Reply to the Document 'Reply to a Splitting Act' from the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste (OCI)

[p018] document “A reply to a splitting Act’ from the Organization ‘Communiste, Internationaliste|see this issue] N November 24, 1971 the French OCI issued a Declaration—in reply to the Resolution drawn up by the IC on October 24, 1971. In this document, published in Informations Ouvriéres, the OCI leadership begin, according to them, with an attempt to re-establish the truth about the events that un- folded up to the time of the Split because, in their opinion, these are distorted in the Resolution of the IC. It was not—they state—the OCI who initiated the split, but the organizations signing the document of October 24. Also, the IC was not divided into a majority and a minority, but into two equal-voting parts. Finally, they make _ the observation that these points are of secondary importance and that the main question is that of t:.c political differences between the two factions. While that is true, the events preceding the split are also of some significance as regards the essence of the differences. For this reason, let us also begin from these events. The IC and the EDE The composers of _ the Declaration managed without any trouble to draw up the list of opponents as follows: 1. SLL (Great Britain). 2. WL (USA Organization in solidarity with the IC). RCP (Ceylon). LWL (Ireland). OCI (France). LSPH (Hungary). LOM (Mexico). . POR (Bolivia). From the list they removed the Greek Section (EDE) and added the Bolivian POR. PNAW Aw The leaders of the OCI appear to see the international movement as a chessboard, on which the game is played according to their own fickle rules. They put one ‘piece’ in some humble little square and put another aside—according to their own needs. It is not by chance that in their Déclaration they charac- terize the Workers’ League as the ‘New York mouthpiece’ of the SLL, that is, a ‘pawn’. From our side, it would be neither right nor completely wrong to say that the OCI ‘judge others by themselves’. As far as the Greek Section of the IC is concerned, this is the first time the OCI have claimed that we constitute an organization merely sympathe- tic to the IC, since we expelled our minority early in 1967. The OCI are ready to sacrifice Sections of the IC for the sole reason of drawing up lists favourable to themselves. The decision to place the Greek Section on the periphery was taken—according to them ——in the IC, after a proposal by its Secretary, Cliff Slaughter. Which meeting of the IC was this? The OCI, who madly deny the existence of a minority and majority in the IC ‘since there was no meeting of the IC’, think that decisions on expulsion or addition of Sec- tions can be taken without a meeting of the IC. We cannot help but remem- ber the saying ‘Practise what you preach’. The expulsion, removal or addition of a Section are serious matters and _pre- suppose a discussion in the IC with as wide as possible par- ticipation of Sections and necessarily with the participa- tion of those directly con- cerned. There was never such a meeting of the IC. Even more elementary—in these cases—is the announce- ment of the decision to the Sections and _ especially to those directly concerned. When did the IC, or one of its supreme and_ uncontrol- lable rulers, who decides in- dependently of the _ others, announce such a_ decision? Never! Had such a decision been taken, the EDE would have had every reason to combat it decisively and nothing would have prevented it from doing so in public. But no one can cite a case where reference was made to such a question, either within the EDE or in its publications. Which is only natural, be- cause such a question never existed. Who could have disputed the EDE’s right to take or- ganizational measures against a minority or exclude it from the IC for such a _ reason? Nobody! Neither the Pope in Rome nor the Pope in Paris. What was pending in the IC in connection with the EDE was not whether it would be re-added as a section or not— a position which would have been inconceivable — but the approval or rejection of the expulsions that had taken place. The EDE had willingly left the last word on this question to the IC even though the in- ternational organization did not recognize such jurisdiction in itself. The EDE acted according to its own concep- tion of the IC, which = was contrary to that of the OCI, 163

[p019] who saw the IC as a flabby and in every way powerless and incompetent body. As far as the German SAB is concerned, the OCI finds it natural to say ‘a German group, the SAB, which was formed from elements expel- led from the German Trot- skyist organization IAK_ be- cause of their refusal to carry out in practice the discipline of the organization.’ The OCI’s justice functions with different laws and pro- phets in Germany... The OCI is too late in put- ting forward its contentions, which unfortunately contradict the actual relations of the EDE with the IC during the whole five-year period since the expulsion of our minority. If the IC really considered that nothing exists in Greece except two sympathizing groups of equal status, then Greek Trotskyism should have been represented by both groups at all international meetings, at all presentations in conferences and at other activities of sister organiza- tions. Nothing of the kind ever happened. Every time and everywhere it was represented by the EDE and the EDE alone. Also, had such a decision been taken by the IC, nobody, and above all the EDE itself, would have allowed the EDE to usurp a title that did not belong to it. We must say, as an example, that this happened both at the Rally of the AJS at Le Bourget and at the Essen Rally. After Le Bourget, Jeune Revolutionnaire published a photocopy of our paper Ora tis Allagis, with the caption ‘The newspaper of our Greek comrades’. There were not two sym- pathizing organizations _ of equal status in Greece. The times have simply changed, along with the needs of the OcI. The OCI, stunned by recent events, do not render the situation as it really was, but as they would like it to have been. Their solemn passion, which they never dared to bring out in the open, was for our minority to be found among the sections of the IC because in it they saw something akin to their own policies. If during five whole years the IC did not manage to 164 clear up the problem of our minority, it was not because ‘the conditions (after the coup d’etat) did not allow a study of the motives of this split? as they unashamedly claim, but due to the problems of the IC itself because of their own obstruction. The EDE soon became con- scious that the OCI was mak- ing its own calculations with an ulterior motive. The OCI leaders could see ‘into the future’. They did not want to cut their ties with the minority of the EDE. They had their own factional con- tacts with our minority and have visited Greece without consulting the IC. It must be made clear, however, that this minority group accepts the position of the IC, not of the OCI—see the article on Bolivia in this issue. The same ulteriorly moti- vated calculations which have determined the OCI’s stand with regard to Greek Trotsky- ism were also behind the invi- tation to Robertson’s ‘Spar- tacists’ group at Essen, along with the National Students’ Association of the USA. This was not merely Berg’s indivi- dual initiative. It is the OCI’s own method ‘for rebuilding the Fourth International‘ 4 la francaise, a ‘rebuilding’ equivalent to breaking up. After having ‘re-established’ the truth about the EDE, the composers of the Declaration went on to the question of the Bolivian POR. ‘As far as the POR is con- cerned,’ they write, ‘the issues are clear’. (Our emphasis.) Is this to be taken as a sly hint that on the Greek ques- tion they had been unclear? The POR’s relations with the IC In order to include the POR in their list, they offer two ‘arguments’. The first is a five- line news item published in Workers Press, where the POR was named as the Bolivian section of the IC. This item, appearing once in a paper published every day, has absolute value for the OCI. From this point of view, they do not take into consideration a lengthy article by comrade Wohlforth which was pub- lished ten days later in the Bulletin (organ of the Workers League) and after another ten days in the Workers Press, and which states the exact oppo- site. In 1970—the Declaration alleges—the POR was accep- ted into the IC at a meeting in which Lora took part. This meeting is just as well- known to the sections of the IC as that which expelled the EDE. Anyway, the OCI’s second ‘argument’ is that in March 1970 —so they say — Lora’s accession was announced in La Verité and this was not contradicted. The addition of the POR was, however, so indisputable that seven months later the OCI criticized the POR in La Verité which would have been unthinkable if we are really talking about a member of the IC, without prior dis- cussion within the IC. As we have seen, the OCI’s ‘arguments’ do not stand up very well. They are revealed as being particularly rotten, however, if one examines them from the standpoint of inner causality which they lack entirely. Be- cause it is this causality that can establish the truth of the matter and give founda- tions to the separate elements. The sections which met on October 24, 1971 have, on their part, explained com- pletely their mistrust towards the POR. The OCI have said nothing about their own trust. They say only that the POR is an old Trotskyist organiza- tion. But this fact constitutes one more reason for mistrust, and not for the opposite. It means that the POR js an or- ganization with more or less fixed views, and_ relatively difficult to change. When the young German organization was kept in the periphery of the IC for a lengthy trial period, how could the IC have admitted Lora as soon as he decided to knock on their door? How can the OCI maintain that the IC admitted Lora, who did not decide to approach it until nearly 20 years after the split with the Pabloites, without any reluc- tance, and at the same time reaffirm the longstanding re- luctance of the IC towards the German organization, which had openly undertaken the fight of the IC in its own country? How can it possibly be considered that the IC treated so loosely an _ organization Fourth International Summer 1972

[p020] which, before the cock had crowed three times, was ready to play such a reactionary role in the most critical phase of the class struggle in Bolivia, ready to descend to the very depths of disgrace with the announcement in La Paz of its participation in the Popular Front which also _ includes former President General Torres, only one day before the CC of the OCI composed its Declaration (where it demands that we make absurd discriminations among. the POR, the LSSP and_ the _POUM)? No, the POR could not have been and was not admitted to the IC with such light-minded- ness. Consequently, it is not the IC who manufacture majorities and minorities by adding and subtracting, but the OCI who manufacture equal-voting parts. As for the contradictory evidence which can certainly be offered by either side, this by itself has no value what- soever. It can at the most con- firm the existence of certain internal problems which the IC certainly has to solve. Who is responsible for the split? Not us, but the ones who gathered on October 24, say the OCI, and for this they invoke a labyrinth of untruths, on whose paths it would be useless and joyless for us to wander. The majority of the IC who met on October 24 did not do so in order to provoke a split but in order to recognize the existence of one. This is not simply a claim, as we will show below. In their Declaration the OCI maintain that it is not ideas that explain deeds, but deeds that explain ideas. So one would expect them at least to try and make a material analysis and_inter- pretation of the supposed activities of the majority of the IC which led to the split. From the side of the majority, to what end would a split serve? Because, naturally, they would not have created a split for the sake of a split. But it is in vain that one seeks something of this sort in their Declaration. In a text that seeks to give lessons in materialism, you will find nothing but scattered and Bolivia abstract accusations about the Majority passing over ‘to the theses of idealism’. The sections that met on October 24 made an_ initial reference to the historical and Social roots of the contempt with which the OCI confronts the question of theory. Be- yond this they denounced it, concretely, for breaking from the IC to join its new friends, the centrists. _ They denounced it for ally- ing itself with the POUM at Essen against the IC, for hav- ing undertaken the role of apologist for the POR which has now joined with General Torres, for having invited Robertson, the sworn enemy of the IC, to Essen, and for having invited the ill-reputed American right-wing student organization, the NSA. ‘Concerned about historic truth’, the OCI note that the NSA did not vote. But their ‘concern’, real or not, has no value at all. Had it voted, it would certainly have voted for ‘materialism’ along with the POUM, POR, Robertson and the OCI, against the ‘idealism’ of the majority of the IC! Next, the OCI claim that ‘a crystal-clear and quick answer of the CC of the OCI came at this stage to obstruct the development of this dan- serous trend’, that is, comrade G. Healy’s approach to the Pabloites for a public discus- sion following a proposal by comrade Lambert. The SLL has of course ex- plained its own attitude to this discussion, but for our part at least it was acceptable because it would have brought the OCI into a confrontation with these centrists and thus would have aided in a political clarification. We believe that the OCI retreated because they became aware of the danger. But whatever they tried to avoid then, they brought on them- selves with their breaches of faith at Essen. A public dis- cussion has now been taken up at the international .evel, and this is one of the positive sides of this affair. At Essen—they say—the SLL and certain other sections ‘broke’ the agreement to sup- port the resolution which the OCI proposed, when they in- sisted on the controversial amendment formulated by the delegation of the SLL. What agreement was this? While the SLL-YS received the resolution, untranslated, a few hours before they left for Essen, the other sections got it — untranslated — only after the Meeting which was to decide on it had begun. How could there have been agree- ment on a unknown text? As Informations Ouvriéres informs its readers, the SLL and the other organizations which supported the contro- versial amendment had already decisively supported exactly the same positions during the pre-conference of the IC in June 1970. That is, that with- out revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary party —and the struggle to build it, as well as the revolutionary youth, must be based on the fight for dialectical materialism against bourgeois ideology and all the forms which it takes within the workers’ movement. How did it happen that they suddenly agreed on the opposite at Essen? No, there was no agreement on capitulation to the centrists. On the contrary, the IC was founded on the basis of oppo- site agreements. And_ these were broken at Essen by the OCI, LOM and LSPH. This was the split. They did not need to announce it; they had shown it with their actions. Their stand at Essen had been presaged by the case of the Germans, to which it would be helpful to refer. In Ger- many, where the two trends of the IC were found in one and the same organization, the IAK, the majority expelled the minority because it insisted on its right to be associated with another section of the IC, the SLL (and the YS). The OCI finally offer as an argument the fact that Lambert was invited by the SLL after Essen to speak on dialectical materialism at the Young Socialists’ educational camp. This in itself, they say, shows that no split had taken place at Essen. Yes, but the composers of the Declaration forgot to mention the fact that the delegation of the OCI found itself involved in serious and open disagreements with the other delegations at the sum- mer school. The invitation to comrade Lambert was intended very deliberately to let every- one see the position of the OCI _ on the philosophical questions. 165

[p021] The reaction of the majority of the IC could not have been expressed (in a Statement like that of October 24) immedi- ately after Essen, where for the first time after years of collab- oration, the OCI separated it- self publicly from the IC. The facts had to be weighed and assessed. The Statement of the OCI and of the Hungarian LSPH on October 12, in which the Socialist Labour League, Workers League and whoever criticized the Bolivian POR were linked with imperialism —-and the Meeting in Paris advertising Just as the Sec- retary of the IC—these are facts that served to emphasize the meaning of the events at Essen. The OCI— who, notably, detest the title of secretary— today justify themselves, main- taining that Just was placed alongside Cliff Slaughter as co-secretary. Not exactly. During the pre- conference of the IC in August 1970, a co-secretariat composed of Just (OCI), Nagy (LSPH) and Banda (SLL) was elected, alongside the Secretary, Cliff Slaughter. Just was not advertised as a member of the co-secretariat at the Paris meeting. Theory and practice — party and class We now come to the poli- tical differences—the essence of the split. These’ differences must, above all, be confronted from the standpoint of method. The most important lesson from the development of the American SWP, a lesson now being reaffirmed in the retreat of the OCI, is that the rejec- tion of centrist policies on one question or another is insufficient or false when it does not extend to the rejec- tion of the anti-Marxist method found behind them. We rejected, say the OCI leaders, the SLL’s amendment to the resolution at Essen ‘because it expressed the pass- ing over to the theses of idealism’. And they explain themselves: ‘No, behind every develop- ment of opportunism within the workers’ movement there is not ‘ideology’ with the form of the revision [abandon- ment of Marxism], there is the reality of social forces in struggle, the class struggle, which is expressed within the 166 workers’ movement itself, which is the arena and out- come of this fight and which gives rise to justifications in the form of the revision of Marxism.’ It is a fact that the abandon- ment of Marxism cannot be explained by the abandonment of Marxism. No one, however, had supported this empty tautology, neither the SLL nor the other organizations sign- ing the Statement of October 24. On this point the OCI is carrying coals to Newcastle. The ‘reality’ of social forces in struggle explains the re- visions of Marxism—but what is the relation of Marxist theory about reality to reality itself? The disagreement is located exactly at this point. In the opinion of the OCI, theory is a simple reflection of reality, without an active role; Marxism, a collection and classification of the experience of the practical movement. They say that a practical capitulation in the field of the class struggle is followed by its theoretical justification in the form of the revision of Marxism. This is only right by half and for that reason untrue. Theory is not dragged along behind practice. It follows practice but at the same time precedes it. It is certain that every theoretical capitulation leaves the way open for even greater practical capitulations. Theories spring from material reality, their limits are fixed by material reality Marxist theory could not have been born anywhere but within capitalism, out of the same social conditions which created the workers’ movement. How- ever, as theoretical ‘reasoning’ it did not come from the workers’ movement but appeared alongside it as the conscious opposite of the un- conscious action of the work- ing class. As a theory, Marx- ism does not develop except to the degree that the world changes practically. As such, it is not a passive reflection of changes taking place in practice. It plays a tremen- dously active role, acting upon its own material resources. As Marx said, ‘and theory be- comes a material force when it is embodied in the mass movement’. Entirely to the contrary, the OCI presents theory as a kind of wart on the face of the ‘reality’ of social forces in struggle, and rejects the de- cisive importance of the struggle for Marxism against bourgeois ideology and _ its variants within the workers’ movement. Every opportunist recognizes the fact that the bourgeoisie does not rule only physically, with its repressive state mechanism. He accepts the fact that the conveyance of bourgeois ideology to the masses plays a meaningful role in their slavery. But at the same time he denies that its opposite, Marxism, can play a role of its own in the liberation of the masses. The theoretical struggle 1s for him not indissolubly tied to each moment of the practical struggle. The ideological eman- cipation of the working class is not a dynamic process which is realized every day, but comes suddenly and all at once after its social eman- cipation. The opportunist who refuses to fight for ideological emancipation does not, in fact, even want social emancipation, or, in the best of cases, does not believe in its possibility. At Essen the OCI denied that the only basis for the building of the Fourth Inter- national is the struggle for Marxist theory. This denial is indissolubly linked to their spontaneist outlook on the party and, in essence, to a denial of the party itself. The OCI declaration states: ‘The revolutionary party does not arise opposite the working class movement. The building of the revolutionary party springs from the total development of the class struggle.’ And a little further down: ‘Marxism is “the conscious expression of an unconscious process’, The _ revolutionary party is the organized form taken by this conscious ex- pression within the _ class struggle.’ The party is the ‘organized’ form of Marxism; distinguished from the movement as regards organization and not as regards consciousness; it is an exten- sion of the spontaneous move- ment in the same direction as the spontaneous movement. Like Marxism, the party ‘springs from’ the total de- velopment of the class struggle, or, to use the charming words of Stephane Just, from the ‘organic process’ of the class struggle. Incidentally, we hope that Fourth International Summer 1972

[p022] Stephane Just, that worthy man who ‘defends Trotskyism’ by substituting for the ‘natural process’ of the Pabloites his own ‘organic process’, will explain to us in one of his later volumes why, while in pre-war Spain and in post-war Greece the ‘organic process’ of the class struggle reached its highest point, civil war, Marxism did not avpear in the consciousness of the workers, nor did the Marxist party appear in their leadership. Maybe he will succeed in find- ing an answer. where Pablo and Mandel failed. On the basis of the ‘total development’ of the class struggle, from which every- thing can only ‘spring’, the Pabloites gave Castro the title of ‘spontaneous Marxist’. Accordingly, the OCI stated in the original resolution § at Essen that which it quietly made disappear in the final one, that the youth has ‘spontaneous class conscious- ness’, while Charles’ Berg declared, in the preparatory campaign in France, that the youth is ‘spontaneously inter- nationalist’. The IC has broken from the Pabloites, insisting that the revolutionary party cannot be - built, and = socialism cannot triumph, spontaneously and empirically. The truth is not painted on the world’s face. On the contrary, the surface of things reflects their essence in a distorted manner and this spontaneously leads to the formation of a distorted con- sciousness about things. In the first volume of Capital, under the title ‘The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof’, Marx analyses the material roots of the original distortion of consciousness which takes place within the system of capitalist relations ot production. Inseparably tied to the capitalist mode of pro- duction, says Marx, is the fact that the product of Man’s labour alienates itself from its producer, transcends him and gives him the illusion that it rules over him; something like fetishes, which, while they are primitive man’s creations, are regarded by him as his creator. The same fetish character is taken on by the product of man’s labour when it assumes the form of a commodity in the market. It loses every trace of its origin, of the social division of labour and the human effort concentrated in Bolivia it. It appears as something mythical, something which determines its producer. Thus relationships between human products appear to be re- lationships between things. This is the material basis of the whole process of mystical distortion of the consciousness of the producer, the whole ideological veil that hides the true face of the exploitative nature of the capitalist system. Labour power, being the only commodity the proletarian possesses, also assumes the fetish character of the com- modity-form, which catches the worker up in a whole net of illusions. From within these illusions, his spontaneous struggle cannot surpass the limits of the fight for a better price for the commodity, labour power; the limits of trade union consciousness, that is, the bourgeois con- sciousness of the proletariat. Lenin dedicated his pamph- let What is to be Done? to the fight against the standpoint that sees socialist conscious- ness and the revolutionary party as products of the spon- taneous development of the labour movement. But in the OCI they attempt to counterpose Marx to Lenin. Just regards the contents of Lenin’s pamphlet as ‘meta- physical discussion’. P. Broue, in La Vérité (No 554-555) says of What is to be Done?, ‘We do not look upon it as our Bible’. They defend it in so far as it was shown to be effective in the building of the Bolshevik party. But a dialec- tical work has no need of such defence. A year after the publication of What is to be Done?, at the Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, Plekhanov (who had not yet become imvolved with Menshevism), with Lenin’s consent, showed clearly what is the root of spontaneism, the opposition of spontaneity to consciousness, of the party to the class, the meaning of the ‘introduction of Marxism from outside’; ‘outside the boundaries of the struggle for a better price for labour- power’. At this point the thread of the Leninist approach to consciousness is tied to Marx’s analyses in Capital on the same subject. What is to be Done? con- stitutes a continuation and development of Marxism. It is not limited to a criticism of Rabocheye Dyelo in the epoch of the omnipotence of the Tsarist Okhrana. Exactly because it is a concrete dialec- tical analysis of a concrete situation, it rises above the particular to the general and answers the basic questions not only of a decade but of the whole period of imperial- ism. In it is analysed the whole dialectic of the relation of the vanguard to the masses and of the building of the revolu- tionary party. The amendment of the SLL to the resolution at Essen began with the words: ‘There can be no revolutionary party without revolutionary theory.’ The OCI rejected the amend- ment as ‘idealism’ and ‘silly talk’. This corresponds to the rejection of What is to be Done?. History has answered the Menshevik critics of Lenin as well as the OCI. Beyond the historical lesson, an independent analysis easily proves that idealism was be- hind not the SLL amendment, but the theses of the OCI. If Marxism is nothing more than a shadow of the ‘total development of the class struggle’, then it is necessarily, as Hansen maintained, ‘con- sistent empiricism’. Lenin said that cognition advances ‘from living percep- tion to abstract thought, and from this to practice’, The main characteristic of empiric- ism, however, is that it makes an absolute out of one moment in the process of cognition, practical experience—it rejects the abstraction of thought and aS a consequence the cogniz- ability of the world, and thus man’s ability to change it consciously. For this reason, empiricism, even when it claims to be materialistic, remains essentially on the level of metaphysics and idealism. The OCI’s theories are no- thing but the continuation of the teachings of 18th-century French empiricism and a capitulation to its latter-day variants. Thus it is not strange that the ‘materialistic’ objec- tivism of their leaders is easily transformed into subjective idealism. For example, they write: ‘If we do not begin from the political contradictions of the SLL leadership and from its refusal to work them out in a discussion within its ranks, we cannot understand the shocking bad faith and the criminal lightness .. .’ etc., etc. 167

[p023] Beyond the attempt to play the demagogue on undefined ‘contradictions’ within which the SLL leadership finds itself, the fact remains that our objectivists now come to main- tain quite subjectively that contradictions are resolved by ‘discussion within the ranks of the organization’. Despite their scorn of Marxist theory, the OCI do not fail to point out in their Declaration that ‘the class struggle does not forgive a single theoretical mistake’. This assurance, in. flagrant oppo- sition to the whole content of the Declaration, to all the policies and practice of the OCI, has no meaning other than that their leaders want to light a candle to both God and the devil so as to have friends everywhere. The OCI do not recognize the meaning of the revisions of Marxism in relation to the development of opportunism within the labour movement. Their own sliding back to opportunism is not of course a consequence of the revision of Marxism, but it has not happened without revision. The abandonment of the prin- ciples of Marxism here plays the role of the necessary letter of introduction, the admission ticket to the entrenchment opposite the IC. In there, they will now bring into the world new practical and theoretical monsters. Marxist philosophy and Marxist programme The OCI, in order to avoid the task of supporting Marx- ism against revisionism, in the struggle for building the revolutionary party, has first of all created a total con- fusion of terms and meanings. They make a _ fundamental distinction *between Marxist philosophy and__ dialectical materialism in order finally to maintain that philosophical activity ran its historical course a_ century ago and that any Marxists occupying themselves with the main philosophical problems, any struggle what- Ssoever in the abstract area of philosophy, constitute an avoidance of the concrete tasks of the proletarian struggle. They identify dialectical mater- ialism itself with Trotsky’s Transitional Programme, trans- forming it into a metaphysical category, given once and for all. 168 The OCI leaders try to base their conception of philosophy on certain extracts from the works of Marx and Engels, like the final thesis of Marx on Feuerbach: ‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.’ With this position, they think that Marx puts a final end to the role of philosophy. Its meaning, however, is entirely different. Marx here defines simply and with exacti- tude the essence of all the old philosophy, materialistic in- cluded. Its basic lack was that it saw the source of all social evils in men’s mistaken con- ception of the world. Before Marx, philosophers believed that in order to change society, men had first to abandon their mistaken beliefs and to see the world correctly. They were not aware that the false ideas and religious prejudices against which they were fighting had their roots deep in the objec- tive conditions of material life of society and that conse- quently they could not defeat them except in the process of change of the material con- ditions themselves, through practical action. For this reason, at the heart of all previous philosophies there was, mainly, not practical action for the transformation of the world, but intellectual action for its interpretation. For Hegel, the idea was the creator of reality, which con- stituted only its external appearance. For Marx, on the contrary, ‘the idea is nothing but material reality, trans- ferred to and transformed in the human brain.’ (Preface to Capital, Vol I.) Marx set Hegel, who had been standing on his head, on to his feet. He did not abolish him. Emphasizing the prece- dence of the material and of men’s action, Marx raised philosophy from activity which explains to activity which transforms. When the OCI invoke the statement of Marx in The Ger- man Ideology, that philosophy was surpassed by the develop- ment of the sciences, they again show a gross misunder- standing of Marx’s viewpoint. For Marx, philosophy as a science standing above the sciences was surpassed, but not philosophy based on human action and the sciences. As an independent intellec- tual activity, philosophy springs from the original distinction between manual and intellectual labour, which marks class’ society through- out its history. At each stage in the development of the productive forces, at every stage in the development of class society, philosophy has represented the indirect, non- mechanical, reflection in the superstructure of the degree reached by man in his con- quest of nature. The develop- ment of philosophy, like the development of each level of reality, never took place smoothly but always through conflicts which reflected the social contradictions. The basic conflict out of which human society develops is that between the forces of production and relations of production. Each new rise in the productive forces conflicts with the inherited framework _of relations of production, and out of this conflict the change in the form of society takes - place. When society took on its most developed class form and the division of labour acquired the most complicated possible character, when the relations of production became capitalistic, the outlook for future development became fundamentally different from what it was in former social changes. It is no longer a question of .a more compli- cated divisiw:of social labour, but of the alteration of the distinction between manual and intellectual labour, within a Classless society. The horizon which will open with the overthrow of capitalist relations of produc- tion by the chief productive force, the working class, is a new world where the splitting up of human activity into autonomous sectors, independ- ent of the conscious control of human will, will cease to exist. Philosophy will be embodied in this new life for mankind and not cut off from it. Marx called this process of the embodiment of philosophy in human action the ‘realiza- tion’ of philosophy, (Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right) which is realized in the world proletarian revolution. ‘Philosophy cannot become reality without the disappear- ance of the proletariat. and the proletariat cannot disappear without philosophy becoming reality.’ Fourth International Summer 1972

[p024] Marx made a fundamental distinction between the reali- zation of philosophy out of the struggle of the proletariat for the emancipation of man- kind, and the denial of philo- sophy sought by the activists of his epoch. ‘The practical political party in Germany de- mands the denial of philo- sophy .. . It believes that it carries out this denial bv turn- ing its back on philosophy and by turning away its face— mumbling a few peevish 21d worn-out vhrases about it... but you cannot annihilcte philosophy without making it reality.’ The joining of philosophy with the action of the masses does not take place automati- cally, nor without conflicts. The proletariat was and is still excluded from the process of intellectual production. As a whole, it will embrace the treasures of culture only when it has disappeared as a class, within communism. Only the vanguard of the class, linked with other ele- ments pushed by the crisis into the proletarian camp, can, within the revolutionary party, ‘the central ideological work- shop of the working class,’ ab- sorb and surpass critically all the prior conquests of human thought in history, philosophy, economy, and thus become able to conceive capitalist reality as a whole. The observations of Marx and Engels on philosophy do not signify anything other than that philosophy cannot develop except within the revolutionary party and in the struggle for building it as the conscious leadership of the working class. Outside the party, philosophy dies and rots. And vice-versa, there can be no development of the party except within the fight for the development of revo- Jutionary philosophy. This is the only path towards the disappearance of the prole- tariat and of philosophy. As the creation of the workers’ state has the aim of the disappearance of the state, as the final destination of the party is the disappearance of the distinction between the vanguard and the masses, in the same way the struggle for Marxist philosophy is in the final analysis a struggle for the, disappearance of philosophy, philosophy as a_ separate, alienated activity. The denial of the characteri- Bolivia zation of dialectical material- ism as ‘Marxist philosophy’ is not new. It has its historical precedents. Especially during the inter-war years of heavy defeats of the labour move- ment, middle-class intellect- uals, allied within centrist groups and leftist trends, showed their enmity towards Marxist theory and Bolshevism by launching a direct offensive against the philosophical bases of Marxism. There are two _ distinct tendencies among them: the one ‘narrowly academic, the other more ‘war-like’. On the one hand the revis- ionists of the so-called Frank- furt School, especially Mar- cuse, proclaimed the death of philosophy and its transforma- tion by Marx into a ‘Critical Theory of Society.’ On the other hand, Karl Korsch, ex- tracting the theoretical con- clusions of the anti-Bolshevik fight of the leftists in Lenin’s epoch, considered the raising of Marxism into ‘philosophy’ by Lenin and Trotsky to be a concession to bourgeois materialism. ‘There is no Marxist philosophy, there is only Marxist critique of poli- tical economy, which is the science of the proletarian revolution,’ said Korsch. Both revisionist tendencies had a common _ idealistic method, the idealism of the Left Hegelians implacablv com- bated by Marx and Engels. And a common political con- clusion: the denial of the role of the revolutionary party. With the difference that Marcuse assigned the role of overthrowing capitalism to the inte!lectuals—the ideal bearers of the immaterial ‘Critical Theory of Society’ — while Korsch left the development of history to the spontaneous development of the masses, who would be liberated from their illusions about the need for a revolutionary party ... The idealist isolation of theory from practice, either for the benefit of some Critical Theory —- Non-Philosophy, or for some Non-Philosophical Critique of Political Economy, or for the benefit of academic speculation, or for narrow- minded activism, always came to the same logical conclusion —the denial of the struggle for working-class consciousness and finally the denial of the role of the revolutionary class by itself. It is not by chance that centrist and leftist trends, like those of the Frankfurt School and Korsch of Burnham, who had called dialectics a ‘reli- gion’, appeared at the most critical moments of the class struggle, when Trotskyism was fighting for the continuation of Bolshevism, first within the Left Opposition, then by founding the Fourth Inter- national. It is not by chance that today, at the highest point in the history of the _ class struggle, when the order of the day becomes the building of mass Trotskyist parties of the Fourth International, to lead the struggle for working class power in the immediate future, a split breaks out with- in the IC of the Fourth Inter- national centring around the subject of Marxist philosophy. At every decisive turning point, the opponents of the working class direct their offensive against the very foundations of Marxism, in order to sow total confusion. On the way in which Com- munists face the subject of Marxist philosophy depends their whole strategy and tac- tics in building the party and in the struggle for power. The OCI with their stand brought these offensives into the ranks of the International Com- mittee. The OCI reject Marxist philosophy, but ‘accept’ dialec- tical materialsm in words. But in it, they see nothing but the Programme, which is ‘the most complete expression of dialec- tical materialism in our epoch.’ They make an absolute out of the Transitional Programme and thus transform Marxism into an immobile dogma. From the former standpoint of the ‘total class struggle’ which alone can determine ideas, they pass over to the subjec- tive standpoint of the dogma which can only be applied. ‘Marxist theory’—the ywrite in their Declaration—‘is the concentration and generaliza- tion of all the determinations of the class struggle, of its historical development. .. . The Marxist method only exists through its content which integrates all the moments in the proletariat’s struggle for its emancipation. In this sense, the programme of socialist revolution concen- trates Marxism ... ’ If for the OCI philosophy fignished with Feuerbach, dia- lectical materialism (which is 169

[p025] not philosophy) finished with the writing of the Transitional Programme. Still we know that after 1938 the earth did not stop turning. And consequently that Trotsky was not another John the Evangelist and the Transitional Programme was not the Holy Apocalypse. Marxist theory is not a ‘de- termination’ which can be concentrated in a programme, Marxist method does not have as its content the ‘moments in the proletariat’s struggle.’ On the contrary, the method, the dialectic, is the content, the law, the essence of the mom- ents of the struggle of the pro- letariat and of their determina- tions. The Programme is not the content of Marxist method: Marxist mtehod is the content of the Programme. The Tran- sitional Programme is the ap- plication of dialectical method to a certain moment of the continuous historical becom- ing, during which not only the determinations that can be ex- pressed in a programme, but also the method itself, are transformed. Certainly Marxist method develops from within the moments of determinations. It is not something self-existent but the generalization and the essence of concrete analyses of concrete situations. In this sense every determination is a part of the method. Trotsky’s theory of Perma- nent Revolution and_ his analysis of the degeneration of the first workers’ state, the USSR, constitute a gigantic contribution to the develop- ment of Marxist method. The Transitional Programme of the Fourth International com- prises, for this reason, not a simple episode, but an im- portant knot in the knotted line of development. Despite all this, it is not the knotted line itself, nor is it its end. The OCI, by making an ab- solute out of the Programme and identifying it with Marx- ism, identifies precisely the historic moment with the historic becoming and puts an end to it. After this, it is natural for them to utter the following: ‘If one understands how a muscle is developed with exercises, it is difficult to conceive the “development” of dialectical materialism.’ This must go down in history. They accept that 170 ‘Marxism is the consciousness of the spontaneous becoming’ and simultaneously deny that it is itself a becoming, some- thing which cannot help but develop. But the _ identifica- tion of the Programme with dialectical materialism does not happen by chance. Its pur- pose is to replace the struggle for consciousness with the worship of spontaneous activ- ism. Since Marxism is nothing more than the Transitional Programme, ‘the defence of Marxist theory cannot be other than the defence of the programme, that is, the struggle to resolve the crisis of revolutionary leadership. In other words, the task of the struggle for Marxism is the task of applying the pro- gramme. This is something ana- logous to the centrist slogan ‘the task of every revolution- ary is to make a revolution’. It is true that the task of every revolutionary is to re- solve the crisis of the leader- ship of the working class and to make a revolution. That is, to make the programme reality. The realization of the pro- gramme however is possible to the degree that it is consci- ously understood. Conse- quently, the struggle for the programme is understood only as the struggle for Marxism within the labour movement, against bourgeois ideology, in whatever form it may appear, in order for the consciousness of the working class to be de- veloped and transformed up to the assimilation of the pvro- gramme, out of the practical struggles for power and up to the taking of power. But no. For the OCI the de- fence of the programme, the struggle to resolve the crisis of revolutionary leadership, is realized not ‘by fighting against bourgeois ideology’, taken by itself, ‘but by organizing the youth on the field of the political struggle for the sake of the proletarian revolution, under the political leadership of the proletariat.’ In brief, the revolutionary organization is built as we organize, or ‘amass’ (ammaser) the vouth—to use a verb be- loved of the OCI. ‘Youth!’ cries Charles Berg, ‘your weapon is the organiza- tion. To arms! To _ the organization!’ Alas, the youth was never short of organizations. What was lacking was revolutionary organization. Strategy — tactics the United Front The substitution by the OCI of empiricism and activism for Marxism could not help but be followed by a political liquidation of the revolutionary party into the revisionist mob, and a sell-out of the revolu- tionary programme. This policy consists in raising the tactics of the United Front into strategy, of the abandonment of the actual strategic aim of the revolu- tionary movement (the seizure of power) for the sake of an alliance with the revisionists. As a theoretical justification they put forward the sophistic argument that strategy and tactics are in essence relative terms. They say in their Declaration that strategy and tactics have interwoven meanings. That the United Front, which is a tactic in relation to the strategy of the socialist re- volution, is a _ strategy in relation to the means we use for its realization. Everything is relative. But the IC is not a club of academic philosophers discuss- ing the relativity of every determination, but an organ- ization of revolutionaries who for themselves recognize only one strategy: the proletarian revolution. Strategy and tactics are interwoven in another, even more important, sense. Tactics is one moment of strategy. It is included in it, as one tree is included in a forest. That is why we say that it is strategy (the goal) that deter- mines (includes) tactics (the means). It is basic to start from such a conception. The Stalinists, by distinguishing, with absolute boundaries, strategy from tactics, can then claim that any of their counter- revolutionary activities never- theless serves the proletarian revolution. But it is also basic for us to make a distinction between strategy and tactics, so as to be able to see the forest behind the tree. The OCI wipe out cvery distinction. They are ‘invent- ing’ here yet another absolute. The further development of their argument is as follows: ‘It is a strategic line in the sense that it is always [that is, Fourth International Summer 1972 _

[p026] independent of circumstances, relationship of forces, tactical considerations in the strict sense of the word] present in a revolutionary policy.’ All right. But just as ‘pre- sent’ in a revolutionary policy is the defence of the workers’ states against the imperialists. Why should we not raise this task as well to the level of strategy? Trotsky, in an extract which they unfortunately decided to quote in their Declaration, insists on characterizing the defence of the USSR as a tactical task. Stalin and the Stalinists, by raising the de- fence of the USSR up to the level of a strategy, subordin- ated the interests of the inter- national working class to the interests of the bureaucracy. The fight for the unity of the working class is an important and permanent task. Without its unity it would not have been able to seize power. It is often impossible for it to win the most elemen- tary demands within the limits of capitalism. Nevertheless unity remains one means to the end. If you make it your goal (as the Stalinists do) you can then subordinate every- thing to it, including the real goal, the overthrow. of capitalist power. We have already seen this being prac- tised by the bosom friends of the OCI in Bolivia, for the sake of unity in the Popular Assembly, with the Stalinists, Lechin, not to mention the bourgeois Torres. The United Front is a pre- requisite for the seizure of power by the working class. the soviet—as stated in the quote from Trotsky in the OCI Declaration ‘is the highest expression of the United Front’. But working-class unity, up to and including its highest expression, the soviet, despite its importance, is not by itself sufficient to guaran- tee the seizure of power. But it can often serve as_ the vehicle of counter-revolution. Neither Lenin nor Trotsky had any kind of fetishism about the soviets. When the Bolsheviks were in the minor- ity, Lenin said: ‘No power to the soviets.” When they dominated them: ‘All power to the soviets.’ With regard to the United Front, the main question is on which political basis will it succeed? Revolutionaries confront the United Front, Bolivia even in its highest form, first of all from the standpoint of the fight to raise the conscious- ness of the working class and to unite it really and organic- ally on the basis of a revolu- tionary programme, around the revolutionary party. Outside this struggle there is no United Front but capitu- lation to the class enemy and its agents. In May-June 1968 the OCI forwarded the slogan of a ‘Cen- tral Strike Committee’. In their Declaration they write ‘the centralization of the strike committee born in __ this struggle: a step towards workers’ councils, elements of the United Front, was the concrete form of the perspec- tive of a workers’ government, a government of united wor- kers’ organizations.’ For that ‘committee’ of theirs, the OCI leaders today speak as though they had discovered the key that solves all of life’s mysteries. Supposing that this Com- mittee was formed, it would not in reality have been any- thing but a committee with an overwhelming Stalinist majority. The OCI leaders, drunk with their own words about soviets and workers councils, overlooked this ‘de- tail’, The task during the General Strike was to break the influence of the Stalinists on the masses. Since the OCI did not fight at any point for this task, the Stalinists would have been able—in_ certain circumstances — even to wel- come a faceless Strike Com- mittee, in order to finally place on it their own sins. The IC document of October 24 accuses the OCI of not fighting for a CP-CGT government. In their Declara- tion they reply that it would not have been this which would have given a political character to the General Strike. They are trying to break into open doors. It is not a question here of the character of the strike, but of whether the OCI should have done what Lenin did when he said to the Mensheviks: ‘Cut off relations with the bourgeoisie— take the power.’ Out of the struggle for the taking of power by the CP, the workers would have been able to become conscious of the counter - revolutionary nature of their leadership, and its aversion to taking power. The OCI sees in the invita- tion extended to the CP and not to the Socialists, a ‘prefer- ence’, and they wonder what it means. Quite simply, knowledge of the fact that the French CP influences the largest, the freshest and the most ad- vanced sections of the working class, without whose breaking away from the Stalinist influ- ence, the overthrow of the French bourgeoisie is impos- sible. Trotsky writes in the Tran- sitional Programme that this challenge, systematically for- warded to the Stalinists and reformists, can play a tre- mendous educational role for the working class. Lenin said that we support the social traitors ‘as a rope supports a hanged man’, It is evident that such a ‘preference’ is never likely to incur the gratitude of the Stalinists. Revolutionaries . face all questions always from. the standpoint of uniting the class around the revolutionary party in the struggle for power. Cut off from this task, their Strike Committee was nothing but a panacea. The OCI, having raised the United Front to the level of a strategy, reduced it in essence to a_ technical question. They see it as a roof under which they have the ambition to co-exist with the Stalinists, the reformists and the Centrists. They seek this co-existence up to a governmental level, by putting forward the slogan ‘A government of united workers’ organizations’. This is the last step in the ladder of renegacy. Their government of united workers’ organizations is not the dic- tatorship of the proletariat but the helmet of the bourgeois state. It is the same Stalinist slogan of ‘advanced demo- cracy’, in distinction to the social revolution, which they have disguised by putting a worker’s cap on it. This is the essence of the raising of the United Front to the level of strategy. Its res- toration to the level of a tactical task is of chief import- ance. But that does not mean that the matter is exhausted in this way. In what circum- stances and with what con- ditions is a certain tactic necessary? Which organiza- tions form real tendencies in the labour movement and can form elements of the United 171

[p027] Front? From every standpoint the OCI is launching a miser- able caricature of the United Front. But all this could be- come the subject of another article exclusively on _ this question. The slogan of a government of united workers’ organiza- tions, which in its final ver- sion took the form of a workers and peasants’ govern- ment, that is, a clear absurdity, reflects the most total adapta- tion of the OCI not only to Stalinism, but to the most right-wing reformist bureau- cracy. On all the basic questions the OCI have adopted the theses of the reformists. The denouncement in the IC text of October 24 that Berg takes an abstentionist position as far as Vietnam is concerned, is lenient. In _ reality he has shown a clear reactionary mania. In December 1967 he wrote in Révoltes: ‘They are trying to make us believe that the Viet Cong, melted by bombs, bombarded day and night by the most powerful air force the world has ever known .. . they are trying to make us believe that heroism is enough for them to defeat the military power, that “brave Vietnam (David) defeats evil America” (Goliath), . In reality the forces of EAm limit themselves to small operations, being powerless in front of the military superior- ity of the enemy ... The Viet Cong cannot last.’ The same goes for their positions regarding the wor- kers’ states—they are a pure echo of the positions of re- formism. For Eastern Europe and the USSR, as for the capitalist countries, they put forward the ‘strategy’ of the United Front. They demand a ‘govern- ment of parties and organ- izations based on the prole- tariat ...’. (S. Just, In Defence of Trotskyism.) About this government— they say — ‘the revolutionary party can be led to make a United Front with currents, with tendencies such as that of Dubcek’ (op. cit.). All this bears no relation to the Trotskyist strategy of the political revolution for the restoration of Soviet demo- cracy. It is a reflection of the counter-revolutionary pressure from the imperialists who wish for a return from the Stalinist governments to Social Demo- cracy. The Pabloites thought the restoration of Soviet demo- cracy in the Workers’ States would be realized by liberalized Stalinism. The OCI goes even further, assigning this task to Social Democracy. For this reason, Lambert, at a meeting which took place in Paris on February 5 and 6, 1972, felt it his duty to greet with enthusiasm the _ rebirth of Czechoslovakian Social Demo- cracy. The Pabloites had launched a campaign against the theore- tical foundations of the Fourth International in order to draw it into a reconsiliation with Stalinism. But they were un- successful. The OCI is doing the same in order to reconcile the Fourth International with Social Democracy. And _ its attempt will not meet with better luck. All the more, be- cause 1972 is not 1953. The centrist capitulators shave already missed the train. In the sense, of course, that we are implacably continuing the struggle against them, as a section inseparable from the whole fight for the building of the Fourth International. The conditions now are more favourable than ever for the development of Marxism in the struggle against all re- visionists. The split with the OCI is not an element of backsliding. Only incorrigible impressionists could conceive it in this way. The split with the OCI will become a source of strength and forcefulness on the way towards the final triumph of the Fourth Inter- national. ay 172 Fourth International Summer 1972