The Peruvian Revolutionary Workers Party and the International

[p017] THE PERUVIAN REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS PARTY AND THE INTERNATIONAL Statement League of Peru The Fourtn international the International Committee and Centrism The break with the VR! and the founding of the POMR? did not represent a break with centrism but were basically a manifestation of the same centrism: they were an empiri- cal response to the political bankruptcy of a centrist party at the moment when there was a radical turn in the spon- taneous development of events. The documents produced in the internal struggle in VR and the documents worked out by the POMR reflect faith- fully the extent of the empirical and consequently opportunist nature of the split and the extent to which our ‘turn to Trotskyism’ was but an act of desperation in the search for a ‘theory of justification’ for our own spontaneity. The faithfulness and adhesion to Marxism, expressed in suc- cessive documents of the POMR in this way, only had a formal character. By ‘understanding’ theory as Peruvian POR and the FI ommunist a model ordering empirical facts through which these can be explained, dialectical materialism was totally denied and there was complete ad- herence to primitive forms of empiricism. In this way, we repeated old contemplative materialism which Marx criticized so much and which, logically, led to the ignoring of ‘revolutionary activity, of critical-practical activity’. Theory, in this way emptied of its transforming activity, of its revolutionary content, was thus relegated to the field of metaphysical speculation, to mere intellectual dilettantism. Theory, elevated to the celestial spheres, was set free from its material connections and acquired its own independent dynamic in which ‘facts’ were atomized in ‘abstract determin- ation’, The divorce between theory and practice was con- summated. The dualist conception of the world which underlies all empiricist conceptions has always led to complete capitu- lation to ‘objective reality’, which means that conscious activity is useless, The pessi- mists forecast inevitable social disasters and the optimists assert the existence of ‘objec- tive processes’ which lead to the ‘universal panacea’ or to the ‘International Republic of Workers’ Councils’: both con- clude always by denying revolutionary activity and, consequently, by refusing to construct revolutionary leader- ship. Only by breaking with dialectical materialism could Stalin ‘adapt’ to the isolation of the October Revolution and work out his ‘theory’ of social- ism in a single country and, Similarly, the Pabloites could capitulate to the apparent post-war boom. All conceptions of spon- taneity have implicit in them the rejection of Marxist method and adherence to empiricism Or pragmatism. However, such a concession to empiricism has always been denied by its own authors, who have always declared themselves to be the wertiiaers = dot Marxist theory. All this is possible precisely because they are empiricists, because for them theory is totally separated from practice and because their adherence to Marxism is a formal adherence from which they are unable to extract the necessary con- clusions. Having reached this point, it is necessary to understand clearly that the POMR may very well have declared its faithfulness to Marxism, but this is an attitude with only a formal content and _ conse- quently everyday it capitulates to the basest forms of empiricism. . The fetishist worship of programme was only the in- evitable complement of the rejection of Marxism and the dissolution of the party into centrism. By describing the crisis of VR as a ‘programmatic 15

[p018] crisis’ and by giving it con- sequently a ‘programmatic solution’, the fact that pro- gramme presupposes a theory and a method is completely left on one side. It was possi- ble to say then that VR, because of its ‘class-nature’, could not work out a revolu- tionary programme—this is a conception which presupposes a base capitulation to spon- taneity since it implies that revolutionary programme is born spontaneously in the proletariat, In this way, one of the central aspects of Marxist theory was denied: that class- consciousness does not arise spontaneously from the prole- tariat but is introduced into it from outside. It was not because of the VR’s ‘class-nature’ that it could not formulate a revolu- tionary programme; in fact, Marxism did not arise from the proletariat since the spon- taneous development of the working class only leads to what Lenin called ‘trade- unionist consciousness’, or the politics and ideology of the bourgeoisie in the working class. One has only to read the classics to see that. For example, Lenin affirmed in ‘What is to be Done?’: ‘The doctrine of socialism has arisen from philosophical, historical and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the proper- tied classes, by intellectuals. Marx and Engels belonged because of their social position to the bourgeois intelligentsia.’ Trotsky, in response to Stalin, declared: ‘Marx and Engels come from the ranks of the petty-bourgeois demo- crdts and were, as is natural, educated in their culture and not in the culture of the proletariat . . . their theory was formed on the scientific and political basis of bour- geois culture, although they declared on the latter a war with no quarter given. Under the sharp blows of the con- tradictions of capitalism, the idea of generalizing bourgeois democracy is raised—in its most honest and worthwhile representatives—to the point of genial self-regeneration, and for that end it was the whole critical arsenal prepared by the development of bourgeois science. Such is the origin of Marxism.’ VR could not formulate a 16 revolutionary programme and develop revolutionary policy because its position was com- pletely _ outside Marxism, because it had broken with dialectical materialism. The POMR was not formed on the basis of the Marxist under- standing of the methodological bases of its centrism, so there was no guarantee that the ‘turn to Trotskyism’ was not precisely an opportunist mani- festation of that same centrism which it declared it was break- ing with. Today there exists more than sufficient evidence to affirm that, in effect, the POMR con- tinues to be a centrist organ- ization. Consequently the only positive solution to the pre- sent crisis of the party has its roots in the deepening and extension of the discussion until the methodological roots of its centrism are understood. Only an implacable struggle for the understanding of Marxist method, for the defence and development of dialectical materialism, will be able to guarantee the future of the POMR as the embryo of the revolutionary party in Peru. The POMR was founded as an empirical reaction to the crisis of the VR. During the whole of its existence its policy has reproduced the typical traits of centrism—the rejection of theory, expressed in the formal acceptance of theory. The break with the VR did not take place on the granite base of the understanding of dialectical materialism, so the future of the POMR was in- evitably in question. Thus, the rejection of Marxism would imply sooner or later the im- possibility of fighting for revo- lutionary leadership and capitulation to the traditional leaderships in the workers’ movement, to Stalinism and petty- bourgeois nationalism. Today, it is necessary to understand that such a capitu- lation was implicit in the origins of the POMR and that, consequently, it is necessary to go to the roots in the under- standing of the methodological bases which engendered it. The internal struggle has laid the basis for our total break with centrism and has given rise to a Marxist tendency which struggles im- placably to give a positive solution to the crisis in the POMR. We must repeat with all seriousness: it is cagagcar A to break completely wi centrism, it is mecessary to undertake a ruthless fight for dialectical materialism. This is the only guarantee for the construction of independent revolutionary parties, and it is the fundamental weapon in the struggle for revolutionary leadership. In moments in which the joint crisis of imperialism and the bureaucracy sharpens, and bigger and bigger sectors enter the struggle on a world scale, it is necessary to under- take the biggest offensive against all manifestations of bourgeois ideology in a struggle which defends and develops all the gains of Marxist theory. Without carry- ing forward this struggle, the future will be marked by defeats of the proletariat which will be even more terrible than those of the 1930s. Hostile to all international perspectives, the POMR is condemned to being converted into the left wing of petty- bourgeois nationalism, The POMR will be built as a revolutionary party only as a section of the Fourth Inter- national, However, the POMR leadership has broken com- pletely with this basic princi- ple. It considers the question of the International as a problem of ‘relations of inter- nationalist brotherhood’, in this way denying all questions of principle. Without ever discussing in a principled way the problem of the International, the leadership has established re- lations with parties like the POR and Politica Obrera and supports the magazine ‘America India’ (‘Indian America’) which, in its name alone, reflects the most reactionary positions of the nationalist petty - bourgeoisie (the narrowest national chau- vinism and racialism). Behind the phrase ‘relations of internationalist brotherhood’ is hidden the crudest prag- matism and negation of the International as the world party of the proletarian revolution. The position of the party leadership on the International is just one of the most spectac- ular manifestations of its total hostility to Marxism. It is necessary to struggle against all such conceptions which can lead to nothing other than the Fourth International Winter 1972/73

[p019] liquidation of the party and the dissolution of the Inter- national into a _ centrist amalgam. 1 Revolutionary Vanguard. A roup formed from a split in the 'eruvian Stalinist movement in 1964, They based themselves on the theories of the Peruvian Socialist, José Carlos Mariategui. ® POMR. Revolutionary Marxist Workers’ Party. A party formed after a split in VR. The leader- ship around Ricardo Naipuri supports the position of the OCI (see Footnote 4). PART 2 The International Committee When Trotsky and his col- laborators founded the Fourth International in 1938, the in- ternational workers’ movement was experiencing a great period of reaction (‘the FI arises from the most terrible defeats . . .’), The betrayal of the Second International, and then the betrayal of the Third Inter- national had conditioned the defeat of the international workers’ movement, and fascism was advancing victori- ously through Europe, In such conditions, the objective course of events determined that the FI was reduced in its sections to nuclei of militants basically extracted from the petty-bourgeois _ intelligentsia and workers linked to intellect- uals, but without ever con- stituting powerful mass move- ments. There did not exist any con- ception of adapting to this, but the composition of the FI was determined by the objec- tive situation and by its historic task in that period, The struggle for the construc- tion of independent revolution- ary parties in each country took place then in totally adverse conditions, ‘against the tide of history’, as Trotsky described it himself. “When the revolutionary movement in general is in decline, when ne defeat follows another, when fascism is spreading throughout the world, when official “Marxism” is the most powerful organiz- ation for deceiving workers etc., it is inevitable in that situation that the revolution- ary elements will have to Struggle against the general tide of history even if our ideas and explanations are as Peruvian POR and the Fi exact and intelligent as could be expected.’ (Trotsky— “Against the Tide’.) Today the international workers’ movement has entered a new period of development as a result of the deepening of the imperialist crisis and the crisis of the bureaucracy. The joint crisis of imperialism and the bureaucracy has only one positive solution within the present framework. The only solution which will open a new epoch of progress for humanity lies with the Inter- national Socialist Revolution. The development of the class struggle internationally from 1968, with the French General Strike and the revolution in Czechoslovakia, make the urgent and predominant task the problem of the revolution- ary leadership necessary for the taking of power. Only the FI can resolve the problem of revolutionary leadership and in fact the International Committee (IC) of the FI is the only tendency which subordinates all questions of tactics to the problem of alternative leader- ship in the workers’ move— ment. Contrary to what happened in the period in which Trotsky and his collaborators founded the FI, there now exist favour- able conditions for its building. The period which has opened up is that in which Trotskyist parties, sections of the FI, are called upon to take the leader- ship of the workers’ movement on an international scale. That is the conclusion of the Marx- ist analysis of the present period; to consider that we are in a period of ‘imminent revolution’ or in an ‘objective process’ which, through different stages, methods and ways, leads to the world revolution, has no other mean- ing than to deny the struggle for the revolutionary party and to capitulate to prag- matism, to the ‘facts’ to ‘objective reality’. Our epoch, as defined in the Programme of the FI, has two alternatives: socialist revolu- tion or barbarism, there exists no ‘objective process’ towards socialism, the central problem is the problem of revolutiona leadership which only the FI can resolve, The struggle waged by the IC of the FI has been basically the struggle for the defence and the development of Marx- ism, the only basis on which it is possible to talk seriously of the struggle for revolutionary leadership. The struggle against all attempts to revise Marxism has been the permanent basis for the building of revolution- ary parties, The revisionist tendencies reflect within revolutionary movements the positions of enemy classes, pressures which are permanent and which imply necessarily the building of the revolutionary tendencies in struggle against them. Only by struggling against ail opportunist tendencies can the Bolshevik party be built as a revolutionary party. The Pabloite leadership of the FI capitulated to the pressures of imperialism, and by doing so broke of necessity with Marxism. The struggle against Pablo began as a rejec- tion of his positions in rela- tion to the Soviet bureaucracy and entrism sui generis which led to the refusal to build independent parties of a Bol- shevik type. Pablo’s revisionism was aimed at the very essence of the FI: ‘The conscious struggle for alternative leadership based on revolutionary theory.’ However, the capitulation of Pablo to the Stalinist bureaucracy supposed a break with the Marxist method, and with dialectical materialism. The IC could only struggle not only against this or that position of Pablo, but from an understanding of the methodo- logical bases of Pabloite re- visionism, It is for this reason that the struggle of the IC has been basically the struggle for the development of Marxism and the defence of all the gains of Marxist theory. What defines a party as revolutionary is only its development of Marxism. A party cannot be defined as ‘revolutionary’ because of its ‘social composition’, because of its links with the working class or because of the actual leadership of the working class it might have. A quotation from Trotsky shows this: ‘He who is swimming against the tide is not connected with the masses. Also, the social composition of every revolu- tionary movement at the beginning is not working class. They are intellectuals, semi- intellectuals or workers con- nected with intellectuals who 7

[p020] are not satisfied with the existing organization. You will find in each country a great number of foreigners who do not enter the workers’ move- ment in each country very easily. A worker in America or in Mexico will become a member of the FI with much less difficulty. A new radical tendency directed against the general current of history in this eine is crystallized around elements more or less separated from the national life of any country and for them it is difficult to penetrate into the masses.’ To accept a quantitative criterion to describe a party means a fundamental break with Marxism and a capitula- tion to empiricism; the Pab- loite crisis was but the struggle between the proletarian Marxist tendency and_ the petty - bourgeois, empiricist tendency within the Trotskyist movement. Because of the extent which the IC of the FI took up the defence of Marx- ism, we cannot affirm that the FI was liquidated. The IC of the FI represents the historical continuity of Marxism, of Bolshevism: ‘But the sceptics will not keep quiet. But has the moment come to proclaim it? The FI, we reply, does not need to be proclaimed. IT EXISTS AND IS STRUGGL- ING. Is it weak? Yes. Its ranks are still rather thin, because it is still young. Up to now, it is made up above all of leading cadres, ‘But these cadres are the only hope of the revolutionary future; they are the only ones really worthy of this name. If our International is still num- erically weak, it is strong in its doctrine, in its tradition and the unrivalled temper of its leading cadres. If that is not seen today, that is not of the greatest importance, it will be more in evidence tomorrow.’ PART 3 The International Committee et The struggle of the IC began against the impositions of Pablo and his group of the ‘new character of the Stalinist bureaucracy’ and entrism sui generis etc., all positions which were attacks on the very essence of the FI. It was the majority of the French sec- 18 tion which began the struggle against revisionism, for which they were expelled bureaucra- tically by the Pabloite majority of the International. However, the opposition to the positions of Pablo in 1953 was not a sufficient condition to guarantee the struggle for the building of independent revolutionary parties. The Ic could only be constituted in struggle against Pabloite capi- tulation and the extension of this to the methodological understanding of Pabloism and of the significance of its break with Marxist method. The SWP® which had ad- hered to the IC, returned to Pabloism as the crisis of im- perialism and the bureaucracy got worse. Cannon and the SWP leaders reacted empiri- cally to the capitulation of Pabloism and its bureaucratic manipulations, but were in- capable of understanding the theoretical roots of revision- ism. By leaving on one side the warnings of Trotsky on the need to fight pragmatism, the SWP prepared its cadres for the future capitulation. By abandoning Marxism and capitulating to American prag- matism, the SWP could adapt itself easily to Pabloism, by assuming a narrow nationalist position and denying its inter- national responsibilities. Faced with the crisis of the bureau- cracy in 1956 the SWP aband- oned the programme of the political revolution and the struggle for the building of revolutionary parties in East- ern Europe, and, faced with the petty-bourgeois leader- ships, it capitulated totally by supporting the leaders of Algeria, Fidel Castro in Cuba and the black movement in the USA. The assassination of Presi- dent Kennedy provoked a re- action which revealed its total capitulation: they sent their ‘condolences’ to the widow and published a statement con- demning ‘terrorist methods’. The capitulation of the SWP concluded with its participa- tion and its unprincipled ‘re- unification’ with Pabloism in the 1963 Reunification Con- gress. The SWP leaders carried through _ their unprincipled unification with Pabloism by using the argument that the IC ignored the ‘new facts’ of the world situation, ‘facts’ which went as far as the natural evolution of non-Marxist forces and non-proletarian forces like Castro in Cuba and Ben Bella in Algeria towards Trotskyism. Thus, the inde- pendent revolutionary party was not the central task any more since there existed an ‘objective process’ towards Marxism and socialism—and Marxism was distorted to be- come, in the words of Hansen himself, ‘consistent empiricism’. The struggle against revi- sionism in the Trotskyist movement, and particularly the struggle in the SWP, re- vealed a fundamental differ- ence in method. The -leaders of the SWP had rejected Marxism and had replaced it with empiricism, had rejected the method which starts from the point of view of the trans- formation of the world and in its place they devoted their time to ‘interpreting it’ or ‘contemplating it’. What characterized Pablo- ism has been its inability to develop dialectical material- ism against idealist methods of thought, in particular empiri- cism and pragmatism. It was by breaking with dialectical materialism that the Pabloites prostrated themselves before imperialism and the bureau- cracy. The 19 years of struggle of the IC show that in the struggle against Pabloism there cannot be a simple empirical rejection of its positions or ‘theories’. An equally empiri- cal rejection can in no way constitute the basis for the theoretical development of Marxists, since such a rejec- tion cannot be permanent and will be subordinated to the ever - changing ‘objective reality’. That is the lesson of the return of the SWP to Pablo and Mandel despite having ‘broken’ with them in 1953. Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolu- tionary practice, and revolu- tionary practice cannot be separated from the construc- tion of revolutionary leader- ship. The revolutionary capa- city of theory is realized in the conscious intervention in the class struggle to build in- dependent revolutionary par- ties. Nothing is more alien to Marxism than the establish- ment of a dichotomy between theory and practice; every concession to empiricism in- evitably establishes a separa- tion between the two. What characterizes empiri- Fourth International Winter 1972/73 « +

[p021] cism is the considering of reality in the form of an ‘ob- ject of contemplation’ and not as ‘sensuous human activity, as practice; not as something subjective’. In this way, the only reality are the ‘facts’ and the development of theory acquires a speculative dynamic which is typical of idealism. (‘Hence the active side was developed in an abstract way, in opposition to materialism, by idealism, which naturally does not know real sensuous activity as such.’) Pabloism reproduces the method of thought of the bourgeoisie which consists in an abundant collecting of em- pirical data which are then integrated into a ‘model’ or a rationalist scheme to explain them. For example, Mandel in the Introduction to his ‘Treat- ise on Economy . ” says that: ‘Marxist method cannot be connived except as the in- tegration of dialectical rationalism with the empirical collecting of facts.’ Such a conception of the dialectic places Mandel in the ranks of the Kantian rational- ists in the measure that it was Kant himself who integrated the French rationalism of Des- cartes and the empiricism of Bacon and Hume. Thus, what is implicit behind Mandel’s definition is a dualist concep- tion of the world which con- siders that human thought can only know scientifically the appearance of things (the phenomena) but not their essence, with the essence con- sequently being relegated to metaphysical speculation. Dia- lectical materialism has always had to fight against all these conceptions. The method advocated by the empiricists, including the Pabloites, which consists in the ‘collection of facts’ erects an unsurmountable obstacle to the correct understanding of the objective world, since through this method one can only reach what Marx called the ‘imaginary concrete’ which only leads to the atomization of complete representation in abstract thought. The scientifi- cally exact method is precisely that in which ‘the concrete appears in thought as the pro- cess of synthesis, as a result, not as a_ starting point although it may be the real Starting point and _ conse- quently, the starting point of perception and representation as well’. Peruvian POR and the FI Because of their rejection of the dialectical method, the Pabloites and Mandel were prostrate when faced with the apparent stabilization of capi- talism and the Stalinist bureaucracy during the post- war boom. The theories of Pablo on the ‘imminent third world war’ and the ‘new role of the bureaucracy’ or the theories of Mandel on neo- capitalism and the third in- dustrial revolution, the scienti- fic technological revolution and the new working class, as with the theories now de- veloped by the OCI‘ on the ‘imminent revolution’ or the ‘objective process which leads to the universal republic of workers’ councils’ have a com- mon denominator—the capitu- lation to the ‘facts’, to ‘objec- tivity’, as theories are attempts to justify or adapt to the spon- taneous course of events. All these presuppose a rejection of Marxist method and a capitula- tion to empiricism. Only by breaking with Marxism could the Pabloites realize their series of betrayals of the international workers’ movement and Mandel in par- ticular became one of the giesteet present-day apologists ‘or capitalism. He capitulated to Stalinism in the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and to the petty-bour- geois nationalists in Algeria and Cuba: he played an equally important role in the defeat of the Belgian strike in 1961; he supported Dubcek in the Czech uprising in 1968, gave a cover to the French Pablo- ites who capitulated criminally to ‘student power’ in 1968— not to mention the liquidation of the Latin American sections of the Unified Secretariat into OLAS and the Castroite move- ment. PART 4 The Communist Internationalist Organization (OCI) Only throu an under- standing of i opportunist tendencies’ profound rejection of the Marxist method is it possible to guarantee the struggle for revolutionary leadership in the continuity of the FI. The experience of the SWP has no other meaning and constitutes a basic stage in the struggle of the IC of the FI. The International Committee of the Fourth International is the target of the attacks of all opportunists because of its principled position on the struggle in Bangla Desh. The political line up of the OCI with the Pabloites on Bangla Desh is not just an accidental or circumstantial fact. On the contrary, it is a manifestation of its move away from Trot- skyism on breaking with the IC of the FI. In the youth rally celebrated in Essen in July 1971, the OCI broke with the IC of the FI when it opposed an amend- ment suported by the majority of the IC (English, Irish, Ceylonese, Canadian and Greek sections) which stated that the FI is the only revolu- tionary international and that its parties are the only revolu- tionary parties. Obviously, in their opposi- tion to the amendment of the majority of the IC, they got the support of different cen- trist and opportunist groups like the Spanish POUM® or the right wing NSA (National Students’ Association) in the USA, which took the oppor- tunity to campaign for the slogan — supported by the Stalinists — of a ‘Popular Treaty for peace in Vietnam’. This action constituted the real break with the IC and the attempt to transform the International into a centrist amalgam. The regroupment of the OCI with the centrists against the FI constitutes the basic question and not the Bolivian revolution or the Bolivian POR. The amendment. presented by the SLL and supported by the majority of the IC is clear enough: ‘Without revolu- tionary theory, there can be no revolutionary party...’ When the OCI rejected the amendment, it opposed the FI being built on the basis of dia- lectical materialism, thus com- pleting its opposition to the defence and the development of Marxist theory which it had already revealed some- time before. The OCI, by re- fusing to understand and de- velop dialectical materialism as the theory of knowledge of Marxism, denies the essence of the struggle for the build- ing of revolutionary parties and prevents sections of the FI from transforming the spontaneous consciousness of the working class into class- consciousness. 19

[p022] By adopting the position that only the programme con- stitutes the basis for the building of parties, it pre- pares the way for the liquida- tion of the party into centrism. As the IC of the FI declares: ‘Only a fundamental struggle against all the enemies of Marxism, a struggle waged against the spontaneous con- sciousness of the working class can prepare the youth for the building of the FI.’ The OCI had denied the theoretical gains of the IC and the whole experience of the struggle in the SWP to such an extent that it has had to break with the FI in order to carry forward its opportunist conceptions. The OCI tells us that we are in a period of ‘imminent revo- lution’ which ‘proceeds through different stages and in different forms towards the International Republic of Soviets’. It is from this totally spontaneist conception of the struggle for socialism that the OCI works out its position to liquidate the FI. If there exists an ‘objective process’ towards the ‘International Republic of Soviets’ why do we need parties? Why do we need the International? Such is the logic which lies behind every spontaneist revision of Marxism. Thus Pablo stated that the new relation of forces on a world scale after the war and the ‘revolutionary processes’ which would be generated would force the Stalinist parties and the reformist parties to carry through the revolution in a general way. According to the OCI itself, parties and leaderships ‘correspond’ to this ‘process’. This is a conscious refusal to fight against Stalinism and the other treacherous leaderships. It is by following these con- ceptions that the OCI has maintained that the FI and its sections must be ‘flexible’ organizations and has refused to accept that the FI is the only revolution-ry Inter- national. All backed up by the argument that we must not be ‘sectarian’, ‘ultimatist’ or that we must remain ‘linked to the masses’; in other words, the purest opportunism. During the Algerian revo- lution, the OCI raised the bourgeois-nationalist move- ment to the level of the revo- lutionary party. Its support for the MNA‘® was in the fol- 20 lowing terms: ‘The programme of the MNA is undeniably a revolutionary programme with a socialist content... Effec- tively, when we analyse the MNA we must consider that we have before us a revolu- tionary movement which is almost unique in its form, that we cannot define as a Marxist party, but which, because of its policy and character carries within it all the revolutionary hopes of .the Algerian people.’ Such an analysis of the MNA, which is considered as ‘revolutionary and socialist’ without being Marxist and as a movement which is ‘almost unique in its form’, only leads to the rejection of the struggle to construct revolutionary parties which are independent, and to placing ‘hopes of the people’ in movements which in their ‘natural or objective evolution’ lead to socialism. Logically, like Torres in Bolivia or the government of Allende or Velasco (which were to protect the workers’ government in_ Bolivia) the MNA had nothing in common with socialism and rather rushed to the UN when the situation sharpened in Algeria. Since they consider that there exists a ‘natural process’ towards socialism, the struggle for the independent leadership of the FI can be relegated to the background; in its place can be placed hollow phrases or empty formulas without any revolutionary content, but which are accessible to the masses. The slogan of the United Workers’ Front raised to the level of strategy and to which the whole struggle of the party is subordinated is a typical example of this. In opposition to the position of Lenin and Trotsky, the OCI maintains that the UWF is a strategy, a permanent slogan and the body where the party will be built and will win its leadership in the course of the spontaneous development. For Lenin and Trotsky, the UWE was a slogan which the party could put forward in specific conditions with the aim of breaking the traditional leaderships and winning revo- lutionary leadership. For the OCI, on the other hand, the UWE is not subordinated to the struggle for independent leadership: it is carried through with the ‘present leaderships’ of the working- class movement and has as its final objective the ‘leading’ of the working class to govern- ment and the constitution of the ‘party of the victorious proletarian revolution’. The Bolshevik-Leninist posi- tion and the opportunist position of the OCI are com- pletely opposed. As the IC of the FI declares: the position of the OCI on the ‘United Workers’ Front’ is transformed into a complete liquidation of the party and its subordination to the Stalinist and social- democratic parties and the union bureaucracies. Total abstention in relation to the struggle in Bangla Desh is but the culmination of the anti-Marxist evolution of the OCI and its adherence to con- templative empiricism. Only with that conception which rejects the point of view of the transformation of the world and which breaks con- sequently with Marxism, is it possible to work out theories like those put forward by the oct. They have no other conclu- sion than the denial of all con- scious revolutionary activity and the capitulation to so- called ‘objective processes’. The positions which the OCI has taken in relation to Boli- via, first of all denouncing the theses of the COB -and later swallowing these positions completely and even accepting the position of the ‘anti- imperialist united front’ cannot be understood except by examining the move away from Marxism by the OCI and its adherence each day to oppor- tunism. Serious and scientific analy- sis is replaced by a demagogic pose and propagandist activity. Thus, after refusing systemati- cally to support the struggle of the Palestinian people against Zionist aggression, it pompously salutes the ‘soviet of Irbid’ as part of the ‘pro- cess’ which leads along differ- ent paths to the ‘universal republic of Soviets’, The com- bination of, the refusal to struggle against treacherous leaderships and demagogic poses are the result of the break of the OCI with the IC of the FI. 5 POUM. Workers Party for Marxist Unification. A Spanish centrist party with which Trotsky broke when it entered the Stalin- ist Popular Front in the Spanish Civil War. 6 MNA. The Algerian Nationalist Movement. Fourth International Winter 1972/73

[p023] PART 5 Revolutionary Workers Party—POR (Bolivia) patente MT Bieta coctaicas tba SO From 1952 Lora’s POR became the main support of Pabloism in Latin America. Accepting Trotskyism verbally, but deny- ing it in practice, Lora has led the workers’ movement in Bolivia to defeat since the revolution of 1952. In fact, Lora supported the MNR’ in 1952 and was incapable of struggling for the alternative leadership of the POR around a Marxist programme. Later on, when the MNR began its offensive against the masses, Lora changed his position and centred his hopes on the left wing of the MNR. In the ‘Union Theses of the POR’, Lora built his strategy on support for the left wing of the MNR against the right wing. That is a grotesque remnant of the policy of Stalin towards the Chinese Kuomintang and the negation, consequently, of the construc- tion of independent revolu- tionary parties. The Pabloite crisis meant for Lora a conscious move from any international perspec- tive. Lora fought from 1953 to 1969 against the IC of the FI, when he made a new oppor- tunist turn and decided to ‘support it’. During the whole period from 1953 to 1969 Lora carried out a policy of capitu- lation to petty-bourgeois tend- encies; unconditional support for the petty-bourgeois govern- ment of Castro and support for guerrilla movements are the most striking proof of this. Guerrillas In the pamphlet ‘Revaluation of the method of the guerrillas’ Lora declares: ‘The POR, from its clandestine position, stated that it was putting to one side the discussion on the place occupied by the guerrillas in the revolutionary Struggle in order to give them its deter- mined support.’ _ In the POR manifesto on Che Guevara’s guerrilla cam- paign, there is the statement: ‘The guerrilla is no more than the method of struggle of the People against anti-popular capitulationist gorilismo .. .’ And later: ‘At this time of definitions, the POR says pub- licly that it solidarizes with and supports the guerrilla Peruvian POR and the Fl movement which has just broken out, according to offi- cial news bulletins in the south-east of the country. It assumes this position without previously considering _its weakness or strength, its vir- tues or defects. The guerril- leros, despite all the limita- tions which they might have, are part of the advanced army of the people. Their objectives are national and social libera- tion and they are acting on behalf of progress and the advance of history.’ For Lora the construction of the independent revolu- tionary party, section of the FI, is left entirely on one side and guerrilla warfare is put in its place. In that period Lora capitulated completely to guerrilla warfare and made the whole strategy of the POR depend on ‘support’ and ‘entrism’ in the guerrillas, Lora argues in this way in the same pamphlet: ‘When we talk of popular support we are not at all subscribing to the silent sympathy which the Masses may feel towards the guerrillas, but concretely to militant support, to the eco- nomic and political support which must be given to them, to the co-ordination of guer- rilla warfare and agitation in the cities and centres of work, The very existence of the guerrilla centres and the appearance of new ones will become the result of the sup- port of the masses.’ At the extreme limit of his opportunism, Lora even goes so far as to say that ‘the guerrilla movement seems to mean a return to Bolshevism of the first period’ and calls for entry into the guerrillas, arguing that ‘the Bolivian situ- ation requires another kind of guerrilla, that which results from the united front of work- ing-class tendencies’, Only when the guerrilleros them- selves reject the entry of the POR does Lora criticize them saying: ‘Sick and absurd anti- Trotskyism characterized the education of the guerrillas and the attempts’ which were made to justify them technically. The consequence of this was to Keep the POR at a distance, obeying orders from afar and the doors were closed against any future participation by the POR.’ The permanent policy of Lora implies a rejection of the struggle for the building of a revolutionary party. His theses of support for the MNR for the guerrillas or at the moment the constitution of the RAF® are but manifestations of an anti-Marxist conception which believes that the revolutionary party is the result of the spontaneous development of the mass movement, In his book ‘Perspectives of the Bolivian Revolution’ Lora declares: ‘The exploited, on reaching a certain degree of maturity expressed clearly their central objective: the constitu- tion of their own government and their wish to cease to be fodder for political move- ments which are alien to it. The existence of the POR is justified because it expresses this basic tendency . . .’ The party is reduced, according to Lora to the ‘ex- pression’ of the spontaneous development of the workers’ movement, and at a _ given moment the ‘expression’ of the ‘maturity’ of the proletariat, in opposition to the Marxist theses that class-consciousness is introduced into the prole- tariat from outside and that the party is in no way the ‘expression’ of spontaneous consciousness but quite the opposite that to introduce this class-consciousness, it is neces- sary to combat at all times this spontaneous consciousness. When Lora decided ‘to sup- port’ the IC after 16 years of struggling against it, was it not correct to draw up a balance- sheet of the POR as the Eng- lish section maintained in the IC? What guarantee existed that the POR had broken with centrism? However, the French sec- tion decided on its own account and without it having been approved on the IC to consider the POR as a mem- ber of the IC. Such a decision on the part of the French sec- tion was but a manifestation of its capitulation to centrism and a step forward in the attempt to dissolve the Inter- national into centrist organiza- tions with the *justification: of not appearing ‘sectarian’, 7 MNR. National Revolutionary Movement in Bolivia. A petty- bourgeois party led by Paz Estensoro which took power in 1952. The MNR and Estensoro now work in full co-operation with Colonel Banzer, 21

[p024] nationalism and Trotskyism or the position he describes in the article ‘Bolivia between tion opportunistically . avoids this criticism and jn particular jts final conclusion: ‘This party prepared this struggle, was prepared for it, was able to take advantage of the opportunities and at each stage of the revolutionary pro- cess developed the conditions for the working class to take the power.” PART 6 Thesis of the COB The events in Bolivia have shown that the POR never broke with centrism and that its adherence to the IC was only an opportunist manoeuvre by Lora. The responsibility of the POR in the defeat of the Bolivian roletariat obliges Trotskyist mijitants to draw up a balance-sheet of the events which carried the military group of Banzer to power. This was a4 defeat for the Bolivian working class because of the incapacity of its leader- ship. Because of his total break with Marxism, Lora and his coup always developed an opportunist policy of capitula- tion to Stalinism and petty- bourgeois tendencies, 4 conscious negation of all inter- national perspective and the rejection, consequently, of the pbuilding of independent parties measured by its movement to the left in relation to petty- bourgeois nationalism—can only lead to one conclusion. That is the handing over of the workers’ movement to Stalin- ism and the rejection of the struggle for alternative leader- ship. It is i line with this policy that the POR supported the CP candidate in the Popu- Jar Assembly, thus refusing to = an independent candi- te. ‘In Latin America the process of the national bourgeoisies has been of such a size that it is relatively easy for ‘left’ groups to appear which declare their ‘faithfulness’ to the theory of the permanent revolution and reject the theory of two stages. However, this phenomenon is not backed by an under- standing of Marxism, but is the result of spontaneous evolution. The majority of these groups—outside of the Marxist movement and conse- quently outside an_ inter- national perspective—have re- furbished the petty-bourgeois criticism of imperialism. This criticism is in essence reaction- ary and in no way touches the actual basis of imperialism. Such groups have invariably refurbished the Kautskyan con- ception of imperialism, Ccon- sidering it as super-imperialism and as exclusively 4 national question. In this way, they have been unable to break politically with petty-bourgeois nationalism, and have become its critics and its ‘left’ cover. The POR, and Lora in particular, outside the Marxist movement, have refurbished this left criticism of petty- bourgeois nationalism—this is the basic content of the state- ment ‘they are limited or in- consistent anti-imperialists’. Consequently, a complete break with nationalism is never posed; in fact its ‘anti-imperial- ism’ is given support. It is no coincidence that Lora should conclude in this article that the governments of Velasco and Allende _ will defend the workers’ state in Bolivia. Logically, Velasco and Allende did not even protect the petty- bourgeois government of J Torres. ship. The POR was incapable of posing correctly (or, rather, jt never even posed it) the struggle. for independent leadership. Its pasic break with Marxism led it to capitulate to the traditional leaderships and the union bureaucracies. It is no coincidence that after the defeat, Lora, in his balance- sheet, leaves out all question of working-class leadership. ‘leadership of the workers’ movement was correct’ and the political policies of the work- ing class were overtaken by the events. But the main leaders of the working class were the Lechin- ists” and the Stalinists. In an interview which appeared in ‘Informations Ouvriéres’, the OCI’s news- paper, he goes s0 far as to say that Stalinism, pushed by events, was forced to take up ‘revolutionary positions’—the same position of Pablo towards the Soviet bureaucracy, except that ‘it has become real’ for Lora. What is certain is that Lora always accepted the Pabloite theses on Stalinism, theses which led him to affirm that the Sino-Soviet conflict opened up the possibility that a fraction of the bureaucracy would ‘debureaucratize’ and ‘return to Marxism’; a possi- bility which was reduced to nought by Lora since ‘the theoretical discussion did not penetrate to the very root of the problem’. This metaphysical concep- tion of the bureaucracy is what makes him declare that Stalinism is the same as Menshevism, denying the inter- national nature of Stalinism and the fact that the bureau- cracy obtains its power from its control of the means of production and its compromise internationally with imperial- ism. The formulation of Lora that Stalinism is only a bridge between petty-bourgeois impossibility of struggling con- sistently against petty-bour- geois nationalism to the extent that an anti-Marxist concep- tion of the latter was devel- oped; the negation of the theory of the permanent revo- Jution and the acceptance of the ‘theory’ of the revolution in stages; the acceptance of the ‘theory’ of the ‘building of socialism in one country’ an also the acceptance of the international policy of the Soviet bureaucracy. It was the French section itself which produced the first criticism of the theses of the COB. This criticism concluded: ‘Comrades, WE tell you, quite plainly, motivated by deep and anguished conviction, that if this declaration becomes the policy of the Bolivian workers’ movement and repre- sents its orientation, and i the POR should adopt it (or even if it maintained a long thesis of the COB can con- stitute a moose around neck of the Bolivian proletariat since it limits it to Bolivia.” When it justifies and backs up completely everything the POR has done, the French sec- ae Fourth International Winter 1972/73

[p025] hird and concluding instalment