unprecedented oppor- tunities for assembling and train- ing the revolutionary working- class leadership. The conditions ‘of defeat in which the movement was founded, the war which ‘followed, and then the long years of post-war boom, means that the fight for the continunity of revolutionary Marxism was a fight against Stalinist repression, 2. The split at Essen a This became crystal-clear at the Essen Youth Rally in July 1971. There, representatives of -the OCI, the Hungarian section 60 against isolation and under con- ditions unfavourable for the development of Marxist theory. Trotskyism suffered from re- visionist attempts to liquidate the Fourth International, and since 1953, when Pablo and his group split from the Fourth International only the Inter- national Committee of the Fourth International has fought for the continuity of Trctskyism. Now the International Committee has the task of building parties in every country capable of leading the struggle for power. The leap in consciousness, the development of revolutionary theory and practice, necessary to meet this responsibility, involves an ideclcgical struggle within the IC itself. On October 12, 1971, a minor- ity of the IC, i.e., two sections: The Hungarian LSH and the French OCI, published a declara- tion denotncing the Socialist Labour League, the _ British section, and the Workers League USA (in political solidarity with the IC) for their criticisms of the Bolivian POR. and the Mexican LOM, voted along with centrists and even right-wing organizations against the amendment to the main resolution put by the represent- ative of the SLL and supported by representatives of a majority In this issue of Fourth International we publish the contents of a pubtic attack made by a minority of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national against the Socialist Labour League and the reply of the majority of the International Committee. As the majority statement makes clear, the Boiivian POR (Revolutionary Workers’ Party) is no! a section of the International Committee. Only a full conference of the International Committee of the Fourth International has the authority to ratify the. establishment ard affiliation of a national section. The Bolivian POR’s application for affiliation was to have been discussed at the International Committee's 4th Conference. The immediate cause for the publication of this attack on the SLL was the public criticism made of the opportunist policy cf Guillermo Lora and the POR during the August coup of Col. Banzer by Comrade Tim Wohiforth in the ‘Bulletin —paper of the Workers League cf America. (The Workers League is an or- ganization sympathetic to the ICFI. It cannot affiliate because of the reactionary Voorhis Act of the USA.) Comrade Wehlforth’s critique was republished in’ Workers Fress (September 8, 1971). Loras account of the events in Bolivia was serialized in the Workers Press (October 11 and 12. 1971}. One of the signatories of the declaration is Guillermo Lora, Secretary of the POR, which is a minority. not a secticn of the International — On September 22, Committee. Its application for, . : affiliation was to be considered issued a public declaration de- at the next IC Conference nouncing as ‘enemies of the (Fourth). The IC consists of dictatorship of the proletariat, British, Greek, Ceylonese, Hun- garian, French and Canadian secticns, tcgether with the Irish enemies, conscious or scious, of the i LOM ti national, and ited we the lov" pre. the POR (Bolivian)’. They refer Conference of the IC. to the SLL and the Workers League. There is the International Lambert (OCI) and Nagy Committee of the Fourth Inter- (Hungary) do not speak for the IC, and this present document This is a split from the IC and its politics. It is a split by the OCI agents of counter-revolution and uncon- Fourth Inter- all those who attack national, resting on the found- ation laid down by Trotsky in is the reply to their minority statement by the IC majcrity. The calling of a meeting in Paris advertising as Chairman, Stephen Just, ‘Secretary of the IC for the reconstruction of the Fourth International’, shows that the OCI has arrogated to itself the functions of the IC, rejected the IC, and nominated its own ‘secretary’ as opposed to the elected secretary. of the IC Ireland, Canada, sections (Ceylon, Greece, SLL). The issue was clear: the OCI and its asscciates voted against amendments stating that the only revcluticnary international and Fourth international 1938, the first four Congresses of the Third International, and all the work of the IC since 1953, particularly the decisions of the 1966 Conference. And there is the bogus ‘IC for the reconstruction of the Fourth International’, represented by the OCI and the Hungarian section, who want to regroup with centrists against the Fourth International. Fhis split, and not the Bolivian revolution and the Bclivian POR, is the basic issue. revclutionary parties are the Fourth International. In_ their cppcsition they naturally re- ceived the support of the POUM (Spain) and other centrists, as well as of the _ right-wing American National Students’ - Winter 1971/72

[p008] Statement by the International Committee of the Fourth International 1. A new period for the Trotskyist movement * The Fourth International, founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938, now faces the greatest change and the greatest chal- lenge in its history. Capitalism’s international economic crisis entered a completely new stage on August 15, 1971, when President Nixon administered the death blow to all the economic and political relations imposed by the ruling class, assisted by the Stalinist bureaucracy, in 1944-1945. In the new conditions, the working class is everywhere driven into struggles for power,. and the Trotskyist movement has now unprecedented oppor- tunities for assembling and train- ing the revolutionary working- class leadership. The conditions ‘of defeat in which the movement was founded, the war which ‘followed, and then the long years of post-war boom, means that the fight for the continunity of revolutionary Marxism was a fight against Stalinist repression, 2. The split at Essen x This became crystal-clear at the Essen Youth Rally in July 1971. There, representatives of the OCI, the Hungarian section against isolation and under con- ditions unfavourable for the development of Marxist theory. Trotskyism suffered from re- visionist attempts to liquidate the Fourth International, and since 1953, when Pablo and his group split from the Fourth International only the _ Inter- national Committee of the Fourth International has fought for the continuity of Trotskyism. Now the International Committee has the task of building parties in every country capable of leading the struggle for power. The leap in consciousness, the development of _ revolutionary theory and practice, necessary to meet this responsibility, involves an ideclegical struggle within the IC itself. On October 12, 1971, a minor- ity of the IC, i.e., two sections: The Hungarian LSH and the French OCI, published a declara- tion denouncing the Socialist Labour League, the _ British section, and the Workers League USA (in political solidarity with the IC) for their criticisms of the Bolivian POR. and the Mexican LOM, along with centrists and even right-wing organizations against the amendment to the resolution put by the represent- ative of the SLL and supported by representatives of a majority In this issue of Fourth International we publish the contents of a public attack made by a minority of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national against the Socialist Labour League and the reply of the majority of the International Committee. As the majority statement makes clear, the Bolivian POR (Revolutionary Workers’ Party) is not a section of the International Committee. Only a full conference of the international Committee of the Fourth International has the authority to ratify the establishment and affiliation of a national section. The Bolivian POR’s application for affiliation was to have been discussed at the International Committee's 4th Conference. The immediate cause for the publication of this attack on the SLL was the public criticism made of the opportunist policy of Guillermo Lora and the POR during the August coup of Col. Banzer by Comrade Tim Wohiforth in the ‘Bulletin’—paper of the Workers League of America. (The Workers League is an or- ganization sympathetic to the ICFI. It cannot affiliate because of the reactionary Voorhis Act of the USA.) Comrade Wohlforth’s critique was republished in’ Workers Press (September 8, 1971). Loras account of the events in Bolivia was serialized in the Workers Press (October 11 and 12, 1971). One of the signatories of the declaration is Guillermo Lora, Secretary of the POR, which is not a section of the International Committee. Its application for affiliation was to be ccnsidered at the next IC Conference (Fourth). The IC consists of British, Greek, Ceylonese, Hun- garian, French and Canadian sections, together with the Irish and Mexican (LOM) sections admitted at the 1970 _ pre- Conference of the IC. Lambert (OCI) and (Hungary) do not speak for the IC, and this present document is the reply to their minority statement by the IC majority. The calling of a meeting in Paris advertising as Chairman, Stephen Just, ‘Secretary of the IC for the reconstruction of the Fourth International’, shows that the OCI has arrogated to itself the functions of the IC, rejected the IC, and nominated its own and its associates voted against amendments stating that the only revcluticnary international and Fourth International Nagy This is a split from the IC and its politics. It is a split by a minority. On September 22, the OCI issued a public declaration de- nouncing as ‘enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat, agents of counter-revolution and enemies, conscious or uncon- scious, of the Fourth Inter- national, all those who attack the POR (Bolivian)’. They refer to the SLL and the Workers League. There is the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national, resting on the found- ation laid down by Trotsky in 1938, the first four Congresses of the Third International, and all the work of the IC since 1953, particularly the decisions of the 1966 Conference. And there is the bogus ‘IC for the reconstruction of the Fourth International’, represented by the OCI and the Hungarian section, who want to regroup with centrists against the Fourth International. This split, and not ‘secretary’ as opposed to the’ the Bolivian revolution and the elected secretary. Bolivian POR, is the basic issue. voted of the IC sections (Ceylon, revolutionary parties are the Ireland, Canada, Greece, SLL), Fourth International. In_ their opposition they naturally re- main The issue was clear: the OCI ceived the support of the POUM (Spain) and other centrists, as well as of the right-wing American National Students’ Winter 1971/72

[p009] Asscciaticn. NSA is a right-wing student organization directly tied to the bourgeois establishment, even to the extent, under a pre- vious leadership, of admittedly receiving funds from the CIA. Its spckesman used the Essen rally as a platform for the Stalinist - supported ‘People’s Peace Treaty in Vietnam’ cam- paign. Such are the dangers involved in the OCI’s movement to centrism and centrist methods. The OCI and its associates opposed and voted down the following amendment (presented by the SLL and supported by the majority of the IC sections: Greece, Canada, Ceylon, Ireland): ‘There can be no revolutionary party without revolutionary theory. Behind every opportunist develcpment in the history of the workers’ movement, and especially of Stalinism, has been the revision of Marxist theory. The ccntinuity of the struggle for revclutionary Marxist theory in the past, the struggle of the Fcurth International anc the Internaticnal Ccmmittee, was the cnly basis fcr the _ initiatives which led to this rally and for the struggle to build the inter- naticnal revcluticnary youth mevement. Revolutionary youth everywhere must devote them- selves above all to the task of developing Marxist theory thrcugh the struggle against bourgecis ideclcgy in all the forms it takes in the workers’ mcvement. This is the only basis fcr ccmbating the dangers of adventurism, activism and “pure” militancy with which revisionists and Maoists mislead the youth, and which can cnly lead to histcric defeats fcr the working class.’ This was already a split, the real split. They do nct want the FI built on the foundations of dialectical materialism and the pelitics cf Lenin and Trotsky, but they want a centrist amal- gam cf all those who want to disarm the masses by talk about ‘revcluticnary united fronts’ and - ‘expressing the will cf the masses’. Their ‘IC fcr the recon- structicn of the FI is their fraudulent attempt to use the revcluticnary name of the IC cf the FI for their own oppor- tunist aims. They will never succeed in doing this. The majcrity cf the IC rejec- ted their unprincipled manoeuvre at Essen. New they have chosen to stake everything cn the issue cf Bclivia. as a smokescreen for the real issues which they will not discuss. Running away from the real theoretical and practical ques- tions of building the FI, they propcse to intimidate the move- ment with shouting about solidarity with the POR of Bolivia. This was the old trick used by the SWP on Cuba in 1963: no theoretical discussion and no criticism of Cuba; they The vote of the OCI and the Hungarian section at Essen against the IC majcrity was car- ried out in front of an observer of the American Spartacist group of Robertson. This has an historical significance which can- not be overstated. At the Third Conference of the IC in 1966, the French and as At no time did the OCI ‘attempt to undermine the political credibility of the Stalinist leadership by critically supporting the demand of the Renault workers for a popular government by advancing the demand of a CP-CGT government’. are involved in a_ revolution. Similarly, Pablc excluded political discussion with his thecry cf the imminent Third Wcrld War. And it must never be fcrgotten that the supression cf discussion on Cuba and Cevlcn. used to effect the ‘unificaticn’ of 1963, had as its direct consequence the entry of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), while <ctill a section of the Pabloite Secretariat, into the bourgecis coalition of Mrs Bandaranaike. Hungarian sections voted with the rest of the IC delegations for resolutions affirming the revolutionary continuity of the Fourth International. Opposing this were two groups invited as observers to the Conference, Robertson’s Spartacists and the French ‘Voix Ouvriére’ (now ‘Lutte Ouvriére’). As opportunists and pragmatists they denounced the IC’s struggle for continuity against revisionism. After the Conference, Robert- son collaborated with Hansen and the revisionist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in whole- sale slander of the SLL and the IC. In its resolution at the 1966. Conference, the IC, including the OCI, unanimously stated: ‘*. . . The IC not only dis- sociates itself from the activities and publications of the Spar- tacists (Robertson) group but insists that a Marxist party can be built only in opposition to it.’ Robertson’s politics since then have been opportunist on every question, and his group has worked in complete oppo- sition to the International Com- mittee. To admit Robertson’s group as observers at Essen at this stage is in effect to junk the whole struggle for principles upcn which the IC is based. The OCI will reply that the invitation was issued on _ in- dividual initiative by Comrade Berg, secretary of the AJS, and that they have condemned it. On July 9, after Essen, the OCI Political Bureau carried unanimcusly the following re- solution: ‘The Political Bureau regrets that the Robertson ‘“Spartacist” group was invited as observer to Essen, without this decision be- ing taken responsibly. The PB considers this individual initiative to be wrong and condemns it.’ This leaves unanswered the point that the OCI leadership is itself politically responsible for the oppcrtunist politics of Berg. Is it accidental that the OCI at Essen returned to an alliance, against Trctskyism, with a ten- dency such as the POUM, hostile to the very fcundation of the Fcurth International, and pre- pared to collaborate with the OCI only cn the basis of aban- doning the struggle for its fcundaticn and continuity? Pre- cisely at the pcint in the world crisis where everything depends cn the conscious creation, on the basis of Marxist theory and pregramme, of revolutionary parties, where’ the _ struggle against liquidationism and against the revisicn cf dialectical materialism comes to a head, at this pcint comes the split! The OCI runs clean away from this histcric struggle and, in the name of ‘expressing’ spontaneous movements of the masses, joins sworn opponents of the FI, col- laborates with the centrist riff- raff against the IC. t 3. The fight for dialec- tical materialism Wi When the French delegation at Essen opposed the SLL Statement from the ICFI amendment cn the struggle for Marxist thecry, they set the seal on an opposition to dialectical materialism which was not at all new. One vear earlier, in June 1970, at the international pre- Conference of the IC, these dif- ferences became explicit. And for very good reasons objectively founded in the struggle. Anti- cipating the profcund worsening of the econcmic crisis and the struggle provoked by it, the SLL delegates stressed the urgency of the basic training of the youth in dialectical thinking. What was most essential in the: preparation of the sections was 61

[p010] Asscciaticn. NSA is a right-wing student organization directly tied to the bourgeois establishment, even to the extent, under a pre- vious leadership, of admittedly receiving funds from the CIA. Its spckesman used the Essen rally as a platform for the Stalinist - supported ‘People’s Peace Treaty in Vietnam’ cam- paign. Such are the dangers involved in the OCI’s movement to centrism and centrist methods. The OCI and its associates opposed and voted down the following amendment (presented by the SLL and supported by the majority of the IC sections: Greece, Canada, Ceylon, Ireland): ‘There can be no revolutionary party without revolutionary theory. Behind every opportunist development in the history of the workers’ movement, and especially of Stalinism, has been the revision of Marxist theory. The continuity of the struggle for revolutionary Marxist theory in the past, the struggle of the Fcurth International anc the International Committee, was the enly basis fcr the initiatives which led to this rally and for the struggle to build the inter- naticnal revclutionary youth mecvement. Revolutionary youth everywhere must devote them- selves above all to the task of developing Marxist theory thrcugh the struggle against bourgecis ideclegy in all the forms it takes in the workers’ mcvement. This is the only basis fer ccmbating the dangers of adventurism, activism and “pure” militancy with which revisionists and Maoists mislead the youth, and which can cnly lead to histcric defeats fer the working class." This was already a split, the real split. They do nct want the FI built on the foundations of dialectical materialism and the pelitics cf Lenin and Trotsky, but they want a centrist amal- gam cf all those who want to disarm the masses by talk about ‘revcluticnary united fronts’ and - ‘expressing the will cf the masses’. Their ‘IC fer the recon- structicn of the FI is their fraudulent attempt to use the revcluticnary name of the IC of the FI for their own oppor- tunist aims. They will never succeed in doing this. The majcrity cf the IC rejec- ted their unprincipled manoeuvre at Essen. New they have chosen to stake everything on the issue ef Bclivia. as a smokescreen for the real issues which they will not discuss. Running away from the real theoretical and practical ques- tions of building the FI, they propose to intimidate the move- ment with shouting about solidarity with the POR of Bolivia. This was the old trick used by the SWP on Cuba in 1963: no theoretical discussion and no criticism of Cuba; they At no time did the OCI ‘attempt of the Stalinist leadership by critically supporting the demand of the Renault workers for a popular government by advancing the demand of a CP-CGT government’. are involved in a_ revolution. Similarly, Pablo excluded political discussion with his theory cf the imminent Third Werld War. And it must never be fergotten that the supression of discussion on Cuba and Cevlcn, used to effect the ‘unificaticn’ of 1963, had as its direct consequence the entry of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), while still a section of the Pabloite Secretariat, into the bourgeois coalition of Mrs Bandaranaike. The vote of the OCI and the Hungarian section at Essen against the IC majority was car- ried out in front of an observer of the American Spartacist group of Robertson. This has an historical significance which can- not be overstated. At the Third Conference of the IC in 1966, the French and to undermine the political credibility Hungarian sections voted with the rest of the IC delegations for resolutions affirming the revolutionary continuity of the Fourth International. Opposing this were two groups invited as observers to the Conference, Robertson's Spartacists and the French ‘Voix Ouvriére’ (now ‘Lutte Ouvriére’). As opportunists and pragmatists they denounced the IC’s struggle for continuity against revisionism. After the Conference, Robert- son collaborated with Hansen and the revisionist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in whole- Sale slander of the SLL and the IC. In its resolution at the 1966 Conference, the IC, including the OCI, unanimously stated: ‘“. . . The IC not only dis- sociates itself from the activities and publications of the Spar- tacists (Robertson) group but insists that a Marxist party can be built only in opposition to it.’ Robertson’s politics since then have been opportunist on every question, and his group has worked in complete oppo- sition to the International Com- mittee. To admit Robertson’s group as observers at Essen at this stage is in effect to junk the whole struggle for principles upon which the IC is based. The OCI will reply that the invitation was issued on _ in- dividual initiative by Comrade Berg, secretary of the AJS, and that they have condemned it. On July 9, after Essen, the OCI Political Bureau carried unanimcusly the following re- solution: ‘The Political Bureau regrets that the Robertson “Spartacist” group was invited as observer to Essen, without this decision be- ing taken responsibly. The PB considers this individual initiative to be wrong and condemns it.’ This leaves unanswered the point that the OCI leadership is itself politically responsible for the oppcrtunist politics of Berg. Is it accidental that the OCI at Essen returned to an alliance, against Trctskyism, with a ten- dency such as the POUM, hostile to the very foundation of the Fcurth International, and pre- pared to collaborate with the OCI only cn the basis of aban- doning the struggle for its foundaticn and continuity? Pre- cisely at the point in the world crisis where everything depends cn the conscious creation, on the basis of Marxist theory and programme, of revolutionary parties, where the _ struggle against liquidationism and against the revisicn ef — dialectical materialism comes to a head, at this point comes the split! The OCI runs clean away from this histcric struggle and, in the name of ‘expressing’ spontaneous movements of the masses, joins sworn opponents of the FI, col- laborates with the centrist riff- raff against the IC. 3. The fight for dialec- tical materialism W@ When the French delegation at Essen opposed the SLL Statement from the ICFI amendment on the struggle for Marxist thecry, they set the seal on an opposition to dialectical materialism which was not at all new. One year earlier, in June 1970, at the international pre- Conference of the IC, these dif- ferences became explicit. And for very good reasons objectively founded in the struggle. Anti- cipating the profound worsening of, the econcmic crisis and the struggle provoked by it, the SLL delegates stressed the urgency of the basic training of the youth in dialectical thinking. What was most essential in the preparation of the sections was 61

[p011] to develop dialectical materialism in a struggle to understand and to transform the consciousness of the working class in the changing objective conditions. This means the understanding and development of dialectical materialism as the theory of knowledge of Marxism. Reflecting the attacks on dia- lectical materialism by the petty- bourgeois intelligentsia of the advanced capitalist countries, especially France and Germany, and of E Europe, the OCI and Hungarian delegations declared that dialectical materialism was not a theory of: knowledge and took up the position that only programme was the basis of the building of parties. Here is the very essence of revisionism which prepares the way for liquidating the party into centrism. We insist once more, with all our force: only a basic struggle for dialectical materialism against all enemies of Marxism and carried forward in struggle against the spontaneous con- sciousness of the working class, can equip the youth for the building of the Fourth Interna- tional. In the polemic with Burnham and Shachtman (1939-1940), Trotsky wrote: ‘In the United States ... where the bourgeoisie systema- tically instils vulgar empiricism in the workers, more than any- where else, it is mecessary to speed the elevation of the move- ment to a proper theoretical level.’ The theoretical struggle at this basic level is essential for every section of the Fourth Interna- tional. And against those who refuse to ‘acquire and develop dialectical materialism’, Trotsky wrote: ‘This is nothing else than a renunciation of Marxism, of scientific method in general, a wretched capitulation to empiri- cism.’ 4. The OCI and the French working class a This opposition to the basic theoretical struggle for the revo- lutionary youth has roots in the orientation of the OCI towards the French proletariat. At no time has the OCI been able con- sistently to put forward a policy and programme to bring it close to the mass of the French ‘workers who vote for the Stalin- ists and are organized around the Stalinist-led CGT. dnstead they ‘haVé orientated tuwards those sections still supporting the social-democrats, primarily in the older industries. They sought support outside of the orbit of the Stalinists instead of fighting for policies which would break the main body of workers from their mass party. One of the consequences is that the rapidly accumulating effects of the world crisis find the OCI paralysed in its political work in the French working class. Their hysterical outbursts on Bolivia, their frantic desire to find an issue to separate from the SLL and the IC—-these are the reactions to the deepening ‘crisis of a petty-bourgeois group which falls back on revolutionary shouting, not of a party which goes deeper into the masses to fight for a development of theory. This characteristic resort to radical phrase-mongering is, again, connected with the failure of the OCI to struggle on every level for dialectical materialism against the dominant forms of bourgeois philosophy, in this case French rationalism and its twin, pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric. The Essen rally itself was con- ceived and carried through by the OCI as a diversion from the unresolved problems of their work in the French working class. An artificial formula was constructed which made W Germany the focal point of the workers’ struggle in Europe, and then the OCI led their youth movement to a rally where less than 200 German youth partici- pated, and real political work to build sections of the FI was replaced by demagogy and show- manship. It could not and did not have the slightest effect on the work- ers of France or of Germany. The SLL participated reluctantly, and only on the understanding that we received the preparatory document in time. It was received untranslated, only a few hours before our delegation left for Essen. The SLL and the majority of the IC sections, having moved their amendment, voted for the general resolution despite differences, only in order to preserve public unity of the IC during the period of prepa- ration of the International Fourth Conference, at which the disputed questions would be discussed. May-June 1968, with the French workers on _ General Strike, themselves striving for an alternative government, was the greatest testing time for the OCI. But what did the strike reveal? It revealed the _ theoretical bankruptcy and political impo- tence of the OCI whose leader- ship — guided by a superficial impressionist analysis of de Gaulle’s coup in 1958 — had exaggerated the strength and viability of the Fifth Republic, abandoned its revolutionary per- spective and written off the revo- lutionary capacities of the French working class. This defeatist conception, which extended even to the Vietnam war, was summed up in the rationalization of Lambert that the French working class was ‘decisively defeated in 1958’. This pessimistic and essentially middle-class outlook expressed itself in all the organizational and agitational work of the OCI and the AJS before and after 1968. It is an undeniable fact that at no time during the General Strike did the OCI leadership advance a_ socialist programme. Nor did it attempt to undermine the political credi- bility of the Stalinist leadership by critically supporting the demand of the Renault workers for a ‘popular government’ by advancing the demand of a CP- CGT government. Instead, the OCI leaders tail-ended the work- ing class and restricted the poli- tical scope of the strike by demanding a central strike com- mittee. This was a complete evasion of the political responsi- bilities of revolutionary leader- ship. Is it necessary to remind the OCI leaders that one of the chief reasons for the definitive split with the Pabloites was their refusal to address _ political demands to the trade union bureaucracy and fight for a CP- CGT government in the French General Strike of 1953? Revolu- tionists do not abstain on basic political questions — only cen- _ trists and syndicalists do. The Socialist Labour League had warned the French section of the dangers before 1968: May 15, 1967: ‘Now the radi- calization of the workers in W Europe is proceeding rapidly, particularly in France. The elec- tion results there, the threat of a return to the political insta- bility of the ruling class in the Fourth Republic, the mounting strike struggles, the taking of emergency powers — all these place a premium on revolution- ary preparation. There is always a danger at such a stage of development that a revolutionary party responds to the situation in- the working class not in a revolutionary way, but by adap- tation to the level of struggle to which the workers are restricted by their own experience under the old leaderships, i.e., to the inevitable initial confusion. Such revisions of the fight for the independent party and_ the Transitional Programme are usually dressed up in the dis- guise of getting closer to the working class, unity with all those in struggle, not posing ulti- matums, abandoning dogmatism, etc.’ (Reply to the OCI.) Even frcm this 1968 experi- ence the lessons were not learned. In fact the abstentionist methods and omissions of the General Strike period were con- tinued into the presidential elec- tions of 1969. In the referendum in March of the same year, the OCI had correctly campaigned for a vote against de Gaulle, in contrast to the abstentionism of the Pablo- ites. However, the gains from this ccrrect turn were lost in the presidential -elections, the class character of which was ignored by the OCI. Basing themselves on their fraudulent theory of the ‘United Class Front’, the OCI leaders used the Fourth International _ leadership. failure of the CP and Socialist Party to agree on a single can- didate as a pretext for not sup- porting the CP candidate, Duc- los, against Pompidou. —- The task of revolutionaries was to raise the . consciousness of Stalinist rank and file by criti- cally supporting Duclos and pointing out that the main enemy was Pompidou. The OCI should have campaigned throughout the labour movement to demand that the CP candi- date be pledged to a socialist policy against the banks and monopolies. To carry forward this fight, while calling for a massive vote for Duclos, was the best way to exposing the Stalin- ists and their programme of ‘advanced democracy’ and fight- ing for alternative revolutionary Any other course leaves the Stalinist control undis- turbed. It was also necessary to expose the SP candidate whose party refused to vote for Duclos in the second ballot and sup- ported the bourgeois candidate, Poher. The OCI leaders did none of these things. Some members voted for Duclos, others for Deferre (SP) and others, includ- ing comrade Lambert, abstained. What was worse, the OCI attacked the Stalinists for hav- ing dared to stand a candidate in the elections despite the fact that the Stalinists in the previous presidential elections in 1965 did nct do so and instead supported Mitterand, a bourgeois politician. In 1965, the OCI did not even intervene: thus in France, as in Bolivia, the policy of the ‘united class front’ and the ‘united workers’ front’ has become a means for disorienting the work- ers and strengthening the grip of the Stalinists and petty-bour- geois nationalists over the mass movement. The sectarian absence of any policy towards the Stalin- ists in France easily turns into opportunism, so that the OCI now writes in ‘Informations Ouvriéres’ about the Clyde struggle in Britain without any criticism of its Stalinist shop steward leaders — in the same issue as their denunciation of the Socialist Labour League and Workers League as agents of counter-revolution! Winter 1971/72

[p012] 5. The capitulation to spontaneity a Just as the difference over dialectical materialism at the IC’s pre-Conference was the necessary and conscious antici- pation of the essential theoretical problems to be overcome in the impending revolutionary crisis, so Essen was the anticipation of the open split which these problems would produce on the Interna- ticnal Committee, The real split was already effected at Essen. when the OCI lined up with anti-Trotskyists in Statement from the ICFI The Essen rally a public vote against the majority of the IC. They ran away from the principled ques- tions raised at Essen. They raise the question of Bolivia in a totally uuprincipled way in order to keep around them their middle-class allies. We will never accept this running to the cen- trists, and we will oppose to the end the OCI and anyone else who does it. As the Secretary of the SLL wrote to comrade Lambert of the OCI on July 14, 1971, in reference to Essen: ‘We have not spent all our lives fighting centrism to sud- denly decide to capitulate to it on the eve of the greatest class struggles in history.’ It is necessary to make one other major pcint on the split prencunced by the OCI. They carry cut this split while a Con- gress of the IC is in prepara- ticn and due to be held before the end cf 1971. Even though the events at Essen created con- ditions where day-to-day colla- bcration with the OCI became impossible, nevertheless it was agreed to proceed with the pre- paraticn of documents and arrange the Conference, as the cnly way of dealing with the differences, These documents are now prepared. But the OCI and the Hungarian sections have chesen to split before the Con- ference. They act in the same traditicn as the SWP, which in 1963 avoided the Conference of the IC and effected its ‘unifica- tion’ with the Pabloites. At the very heart of the attacks of revisionism has been the attempt to liquidate the party into spontaneous and _ so-called ‘objective’ processes. This is the expression of an anti-dialectical methcd which denies the role of revolutionary consciousness in changing the material struggle itself under specific conditions. 63

[p013] IMPERIALISMUS IMPERIALISM IMPERIAL ISHO IMPERIALISHE NON MMTIEPHAAWSH HET VIVE : LA I yoy STALINISMUS. NEIN STALINISH NO STALINISMO Kou 8 IVE THE 5. The capitulation to spontaneity a Just as the difference over dialectical materialism at the IC’s pre-Conference was the necessary and conscious antici- pation of the essential theoretical problems to be overcome in the impending revolutionary crisis, so Essen was the anticipation of the open split which these problems would produce on the Interna- tional Committee. The real split was already effected at Essen, when the OCI lined up with anti-Trotskyists in Statement from the ICFI S TALINISME CTAAMHM3N IPABCTBYET: The Essen rally a public vote against the majority of the IC. They ran away from the principled ques- tions raised at Essen. They raise the question of Bolivia in a totally uuprincipled way in order to keep around them their middle-class allies. We will never accept this running to the cen- trists, and we will oppose to the end the OCI and anyone else who does it. As the Secretary of the SLL wrote to comrade Lambert of the OCI on July 14, 1971, in reference to Essen: “We have not spent all our lives fighting centrism to sud- denly decide to capitulate to it on the eve of the greatest class struggles in history.’ It is necessary to make one other major pcint on the split pronounced by the OCI. They carry cut this split while a Con- gress of the IC is in prepara- ticn and due to be held before the end of 1971. Even though the events at Essen created con- ditions where day-to-day colla- bcration with the OCI became impossible, nevertheless it was agreed to proceed with the pre- paraticn of documents and arrange the Conference, as the cnly way of dealing with the differences. These documents are now prepared. But the OCI and the Hungarian. sections have chesen to split before the Con- ference. They act in the same traditicn as the SWP, which in 1963 avoided the Conference of the IC and effected its ‘unifica- tion’ with the Pabloites. At the very heart of the attacks of revisionism has been the attempt to liquidate the party into spontaneous and _ so-called ‘objective’ processes. This is the expression of an anti-dialectical methed which denies the role of revolutionary consciousness in changing the material struggle itself under specific conditions. 63

[p014] Thus Pablo held that given a changed world balance of forces in the post-war period a ‘new reality’ existed whereby’ the ‘revolutionary process’ would force the Stalinist Parties, the social democratic bureaucracies and the petty-bourgeois national- ists in a ‘rough way’ to make the revolution. We now find this method developed once again by the OCI. We are told we are in a period of ‘imminent revolution’. Within this period there is a ‘revolutionary process’. Parties and leaderships then ‘correspond’ to this ‘process’. We are even told of an overall process occa- sionally ‘concretized’ in some- thing like the Popular Assembly in Bolivia, which proceeds ‘through different stages and dif- ferent forms towards the Univer- sal Republic of Soviets’. The revolutionary party’s task is to ‘express these processes’. This is nothing more than ‘idealism in the form of French rationalism gone mad. We repeat what Lenin said: ‘The truth is always concrete.’ Only through a detailed and specific analysis of the ‘actual development of the class struggle under the specific conditions of the capitalist crisis can we begin to relate our strategy to the actual changes in the consciousness and life of workers. This requires of us a conscious development of dialec- tical materialism as we struggle within the workers’ movement. This struggle is at all times the 6. The Bolivian revolu- tion ® Bolivia is being used as a smokescreen to cover up the bloc with centrism against the International Committee. As if this were not criminal enough, in proceeding in this fashion, the OCI turns against the most fundamental lessons of our movement on the question of political principle and at the same time covers up for the worst sort of opportunism in Latin America. We take back nothing from our criticisms of Lora and his role in the defeat of the Boli- vian working class. How could we have proceeded otherwise than with an open attack? The road to coalition government in Ceylon was paved by such cover-ups time and again on the part of the Pabloite leadership. How could we draw the lessons we do from’ their betrayal in Ceylon and practise the same politics in relation. to someone 64 struggle to construct Trotskyist parties independent of centrism and Stalinism. Such parties and cnly such parties can lead the revolution. They can only lead the revolution in the bitterest of struggles against the counter- revolutionary Stalinist and social ‘democratic betrayers. Within this framework the OCI’s position on tue ‘united class front’ becomes a complete liquidation of the party and its subordination to the Stalinist and social democratic parties and union apparatus. Lenin and Trot- sky saw the united front as a tactic and not a strategy as the OCI claim. They saw it as a rela- tionship between mass workers’ parties of a temporary character for the purpose of winning the masses to the Communist Party. The OCI has transformed this into an overall ‘unity’ of the class achieved on the basis of its present leadership, without the participation in the united front of our party. This ‘united class front’ more and more, in their theorizing and _ practice, takes over the role of the revolu- tionary party itself. In the October 12 statement we find reference to ‘the achieve- ment of the unity of the class through the workers’ United Front, motive force of the anti- imperialist United Front . , This carries the liquidation one step further dissolving even the workers’ united front into a broader ‘anti-imperialist’? one— broad. enough, no doubt, to include the bourgeoisie or at least its petty-bourgeois repre- sentatives. In the 1950s, the OCI made an identical mistake in their policy in Algeria. The bourgeois- nationalist MNA of Messali Hadj was elevated to a revolutionary party not only in Algeria, but in France itself. The Pabloites sup- ported one wing of the nation- alist bourgeoisie, the FLN, and the OCI supported the other, the MNA. In Britain, the SLL had given critical support to the MNA, but broke off all relations with their representatives in Britain when the MNA approached the United Nations for intervention in Algeria. The OCI continued its rela- tions with Messali Hadj even until the open collaboration of Messali with de Gaulle. The OCI’s position today on _ the ‘united class front’ and ‘anti- imperialist’ front, even after the defeat in Bolivia, shows that their ‘correction’ of the Algerian adventure has been _ purely formal, and that its theoretical roots remain firmly implanted in the OCI. Related to this has been the OCI’s position that it is not a party, and that the Fourth Inter- national does not really exist. It sees the national and interna- tional party in quantitative terms rather than from the point of view of the development of Marxist theory. This in turn led Charles Berg Fourth International it, on the eve of the May-June 1968 events, to not even have the post of secretary of its organization, so far had the capi- tulation to spontaneity devel- oped. On the question of the struggle in the colonial and ex-colonial countries, the anti-Marxist method of the OCI has had the obvious results, and not only on Algeria. The OCI refused to campaign in support of a victory for the National Liberation Front, because of its Stalinist leader- ship, and called instead for the ‘victory of the Vietnamese work- ers and peasants’. This led to a situation on the eve of the 1968 Tet offensive where comrade Berg openly stated an abstention- ist position on Vietnam. ; And now, after years of refusal to support the struggle of the Palestinian people for self- determination, and inability to take the side of the Arab revolu- tion against Zionism and US imperialism, the OCI welcomes the Irbid ‘Soviet’ as some mani- festation of a world process towards the Universal Republic of Workers’ Councils! Inability to fight against the Stalinists and petty-bourgeois nationalists in a real fight for independent leader- ship in the anti-imperialist struggle, and at the same time an abstract demagogy about the victory of the workers and peasants and the international striving for Soviets. on the periphery of the Inter- national Committee? We cover over nothing. We build the Fourth International on _ the basis of political principle and complete honesty. It was in fact the OCI which first publicly criticized the poli- tics of Lora and the POR. The October 1970 issue of ‘La Verité’ carried a lengthy criticism of the thesis passed at the April 1970 Congress of the COB (Bolivian trade union federation). This thesis was the product of the joint collaboration of the POR and the Stalinist Bolivian CP. It was voted for by both parties and the Popular Assembly was later to base itself politically on this document. The OCI wrote: «“ . . We are dealing with a text which after having made certain concessions to the idea of constructing socialism in Boli- via alone, takes on the one hand, a Stalinist type view of the Ovando regime, and introduces in the chapter on proletarian internationalism, a Stalinist Winter 1971 / 72

[p015] analysis. We have found in the COB thesis on the one hr id passages of direct Stalinist inspi- ration, and on the other a seri- ous omission concerning Czecho- slovakia.’ The OCI concludes: ‘Comrades, we tell you with- out evasion, moved by a pro- found and even anguished con- viction, that if this really became the charter of the Bolivian workers’ movement and repre- sented its orientation and if the POR was to adopt it (or even for a long time keep silent on the fact that it is the result of a compromise and only has a very circumstantial value) then the thesis of the COB can constitute a noose around the neck of the Bolivian proletariat for it encloses it within the framework of Bolivia.’ Was the OCI at that time giving in ‘to enormous pressures’ as the OCI now: says of the SLL and the Workers League? Was the OCI in making those criticisms identifying itself ‘as enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat’ and placing itself ‘on the side of imperialism and Stalinism’? The truth is that in 1967 the OCI held the position that revo- lutions could not be made in the underdeveloped countries until such time as mass revolutionary parties were created in the advanced countries. So distant was the struggle in the under- developed countries from the thinking and perspectives of the OCI leadership until very recently that the basic resolu- tion around which it wished the Fourth Conference to be organ- ized ‘For the Reconstruction of the Fourth International’ hardly mentions Latin America and does not mention Bolivia at all. And yet the Bolivian question is now made the pretext for a split from the International Committee. We cannot educate a new generation of cadres as revolu- tionaries with such factional and dishonest methods. We can- not allow the question of Bolivia to be used rather than assessed . for the purpose of actually developing theoretically a new leadership in the underdeveloped countries. __ We restate what we said about the history of the Lora group. .of Pablo Lora was the major supporter in Latin America in 1952. With Pablo’s help he gave critical support to the bourgeois MNR Paz government. Here is how a member of his party reported the POR’s position in the Fourth International at the time. ‘The POR began by justifiably granting critical support to the MNR government. That is, it desisted from issuing the slogan “down with the government”; it gave the government critical sup- ‘port against attacks of imperial- ism and reaction, and it sup- ported all progressive measures.’ This is just the way the LSSP began its move towards openly joining the Ceylonese coalition government. The -POR broke with Pablo, but it turned its back on the International Committee, refus- ing to take up a fight for the IC in. Latin America though urged to do so. Lora from then on played only a national role. This is the history as we printed it in the Workers Press and ‘Bulletin’. The OCI does not deny this. We can add to this some more. Understanding the past background of Lora, a_ back- ‘ground of Pabloism, nationalism and opportunism, the Socialist Labour League refused to put up any money towards his fare and collaboration in bringing him to the 1966 International Conference as the OCI had pro- posed. When he appeared in Europe in 1970, the Socialist Labcur League made it quite plain it would not favour his admission into the IC unless a full discussion was held on his whole history and an_ under- standing reached on this basis. We do not have one policy for the LSSP and the Pabloites and another for Lora. In our public statement we made this fundamental assess- ment of Lora’s role in the Boli- vian events: ‘Lora, in collaboration with the Bolivian Stalinists and with the agreement of the Bolivian and international Pabloites, failed to fight at any point for the overthrow of the Torres military regime. Thus he, along with the rest of the Popular Assembly, acted as a left. cover for Torres while the right-wing elements in Torres’ own army prepared and finally executed their coup.’ Then, after writing this, we received Lora’s own account of the Bolivian events which we published in the Workers Press and in the ‘Bulletin’. The OCI has yet to publish this account. Lora himself in this account states: ‘At the same time everybody thought—including we Marxists ‘—that the arms would be given by the governing military team, which would consider that only through resting on the masses . and giving them adequate fire- power could they at least neutra- lize the gorila right.’ Lora thus admits to what we had accused him of. Never really fighting to overthrow Torres, he had, along with the Stalinists, counted on one sec- tion of the bourgeoisie to arm the working class for the over- throw of the bourgeoisie as a whole! Lora thus was carrying out the very same policy he carried out with Pablo in 1952. At no point did he raise the slogan ‘Down with Torres’. This was, of course, Lenin’s policy in the ‘April Theses’, while Lora stands with Stalin and the ‘old Bolsheviks’. Even after the defeat, Lora is unable to draw any lessons at all. He openly defends his reformist position in the pages of the OCI’s’ ‘Informations Ouvriéres’: ‘The ultra-lefts and the Pablo- ites forget the teachings of Lenin and Trotsky: they draw up their “documents” in a_ simple- minded way and place Torres and Ovando-Banzer on the same . level. These people refuse to understand the various shades that bourgeois nationalism can take in underdeveloped coun- tries. ‘Since they are removed from the class struggle they do not understand the difference be- tween bourgeois-democratic de- mands of Torres and_ the methods of the fascists; that is the difference between going to prison legally or getting killed by a bullet in the back of the neck. ‘the struggle to develop ‘Revolutionary. tactics must begin with this difference. It is not a questicn of supporting Torres, but of crushing fascism to impose a workers’ govern- ment.’ Revolutionary strategy does. not begin with the differences between left: and right wings of the military, but from the per- spective of the overthrow of rhe whole bourgeois order. It does not base its policy on a bloc with the left bourgeoisie against the fascist threat, but on the under- standing that there is no way to stop fascism without taking up the independent struggle for socialism. Thus lessons which Trotsky repeated thousands: of times, particularly in regard to Spain, are once again borne out in the paralysis and complicity of Torres in the right-wing military takeover and in the prostration of the working class before this takeover because of the mislead- ership of all the workers’ parties, but especially the POR which claimed to be Trotskyist. In the end the workers of Bolivia got both the bullet in the head and the jail. The policy of the POR was consistently opportunist from beginning to end. Under condi- tions of a mass revolutionary situation it acted as the left cover for Stalinism and _ bour- geois-nationalism. Nowhere did it decisively break from the CP. In fact it put forward a com- mon candidate for the presi- dency of the Popular Assembly with the CP. The policy - of Lora had nothing whatsover to do with the policy of Bolshevism, or Trotskyism. The construction of the Trotskyist movement in. Latin America, as_ elsewhere, requires a decisive break with the narrow national outlook and a return to internationalism and Marxist theory. The POR and Lora repeat the policies of the POUM in Spain in 1935-1938 and are in no fundamental way different from them. Their relations with. Torres and the COB paraliels those of the POUM with the Republican Government and the CNT. The OCI’s support for the POR now makes clear the political meaning of their bloc with the POUM at Essen. EES 7. The way forward ME The essence of the struggle of the International Committee since 1953, has been the con- scious construction of independ- ent revcluticnary parties of the Fourth International. Revision- Statement from the ICFI ists have always attacked this fundamental conception, Pablo with his ‘new reality’, ‘mass pressure’. and ‘the revolution in all its forms’, the LSSP with its ‘united left front’. Now the OCI, using the formula, ‘imminence of revolu- tion’, elaborating a schema of natural stages through which the working class passes on the road to power, distorting the tactic of united front of the working class, has taken the road of liquidationism laid down by these revisionists. The split comes now, when the stand at the point of tran- sition from one phase of the class struggle to a higher one, the stage in which Trotskyist parties are called upon to win leadership in the struggle for working-class power. In _ this 65

[p016] transition iv is inevitable that a decisive clash, and a_é split, becomes necessary with all those like the OCI who rejected the struggle for dialectical material- ism and refused to break from the old propagandist concep- tions. This hostility to theory always. leads to centrism and opportunism. The record shows clearly that on all the disputed questions, and above all on the importance of theoretical development and training, the Socialist Labour League and the IC majority tried patiently to correct the course of the OCI, and never proceeded precipitately or in such way as to provoke a split. The decision of the OCI to join the centrists at Essen against the International Committee and their manoeuvring and demagogy on Bolivia, constitute a decision to reject and oppose the struggle to build independent revolu- tionary parties of the Fourth International. We call upon all Trotskyists in every country to reject completely the OCI line and to fight on the principled positions of the International Committee. The Fourth Conference of the International Committee will meet in the first weeks of 1972. There it will be necessary to make a balance-sheet of the. struggle against revisionism and the fight to establish the Trot- skyist cadre throughout the period since 1938. A new period opens up, a period in which the Fourth International is called upon to lead struggles for work- ers’ power. The perspectives of this struggle in the advanced capitalist countries, in the col- onial countries, and in the fight for the political revolution in E Europe, the Soviet Union and China, will be discussed and decided. The draft resolution for this Conference is now complete, and the discussion now begins in all sections of the International Committee. NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. WORKERS’ LEAGUE, USA (sympathetic to the IC of the FI. REVOLUTIONARY MUNIST CEYLON. WORKERS INTERNATION- ALIST LEAGUE OF GREECE. LEAGUE FOR A WORKERS’ VANGUARD OF _IRE- LAND. SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE, BRITAIN. COM- LEAGUE OF October 24, 1971. class nature of the ‘International Socialism’ eroup By Cliff Slaughter C PRICE ONE SHILLING ee ae ee Price 5p - plus post 3p 186a Clapham High St., London S.W.4. SMORRERS PRESS PAMPHIT E Reform or Revolution —a reply by Cliff Slaughter to T. Whelan’s booklet ‘The Credibility Gap—the politics of the SLL’ PRICE NENTPENCD Reprinted from the Workers Press of April 18 and 21, 1970 os ~ Price 24p plus post 3¢ Fourth international Telephone 01/662 7029 Reprinted from the Workers Press of September 10, 11 and 12, 1970. Price 4p pius post 3p An open letter to Joseph Hansen PRD MNPENCI Winter 1971/72

[p017] transition iv is inevitable that a decisive clash, and a_ split, becomes necessary with all those like the OCI who rejected the struggle for dialectical material- ism and refused to break from the old propagandist concep- tions. This hostility to theory always leads to centrism and opportunism. The record shows clearly that on all the disputed questions, and above all on the importance of theoretical development and training, the Socialist Labour League and the IC majority tried patiently to correct the course of the OCI, and never proceeded pprecipitately or in such way as to provoke a split. The decision of the OCI to join the centrists at Essen against the International Committee and their manoeuvring and demagogy on Bolivia, constitute a decision to reject and oppose the struggle to build independent revolu- tionary parties of the Fourth International. We call upon all Trotskyists in every country to reject completely the OCI line and to fight on the principled positions of the International Committee. The Fourth Conference of the International Committee will meet in the first weeks of 1972. There it will be necessary to make a balance-sheet of the struggle against revisionism and the fight to establish the Trot- skyist cadre throughout the period since 1938. A new period opens up, a period in which the Fourth International is called upon to lead struggles for work- ers’ power. The perspectives of this struggle in the advanced capitalist countries, in the col- onial countries, and in the fight for the political revolution in E Europe, the Soviet Union and China, will be discussed and decided. The draft resolution for this Conference is now complete, and the discussion now begins in all sections of the International Committee. NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. WORKERS’ LEAGUE, USA (sympathetic to the IC of the FI). REVOLUTIONARY COM- MUNIST LEAGUE OF CEYLON. WORKERS INTERNATION- LEAGUE ALIST GREECE. LEAGUE FOR A WORKERS’ VANGUARD OF _IRE- LAND. SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE, BRITAIN. OF October 24, 1971. e class nature of the ‘International Socialism’ eTroup By Cliff Slaughter Price 5p - plus post 3p 186a Clapham High St., London S.W.4. Reform or Revolution —a reply by Cliff Slaughter to T. Whelan’s booklet ‘The Credibility Gap—the politics of the SLL’ Reprinted from the Workers Press of April 18 and 21, 1970 Price 24p plus post 3¢ Fourth International Telephone 01/662 7029 Reprinted from the Workers Press of September 10, 11 and 12, 1970. Price 4p plus post 3p Winter 1971/72

[p018] Statement by the OCI Central Committee THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the OCI, section of the Inter- national Committee for the reconstruction of the Fourth International, having examined the situation in Bolivia, on the basis of all the documents available, and in particular on the basis of the report of the development of the revolution- ary struggle drawn up by com- rade Guillermo Lora, secretary of the POR of Bolivia, reaffirms completély its absolute solidarity with the POR, Trotskyist party, member of the _ International Committee for the reconstruc- tion of the Fourth International, in its struggle waged in Bolivia for the workers’ and peasants’ government and for soviet power. The Central Committee of the OCI recalls that the Interna- tional Committee characterized the period opened by the Gen- eral Strike of May-June 1968 and the process of political revolu- tion in Czechoslovakia as the period of the imminence of revo- lution, that is the period when class confrontations will take place posing the question of power. The CC states that the pro- cess of class struggle in Bolivia completely fits into this per- spective. In Bolivia it is, in fact, around an organ of a soviet type that the worker and peas- ant masses organized themselves in their struggle against the domination of yankee imperialism and the miserable Bolivian bour- geoisie. Like the soviet in Irbid in Palestine, like the workers, coun- cils in the Baltic ports in Poland, the setting up of the Popular Assembly expresses the funda- mental trend of the period, the will of the _ proletarian and peasant masses to enter into the struggle for power. The CC of the OCI, member of the International Committee, salutes the heroic struggle car- ried out by the Bolivian POR in a situation where all the forces of imperialism sought to break this deep aspiration of the Bolivian masses to destroy the bourgeois masses and the rela- Statement from the OCI tions of production of capitalist property to build workers power. The CC of the OCI states that in the coup d’etat organized by the CIA and the military dicta- tors of Brazil and Argentine and facilitated by the action of the Torres government is the proof that the policy carried by the POR was fundamentally based on the interests of the Bolivian proletariat and of the world proletariat. The facts confirm this: at each stage of the process, the political struggle of the POR enabled the masses to preserve their inde- pendence of the class from Torres and to outdo all the Manoeuvres aiming against to subordinate them to bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalism. It is the policy of the POR which enabled the maintenance right to the end of the form, raised to the level of power, of the United Class Front of the political and trade union organ- izations, expressed in the Popu- lar Assembly. It is the unity in and around the Popular Assembly, organ ot dual power, which under the leadership of the Trotskyist party, the POR, dominated the whole revolutionary process before and after the confronta- tions of August 20 to August 23. The Moscow bureaucracy recognised this; they condemned their party in their press for having capitulated before the POR. The POR gave to all the petty- bourgeois currents the example of an armed struggle based on workers’ militias and completely integrated in the movement of workers in struggle for their emancipation. It is consciously that, through the voice of the ‘Washington Post’, yankee imperialism stated that, on the first day of the fascist uprising in Santa Cruz, the Bolivian situation was far more serious than that in Chile, that it confronted the United States with a more dangerous state of affairs than even the Cuban revolution of 1959, bécause the Bolivian masses had taken up the struggle for a ‘workers’ government’. The CC of the OCI declares that the Bolivian revolution is an integral part of the E Berlin uprising of 1953, of the Hun- ‘garian workers’ council revolu- tion, of the movement towards political revolution of the Czecho- slovak people, of the struggle of the Polish workers, of the May-June 1968 General Strike in France, of the struggle of the English proletariat against the Tory government, of the General Motors strike in the United States, of the struggle of the Spanish proletariat against Franco, of the struggle of the Argentinian proletariat against military dictatorship, of the struggle of the world proletariat to destroy the domination of imperialism and that of the Stalinist bureaucracy which coalesces with it. It is this which determined’ the intervention of imperialism and which explains the hatred of the Bolivian revolution shown Sf the world bourgeoisie, by the oscow bureaucracy and_ its Stalinist parties, and by all petty- bourgeois parties. The CC of the OCI, member of the International Committee, states that those who attack the Bolivian POR, attack the party which was the instigator and motive force of the Popular Assembly, that is the organ which concretized the struggle of the Bolivian proletariat to build its own power and which opened the road towards the dictatorship of the proletariat in Bolivia. All those who attack the POR through this, represent the enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They take the sides of imperialism and Stalin- ism. They are agents of counter- revolution and are enemies, con- scious or unconscious, of the Fourth International. The CC of the OCI, member of the International Committee, notes that those who attack the POR and expose their total inca- pacity in understanding the meaning of the struggle of the Bolivian masses, are the same people who characterized Ho Chi Minh as a revolutionary, the man who covered up the murder of. the Trotskyist leader Ta Thu Tau those who subordinated the Palestinian resistance to Nasser, then to the petty-bourgeois lead- ers of the Palestinian resistance, who tried to justify, by talking of so-called counter-revolutionary threats, the intervention of the Kremlin bureaucracy in Czecho- slovakia. _ They take their rightful place in the camp of slanderers of the heroic struggle of the POR of which numerous leaders fell in the-civil war paying the heavy price of the struggle for the international proletarian revolu- tion. The CC of the OCI, who took up the struggle in 1951-1952 to maintain the continuity of the Fourth International, that is the link with the struggle of Lenin and Trotsky and of Bolshevism, against the attempt of those who with Pablo agreed to liquida- tion in the face of the Stalinist Lehn states that the. Pabloite Unified Secretariat has once again taken a stand against the POR and the Fourth Inter- national, as they did in 1953, at the time of the E Berlin uprising and the French General Strike, as at the time of the second inter- vention in Hungary in 1956, and as at all crucial moments in the class struggle, on the side of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Today, when the whole of the perspectives on which the strug- gle of Leon Trotsky were founded become clear and con- crete more and more as the linked crisis of imperialism and bureaucracy accelerates; and when confrontations posing power multiply, the CC of the OCI affirms that it will continue with all the necessary firmness the struggle taken up 20 years ago, because it is the struggle for the victory of the world proletarian revolution, for the universal power of soviets, for the building of revolutiona parties, sections of the Fou International in each country, and the rebuilding of the Fourth International, the indispensable instrument for victory. September 19, 1971. 67

[p019] Statement by the OCI Central Committee THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE of the OCI, section of the Inter- national Committee for the reconstruction of ; the Fourth International, having examined the situation in Bolivia, on the basis of all the documents available, and in particular on the basis of the report of the development of the revolution- ary struggle drawn up by com- rade Guillermo Lora, secretary of the POR of Bolivia, reaffirms completely its absolute solidarity with the POR, Trotskyist party, member of the _ International Committee for the reconstruc- tion of the Fourth International, in its struggle waged in Bolivia for the workers’ and peasants’ government and for soviet power. The Central Committee of the OCI recalls that the Interna- tional Committee characterized the period opened by the Gen- eral Strike of May-June 1968 and the process of political revolu- tion in Czechoslovakia as the period of the imminence of revo- lution, that is the period when class confrontations will take place posing the question of power. The CC states that the pro- cess of class struggle in Bolivia completely fits into this per- spective. In Bolivia it is, in fact, around an organ of a _ soviet type that the worker and peas- ant masses organized themselves in their struggle against the domination of yankee imperialism and the miserable Bolivian bour- geoisie. Like the soviet in Irbid in Palestine, like the workers, coun- cils in the Baltic ports in Poland, the setting up of the Popular Assembly expresses the funda- mental trend of the period, the will of the proletarian and peasant masses to enter into the struggle for power. The CC of the OCI, member of the International Committee, salutes the heroic struggle car- ried out by the Bolivian POR in a situation where all the forces ’ of imperialism sought to break this deep aspiration of the Bolivian masses to destroy the bourgeois masses and the rela- Statement from the OCI tions of production of capitalist property to build workers power. The CC of the OCI states that in the coup d’etat organized by the CIA and the military dicta- tors of Brazil and Argentine and facilitated by the action of the Torres government is the proof that the policy carried by the POR was fundamentally based on the interests of the Bolivian proletariat and of the world proletariat. The facts confirm this: at each stage of the process, the political struggle of the POR enabled the masses to preserve their inde- pendence of the class Torres and to outdo all the manoeuvres aiming against to subordinate them to bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalism. It is the policy of the POR which enabled the maintenance right to the end of the form, raised to the level of power, of the United Class Front of the political and trade union organ- izations, expressed in the Popu- lar Assembly. It is the unity in and around the Popular Assembly, organ ot dual power, which under the leadership of the Trotskyist party, the POR, dominated the whole revolutionary process before and after the confronta- tions of August 20 to August 23. The Moscow bureaucracy recognised this; they condemnéd their party in their press for having capitulated before the POR. The POR gave to all the petty- bourgeois currents the example of an armed struggle based on workers’ militias and completely integrated in the movement of workers in struggle for their emancipation. It is consciously that, through the voice of the ‘Washington Post’, yankee imperialism stated that, on the first day of the fascist uprising in Santa Cruz, the Bolivian situation was far more serious than that in Chile, that it confronted the United States with a more dangerous state of affairs than even the Cuban revolution of 1959, from: because the Bolivian masses had taken up the struggle for a ‘workers’ government’. The CC of the OCI declares that the Bolivian revolution is an integral part of the E Berlin uprising of 1953, of the Hun- garian workers’ council revolu- tion, of the movement towards political revolution of the Czecho- slovak people, of the struggle of the Polish workers, of the May-June 1968 General Strike in France, of the struggle of the English proletariat against the Tory government, of the General Motors strike in the United States, of the struggle of the Spanish proletariat against Franco, of the struggle of the Argentinian proletariat against military dictatorship, of the struggle of the world proletariat to destroy the domination of imperialism and that of the Stalinist bureaucracy which coalesces with it. It is this which determined’ the intervention of imperialism and which explains the hatred of the Bolivian revolution shown by the world bourgeoisie, by the Moscow bureaucracy and _ its Stalinist parties, and by all petty- bourgeois parties. The CC of the OCI, member of the International Committee, states that those who attack the Bolivian POR, attack the party which was the instigator and motive force of the Popular Assembly, that is the organ which concretized the struggle of the Bolivian proletariat to build its own power and which opened the road towards the dictatorship of the proletariat in Bolivia. All those who attack the POR through this, represent the enemies of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They take the sides of imperialism and Stalin- ism. They are agents of counter- revolution and are enemies, con- scious or unconscious, of the Fourth International. The CC of the OCI, member of the International Committee, notes that those who attack the POR and expose their total inca- pacity in understanding’ the meaning of the struggle of the Bolivian masses, are the same people who characterized Ho Chi Minh as a revolutionary, the man who covered up the murder of. the Trotskyist leader Ta Thu Tau those who subordinated the Palestinian resistance to Nasser, then to the petty-bourgeois lead- ers of the Palestinian resistance, who tried to justify, by talking of so-called counter-revolutionary threats, the intervention of the Kremlin bureaucracy in Czecho- slovakia. They take their rightful place in the camp of slanderers of the heroic struggle of the POR of which numerous leaders fell in the-civil war paying the heavy price of the struggle for the international proletarian revolu- tion. The CC of the OCI, who took up the struggle in 1951-1952 to maintain the continuity of the Fourth International, that is the link with the struggle of Lenin and Trotsky and of Bolshevism, against the attempt of those who. with Pablo agreed to liquida- tion in the face of the Stalinist bureaucracy, states that the. Pabloite Unified Secretariat has once again taken a stand against the POR and the Fourth Inter- national, as they did in 1953, at the time of the E Berlin uprising” and the French General Strike, as at the time of the second inter- vention in Hungary in 1956, and as at all crucial moments in the class struggle, on the side of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Today, when the whole of the perspectives on which the strug- gle of Leon Trotsky were founded become clear and con- crete more and more as the linked crisis of imperialism and bureaucracy accelerates; and when confrontations posing power multiply, the CC of the OCI affirms that it will continue with all the necessary firmness the struggle taken up 20 years ago, because it is the struggle for the victory of the world prolétarian revolution, for the universal power of soviets, for. the building of revolutionary parties, sections of the Fourth International in each country, and the rebuilding of the Fourth International, the indispensable instrument for victory. September 19, 1971. 67

[p020] THE DELEGATIONS of the Political Bureau of the OCI, French section of the Inter- national Committee for the re- construction of the Fourth International, of the POR, Bolivian section of the Inter- national Committee and of the Organizing Committee of Com- munists (Trotskyists) in the E European countries, discussed questions of common interest raised by the struggle carried out by the POR, the sig- nificance of which is outlined as follows:. . . Since the General Strike in France and the process of poli- tical revolution in Czechoslovakia, the political power of the work- ing class is posed at the centre of each struggle of workers and youth throughout the world. In the face of decaying imperialism which offers only misery, unem- ployment, fascist barbarism and a war of extermination, in the face of the bureaucracy which threatens to destroy the con- quests of the glorious Revolution of October 1917, which puts a brake on and_ dislocates struggles, all the resistance and demands of the workers, all their will to live requires the direct and immediate struggle to take power, to impose a_ workers’ government. Never before has the conquest of power by the proletariat been such a clear, achievable and urgent task The creation of the Soviet in Irbid by the oppressed Palestinian masses, the committees and coun- cils formed by the Polish working class, the Bolivian Popular Assembly concretize these strug- gles converging on this immedi- ate goal, proceeding, although through different stages and different forms, towards the Universal Republic of Soviets. It is in Bolivia that this march forward of the working class to- wards its power reached its high- est level, rich in experience, ex- pressing and ccncretizing the deepest aspiration of the whole of the international working class. At the head of the Bolivian wor- kers was the POR, armed with the programme of the Fourth International, steeped in dozens of years of determined struggle for the proletarian revolution against nationalism, —_against Stalinism, against Pabloite re- visionism and against all forms of petty-bourgeois ideas, such as guerrilla-ism, deeply entrenched in the most combative section - of the Bolivian proletariat. Because this Party prepared this struggle, it was prepared for it, and was able to seize the occasion and, at each révolutionary process, it developed the conditions for the working class to take power. We can see, in the development of the Bolivian revolution, not only the aspiration of the workers throughout the world for their government, but also mainly the ‘for a workers’ their. lessons and experiences on the means and methods to achieve this. The achievement of the unity of the class through the workers’ United Front, motive force of the -anti-imperialist United Front, materialized in the Popular Assembly, organ of power. The POR of Bolivia, mem- ber of the International Com- mittee for the reconstruction of the Fourth International, worked for this unity to create the in- dispensable conditions for the taking of power. This experience of a struggle and peasants’ government, under the leadership of a Trotskyist party, a vital ek- perience for the _ international working class, brings to life the universal lessons of the 1917 October Revolution. It is the most worthy commemoration on the eve of its next anniversary. This is then the positive reply to the Hungarian revolution of workers’ councils, which 15 years ago, sought in vain for its organ- ized political leadership. Here is the Trotskyist demonstration of a struggle to give a centralized and organized strength to the struggle of the whole of the proletariat marching towards power against the French Stalin- ists who betrayed and dislocated the 1968 General Strike, and fought the attempt of the OCI to achieve such an organized cen- tralization. Today the French CP carries out a slander campaign against the POR with the aim of turning the proletariat away from the carrying out of its revolutionary tasks. The international apparatus of the Kremlin finds in this work the greatest of support from the campaign of the obedient Pablo- ites (Ligue Communiste, Lute Ouvriére) against the POR in struggle. No one can be mistaken. All the open and concealed enemies of the dictatorship of the prole- tariat and its Party, today pour out mountains of lies and slan- ders against the POR of Bolivia. The Stalinists who, at each point and on an international scale, fight the class independence real- ized in the Popular Assembly, which was firmly maintained by the POR, glorify the class col- laboration in Chile, condemn not only the POR, but the Bolivian Communist Party which, in the Popular Assembly, was forced to accept the United Front. All the petty-bourgeois cur- Statement —from the OCI (French section of the International Com- mittee for the reconstruction of the Fourth International) —from the POR (Bolivian section of the International Committee) —and from the Organizing Committee of the Communists (Trotskyists) from the E European countries. rents spit out their hatred of the Bolivian POR because it vigor-. ously resisted sectarian adven- tures, firmly guiding the struggle of the popular masses towards the workers’ government. Par- ticularly active in the petty- bourgeois Front against the POR, the’ Pabloites find their place with all their nuances, the ‘Lutte Ouvriére’, the so-called Ligue ‘Communiste’ of the Unified Sec- retariat, the renegades of the Fourth International, those who glorified petty-bourgeois leaders —Stalinists like Gomulka as well as Yassir Arafat— who carried out an unprincipled agreement with representatives of the bour- geoisie in the ‘Vietnam Com- mittee’. These same petty bour- gecis attack the POR, who were able to express the revolutionary process in Bolivia. They capitulate - in Latin America as in France and everywhere in front of so- called spontaneist currents of the petty bourgecisie to participate in the Stalinist attack against the revolutionary upsurge of the masses who, in each country, pose the dictatorship of the proletariat, the democracy of workers’ councils. It is precisely because the Bolivian events concentrate at their highest point the march to- wards power of the international working class, posing as the most important thing all the decisive questions in the conquest of power, as well as the activity of the Trotskyist Party at the heart of this world process in an epoch of upheavals and sharp turns, that the unresolved problems come out of the crisis of the Fourth Internaticnal which in 1950 Pablo, Mandel, Frank, etc., wanted to destroy, finding their expression also in the heart of the International Committee. Only the petty bourgeois find this surprising. The history of the Fourth International, since its foundation by Lecn Trotsky in 1938, was difficult struggle for its mainten- ance against immense _ forces grouped together to destroy it. Only the Fourth internationai, through its programme = and through its untiring struggles, has always fcught for the class independence of the proletariat, for the world poletarian revolu- ticn against imperialism and Stal- inist class collaboraticn. That is why it was, and is today the centre of sharp attacks by all the enemies of the proletariat. The Fourth International is decisive Fourth International in the outcome of the world class struggle as it is in the continua- tion of Bolshevism, of the Octo- ber Revolution. The Trotskyists who, since 1950, resisted the policy of capitulation in front of the bureaucracy which is the essence of Pabloism, the Trotsky- ist organizations which, in 1953, set up the International Commit- tee, they alcne ensured the con- tinuity of the Fourth Inter- national and thus preserved the conditions for its reconstruction indispensable to the building in each country of the leading Re- volutionary Workers’ Party, naticnal section of the Fourth International. What is more natural than that all the difficult problems of the international class struggle be re- flected and concentrated at its heart? What is more natural than the fact that the decisive factor in the outcome of the gigantic world struggle be reflected in the crisis of the Fourth International as it is in the crisis of all the organizations of the working class? . Today, the leadership of cer- tain organizations cf the Inter- national Committee, like the Socialist Labour League and the . Workers’ League, lacking clarity precisely on the question of the strategy of the conquest of power and the reccnstruction of the Fourth International, have given in to enormous pressure in attacking the POR. The three delegations, meeting in Paris, considering that the discussion is legitimate, as much between the sections adhering to the IC as inside each of its sec- tions, they condemn the method used by the Workers League and the SLL who publicly condemned the Bclivian section of the IC. It is for this reason that the delegations of the OCI and of the ‘Organizing Committee for the E European countries agree with the request made by comrade G. Lora, demanding that the IC be called to a plenary meeting in the most rapid delay to take a stand on the report on the Bolivian revolution and the tasks of the reconstruction -of the Fourth International which the leadership of the POR has pre- jared. Paris, October 12, 1971. Guillermo LORA, Secretary of the Bolivian POR, member of the IC for the reconstruc- tion of the Fourth Inter- national. Pierre LAMBERT, from _ the CC of the OCI, French sec- tion of the IC for the re- construction of the Fourth International. Balazs NAGY, leader of the Ligue of Socialist Revolu- tionaries of Hungary, mem- ber of the IC for the recon- struction of the Fourth International, leader of the Organizing Committee of Communists (Trotskyists) of E Europe. Winter 1971/72

[p021] THE DELEGATIONS of the Political Bureau of the OCI, French section of the Inter- national Committee for the re- construction of the Fourth International, of the POR, Bolivian section of the Inter- national Committee and of the Organizing Committee of Com- munists (Trotskyists) in the E European countries, discussed questions of common interest raised by the struggle carried out by the POR, the sig- nificance of which is outlined Ows: . - on fol the General Strike in France and the process of poli- tical revolution in Czechoslovakia, the political power of the work- ing class is posed at the centre of each struggle of workers and youth throughout the world. In the face of decaying imperialism which offers only misery, unem- ployment, fascist barbarism and a war of extermination, in the face of the bureaucracy which threatens to destroy the con- quests of the glorious Revolution of October 1917, which puts a brake on and dislocates_ their struggles, all the resistance and demands of the workers, all their will to live requires the direct and immediate struggle to take power, to impose a_ workers’ government. Never before has the conquest of power by the proletariat been such a clear, achievable and urgent task The creation of the Soviet in Irbid by the oppressed Palestinian masses, the committees and coun- cils formed by the Polish working class, the Bolivian Popular Assembly concretize these strug- gles converging on this immedi- ate goal, proceeding, although through different stages and different forms, towards the Universal Republic of Soviets. It is in Bolivia that this march forward of the working class to- wards its power reached its high- est level, rich in experience, ex- pressing and cencretizing the deepest aspiration of the whole of the international working class. At the head of the Bolivian wor- kers was the POR, armed with the programme of the Fourth International, steeped in dozens of years of determined struggle for the proletarian revolution against nationalism, _ against Stalinism, against Pabloite _ re- visionism and against all forms of petty-bourgeois ideas, such as guerrilla-ism, deeply entrenched in the most combative section -of the Bolivian proletariat. Because this Party prepared this struggle, it was prepared for it, and was able to seize the occasion and, at each révolutionary process, it developed the conditions for the working class to take power. We can see, in the development of the Bolivian revolution, not only the aspiration of the workers throughout the world for their government, but also mainly the ‘for a workers’ —from the POR (Bolivian lessons and experiences on the means and methods to achieve this. The achievement of the unity of the class through the workers’ United Front, motive force of the anti-imperialist United Front, materialized in the Popular Assembly, organ of power. The POR of Bolivia, mem- ber of the International Com- mittee for the reconstruction of the Fourth International, worked for this unity to create the in- dispensable conditions for the taking of power. This experience of a struggle and peasants’ government, under the leadership of a Trotskyist party, a vital ek- perience for the _ international working class, brings to life the universal lessons of the 1917 October Revolution. It is the most worthy commemoration on the eve of Its next anniversary. This is then the positive reply to the Hungarian revolution of workers’ councils, which 15 years ago, sought in vain for its organ- ized political leadership. Here is the Trotskyist demonstration of a struggle to give a centralized and organized strength to the struggle of the whole of the proletariat marching towards power against the French Stalin- ists who betrayed and dislocated the 1968 General Strike, and fought the attempt of the OCI to achieve such an organized cen- tralization. Today the French CP carries out a slander campaign against the POR with the aim of turning the proletariat away from the carrying out of its revolutionary tasks. The international apparatus of the Kremlin finds in this work the greatest of support from the campaign of the obedient Pablo- ites (Ligue Communiste, Lute Ouvriére) against the POR in struggle. No one can be mistaken. All the open and concealed enemies of the dictatorship of the prole- tariat and its Party, today pour out mountains of lies and slan- ders against the POR of Bolivia. The Stalinists who, at each point and on an international scale, fight the class independence real- ized in the Popular Assembly, which was firmly maintained by the POR, glorify the class col- laboration in Chile, condemn not only the POR, but the Bolivian ‘Communist Party which, in the Popular Assembly, was forced to accept the United Front. All the petty-bourgeois cur- Statement —from the OCI (French section of the International Com- mittee for the reconstruction of the Fourth International) Committee) —and from the Organizing Committee of the Communists (Trotskyists) from the E European countries. section of the International rents spit out their hatred of the Bolivian POR because it vigor- ously resisted sectarian adven- tures, firmly guiding the struggle of the popular masses towards the workers’ government. Par- ticularly active in the petty- bourgeois Front against the POR, the’ Pabloites find their place with all their nuances, the ‘Lutte Ouvriére’, the so-called Ligue ‘Communiste’ of the Unified Sec- retariat, the renegades of the Fourth International, those who glorified petty-bourgeois leaders —Stalinists like Gomulka as well as Yassir Arafat— who carried out an unprincipled agreement with representatives of the bour- geoisie in the ‘Vietnam Com- mittee’. These same petty bour- geois attack the POR, who were able to express the revolutionary process in Bolivia. They capitulate in Latin America as in France and everywhere in front of so- called spontaneist currents of the petty bourgecisie to participate in the Stalinist attack against the révolutionary upsurge of _ the masses who, in each country, pose the dictatorship of the proletariat, the democracy of workers’ councils. It is precisely because the Bolivian events concentrate at their highest point the march to- wards power of the international working class, posing as the most important thing all the decisive questions in the conquest of power, as well as the activity of the Trotskyist Party at the heart of this world process in an epoch of upheavals and sharp turns, that the unresolved problems come out of the crisis of the Fourth International which in 1950 Pablo, Mandel, Frank, etc., wanted to destroy, finding their expression also in the heart of the International Committee. Only the petty bourgeois find this surprising. The history of the Fourth International, since its foundation by Lecn Trotsky in 1938, was difficult struggle for its mainten- ance against immense forces grouped together to destroy it. Only the Fourth International, through its programme = and through its untiring struggles, has always fcught for the class independence of the proletariat, for the world poletarian revolu- ticn against imperialism and Stal- inist class collaboration. That is why it was, and is today the centre of sharp attacks by all the enemies of the proletariat. The Fourth International is decisive Fourth International in the outcome of the world class struggle as it is in the continua- tion of Bolshevism, of the Octo- ber Revolution. The Trotskyists who, since 1950, resisted the policy of capitulation in front of the bureaucracy which is the essence of Pabloism, the Trotsky- ist organizations which, in 1953, set up the International Commit- tee, they alone ensured the con- tinuity of the Fourth Inter- national and thus preserved the conditions for its reconstruction indispensable to the building in each country of the leading Re- volutionary Workers’ Party, national section of the Fourth International. What is more natural than that all the difficult problems of the international class struggle be re- flected and concentrated at its heart? What is more natural than the fact that the decisive factor in the outcome of the gigantic world struggle be reflected in the crisis of the Fourth International as it is in the crisis of all the organizations of the working class? Today, the leadership of cer- tain organizations of the Inter- national Committee, like the Socialist Labour League and the Workers’ League, lacking clarity precisely on the question of the strategy of the conquest of power and the reccnstruction of the Fourth International, have given in to enormous pressure in attacking the POR. The three delegations, meeting in Paris, considering that the discussion is legitimate, as much between the sections adhering to the IC as inside each of its sec- tions, they condemn the method used by the Workers League and the SLL who publicly condemned the Bclivian section of the IC. It is for this reason that the delegations of the OCI and of the Organizing Committee for the E European countries agree with the request made by comrade G. Lora, demanding that the IC be called to a plenary meeting in the most rapid delay to take a stand on the report on the Bolivian revolution and the tasks of the reconstruction -of the Fourth International which the leadership of the POR has pre- dared. Paris, October 12, 1971. Guillermo LORA, Secretary of the Bolivian POR, member of the IC for the reconstruc- tion of the Fourth Inter- national. Pierre LAMBERT, from the CC of the OCI, French sec- tion of the IC for the re- construction of the Fourth International. Balazs NAGY, leader of the Ligue of Socialist Revolu- tionaries of Hungary, mem- ber of the IC for the recon- struction of the Fourth International, leader of the Organizing Committee of Communists (Trotskyists) of E Europe. Winter 1971/72

[p022] On the weekend of August 21-22 the ten-month-old regime of General Juan José Torres was overthrown by a CIA-backed coup led by Colonel Banzer—head of the military academy. Banzer had the close support of the bourgeois MNR—National Revolutionary Movement—and the Bolivian Socialist Falange— an extreme right-wing semi-fascist movement. Bolivia: