Chapter 12 – The Theoretical and Programmatic Heritage We Claim

The Marxist proletarian movement reached its highest point in the 20th century with the organization of the Communist International in 1919. Up until its Fourth Congress in 1922, it sought to develop a consistent revolutionary strategy, as well as give material support, to workers’ movements around the world. In 1924, at the Fifth Congress, concessions were made to bourgeois nationalism, with the joining of the Kuomintang party as a sympathizing section, and of Chiang Kai-Shek, soon-to-be executioner of the Chinese Communists in the 1927 revolution, as an honorary member. After this, the CI always took several years to meet, whereas before, even during times of civil war, it had held annual congresses. The last two congresses were marked by debilitating turns for the workers’ movement. The sixth congress (1928) defended an ultra-leftist course that aborted the possibility of unity of action in the workers’ movement against Fascist reaction. At the seventh (1935), it proposed the dissolution of working class independence in coalitions with the “democratic” bourgeoisie (popular fronts). The final formal dissolution of the International by Stalin in 1943 was only the last act in a process of adapting the organization to collaboration with the capitalists.

Several tendencies emerged from the Communist International. We agree with the criticisms and statements of the International Left Opposition, led by Leon Trotsky, and of the Fourth International it founded in 1938. It was built around the best elaborations of the Communist International, while also being critical of the course which began in the Fifth Congress, and expanded, in a creative way, on the most important developments of class struggle in the 1930s. Their analysis is still relevant today for understanding the Marxist political method. Despite this, with the exception of the American (SWP), Bolivian (POR) and Sri Lankan (LSSP) sections, the Fourth International did not achieve a significant rooting in the working class. It suffered the impact of Stalinist slander and persecution, both in the workers’ movement and during World War II, with many of its most important figures in Europe and Asia murdered by Fascists or Stalinist agents (a fate that Trotsky himself received in his exile in Mexico).

The Fourth International was partially rebuilt in the post-war period, but with a leadership that, although skilled in underground work, contained a number of weaknesses. Since the more experienced cadres died during the war and the SWP leadership abstained from playing a more active international role, reorganization was left to the Europeans. This new leadership brought together figures who had not played any prominent role in pre-war Trotskyism (such as Michel Pablo and Sal Santen), some who were very young and politically inexperienced (at the Second World Congress, held in 1948, Ernest Mandel and Livio Maitan were only 25 years old). They also made the mistake of reintroducing directly into the leadership of the movement, people who had left or been expelled from the organization previously, without any serious balance of past disagreements (the case of Pierre Frank). Faced with differences arising from the complexity of the events unfolding in the immediate post-war period, this leadership also resorted to bureaucratic measures to suppress dissenting voices. All this led to multiple political zigzags and theoretical confusion between the mid-1940s and the early 1950s.

In 1951, after a period of intense debate, the new international leadership took a course of adaptation to Stalinism, to the Social Democratic Left and to left-bourgeois nationalism. According to this course, Marxists should play a role of pressuring these political forces to serve as “blunted instruments”, supposedly able to perform the central tasks of the socialist revolution, or at least the beginning of it, in the form of “workers and peasants governments” – re-interpreted as a middle stage in the path to the dictatorship of the proletariat. This amounted to abandoning or hiding criticisms against these political tendencies and largely abandoning the Marxist program itself. Along the same lines, there was the prospect of partial or total organizational dissolution of the sections of the International through “deep entry” into these organizations. There was much acquiescence and little effective resistance to such a course, largely due to the weakness of most national sections and the limited international interest taken by the Americans.

The adoption of Stalinist methods against dissenting voices and grotesquely anti-Marxist explanations to justify political opportunism led to expulsions in the sections in Britain (RCP) and France (PCI), which were the first to rise up against this course. We claim the analyses and criticisms presented by the majority of these two groups (who opposed the International leadership) as an important link of continuity with the program of the Trotskyism. A similar contribution came from the Vern-Ryan tendency, from the Los Angeles local of the American SWP. Such contributions presented a more coherent analysis of the social transformation process in Eastern Europe and China (similar to our current understanding) than was presented by Pablo and Mandel (for whom a gradual transformation had occurred through “structural assimilation” to the USSR). The mentioned groups denounced the liquidationist course contained in the re-evaluation of the role of Stalinism and in the proposal of “deep entry” of Trotskyists into the Social Democratic and Stalinist parties. Because we believe that such contributions are a central part of revolutionary continuity, we have made a systematic effort to translate and make them available in our Historical Archive, to be used in the education of our members and contacts.

The course taken by the International’s leadership in the second half of the 1940s and early 1950s paved the way for the adaptation of the F.I. to the treacherous position of the Bolivian section (POR) in the Bolivian revolution of 1952-53. The POR was oriented towards a utopian, class collaborationist government with the left wing of the nationalist party MNR, with whom they believed it was possible to build a “workers and peasants government” instead of a position of class independence and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They also adjusted their demands and program to the limits accepted by the left-wing of the MNR. The failure of the Bolivian revolution to advance, in which the POR could have played a central role, marked the adaptation of the Fourth International to an inconsistent and vacillating (centrist) policy. Few criticized the path adopted by the POR, which was fully endorsed by the international leadership. The documents of the Vern-Ryan tendency are an important exception and a reference for this issue.

In face of attempted internal manipulation by the European leadership to get rid of the historical leadership of the American section, the SWP launched, albeit very belatedly, a struggle against “Pabloism” in 1953. It identified in the figure of the main European leader, the Greek Michel Raptis (Pablo), the cause of the degeneration of the Fourth International. The American SWP broke from the Fourth International and organized the “International Committee” with some important sections. Despite very correct criticisms, with which we agree, this reaction was not only long overdue, but inconsistent. The International Committee did not organize itself as an opposing pole dedicated to re-building the Marxist movement and reviewing the course of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, but was mainly a formal reunion of all those who wanted to stay outside the F.I. and still associate themselves with the legacy of Trotskyism, not always for good reasons. The groups involved in the International Committee, despite rejecting the liquidationist adaptation of the F.I.’s International Secretariat, did not review the theoretical confusion and the positions developed in the 1940s and early 1950s to explain the transformation of Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia and China, which were the background to the subsequent capitulation – and which were based on an incorrect understanding of Stalinism. The 1953 split meant the end of the Fourth International as a coherent political organization. We value the struggle of the International Committee against liquidation, despite its many limitations and contradictions.

In 1963, as the result of the absence of a serious balance sheet of events, and also of the stagnation of the self-proclaimed “orthodox” and “anti-Pabloist” groups over the years, there was a partial reunification of the movement, which originated the so-called “United Secretariat of the Fourth International”. It maintained the key perspectives developed by Pablo and Mandel in the previous period, which had been partially embraced by the American SWP and other elements of the International Committee, such as the group of Nahuel Moreno in Latin America, in the face of the impact of the Cuban Revolution.

For us, the “revolutionary continuity” of Trotskyism is very fragile, and is not related to a single tendency that was able to maintain and develop the revolutionary program throughout the movement’s years of crisis. Instead, we see revolutionary continuity as the sum of contributions made at different times, by different groups, which have contributed to maintaining, developing and passing on the ideas and practices of Trotskyism. These contributions are for us a fundamental starting point for the reconstruction of the revolutionary Marxist movement.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, the “Trotskyist movement” became increasingly involved in splits; many caused by relevant political events, but usually also involving bureaucratic practices, as well as political confusion. A culture of marginalization in relation to the proletariat started to develop, which was also reinforced by the small size of the organizations. Today one can no longer speak of Trotskyism as a movement with a coherent political view. There are several tendencies that may eventually have agreements, but that do not have the same theoretical or political principles and sometimes produce diametrically opposed conclusions and actions. As shown by several events in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, some “Trotskyist” currents leave little to offer when compared to reformist Social Democracy or Stalinist class-collaborationism in their perspectives, except that they are numerically insignificant. In other cases, they shamelessly capitulate to pro-imperialist movements.

The Spartacist League/US (SL), despite its limitations and imperfections, was a positive exception to the complete lack of principles of the rest of the “Trotskyist” currents in the 1960s and 1970s, being yet another link of revolutionary continuity that we claim. Unlike RCP, PCI (which later became the “Lambertist” group) and the Vern-Ryan tendency, the SL managed to develop as a revolutionary organization for some years, inserting itself in the working class and participating in some important struggles. It also managed to break national isolation and launch the embryo of a new revolutionary international organization, with presence in some countries in Europe, Latin America and Oceania. However, due to the accumulated pressure of isolation and the defeats of the working class, it also degenerated, becoming a bureaucratic sect with erratic positions, starting in the 1980s. As this degeneration deepened over the 1990s and 2000s, it is now a grotesque caricature of what it was in the past. Still, we regard their contributions from the 1960s and 70s as fundamental, which is why we also make a systematic effort to translate and publish materials from that time in our Historical Archive.

Similarly, we claim the effort made by the cadres who broke with this organization in the 1980s to rebuild their legacy, which culminated in the International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT). The IBT, however, never managed to reach the same level of solidity and insertion in the working class as the SL, due in part to arising in a period of much deeper defeats. Despite important analyzes, the IBT was never able to build any kind of lasting political work in the proletariat or carry out a significant regroupment of Marxists, which culminated in a gradual loss of members, its transformation into a bureaucratic sect with no presence in class struggle, and a repetition of many of the mistakes of the SL. More recently, what was left of IBT split into three tiny competing organizations.

An international proletarian Marxist nucleus (the embryo of a new revolutionary proletarian International) can only be forged around fusions with other groups that are moving towards the same goal, and merging with factions of the workers’ movement in periods of advancing struggles, having clarity at every moment of its objectives. Lessons from previous generations will be important, but such a nucleus will also have much to discover on its own in a new historical moment. We want to intervene to change history: to participate in a regroupment that brings us closer to binding the vanguard of the working class with the consistent Marxist positions, actions and strategy, which are so necessary in our time. This is the most important step in preparing for the socialist revolution. We must not shy away from daring to seek to bring closer and fuse with other currents around the ideas presented here, just as we must not hide them in order to achieve a “unity” that would be false and unstable.

Marxism is not a dogma, but a guide to action! The future presents enormous opportunities for the development of a political current that knows its place – with the working class – and how to intervene as part of it. The future of humanity without a socialist perspective is bleak. The working class cannot achieve socialism without socialist revolution and transition, tasks for which its vanguard needs to be confident, conscious and selfless. Forging this tradition, this culture of revolutionary Marxist theory and militancy among the working class, is our goal.