00060

THE

INVADING
SOCIALIST
SOCIETY
FlORlDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY LIBRARY,

SOCIAliST lA8DR
'-fit:tHtH)H
BY

J. R. JOHNSON, F. FOREST
and RIA STONE
-~-

PUBLISHED BY THE JOHNSON-FOREST TENDENCY

SEPTEMBER, 1947
PRICE: FIFTY CENTS

f?::::==============-::-'

,
CHAPTER 1-

CONTENTS

Page

WORLD WAR II AND SOCIAL R'EVOLUTION

(a) Trotsky 1940, Germain 1947
:............................................. I
(b) The Historical Role of the. Fourth International
.; 7
(c) The Mass Movement Today
:.:::'.'
:: : ,.,,:. 9
(d) The Communist Parties in Western Europe :
:.. :.12
I. The ' Proletarian and Revolutionary Character
of the Stalinist Parties "
,
12
. 2. The Bourqeois and Cou nrer-Revcluficnerv
Character of the Stalinist Parties
:::
:.15
(e) The Nature of. t~e Part'i 1947
: ::
: .'.. 20
N

CHAPTER lITHE STATE AND REVOLUTION

"
"
;,f
. (a) The Revolution Thirty Years After
::.
,*:
(b) The State Thirty Years After
:
::.:
(c) The Communist Parties of Russia and Eastern
Europe
"
1
:
CHAPTER 111IMPERIALISM THIRTY YEARS AFTER
(a) "Vast state-capitalist and Military Trusts and
Syndicates"
(b) American Imperialism "
" "
(c) The Interweaving of Imperialist, Civil and
National wars
:
. ..
CHHAPTER IV- .
POLAND-WHERE ALL ROADS MEET

"

CHAPTER VPARTIES, TENDENCIES AND PROGRAMS IN THE

FOURTH INTERNATIONAL '
(a) Sectarianism Today "
"
(b) Menshevism Today ..:
:
(c) Economism
,
"
(d) The Method of Bolshevism "
"" " "
(e) The Transitional Program Today
Appendix: The Political Economy of Germain.

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23 .
25
.
28
30
" 30
30
31
: ".33

40

~..4 1

44
47
52

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..,.

Chapter I
World War 'II .and Social Revolution
One of Trotsky' s last contributions to the Fourth . International
was a hypot hetical prognosis of socia l development if the world revolution fa iled to come during or immediatel y after tha .war. Contrary
to the be lief of all t he incur able Menshevik s and the panic st ricken,
t his f ailure of the re volution wa s not, and could not. have been concei ved by Trotsky, of all people, metaphysically, as a .point in time,
one mon t h, six mo nths, two y ea rs. It was a dialectical forecast, a
s t ag-e in the devolpment of the in te rnation al cla ss st ruggle. If, in the
crisis that Trotsky foresaw, the bourgeoisie could restore economic
. stability and its social domina t ion over the proletariat, then he could
not conceive a nother sit uat ion in which the proletariat could conquer,
I n 1938 when Trotsky posed the question stated above, he drew
the conclusion that, given the failure of the world r evolution, the
evolution of Ru s sia might prove in retrospect to be the socia l basis
for a . ne w eva lua ti on of the laws of scie ntif ic socia lis m . Ru ssia rem a ins , the world revolution has not conque r ed, .and .a s _a .result, in
. every section of the International , from the I.E.C. downwards, the
process of re-evaluation is taking place.

As f a r back as 1941 the W.P. Minority. (Johnson-Forest), believi ng with Trotsky that under no circumstaneesicould -bour geois .r elations of production save societ y from - barbarism after the impending
crisi s, revised the official Ru s sian po sition in the .light of .the .present
stag-e of d evelopment of captialism, st a t ificati on 00 production, and
the con sequent deepening , of the mas s revolutionary _struggle. The.
W.P. MajOrity, - (Shachtmanites), revised the wholec Ma r xist -Leninist Trot skyist st ra t eg y in the light of the Ru ssian degeneration. . The
official Fourth International, under the blows of t he, " dela yed" revolution, has continued to seek theoretical st abili t y in the "progressive
charact er" of the degenerated workers' st a te or to - use its recurrent
ph rase " t he dual character of the bureaucracy." Where .the Kremlin
a nd t he Red Army ad va nce, t here the r evolution has advanced. Where
t hey re treat, t he r e the r evolu tion has re treated. Where Trotsky sa w
t he na t ionalizat ion 'of producti on as the last remaining conquest of
proletarian power, the Four th International today accepts nationalizati on of production as a stage in r evolutionary development even if
th e ' revolut ion itself is brutally suppressed. Where Trotsky saw the
Ru s sia n proletariat as dep en dent u pon the impetus of the revolution
f rom t he proletari a t outside, the LE. C; sees as progressive the incorpora t ion of millions f r om outside Ru ssia into the t otalitarian g rip
of the Russia n bureaucracy.
~

(a) Trotsky 1940, Germain 1947

The first thing to be don e once and f or a ll is to destroy Germain's
ill usi on th at he is interpret in g Trotsk y' s positions of 1939. Trotsky
in 1939 believ ed that the bureaucracy of the workers' sta t e would
give a n "impulse" to revolutionary action am ong the oppressed masse s
in the areas it invaded in order t o create a basi s for itself. But this
a chi eved , its Bonapartist t end enci es would then a ssert themselves
and cr us h the revolutionary masses. As he proved unmistakably,
this is what happened in Poland and was posed in Finland in 1939.
Events at the end of the war to ok, an entirely different course.
The Ru ssian Army did not call upon workers and peasants t o revolt
in order to create a basis for the bureaucracy. For country after

1 .

country in Eastern E urope, Germain repeats with wcarisom

sistence: "The approach of the Red Army unloosed a r evolut i
upheaval." Undoubtedly many workers and peasa nt s in E a st er n E u
e
believed that Stalin's army wa s ' revolutionary, But it was t he breilkdown of bourgeoi s society which unloosed the revolutionary upheaval
not only in Poland and Rumania, but in Italy, the Philippines a nd
Paris . In reality, the agents of the bureaucracy carried on a sys t emat ic
campa ign against all the r evolution a ry elements in Poland before, during and after th e uprising. The Ru ssian army, the vanguard
of the counter-revolution, in collaboration with British imperialism,
took pains to have the 'Warsaw prolet ariat, the vanguard of the E uropean r evolutio n, destroyed by th e N azi arm y. Ru ssia kept Marshal
Paulus and th e German Ju nk ers in re serve against what it called
"a r epetition of 1918 in German y." Hya Ehrenberg, s pecia l propagandist for t he Europea n theatre, led the Stalini st pack in an unprecedented in ternational vilification of th e German people, which reached
its height i n th e declaration that if the German wo r ke rs made a revolution and approached t he Red Army a s brothers, they would be sh ot
dow n lik e do g s.
/
De sp ite th is, th e Ru ssian Arm y fo u nd r evolutionary formations
in existenc e, soviets , factory committee s, militias. There wa s no
bour geoi sie a nd industry wa s in the 'h a nds of the workers . The Russian
Arm y arrest ed, depo rted or murdered the revolutionary elements. It .
de stroyed st ep by st ep th e traditional Polish workers' parties and
created new ones in its own image. It re stored remnant s of the Polish
bo urgeoisi e to positions of power and created what Germain admits is
a ' bourgeois s t at e. Germain admits that the Ru ssian Army sa nct ioned
natio nalization because wh ere it entered, a virtual nationalization had
already taken place. Then he coolly informs us, "The activity of the
Stalinist burea uc r a cy in evi tably exhibits a double character: on the
on e hand it h as f ac ilitated [facili t ated , if you please] in h owever
limited a measure, na t iona lizat ion, a grarian reform, the establi shment
of fa cto r y committees, et c.,' on the oth er hand it established the police
regi m e. Th en he dares us to deny " t he dual character of bureaucratic
i nt ervent ion." (Fourth In ternationa l, F eb. 1947.)
Wh oever wishes to a dvance th is infatua t ed in version of great
histori cal events ma v do so bu t he will do so on hi s own authority
and u nder hi s own name. He will not in our mo ve ment ge t away with
this as "Trotsky's position."
We have de cla re d and will decl ar e again ou r opposition to Trotsky's
policy of 1940. Bu t be fore attacki ng a policy, it is nec essary to underst a nd it. It is even mo re nec essary t o do s o when de fending it. In
1940 'I'r ot sky argued:
1) t hat the defeat of Ru ssi a could mean the dismemberment of
the U.S.S.R., a nd g ive im pe r ia li sm a f urt he r lon g lea se of
life ;

2) t h at only the defe at of the bu reaucrac y b y the revolu t ion

would preserve state property in the U .S.S.H. ;
3 ) that the Stalinist pa r ti es abroad would dese rt the K remlin
r egime and capitulate t o t heir own bou r geoisi es.
Which of these j u dgmen t s does Germain st ill defend '? H e does n ot
even face t he m .
1) He and hi s school are probabl y th e onl y person s in th e wo~ld
who beli ev e that t he imperialism of today, sh a t te red be yond repa1~,
can h ave a lon g lea se on life by the dismemberment of Ru ssia. ThIS
indeed is faith in ca pitalism .
2) F u r t her, if we u nder st and th e 1939 Trotsky at all, if we watch
the iron la ws of economic dev elopment today and observe the barba r ism that is eating away at bourgeoi s societ y, the patching up of
the universal r uin of -another war could not reverse but wo uld ac cel-

erate the movement .to the nationalization not only of national but
continental economies, 'But Germain con t inues t o va g'it a t e himself about
the prospects -of capitali st re storation after a new war by millionaire
collective-farmers.
3 ) Finally, it it clear t o all ( again except Germain) that the
Stalini st parties are ti ed to the Kremlin by roots far deeper than
Trotsky believed. They did not join their national bourgeoisie during
the war. They did not collapse and abdica te to the Fourth International the leadersh ip of millions. We thu s have today in fact a more
complicated r ela tio n of f undamen tal forces a nd...perspectives t ha n those
on which Trotsky base d hi s positions.
To these fundamen t al problem s Ger mai n h as hi s an swer ready:
" pla n ned economy" and the "du al character of the bu r eaucracy."
There is not a trace,not one drop of Marxism, of the dialectical method,
.
.
in this.

Socialism in a Single Country Is Dead

.
What is so terrible is that fundamental concepts are being changed,
al tered, transformed, shifted around, wi t hout the theoreticians ever
s t opping to think of what .t hey are doing . It is pr oceeding, for the
most part, unconscio usl y a nd em pirica lly .
It is st ill our comm on belief that we subs cri be to the Leninist
analysi s of imperialism, a s the st ruggle of conflictin g imperialisms
for the re-divi sion of the wosld. It is obv ious that the I.K.D. and
Shachtman do not believ e this. For them there is only one sig nif ica nt
im perialist stataYn the Lenin ist se nse of' the word. Th at is American
imperialism. (It is ridiculous to consider Britain as a s er ious competitor
with the United States. ) They ca ll Ru ssi a "bureaucratic imperialism"
whatever that may mea n, but t his has no scie nt ific r elation to Amer ican imperialism, i.e. , a relation within the capital-labor an tagonis m
in the context of t he world m arket .
.
But Germain also has compl et ely reorganized in hi s own mind
the fo unda tion of our period. For him al so the world market is similarly destroyed. For him also ther e is on ly one imperialist stat e. Wall
Street is engaged in a st r ug gle not with anothe r imperia lis m but with
a dege ner a te d workers ' st ate t h at can be tran sitional to socia lis m .
Thu s the one world trust aims at dominating the rest of the world.
There is no imperialist rivalry be t ween American imp er iali sm and
the U .S.S.R. Ther e is t he cap italis t ene my and it s projected victim. Thus both Germain a nd Sh a chtm a n des t r oy a ll OUr concept ions
of the laws of t he world market and t he domin ation of t he canitallabor re la tion by these laws. It is n ot only po s sible but perfectly
legitimat e t o t ake these tremendous t heoret ical step s. But it is absolutely intolerable t hat such tremendo us t he oretica l r e-evaluations
should take place without t heir be ing clearly state d and the conclusions drawn.
It i s when .th e normal trade 'con nections of the world-m arket a re
destroyed that the law of value imp oses itself with unrestrained
fe rocity. Ru ss ia mu st fight for woi-ld domination or p er ish . It is subj ec ted to a ll the laws of the w or ld-mar ket . Socialism in a s ingle
coun t r y is de ad even f or 'St a li n . All theories built on this a re a lso dead.
The bo urgeoisi e sees Stalinist R ussia, n at iona lized p r op ert y, as
"a ttack ing th e capita list -world." Germain sees na t ion alize d p ropert y
a s " defe nding" itself. Thereby Germain is unabl e t o r eaffirm what
the bou rge oisie seeks t o destroy-the revolutiona ry unity of the world
p r oletariat,the only solut ion to the conte mp orary bar barism.
The greatest en emy of the United States is not Stalinist Russia
( this is a purely bourgeois conception). Its g reatest enemy is at home,
t he American proletariat in allia nce 'wit h the world revolution. But
in t he new necessity for world rule, equally, the g reat est enemy of
Ru ss ian domination is not American imperialism but the Russian

proletariat. As in th e moment of vict or y it collaborated with H4tIe r

t o de stroy the revolutionary proletariat of Warsaw, so St alin ism will
and mu st collaborate with American imperialis m fo r the maintena nce
of the condition of their joint existence-the su ppression of the wo rld
proletarian revolution. It was possible (possib le, if wrong ) at one
time to spec ulate about t he revolutionary aspect of the bureaucracy,
it s preservation of 'p lan ned economy to s ave Russia from di smemberment ami ruin and the con seq uent st rengt hening of imperialism. Th ose
days are over. Today the t ask is to save the proletariat from a power
which contends with by no means inferior fo rces for world mastery.
This is not a que stion of German y or defense of Ru ssia. Germain,
viewi ng all hi storical development through the eyes of the theory of
the dege nerated workers' st a te, is eating away at the theoretical
foundations of our movement, i.e., the revolutionary mobilization of
t he proletariat as t he sole solut ion to all the problems of the cont empor ar y barbarism. We join Germain in holding off Shachtman a nd
the other guerrillas in order to face him with the ori gin s and con seque nces of hi s utterl y false political position.

Lenin and So cia lism

The st r uggle f or ' socialis m is the struggle for proletarian
democracy. Proletarian democracy is not t he crown of socia lis m. It is
its basis. Proletarian democracy is not the r esult of socialis m. Socialism
is the r esult of proletarian democracy. To the degree that the prolet a ria n mobilizes itself and the g reat masse s of the peop le, the socialist
r evolut ion is advanced. The proletariat mobilizes itself as a self-acting
forc e through its OWn committees, unions, pa rt ies and other organizat ion s. ThfS is not the "Russian qu estion." It is Marxi sm. Lerim based
everything, yes, Comrade Germa in , everything on this.
"The civil war agains t t he bourgeoisie is a wa r which is de mocratically or ganized and waged by the poor masse s a garnst the propertied minority. The civil war is a lso a war, and consequently m ust
i nevit ably put 'force' in the pl ace of right . But force . .. cannot be
real ized without a democratic organization of the army a nd the 'rear.'
T he civi l war first of all and at once expropriates banks, factories,
r ail wa ys, la r ge agricultural estates, etc. But it is precisely for this
very purpose of exp ro priation that it is imperative to in t r oduce the
election by t he .people of all the officials and the army officers ; to
accomplish a complete fu sion of the army, which wa ges war against
the bourgeoisie, with the masses of the population;. to int r odu ce
complete democracy in the matter of the control of food su pplies,
of production and distribution, etc. . . ". But this aim can be attained
neither from a purely military nor economic nor political st andpoint
without a simultaneous introduction and propagation of democra cy
among ou r troops and at our rear-an int roduction and propagation
which will deve lop in the course of that war. We te ll the masses
no w . . . : 'You must lead and you will 'lead a really democratic wa r
a gainst t he bourgeoisie and for the purpose of actually carrying out
democracy and socia lis m'. " (Bolsh evik s and the Worl d War, pp.
227-228.)

The same principle applies to the self-deter m inat ion of nations.

"Without actually organizing the ' relations between the nations
on a democr atic basis- a nd hence without granting f reedom of sec es sion-there can be no civil wa r of the workers and the t oili ng m asses
. ,
of a ll n ations agains t the bourgeoisie." (Ibid. , :~. 228.)
We shall pu r sue Germai n r em orselessl y until he faces this issue
a nd' answers.
Th e Comm un e, the first decisively prolet arian revolution, nationa li zed nothing. For Ma rx, "The great s ocia l measure of t he Commune
w as its own wor ki ng exi sten ce," its democratic mobili zat ion of the

masses of the people. In the 1917 revolution, the socialist revolution,

we have preci sely th e sam e theor y and t herefore t he same practice.
In 1917 Lenin attacked mercilessly not merel y nationalization but
confiscation. "The vital thing will be not so much confiscat ion of
capitalist property a s the establishment of universal, all-embracing
.workers' control over th e capitalists and their po ssible suppor t er s."
.A nd then, Comrade Germain, note this: "Confiscation alone will
lead us nowhere . . ." Lenin left no room f or ambiguity on this que stion. He declared that t he Bolsh evik s neve r used t he t erm " workers'
control" except in association with the dic tat orship of the prolet ariat,
"alwa ys putting it after t he latte r (by which) we t hereby ma ke pla in
what state we have in mind."
State con trol-that wa s "a bou rgeois-r efo r mist ph rase, in e ssence a purely Cadet f ormula . . ." The Junker- capitalist state in
"Ger ma ny during war time was ex er cis ing complete cla ss control over
_the ' economy and it m eant "military penal labor" for t he workers.
For Marx and Lenin, the re gime transi ti onal to socialis m wa s the
dictatorship of the p r olet ar iat, the power of the working cla ss, not
the r egim e of nationali zed p r oper ty. F or Le nin " the f un da me nt al
id ea which runs like a re d thread through all of Ma r x's wo r ks" is
that " t he' democratic republic is the nearest approach to t he dicta t or s hi p to th e prole tariat ." Th e democratic r epublic wi th its op portunit y
for mas s m obili za t ions, not bourgeois nationaliz ation of property.
This explai ns Lenin' s merc iless enmity t o the bourg eois r egulati on of
economic life a s a whole "according to a certain general pl an." In
f act, the leaders of the October Revolution specifically ex cluded confi scation of property from t heir immediate, program. Th ey were concerned with somet hi ng else- the dem ocratic, i.e., self -mobilization of
the m asses.
F or Lenin the solut ion to the economic ill s of r uined Ru ssia was
not nationalization of prope rty but the rel ease of the energies of the
pe opl e. Thi s was a nd is so profoundly revolutionary, so oppo sed to
bou rgeois conce pt ion s th at eve n today, the word s st a re us in t he fa ce
a nd we ca nnot und er stand t hem.
"In ou r opinion, in order to mitigate t he u nt old burden s and
mi serie s of the war, in or der t o heal the t erribl e woun ds infli ct ed on
the people by t he war, revolutionary de mocracy is nece ssary, r evolutionary mea sures are needed, of t he ' k in d descr ibed in the example
of the allocation of dwellings in t he intere sts of t he poor: W e m ust
p r oceed in exactly the sa me wa y, in both t own a nd country, with
r eg a rd to foodstuffs, clothes, boots, and s o fo rth, and in the country
with regard to the land, etc. For the administration of the state in
this spir it we can immedia tely se t up a strit e apparatus of about t en
m ill ion , if no t t went y mill ion people-an appa ratus unknown t o a ny
capitali st coun try. We alone can create such a n apparatus, fo r we ar e
a ssured of the complete a nd devot ed sy mpat hy of t he va st ma jority
of 't he population. Th is a pparat us we alon e can creat e, beca use we have
cl ass conscious wor kers, di sciplined by a long capitalist 'apprenticesh ip' (not fo r naught did we serve apprenticeship to capitalism ),
wo rkers who are ca pab le of fo rm ing a: workers' militia and of g r a du all y enlarging it (beginning to enla r g e it.immedia te ly) into a people's
m ili t ia. T he class con sciou s workers mu st lead, but t hey ca n draw int o
the wo rk of administration th e rea l masse s of the toili ng oppresse d."
(Selected Works, Vol. VI , p. 274.)

Confiscation Will Solve Nothing

I s Germa in prep a red to subs cr ibe t o t his prog r a m or not? Is he
p rep a red to tell th e French workers to day that mere nationaliza tio n or
even confiscation will solve nothing ? H e cannot do it be cause hi s
. .Ru ssian position sta nds over him like a janissary with swor d draw n.

:;

For Lenin administration of the st at e by t he pr olet a riat was the

same as administration of the economy. Without a break the passage
p ass es on to the solution of economic problems.
"The most important thing is to inspire the oppressed and the
toilers with confidence in their own strength, to show t hem in practice
that they can and mu st themselves undertake a cor rect, strictly orderly and organized distribution of 'br ea d, food, milk, clothing, dwellings,
and so forth, in t he in teres ts of the poor . Without this,' Russia ca nn ot
be saved from collapse and ruin; whereas an honest, courageous and
universal move to hand over the administration to the proletarians
and semi-proletarians will arouse such unprecedented revolutionary
enthusiasm among the masse s, will so multiply the forces of the
people in combating their miseries, that much that seemed impossible
to our old, narrow, bureaucratic forces wil l become practicable> for
the forces of the millions and millions of the masses when they
begin to work for themselves, and not under the whip, for the capitalist, the master, the official."
,
The most important thing is to tell the workers , wha t is to be
done and that only ,t hey can do it. You can see the sa me in every
line of these pamphlets.
"O nly then sha ll we be able to see what untapped forces of resistance to capitalism are latent in the people; only then will what
Engels cal ls 'latent socia lism ' be ' made apparent; only then shall ' we
find that for every ten thousand open or concealed enemies of the
power of the working cla ss, who manifest themselves either by action
or by pa ssive resistance, a million new fighters will arise, who until
then had been politically dormant, languishing in poverty and despair,
having lost faith in themselves as human beings, in - their right to
live, in the possibility that they too might be ser ved by the whole
force of the modern , centralized state and that their detachments of
proletarian militia might be fully trusted and called upon to take
part in the immediate, direct, day-to-day work of administration of
the state." (Selected Works, Vol. VI , p. 287.)
As concrete, revolutionary policy for the masse s to act upon;
Lenin, with his incomparable concreteness, wa s placing before them
nothing , more than the theoretical conclus ions of Marx, that the solution to the problems of capital accumulation wa s the human solution.
"It be comes a question of life a nd death for society to ada pt
the mode of production to the norm al function ing of this law. Modern
industry, ind eed, compels societ y, und er penalty of death, to replace
the detail-worker of tod ay, crippled by life-long r epetition of one
and the same trivial operation, and thus r educed to a mere fragment
of a man, by t he fully-developed individual fit for a variety of labors,
ready to f a ce an y chang e of production, and to whom the different
social functions he perform s are but so many modes of giving free
scope to hi s own natural a nd ac quired powers." ( Ca pit al, Vol. 1, p. 534.)
The wh ole debate about nationalization should be mercilessly
swept aside with the brutality with which Lenin swept it aside.*
Today, in 1947, it is no more than a means, and, with bourgeois and
Stalinists,' a delib erate means of blinding the mas ses to the need
for their own self-m obilization. And Lenin was Lenin and Trotskyism
was Bolshevism precisely be cau se . I t was the ruthless en emy of all
that impeded this self- m obili zat ion.
,
Today we are far, far beyond the stage for which Lenin 'was
writing. The crisis, as Trotsky fore saw it, and as we can see it today,
demands that the International speak to the masses in a manner infinitely sur passing in boldness and range the Lenin of 1917-1918.
Where is it? Look at the press of the International. In words and
LateT, we shaJJ. tatoo ,u p the ques'tion of the aotual use of the s l<>g1Wll ill 1947

.6

re solutions it , attacks the ,.oppor t u nist s (and f eebly enough ) ; conit cannot ' demonstrate '.it s , diff erence. Far better if it were,
111 every .country, to donothmg m ore for three months than reprint
week a ft er week the St a t e and:- Revolution, The Threatening- Catastrophe, Will the Bolshevik s Retain State-Power?, The Immediate Tasks
of the Soviet. Government, Trotsky's Transitional Prog-ram and ab ove
all the discu ssio ns that preceded it. The mas se s would learn more than
we have taught them for , the .pa st ye a r a nd we would al so. A nd yet
t oday ev en these are inadequate. '
U nder ou r eyes; t he masse s, the fountain of all Marxist t he or y,
are creating the , ba sis of the Fourth I nte rnational. Bu t to see this,
Germain will have to 't ea r himself f rom hi s m esm erized con te mplat ion
of degeneration in ' Ru s sia and .grap ple wit h t he r eg eneration of the
proletariat, wi th th e stages of de vel op ment of ou r moveme nt a nd its
present sit uation, shaped not by Ru ssian degeneration but by wor ld
capit a li sm. '
~retely"

(b) The Historical Role

of the

Fourth International

I n 1 9 4'2 t he reactdcnarv laws o f t he! Am erican bo u rgeo is i e mad e it n e ce s sa r v for

T ro tskyis t t endencses in t he Un it ed States to di s affilia te or g ani za t ionally from the
Fourth Internationl3.a. That, however, -ca n u or p re vent our subscri ption. t o pohtical
ideas an d a n itliterest ~Th t :he-il" ex p r e s s i on in o rgarrizat.io ns and t endencies. It i s i n
t his sens e that we write "'-"Ire of the F our th I n t er naeional.

Germain, secu r e in hi s ex pos it ion of " T rotsky's positions," has n o

need to show in pr ecise terms what organic chan g es ; if any, have taken
place in wor ld im perialism since Trotsky wro te in 1940. Exact ly simila r
is hi s method wi th the laws of polit ical development. The Fourth I nt erna tional wa s sm all in. 1939. It is st ill small 'i n 1947, The masse s a re
m ore (or less) r evo lutionary a s the ca se may be, etc. We must redouble
our energ ies, etc., etc. But how exactly does the Fourth Int ern at ional
in 1947 differ from the Fourth I nt ern at iona l in 1939? What new conception can it have of itself and its tasks in the ligh t of the developments between 1940 and 1947? Germain doe s not even a sk hi ms elf
t he se questions.
. In the Ma nifest o of t he Communist International, 1919, T rotsky
st ates :
"If th e F'irst .In t er na t ional p r esag ed t he f ut ur e cou rse of developmen t and indicat ed its paths; if t he Second Internation al gathered a nd
or g a n ize d million s of workers ; t he n 'the Thi rd International i s the
International of open mass a ction, the ' In t ernational of r evolutionary
rea liza tion, t he International of t he deed ."
We have t o examin e this concen t rate d generalization, see what
it means, place each International in relation to its per iod and arrive at
wh at t he Fourth International means to day. That is t he hi storic continuity of our m ovem ent, not t he "dual character of t he bu r eaucracy ."
The First International was fou nded in an epoch in wh ich small
bourg eois p r oduction predominated. :\Ia r x, ba sing himself u pon the
most advanced .st ag e and te nde ncies of the ca pital-la b or .r el at ion of
those days, fought for the revolu ti onary mo biliza t ion of the proletariat
on the ba si s of unifying its econ om ic and political st r uggles . He ha d to
st r ug gle against conspiratorial Bla nquists and Anarchists for the sys tematic politicalization of the everyd a y proletarian str uggle.
The Second In t er nat iona l w as fou nde d on the realizat ion i n life
of the theoretical perspectives for whi ch Marx fought in the First
International. T he development of capitali sm itself had s olidified,
unified and differentiated the proletariat from the re st of the nation,
and clarrfied its role. Its clearly marked place in the socia l st r uct ure of
advancing capitalism dictated t he strategy of t he Second I n t er n at iona l,
the mobilization ' of the proletariat for revolutionary action. Bu t the
development of impenial isrn 'w-i t h its super- p rof its created the political

democracy and social legislation which dissolved the u ni fied social action
of the proletariat into an amorphous mass of electors d rowned in t he
petty-bourgeois swamp.
T he dialectical development is now manifested with extraordinary
clarity. If the r evolui1"onUTi/ perepectiv ee of the First International
were the concrete foundati on of th e Second, the revolutionary perspectives of the Second In t erna t ion al became in time the con crete
fo undations of the Tihi rd, The Third International was fo unded on the
actual revolutionary upheaval of t-he masse s, the October Revolution,
mass general e t r ik es, so viets, ar.ned demonstrations on a European
scale. Capitalism had produced thess just a s it produced the 10 \1 :u1ations at each stage of th e previ .ius la bor org a niza t ion. And a t ~riC~l
successive s t a g e the d egeneration of the proletarian party not only
imitates capitalism but mu st t ake on t o a grea ter de gree the contradictions which a re re.i..irig; ca p. t a lis m.
.
Beginni ng will 1933, Fascism, th e bu r eaucratic con trol by the
s t a te of $11 a spects of li f e, b ecomes th e political method of the bou r geois ie.Government e ven in democratic c ou ntries maintains only the
form of legislative procedure and be come s in .r ea lit y go vernment by
executive d ecree. The labor movement ever ywhe r e and the Third Int ernational a bove all com p lete a strictly parallel degeneration.
As in previous stages, with the d egeneration of the labor movement, sociejy itself culminates in so cia l catastrophe, the se r ies of
defeated revolutions which p re ceded 'World War II, the war itself, and
the in soluble c r is is of th e present. But here, the logical developmen t
of the International becomes of funda mental importanc e fo r u s to
understand our own present and our own future. 'I'he theoretical perspectives of the 'I'h ird International, expressed most concretely by
Lenin f er Ru ssi a .i n the art icles quoted, will 'logically become t he
concrete a ctual foundation of the Fourth .
In 1864, the r evo lution a ime d ,a t achieving social em anci pation in
the futu re. T oday, r evolution must beg i n with social emancipat ion .
No conceivable fo r ce ex is ts in t he world to begrn the reg eneration of
societ y except the e mancipated prole tariat. The Fourth Intern a t ional
must t ell the w orkers that 'on ly the free sco pe of t heir " own na tural
and a cquired powe r s" and t he "latent soci alism" of th eir cl ass can
satisf y their mo st elementa ry needs. This is the th eoretical ba sis of
the revolutionary international of 1947. Wh ere Marx fought-to unify
p olitical and ec onomic str uggl es , t oday , lon g past that stage, the
Fourth International has to a im at the unification in the st rug gle of the
national units of the proletariat, for the internation al recons truction of
econo mic li fe.
The emancipation mu st be social.
Only the complete socia l ' transformation of man a s a productive
force can begin to cope with the ruin, economic, political and moral, to
which bourg eois societ y ha s reduced and is s t ill f ur t he r reducing the
world.
The em a ncip at ion mu st be intern a tional.
1939-1947, and particularly 194 5-1947, h ave demonstrated to the
.whole world, and particularly to the European proletariat, that the old
natronal economies are sh a t t ered beyond r epair. This was no t so in
1940. The United States, the U .S .S .R. a nd the colonial countries are
k nit into an almost inextricable fabric with E urope. The world moves
as a unit.
T h e tasks of the Fourth International have therefore underg on e
a qualitative change. Its mo st remote theories of 1940 have becom e in
1947 practical necessities for millions. N either Yn theory nor in practice
does Germain sh ow any g r asp of this. He is too tied up in "property"
and "nationalization" to perform the fir st task of today. It is to
examine and establish to wh at degree th e objective movement and sub-

jective expression of the proletariat correspond to theobject'ive needs

of society ' and the subjective claims of his organization. Ger m a in's
t r ea t m en t of this, where it exists, is su per fici a l and im p r essi oni s t ic.
For the J oh nson-F or e st tendency the correspondence is established and
'IS the greatest polit ica l factor of our time. With the world socialist
revolution t he h istory of humanity will begin. And that is p recisely
what is a lready s haking t he ' world. Va st millions of men are not t hinking or acting a s in the old days. They are flex ing themselves for a leap
that has become imperative for them-the leap from the realm of ca pitalist necessity mto the realm of socia l fre edom. This today is revolu t iona r y poli t ic s. The revolutionary writer who does n ot know this,
s cr a t ch es only on the s u rfa ce- a nd then begins to s li p backward.

(c) The Mass Movement Today

The mass movement today i s not e ssentially the prod uct of t he
war. Its fir st appearance is in France in 1934, a f t er on e yea r's ex pe r ience by Europe of the bar baris m and degradation of Fascis m.
In the s p a ce of th ree or f our months a f t er the June 1936 strikes
i n France [om' million w ork ers j oin t he F r ench trade union movement
"lining up f o r the class st rug gle." In S pain the wo rkers re volte d
w ith a v iolence and de cis iveness n ev er seen in any previous revolut ion . But i t is in th e U .S .A . t hat t he phenomen on ca n be mo st inst r uctive ly ob se r ved. With in t w o yea rs the Ameri can proletariat
creates the C.I.O ." whioh i n t en yea r s becomes the mo st powerful
social force in the nati on , an achievement r arely exceeded in the history
of th e proletariat.
The v ictories of H itler seemed t o hurl back this worl d-wide
m obi liz a t ion of the pr olet a r-i at, At t he f i r st 'check he r ec e ived in 1941,
t he p r ole tariat bega n th e strug g le on a h igh er plane. The r esistance
movements w ere noth in g 'les s t han a hi gher st age of the self-m obiliza ti on of the p r olet a r ia t a s lea der of the na tion now de serted b y the
bou r ge oisi e. .
.
~
T oday this mass m ovement con ti n ues in th e r ush .t o join the
Communi st P arties . N owh ere in the writings of Germain -a nd his cothinkers is it po s sible ' to find a sin gle paragraph wh.ich recognizes '
tha t thi s is th e greatest socia l phenomenon of We age, the proletarian
raobi lizat.ion correspo nding to the de generation of bourg eo is societ y .
T omorrow if t he Comm u nist Parties i n Western Europe shou ld
s er iously u m'..-:take a se r ies of decisive a cti on s with the conquest of
power as th e open a im , th e million s w ou ld po u r into it as t h ey "pou r ed
into t he uni on s in 19 36. T hi s i s in n o se nse a national or Western
Eu ropean phen om enon . In J apan, in Indonesia, in Shanghai, i n West
Afri ca , t he r e is the sa m e type of self- mobi li za t ion. It has been growing
with a dva nces and retreats for thirtee n vea l's.
The Prenchvand ' I t a lia n wo r kers of today are not the Russian
. worker s of 1917 seizing f actories chaot ica ll y and t r ying to r u n them
ind ivi dua ll y. They h a ve .b een trai ned a n d di sciplined in a mo re adva nce d school of capit al ism, in a m Ol"e comp lex world , in a s ociet y
wher e social collapse a nd b arbari sm a r e very clo se. In th e t ightlyk ni t network of W estern E urope they a re profoundly aware of the
inter-d ependence of the econom y, of thadim ini shing opposition between
nati onal and internat ional economy, between national and i nternati onalpolitics, between peace an d war, the nee d fo r centralized' org an iza tion ,
In the Resolution p n the role of the Communi st Party at the
- Se cond Congress of the Communist International, Zinoviev stated t hat
the former su bdivis ions of the workers' movement into the three
forms, party, union, co-operative, h ad exhausted i t self. The new
fo rms of the dictatorship of the proletariat were Jya r t y" s oviet and

industrial unions. The whole resolution is built around the idea that
even "on the ..day of the 'conquest of power the 'Communist Party constitutes only a fraction of the working class." This was the axis on
whichLenin worked f or Russia and f or the wh ole of Western Europe.
What we are se ei ng in France and Italy s h ows how ia,r beyond 1919

, we are.

. ' ,,

Any revolutionaryp~rty today which initiated actions for the

conquest of power would rally such a membership as ' would reduce
to the vanishing- point the . organizational difference between vanguard
and masse s, party, ' Soviet and union. The revolutionary party will
.no t be only a "fra.ction" of the working-class. In acoun-try like F'rance
at the moment of the conquest of power, we can well see practically
every member of the organized labor movement 'a n d millions of the
petty-bourgeoisie a s m embers of the revolutionary .p a r ty . * For 'Sh a cht man .a nd S'Ucl1, a ll bhis is st r a tosphe r i c "theory". Y et it is only with
this in mind (and n ot revolutionary waves which w ere unloosed by the
Red Army) that we sh a ll begin to s ee the catastrophic roleplayed by
the [Red Army in Eastern Europe 'a n d the le ssons for today.
In 1917 the February" and October Revolutions gave the impetus
to the European revolution precisely because of the backwardness of
Russia. In 1944 the r evolutionary mobilization of the masses in the
Eastern European countries under the impending ,dlef'ea t of 'Ge r m a ny
was historicallydue to be the sign a l and example for . 's uch a m obilization in Western Europe as would have put the 1917-1923 revolutions
in the s ha de . It is this the Kremlin, deliberately and far-sightedly
counter-revolutionary, destroyed. Could Anglo-American imperiali sm
have held the population s of those countries down? L ook at the rest
. of the world and judge. We w ould have had a repetition of Greece,
(Greece which G ermain so grievously misunderstands) .in eve ry -co u n try in Eastern Europe; the Mi ddle East a fla m e and a movement in
Western 'E u r op e to which ev en the present unprecedented self-mobilizat i on of the mas ses woul d h a ve be en merely a prelude,

Where the Red Army Has Not Passed

Tihe analysi s must be taken to its c on clusion , as our t each er s '
taught u s t o do and b eca u se today hi storical de velopment takes a ll
processes to their logical conclusion. Al ready in the Spanish Civil
War in 1936 the French proletar .iat was seet h in g with th e consciousn ess that it was n ece ss a ry to g o to the aid of the Spanish proletariat.
All through t h e war the eleme n ts of international action partic u la r ly in Nort h Italy an d th e Balkans, existed. Stalinism corru pted
and de stroyed .i t when it destroyed the , r evol ution .
Yet today
t h e s elf-mobilization of t h e masse s in Jtalyand F rance 'On a national
scale has r each e d such a stage that g iven ser-ious a ction of any k ind,
a l ways decisive f or -prole taria n con sciou sness, it is bound to overflow .
the ' n a t ion a l boundaries.
.
,
In , t h e "Cr-itique 'of th e Gotha Program" (1875) lM(a rx drew att ention t o the f'a ct that t hirt y years befor e in t~ e Communist Manif e st o, h e had w arned that the class s t r ug g le ds n ational "in form"
on ly hut no t in content. In 1-873 he had taken it further. R eferring t o
the death of the First I nternational h e h ad d eclared that . "The international activity of the workin g class d oes not ,b y any means d e-pend
on the e xi stence of the Internation al Workingmen's A ssociation ."
Had Churchill's vp la n for t he Anglo-American i n v asion of Eastern
Europe b een su ccessf u l, bhe r evoluti on a ry masse s of Europe, de spite
internal divisions, wou,ld have f ac e-don an international scale one
enemy, Anglo-American Imperialism. That initial impulse h as been

* How ridiciUlOiUS a.U -t .he dlspu t es

the mas ses ...~!eady ';' eg in to appeair !

about the d'icta'tons hip of the part,.

10

0\...,.

'b ehe a ded , and corrupted .by the Kremlin bureaucracy and its army.
Included .in this t erribl e se t-bac k for t he revolution is Germany,
Eastern and Western. In 'B elg r ade , S of ia, and above all , in W arsaw,
the German proletarian r evol u tion w as u ndermined. Those bourgeois '
commentators who ' declare that but for th e Red Army, all Europe
w ould h ave been communist today, n ot on ly spea k, far more wi sely
than they know hut :h a ve infinitely more g rasp of the t ruth than all
- the "Mae-x ism't of Germain's theses, And . as r ecompense for a ll this
w e have the barely con cealed d efeatism by Germain in the oft-reiterated prospect of "str uctura l ass imila tion t o th e U.S .S.R. ", inc luding
Eastern Ge rmany. And t o conclude, he g iv es us the t ruly prepost er ous
piece of capi t a lism i n a sing le cou ntry- "t he growth of the -p r oduc t ive
fo rces" in those ruined, -plundered, to rtured, st a r vin g c ou n tr-ies of
Eastern Eu rope, the most s t r icke n a r ea s .of a st r ick en and collapsi ng '
continent, which in a n ot he r page Germain w ill assure u s rriust a chie ve
the Socialist United States of Eu r ope"or p erish .
All the lament ation s over the fate of th e German proleta riat a nd
the 'n eed f or econo mic recov ery b ef ore i t c an once more take its place
in the revolu ti onary st r uggle a r e the m ost pi t iful cap it u lation t o bourgeois i de ology a nd the direct r esult of a false m ethod of analysis. But
f or i ts g h a stly experienc e wi t h "'th e R ed Arm y, Germany today
might have only one party, a revolutio na ry party of million s. But ev en
given the present sta te of Germany , the revolut ion a r y proleta r iat of
F ranc e 'a n d Italy, d ragg in g w ith th em the Ruhr workers, ca n a t one
s troke lift the -Ge r rna n p eopl e to their feet again .
Entangled in t h e m e shes of hi s conc ep ts of burea u cracy, Germain
has c ut himself off f rom understanding t he dyn amics of the mass movem ent today. It will have p eriods of lull, r et r eat and ev en defeat . But
its main ou t lines a n d t he cou ,r se of d evelopment are alrea dy clea r .
It is a w orld-wide ph en omen on. The unpreced ented m ovem en t of the
Japanese p r olet a ri a t is only superficially different in k ind. Th ere is
ibeingp r epar ed in the United Stat es (and the b ourgeoi sie is f r antic
in fea r of it) a s elf- mobi lieation of. the g reat mass of the n ation whi ch
will a ssume a n ation al a n d international scope t hat w ill shake the
,g lc:b e. Wherev er th e 'R ed A rm y has n ot passed, there t hi s . mo vement
exi sts,
, W e a re "n ot form alist s. The logical deduction is f or us only t h e
guide 1\;0 proof by practice-in this ease empirical examination. GeTm a in m a y say th a t m or e or less h e agrees. But if h e does, t h a t would
only ,be a not h er ' ex ample of t h e dil em m a in which h e f inds himself,
bet ween his r evolutionar y strivi ngs and th e t heoret ical - st r a n g leh old
of the ''dual char acter of t he bureaucra cy." For if h e saw t he mass
mo vemen t 'of th e proleta riat as h e ou ght to see it, h e w ould r ecognize
a nd declare and ibu il d policy on th e f a ct that t h e extensio n of the
po we r of th e Kremlin con stitutes t he growth of the m os t de term ined,
the mo st skillful, the m ost experienced, th e m ost conscious enemy of
precisely th is se1f-m ob iliz a t io n of the m a sse s.

(d) The Communist Parties in Western Europe

(I) The Proletarian and Revolutionary Character of the Stalinist Parties
When the masse s in one cou ntry m ove , the w orld th eory of
Bolsh evism .lea ps forward. N ow t oday we h a ve t w o and a half millions
in one Italian Communist P a rty, before th e seizure of p ow er. E urop e
h a s seen nothing like this since t he Crusa des, It is here that are
concen t r a ted a ll the p roblem s of ou r a ge ."
The member s h ip of t he Italian Com m.u.nis-t P art y is said to b e a " b<>ok" m'e m bel'S hip. The observa t fon is wit. h ou t s-ense. F or the Italian workers t h e pa r t y was a
legend, t he party o f Lemn and T rotsky . The y i din 'ed it f or action . Witho u t a ction
rthey fall away. TrO'tsk y's "r e m a r k s on t he unions in 1919 are suffi 'c iient t o expos e
Bny superficial a;na.!ysis of ,t h e I~ian people and the Communist Par ty in Italy,

11:

Germain does not s ee h ere a new st a g e of/the mass movement,

and therefore the n e w s t ag e of theoretical advance. He is b usy instead
--defeating S hac htm a n .
Th e relation with World War I will show the new s tage, After
World War I there was a tremendous movement of the masses into
the Trade Urrio n movement. 'S a i d Trotsky in 1919.:
"'T:he workers join the trade unions solel y for the sa ke of immediate gains,' reply the conciliators. This t :leo ry is false from beg in n in g to end. The great influx of workers .i n t o the trade unions is
'e li cit ed not :by :pe t t y , day-to-day questions, but by the c olossal fact
of the ' World War. 'T h e working masses, not only the top layers but
the lowest depths .as well, are r oused and, alarmed by the greatest
historical upheaval. Each individual proletarian has sensed to a never
equaled degree 'h is 'h e1[>1e ss n ess in the face 'of the mighty imperialist
maohine.Tohe u,rge to establish ties, the urge to unification and cons olidation of forces has manifested itself with unp r ece den t ed power.
Hence flows the s u r ge of millions of workers into the trade unions
or into the Soviets of Deputies, r.e., into s u ch organizations as do
not demand political preparation but r e p re sen t the m ost g en er a l and
most direct expression of the proletarian class struggle."
The workers today are aware of the tremendous problems involved
in the overthrow of b ourgeois socie t y'. T 'h ey se ek a philosophy of life,
a p lace, an organization, a soci a l force which will not only be "the
dired expression of the 'p rolet a r ia n class s t r u g g le " but the direct
force with which to r eb u ild s ociet y . In Indonesia and Indo-China,
slight as is the p roletarian base, we see the sa me total m obiliza t ion .
It is only the occupation forces in Japan that impede a s imila r manifestation. The genuine mass organization of the-American 'Proletariat,
the sociall y most advanced socia l entity the world ,h a s ever s ee n , will
show that the :S t a lin ism of the Stalinist parties is m erely a s u b j ec t ive
expres sion of the world vp r ole tai-la t , in stinctively , unifying and consolidating s ocia l forces in the face 'of'. d a nger s and tasks. This is the
[nvading socialist s ocie t y of our day.

The Proletariat Then and Now

As late a s 1864 Marx's concrete economic program sh ow ed how
closely he differentiated between .t he boldness of his the or etical con clusions and the concrete s t age of economic development la n d its
reflection in the rev olu t ion a r y proletariat. Even this seem ed to be
mere Utopianism w hen the Commune e r u pt ed like a vo 1cano and projected t h e proletariat .i t self f a r . 'b ey on d his theories . Yet i ts s t r ict ly
economic .program is t oday r idicu lous-on e of th e things w hich Marx
details with great pride is the abolitron of night-work fo r journeymen bakers.
The degeneration of th e S econd International consis t ed prec isely
an the fa ct that it se p a r a t ed what the Commune at a high moment had
joined together, m oderate ec on omic con t en t but a n ew p oli ti cal o rganization of the m asses . The S econd International .p laced militant trade
unionism on on e side a n d soci a l l egislation on the other. But in 1905
t h e Russian 'p r olet a r ia t linked the two together in the Sovie t which
became the pattern for rev olu t ionar y action from 1917 onwards. Yet
1n the consciousness of the workers, the Soviet s t ill remained a form
of p olitical activity, prole t a rian politics, :but essentially r evolutionary
activity against the bour-geoisie. B etween 1923 and 1929 t h e failure
of the world revolution and the stabilizing influence of American
capital in 'Western Europ e m ade it impossible for th e backward Russian
proletariat to give the 'S ovie t s that content (administration of the
state and .workers' control ofprodu,ction) which Lenin strove to dnsti ll

12 '

. ......

into the Sov iet form.

'I'ihe failure of t he world revolution reintroduced the old sepan-ation
between economics -a n d politics. The unions and the. parties d ivide d
the eco nomic and political st rug g le over the production and distribution of the su r plus-v alu e, With the increasing fal l in the :r:ate of profit
and the increasing socialization of labor, the di sciplining, training
and social education of the p r olet a ria t , this separation ,betw een econ omics and politics could n ot b e long m aintained. The proletariat
received from Fasci sm a m er ciles s subjective education in the integration of economics and politics which was not lost upon it .
Now, today, the p r ol etariat, on a higher plane, has drawn the
ultimate conclusion. Its revolt is not aga inst politics and the distribution of the surplus-value. T he r evolt is again st value pr odu ction itself.
It mas made its O\V'11 c ompreh en sion of the pivot on which the comprehen sion of political economy turns.

Be His Payment High or Low

From end to end of the world, the miners i n G ermany, in Britain,
in the United States, in Rus sia do not se ek merely higher pay ("!be
hi s payme nt high or low") or better wo rking condition s. I n p eace or
war, in 'su mm er or b'1izzards, th ey do not w ant to work in the mines
at all. Every word from Japan 's h ow s that the J a p a n ese workers aim
at nothing less than the complete reorganization of s ociet y , The proIet a r ia t js n ot seeking as i n the Commune a mere political form in
which to work out t he emancipation of labor , nor i s it seek in g as in the
1917-1923 Sovi ets a means for revolutionary pol it ics , t o overth row
private propert y. Its aims a r e greater. It seek s a complete t r a nsformation of the prod uctive system .
The pivot of the whole sc ien ce of political economy a s MaTx conceived it, h is own sp ecial discovery, as ;h e tells us in the first pages of
Capitol; was found in the dua l character not of fin ished commodities
on the market (Ricardo could g et 110 .further ) ib u t in the dual character of the labor that created them, Labor's .funda;nental, its eternally
necessary function in all s ocieti es , past , present and: future, wa s to
create u,se-va lue s. In to t hi s org-anic function of 'a ll labor, capitalist
production imposed the contradiction of producing value, a n d more
particularly surplus-value. Within this contradiction is con t a ined the
necessity for the di vision of societ y into direct producers (workers)
a nd rulers of so ciet y, into manual a nd intellectual la bor er s. On this
class di stinction r ests the b ourg eoi s di sti nction .b etween economics and
politics.
The proletariat in th e a dvanced cou ntri es has now given notice
that it is ready t o s olve t h ese cont r,adi ctions an d abolish labor as
"labor", a s ,Ma rx u sed t h e term before 1848. It seeks to s ubst itute
instead a m eaningful creative a ctivity w ith a social aim as the end and
the exercise of its natural and acquired f aculties as the me ans:
Nations like the United States, Britain, F r a nce, and Germany
co uld withdraw millions of men from production, feed them, clothe
them, educate them, supply them with the weapons of destruction,
transport them to the ends of the earth and maintain them for years.
To day it is perfectly possible for t he advanced nation s by a self-mobilization of the population and modern method'S of ed ucation to train
a nd educate, t echnically and socially, a ll it s "able-bodied population
'between 15 a n d 35 wi thout drawing them f rom 'labor f or more than
half tile n orm al capitalis t working d ay of 8 h ours, Thus while within
a d ec ade civili zation can b e tur ned .into .a barbarous sh ambles, within
a decade a lso there can be cr ea t ed s uch u socia l f or ce fo r production
a nd t h e d em ocratic .ad m inist ration of t hings as .MaTx arrd Engels
and even Lenin thought would come only in the second generation
of socialism. The need s of the proletariat today are thus a direct

13

response to the s t age o f developm ent of capitalism itself.

The s ocia l .a nd po'litical education of the proletariat is on a corr esponding scale. The world now mo ve s ' f rom 'da y to day 'b y a series
of giga nt ic convulsiol}". Me n have to t h ink in terms of global solu t ions.
It .i s p r eci sely th e char ac te r of o u r ,a ge la nd . the maturity of humanity
tha t obliterates the opposi t ion between theory and practice, between
t he intellectua l preoccu p a t ions of t he "educated" . and of the masse s.
All the great philosophicat concep ts, from the nature of the physic ail
universe ( atomic en ergy) t hr oug h t h e s t r uc tu r e and function of productive systems (fr ee e nter prise, "socia lis m " , or "commun is m " ) , the
nat r e of government (the st ate versu s the individual) to the de stiny
of man (can mankind s u rvive? ) these are no longe r "theory", but are
in the m a rket-place, t ied t ogethe r so t ha t they ca nno t be se p a r a ted,
matte r s on w hich the da ily lives of millions upon millions d epend.
The unending murders, the de struction of peoples, the be stial
passi on s, the sadism , the cruelties a nd the ,! u st s, all the manifestations
of b arba r is m, of the last t h ir ty yea rs ' a r e unparalleled in .h isto r y. But
th is bar ba ri sm exis ts onl y b ecause no t h in g els e can s u pp ress the
r eadi ness for sac ri fice, i t he dem ocra ti c in stincts and c reati ve power of
the great masses of t he people.
The w orld revol ution manife sts itself n ot .i n t he Red Army but '
in Palestine. The v iolence in Palestine is only secon da rily Jewish. It
is a n indication of t h e st age of development of class antagonisms on
a world scale and of the s oci al temper of the working mass es everywhere. The same iho ld s t rue of the e vents in Indonesia, in Indo-China,
in India, ,Ch in a 'a n d 'Bu r m a . ' T h ese t ell IDS what is the r e volu t ionary
potentiality of t he pro'letar iat in 'B r it a in , F rance, the United States
and Holland.
\

TheSurf ace of t he Iceberg

E xp erience in the factories has sh ow n that it i s precisely fundame ntal sol uti ons that wo r k ers are r ea dy to listen ' t o because fundam en tal questions a r e p osed all aroun d t hem bo t h objectively a n d subj ect ively. T h e s ubj ect ive f a ctor, m an a s m a n and not ,a s the slave of
ca p it al , is now emerginga:s t h e decisi ve force in history and is organizi ng itself to cONesp on d. Th e b ourgeoisie in e ver y coun try , but
p a r-ticule.rly in the U ni t ed States h a s seen into this a s f ar a s it is '
possible fo r an 'a lien class to see. Not on ly in highly organ ized in vestigati ons and reports; b u t, in journals cost ing n ickels 'an d dimes a nd
sold t o t he proletariat in m illions, t he American .bou r g eoiaie is s ho ck ed
beyon d measu r e ,at t he in credible a nd apparently senseless beh a vior of
t he A me r ican p r oletariat. It confesses its f ea r that the p ro leta ria t will
n ever again sla ve at the assembl y li ne in the old w ay, 'a n d ' that it is
social f rustrat ion , t he cramping of pe r so nality, of i ts "natural and
a cquir ed 'p owers," the need for u niversality ( not w ages and 'hig her
standard of Ilivin g ) which a r e .ruin in g The p r oduct ivity of Iabor a n d
driving th e prol eta riat t o r ep ea ted m a n ifestat io ns of h ostility to the
society. The con ditio n is p ermane n t. It is n ot F r en ch, .i t is not Italia n ,
it is no t J a panese, it -is not Stali nist. It is proleta rian and s oci a lis t ,
it has been d evelopi ng since 1934, it is crushed t o the ground on ly to
lea p f orward again, broader 'a nd deeper, wh ile the t radition al organizations scu r ry in t e r r or be f or e it. 'I'omorn-ow It will
the U nited
Stat es, where th e s a me type of mai s, mobilizat ion, h eaving out from
the very depths of soc iet y w ill t ake p la ce.
'
'W hat theproletar.i at h a s shown so fa r .is only t he :su r f a ce .of the
Iceb erg. J UE t as t he Commune leapt a bo ve the le vel of European
soc ie ty, an d t h e 'Sovie t s in 1905 creat ed .a political form undreamt or
even b y Lenin- so today t h e prole tariat has n ot yet entered into its
n ew creative peri od .of p olitical-economic organization. The p r oduction
relation s and the social and rp oli tical problems of 194;7 h~ve created

be

14
,

a need for solut ions far beyond the mod est beginning of Marx's day.
Thi s is the s ocial ba sis of the g ro w th of the Stalinist parties.
Th e Stalinist parties where thi s mo vement has taken concrete form
are . not p olitical organizations in the old sens e of the term. Behind
the smoke- screen of democratic parliamentarism in France and Italy,
they are soci a l org anizations. T ihe y symboli ze the most pfof ou nd mass
revolt a g ain st cap ital that w e h a ve yet seen. They exercise a varying
but vs ubst a n t ial c ontrol in their own wa y ov er w h ole se ctions of the
army, police, ba nks , product ion and distribution. They constitute
a f orm of state pow er w it h in t he national s tate, d om in ating t he p rivate lives of citizen s and th e intellectu al life of the country in all
sph eres. It a ppea r s a s Stalinism in F rance and Italy. It may a ppear
a s an organization of the C.I. O. b urea ucrac y in the United Stat es
tomorr ow. I t call s i tself So cia l-Democratic in J apan. But until the
Fourth I n t ern ational r ec ognize s these fo r mations f or what they a re,
and dra ws f ro m them the full conclus ions, draws the arrow to the
head a s Ma rx drew it be f ore 184 8, in 1864 and afterwards in 1871,
a s Lenin dr ew it in 1905 and a g a in in 1917 , a nd a s Trotsky drew
it in 1938, then just so long will th e Fourth Internation al r emain
u nable to u nderstand t he m odern proletar iat a n d i t s own hi stor ic al ,r ole .

(2) The Bourgeois and

Stalinist Parties

Counter-Revolutionary Character

of

the

Shachtman attacks Trotsky's anal ysis of- the Stalinist pa rties. He

di sco vers ' t hat they ' a r e totalitarian partie s. This theory is the mo st
fooli s h of all Shachtman's theori es . But the more Germain writes in
"defe ns e" of T r otsky's idea s the clearer it be comes tha t Germain
do e s not even know what he is "defending."
T rots ky had a world con ception . H e never op erated from t h e ba si s
of Stalinism. When he said that t he Fourth International would be
leading millions at the end of t he war or during t he po st-war, h e was
no t "predicting," nor was h e being "optimistic." Trotsky, st rictl y '
scie nt ific, ba sed hi s analysis on the bou r g e ois crisi s driving the Stalinist par t ie s to their national bo urgeo is ies. He saw' a repetition on a
higher sca le of 1914.
It was the mo st serious of all h is errors." T'h is is why he foresa w
at a certain st a g e the politi cal ' isol ation of St al inist Ru ssia , and the
emerg ence of the r ev olutiona r y m a sse s u nder the banner of the Fourth
International. Political is olation on t he one hand , the revolutionary
mas se s on t he other, were the alg ebraic forces which would pressure
into action ' the incipient revolutionary fo r ces inside Russia. But the
revolu ti on a r y fo r ces , by . fo rce or fra ud, were capt u r ed b y Stalinism.
It is a t thi s p oin t that the world con ce p tion s plit open . It is just h ere
that the wh ole world picture is different from wh at Trotsky envisaged
and has p r ofoundly affected all mankind and the fortu ne s of the
Fourth Inter national.
Trotsky be lieved that the traditional national I bourgeoisi es could
still offer a cus h ion of super-profits to Stalini sm. I Here are hi s own
words.
"Ten years ago it was predicted that the theory of so cialism in
one countr y must inevitably lead to the g r owt h of nationalist tendencies in the sec t ions of the Com intern. This prediction has become an
obvious fact. But until recently, the chauvinism of the French, British,
Belgian, Czechoslovak, American and other communist parties seemed
to be, and to a certain extent, wa s, a refracted image of the interests
of Soviet diplomacy ('the defense of the U.S.S.R.'). Today, we can
predict with assurance the inception of a new st a g e. The growth of
r

. It hae a l<mg iIloIld d"'I'Ply irustruc tive hi s torv,

15

imperialist antagonisms, the obvious proximity of the war danger and

the eq ually obvious iso lation of the U.S .S.R. mu st unavoidably
strengthen t he centrifugal nation ali s t t endencies within the Comintern,
E ach one of its sections will begin to evo lve a patriotic po licy On its
own account. Stalin has reconciled the com mun is t parties of imperialist democr a cies with their national bourgeoisies. This stage h as now
been passed. The Bonapartist procurer has played his role. Henceforth
the communo-chauvinists will have to worry about their own hides
whose interests by no means always coincide with the 'defense of th~
U. S.S.R.' . . .
"Fifteen years of uninte r rupted purges, degradation and corruption have brought the bureaucracy of the ex-Comintern to suc h a degree of de moralization that it has become able and anxious to openly
take into its hands the banner of socia l-pa t riotis m . . .
"The ruling Moscow clique will reap the just fruits of fifte en
years' prostitution . of the Comintern." ("A Fresh Lesson," New Inter national, Dec. 1938 , pp. 363-4.)
.
. It was po ssible to make Trotsky's m istake in 1940. No one seri ou sly
challenged the st ri c tl y economic analy sis on which h e based his expectations. But what is orie to sa y of a writer in 1947, who with t h e
whole experience, the hard fa cts of Stalinism between 1940 and 1947
behind him, proceeds to make it again and then puts this forward
a s Trotskyism?

The Repudiation of the National State

It is clear that we face a 'ser iou s problem. It is not to be solved
. by analysi s of "bureaucracies'Ybut by analysts of/capital.
The economic program of the Fasci st party of Germany will
.
teach us much. The program was not the expansion of . finance-capital
..in the classic manner but the integration of whole economies, all
their capital and all their labor, into one solid continental bloc to
serve the interests of capita l accumulation, political mobilization,
strategic attack and defense. How organic to/the contemporary world
is this movement to break the old national chains is proved by the
example of Italy, the ally, and France, the enemy of Nazism. In the
last stages Italian Fascism became the direct agent of German capital
in Italy. P etain and Laval who had long d reamt of a coordinated
French and German capital he sitated before and during 1940, but
immediately after the June defeat recognized the historic process.
This is the bourgeois movement. What Trotsky failed to see, but
what we have no excuse for f a ili n g t o s ee, is that such is the di sintegration of capitalism, that the proletarian parties even though counterr evolut ion a r y, can no longer pay allegiance to the old national boundaries. Capitalism- had neither economic basi s nor ideology nor future
t o win the Stalinist leaderships and the Stalinist cadres to national
allegiance. But breaking with the national st a te and all the phenomena
of capitalism and unable to t urn to t he "latent socialism" in the
masse s as Lenin did in 1917, they held tightl y to another pole of
power, the Stalinist state and the Red Army.
Th e Stalinist parties do not aim at in depe ndent Stalinist
st a t es. Th e y do not, as the pre-1914 Shachtman likes to think, aim ,
at doing 'fo r them selves in France what the Russian Communist
Party had done in 1917. The Stalinists understand the movement of
t he centralization of 'ca pit a l: I n France and Italy they aim at the
incorporation of these countries as s a t ellit es with greater or le sser
freedom into one coordinated European syndica t e. They may be forced
to do otherwise but that is their aim.
"All democracy," sa y s Lenin, "like every su perst ruct ur e in general
,( which is inevitable until classe s have been abolished, u ntil classless

16

~ ociety has been created) in the la st analysis serves production and

the la st a nalysis is determined by the produc tion relations preva iling in a ' given society." Now t hat European F ascism is destroyed,
Stalinism .in various stages of development is t he organic political
superstructure of the da y. I r r esp ect ive of t he will and consciousness
of men it serves or seeks to ser ve production. But it is capitalist production, which at the present stage .can live only by the suppr ession
of t hose mill ion s whose very joining of the Com munist Party ' but
partially ex presses their proletarian determination to remove them, selves forevermore f rom wage slavery which is precisely what Stalinism has in store for them. The concept of . abolishing wage slavery
would transform Stalinism into a revolutionary organization depending on mass force. That they cannot unloose without destroying
themselves. T hey are therefore balanced ' between the fundamental
antagonisms of the capital-labor r elation on a razor's edge, combinmg the extreme development of capital-already sli pping f rom the
hands of the bourgeoisie--and the proletariat, al so slippin g out of the
clutches of the bourgeoisie.
In

Stalinism-the Agent of State-Capital

' E ngels would have recognized Stalinism a t once. In hi s personal '
su pplem ent to Socialism, Uto pian and Scientific, he wrote:
"Partial recognition of the socia l character of the productive
forces forced u pon the capitalists themselves. Taking over the great
in stitutions for production and communication first by joint-stock
companies, later on by trusts, then by the State."
.
The po litical agency of this la st is Stalinism and it will do it
with or without the bourgeoisie but so f a r always with the Red Army.
"The bourgeoisie is demonstrated to be a su perfl uous class. AlI its
social functions are now performed by salaried employees."
But Engels did not end there. He cont in ues :
"Proletarian Revolution-Solution of the contradiction." (note
that, Comrade Germain, and note what fo llows.) "The proletariat
seizes the public power, and by me ans of this transforms the soc ialized
means of production, slipping from the hands of the bourgeoisie,
into public property. By this act, the proletariat frees the means of
production from the cha r a ct er of capital they have thus far borne,
and gives their s ocia lized character complete freedom to work itself
out. Socialized production upon a predetermined plan become s henceforth po ssible."
The lea der sh ip and policies of the Communist Parti es therefore
ca n be sum med up a s the-political form corresponding to t he final
form of capitalism, st at e ca pit a lis m , whi ch involves, not the expansion
of finance-capital in the old way, but the incorpor ation of individual
economies within po werful centralized econ omies operating on a cont inent a l sca le. These pa rtie s are as or ganically related to ca pit alis m
in this st a ge of its development as was the Second International t o the
classic f'ina nce-caprtali sm of Leni n.
We understand -t hese parties best by r ealizing that even if Stalinist Ru ssia had' ne ver ex is ted and the proletarian revolution had been
delayed, some s uch political fo rmation as the Stalinist parties would
have appeared.
The Stalinist le ad erships a r e a furth er st age of de velop ment of
Menshevism in 1917. T he Me nshevik s trembled before the " anarch y "
of t he revolutionary fervor ' of the m a sses and fear of the inevitable
inte r vent ion, Th e Stalinist lead er s in F r a nce and Italy t r emble before
t he sa me phenomena infinitely mult ip lied. Hi storically, in appearance,
su bject ively, they suppor t the Kremlin a nd t h erefor e they op pose the
pr olet a r ia n revolution. Bu t Marx never t ired of poin ti ng out how
ofte n the appearance of things contradic ted their esse nce. T he log ical

17

analysis of the Stalinists is the exact opposite of the appearance, i.e., '
.t h eir hi storical origin ' and' su bjective motivati.;... :: ~ is because they
-despa ir ed of, fear and oppose the tremendous leap in the dark of
the proletarian ' revolution that they attach them selves like leeches
to the tangible power of the Kremlin.
Germain, enclosed in t h e t hlolory of power, prestige and ' r ev enu es
for the Stalinist bureaucracy in Prance, just a s he. is enclosed in the
theory of power, prestige and r eve nu es in Russia, cannot g r asp the
fundam ental movem ent.
.
It is the Class s t r uggle which is deci sive for t he policy of Stalinism. If the irreparable b ankruptcy of capital drives the Stalinist
'le ader ship to break wit h the nat ion a l st a t e and look to an established
po wer, it is the d ri ving force of the mass m ov ement which keeps
them there. It is on ly wh ere t here is a comparatively f eebl e mass
su p p or t that the subject ive deci sion is theirs. Bu t with the v iolent rejection by the masses of bo u rgeois s ocie ty and the complete b ankruptcy of the n ational state a nd the national ec on om y , the St alin is t
leadership, unable t o turn to the m a sses, must look el sewhere. They
are held to the Kremlin by as t ight a soci a l bond as held t he reformi sts to the bourgeois ie. They a re t erroriz ed first by the revo lu t ion ary
masse s and only a f ter w a r ds b y the ' G.P.V.

The Petty-Bourgeoisie, Not the Kremlin

Impri so ned in h is anal ysi s of the Stalinist bureaucra cy, Germa in
does not understand . the corruption of the Stalin ist parties. It i s only
su p er f icia ll y a \ S t ali nist bur eaucratic cor ruption. It is a clas s corru ption, corruption by the petty-bo urgeoisie.
In Left-Wing Communism, Lenin , analyzing the international
.sig nif ica nce of the Russi an Revolution, in si sted that an exact a n a ly sis
in each country of the po sition of th e petty-bourgeoisi e be tween t h e
bourgeoi sie and the p roletariat w a s dec isive for the clarification of
r evolutionary politic s. In the ear ly years th e .p et t y-b ou r g eoisie h ad
contributed su bs tan t iall y to the parliamentary corruption of t h e
.
Second International.
The 'S t ali nist s use t h e pe tty-b ourg eoi sie who turn to it t o corru pt
the proletariat. These p etty-bourgeoi s element s? r evolutionized , a r e
ready to expropriate t he n ational b ourg eoisi e, a n d "plan the economy."
But their conception of pl annin g is the adm inistration b y themselves
of the productive fo rces, includin g the proletariat. 'The prejudice s a nd
fears of intennediate cl a sses h a ve been used by fri ghte ned leaders
in every r ev olution t o corrupt an d demorali ze t he vangu a rd a nd
st ren g t h en the r earguard again st it . Nothin g but the r evolutionary
movement of the proletarian m a sses will dra w the petty-bour g eoisie
to it, g en u inely revolutionize it and leave thousands of b ur eaucrats
wit hou t a medium for corruption.
Thus, while not in a ny way minimizin g the subjecti ve feat u r es
of the Stalinist bureaucracie s in France or Ital y and the origin of
t h eir pract ice s, we must firs t s how th at thei r c orru ption is fundam entally bou r g eois, base d 'up on bo u rgeo is f ea r s, a b ourgeoi s econ omic
solu tion of eco no mic 'pr oblem s and a bou rgeois respo n se to the ac ute
class r elation s in the country.

The Errors of Munis and Germain

On ce t h e con trad ict{on ' between the proletar ia n and the bo u rgeois
con t ent .of t he S talinist Parties is g r aspe d, p olitical policy f low s from
it. If it was n ecessar y t o r a is e the sloga n of the Social-Demo cr a cy
t o p ow er, t hen with a ll the m ore u r g ency it is ' n ecessa r y t o rai se
t he slogan of t he Communist Part y t o power. But Stalinism h a s
a lready shown t ha t it will strip cap ital of ever y cove r in g , in clu dipg
private property, in order to m a intain wage-labor, the p r olet a r ia t

18

as proletariat,' the fundamental condition of capitalist slavery. Absolutely unable to .make the leap that Lenin made in 1917, it is therefo.re compelled in its own ' r -i ght to become even more deeply the
quintessential expression of capitalist barbarism. In the closest interpenetration with this slogan therefore m ust be posed the complete
reorganization of society, soviets, factory committees, preparation
for t he seizure of power, tearing to pieces of the old social order,
abolition 'of the bourgeois state, "a boli t ion . of the bourgeois army,
arming of all the ab le -bodied population, workers' control of production, peoples' courts. So acute are the contradictions of capitalist
society that the s logan without the program concretely presented for
t he f ull revolutionary trarfsform ationof society is a betrayal of t h e
masses. T h e revolutionary program without the slogan is a denial ofthat mobilization for the socia l overturn which the Communist /Parties
represent.
At Ii l a t er st a ge the masses may ' create other organizations of
their own, soviets or nation-wide anti-Stalinist factory committees. '
When t hey do, a new sit ua t ion arises. But the very s ocia l character
of the Stalinist parties and the objective ac uteness of the social
relations creates the po ssibilities of vast organized splits in-that
party, impossib le in the old days when these parties were merely
political parties. It is the presence of a revolutionary program a nd
not mere agitation about wages which ca n accelerate, clarify ancl
so lidify t hese.
T h e contradiction contained in the very term critical support
becomes al tered by the objective ' conditions. The support becomes
merely a basi s for the cr it icism , t he mercil ess ex posu r e of Stalinism
and the revolutionary ' release of the mas se s which alone can overcome it.
Munis confuse s the Stalinist parties in Western E urope with .
the Stalinist parties in Eastern Europe. H e opposes the slogan of
the Communist Party to power in France because, according to him,
the Stalinist P a r t ies immediately set out to de stroy the power of
t h e proletariat. The de struction of t he self -a cting organs of t he
p r olet a r ia t is a matter of the relationship of forces, national and
internabional, at a gi ven moment. In 1917, the Bol shevik Party first
.su p por t ed the slogan of the Soviets to power; then came to the conclusion that the Soviets had gone completely over to the government,
and decided that the revo lution would have to be made again st the
Soviets; and finally, came to the conclusion that thi s judgment was
mi staken and returned to the policy of making the revolution through
the Soviets. A Bol shevik party that cannot in ' theory' apply this
revoluti onary flexibility will be s wamped in the always violent oscillation s of'the revolu.tionarv st r ug gle for power. Anyp'olicy based u pon
the conception t hat Stalinism can at will de stroy the revolutionary
proletariat, is a denial of the premises of t he proletarian revolution
itself. Munis' policy is to be entirely. rejected.
.
Munis - takes it for granted that th e Communist Party in power
will automatically mean the d estruction of the p roletariat a n d rep.udiates the sl og a n for Western Europe a s well as for Eastern. But
Germain who a t tacks Munis st icks t o the slogan in Eastern Europe
.where the Commun ist P a rty is n ot only t he organizer of a bourgeois
po lice-state b ut is the unashamed a gent of a foreign po wer. Worse
still, Germain has now b eg un t o an a lyz e "the level of con sciousness"
and of "organ ization" of the proletariat in a manner which, H 'h e were
taken .seriously, would make his use of the slogan a s u ici da l adventure.
How can "'h e correct Murris? .Sh a cht m a n hopes for a good long
"democratic interlude" where evreyone would be able to talk the
matter out democra tically.
.
The In t erna tion a l should stop and ,p on de r what this means. It is

19

not differences of views but lack of clarity which causes confusion. It

is lack of a firm guiding li n e from the leadership, the major'ity, a r oun d
which differing tendencies can align themselves, that generates centrifugal tendencies. The r e sponsibjlity for this lies entirely on Germain
and those who think like him. And none of the crimes of Shachtman
s h ou ld prevent Ge.rmain being brought to book for the superficiality
and fa lseness of his analy sis of the Stalinist parties.

(e) The Nature of the Party 1947

The s elf -m obili za t ion of the masse s is the dominating soci al and
polit.ical vfeatu.re of our age. Now that we see it in s uff icien t ly concrete manifestation, it is po ssible to link these manifestations to
the recent historical past and draw st r a t eg ic conclusions for t he future.
,
'T h e old divisions between the economic management of production, the social leadership ' of societ y, and the political !party-traditional
in the bourgeois national st at e and reflection of the capitalistic division
of ' la bor , are doom ed . The classe s r-ecogn-i ze the need for a new
social organization and the response 'i s the modern party. Yesterday
the national state u se d the party. Today, to meet the changes, internal
and external, the party u ses the national state.
Hitler in 1930 declared:
"iI replace the s im u.la cr u m of bourgeois patriotism ib y the"national
solida r it y of my party and the s im u lac r u m of /Marxian s ocialism by
the social justice of the same party. Whil parIiamenbary Germany
falls in ruins, a new Germany is being born."
He r ecognized the modern political par ty ta s a new so cia l format ion, and his efforts ,a s an expres sion of it. The genius of L enin, nourish ed by the needs of Russia, 'a n t icip a t ed a s -a c on scious organized activity, what is now turning out to b e the necessity of the so cia l st r u cture.
Such 't reme ndo u s socia l expressions can only aeise f.rom profound
ec onomic changes and needs, which a r e concentrated in the sta tif ica t ion of modern production. A s the Johnson-Forest t endency st a ted in
its :R esolut ion on the International ~S i tu ati on (April 27, 1946):

The Statification of Production

" In France and Britain any movement of the masse s brings them
immediately into direct conflict with their own Ieaders a s !rule r s or
direct representatives of the government. 'Th e s imp le st of immediate
demands concerriing the high c ost of living, of the right to st r ike become questions of state policy arid continually pose before -the workers
the f undamental question ' of st a t e power. Thus, the social st r u ct u r e
of state ,p ower 'in st a t if ied production places the workers in a situation
where any determined struggle compel s them t o face the problem
of creating their own organization in order to Ib r in g pressure upon,
and if n ecessary, to 'b r ea k t h e p ower of the lab or Ieadenship a s v irtual
functionaries of the existing g ove r nm en t .
"Statlficatlon a n d Bo urgeois Democracy
,
"The .strugg le for d emo cracy, particularly in the advanced cou ntries, is no longer the st r uggle for t he extension of papular r,i,ghts . . .
"Statification o f 'P r od uct ion- T he Ideological Struggle
"Today, :wh en t h e ,p r olet a r ia t s a y s democracy, it means ab ove all,
not bourgeois d emocra cy .. . Its socia Lconcep t s a re dominated b y t he
id ea that the catastrophes of m odern societ y are caused by the 'p l' iva te
ownership of the means of producti on . The neces sity that these be
taken away from th e m onopoli sts "a n d b e .r et u r n ed to the nation to :be
planned for the g ood of .all h a s n ow a chieved the 'fixity of a 'p opu la r
prejudice.' This is one of the g r eatest advances ev er made by human
consciousness 'b ot h in its implicit r ejection of the concept of class di s-

20

tinction an d in the scores of millions who hold it."

Driven by the economic an d soci a l transformations {arid the
p sychological responses engendered by these), the oppressed classes
turn .a w a y f'rom vth e old political f or m s and seek to e ncompass the
need of th eall-embracing s t a t if ied production by an all-embracing
organization. History is and will 'b e inexhaustible in its combinations.
Sovi ets and the mass 'p ,a r t y may .a pp ea r together o r in combined !forms.
The new content constantly appears i n old forms. According to
T rotsky, it was not until the Bo lsheviks ihad to di s solve the Constituent
A ssembly in 1918 that the 'con ce p t of proletar-ian democracy became
clear to Lenin. But the proletariat and the petty-bourgeoisie have
already sho wn enough to warn 'u s that, despite the inevitable defeats,
advances a n d r etr eats" w e are in a new stage of mass mobilization.
In -t h e light . of the ab ove, a ll the proponents of the theory of the
backwardn ess of .t h e modern proletariat sh ow nothing but their backw ardnes s. They are completely in capable of analyzing' the actions of
the proleta riat as revolutionary manif estations of the present stage of
the capital-labor relation, i .e., s t a t if 'icat io n of production. For pettybourg eoi si e and proleta.riat the m odern par t y is not a political party
f or voting . It is a s ocia l organization for action-a response to obj ective a n d psy ch ological n eeds. T'he Ame rican proletariat may not
fo rma party at -.a ll u ntil it f ee ls t h e n eed f or c r eatiin g a party of this
kin d. It will be political only in the form al sense but its appearance
w ill sig n if y a r ea diness to ' break the , old society entirely to pieces.
It is not on ly 'Sh achtman wh o d oes n ot understand this. Germain
preaches an abstra ct r evolutionism, attacks Shachtrnan w ith a lot of
words, and then in J uly, 1947, 'i n f or m s us that t he post-war proletariat s t a r t ed "from a m uch lower le vel of consciousness and organization th a n t hat of 1 918." This is monstrou sly fal se, a direct reversal
of the obje ctive t r uth, and the r esult of comp lete mi sunderstanding
of the Mar xi st method.
.
The or igin of this retr ogression is the same a s Shachtman's,
Germa-in sees the ip roletariat t oo m u ch f r om ra bo ve , in its relation to
th e Stalinist parties and n ot s u fficie n t ly in its response to the capitallabor relation. And thi s (also like Shachman ) he practices because
his basic theoretical c on cep t ions a re .g ove r ned by the t heor y o!f the
degenerated Workers State arid all -t h a t this implies. The theory o'i.
the degenerated Workers State 'im p lie s the theory of the degenerated"
'Workers. But never by one comma did 'I'r otsky govern his genet-ad
analysi s by concepts of thi s kind,and we sh all pursue it wherever it
appears. Germain's "Trotskyism" is his own misconception and misappropriation of certain of Trotsky's ideas, and the application of
them in a manner and rn spheres alien to Bolshevik analysis .

The New Par iries and t he Old Slogans

From t h is concept of the proletariat w e can d raw certain political

conclusion s : .
1) We ca n s~e in a new light the full .s igrri f ica nce of Trotsky's
audacious use of the p ropaganda va nd a gitation for the formation of
13. Labor P arty in the United State s . With the tremendous self-mobilization of th e masses' which 'he 'a n t i-cip a t ed, he infused the slogan with
the full r evolutionary content, -exactly the same proced ure that
Len in f ollowed in h is a dvocacy of t h e Constituent Assem bly d urin g
1917. The driving mass movement, if 'i t were powerful enough, wo uld
in action .sl ough off the reformist s hell of th e slogan, aided as always
,b y the quit e unacademic education of th e counter-revolution. This was
T-rotsky's con cep ti on of the Labor Party .slogan. The principle acquires
a burning actuality. The "consciousness" of the masses t oda y is no
guide to the revolutionary violence of their explosion tomorrow and st ill
l es s a guide to the millions who rush to create the new . s oci a l forma-

21

t io ns, Slogans like N.ational Liberation, the Constituent : Assembly,

and nationalization of i ndustry (a s logan repudiated illy the Third
Congress) acquire the same, no less and no more, significance than
t he Labor Party sl ogan in the United States.
2) With a clear conception of what the revolutionary masses
mean ,by a party the whole conception of the r ole of the Bolshevik
Party, Le ., of the Fourth I n t er n a t ion a l in the concrete circumstances,
does not :n a r row but expands. The rise of 'the mass movement raises
with it the 'r ole of the Bols-hevik Party. Every Bolshevik becomes wiha t
Trotsky warned in 1940 that he-not m erely the appa ratus-s-rmist
become, an officer in the proletarian army. The t heoretical range, the
practical political capa-city, the revolutionary dynamism, th~_ discipline,
the c ohe sion, 'a r e needed not so much to meet the offensive of the
bo urgeoisie, as was the fate of a party based upon the s m a ll Russian
proletariat. It is needed to me et the offensive o f the .p r olet a ri a t . S ubjectiveand objective move t owards fusion. Every revolutiona-ry unit
of "the subjective factor" be comes 'a n objective unit for the revolutionary , preparation 'a n d then a s a rallying 'ce n t e r for scores and
perhaps hundreds of proletarians on the road to proletarian democracy.
This is the problem in Britain. The Labor Party is a party of
the old . k ind, It is s t r a ng lin g the new Britrsh proletariat. The advanced worke r s therefore either break out in su dde n wildcat s t r ikes
, or fa ce the government in. .impotent but implacable hostility. At a
certain st a g e the proletariat will transform or fu se, but somehow
totally r eo r ganize in the modern se nse its organi zations to meet the
n eed s and sa t isf y the de sires fo r whichvtha present Labor Party and
"t h e u nion s are totally u nfitted. T o st im ula t e, ob serve and develop this
and n othi n g el se but thi s is the main task of the revolutionary vanguard in Britain. But to ca rry o ut this policy demands a clear conception of the origin and destiny of th e s ocial movement of the proletariat wh ich i s devel-oping before our eyes.
3) At this stage of st a t if ication , sa ys Engles, the proletariat
s eizes t he public po wer. 'T h ese mass rushes to the party a r e the form
whereby the p roletari at gi rds itself t o se ize the public p owe r and
thereb y beg in t he withering aw ay of t he st at e. But the _defense of the
#tatified production aaai n: t he p r oletariat involves a similar, mas's
mob ilization or organization . T h e Co mm unist Party of Russia , is s u ch
a mass mobilization. In its completed fo rm it is not a proletarian
party at al l. In it the razor-sharp capital-labor contradiction that
exists ihet ween th e proletariat and the Stal inist .leadership s in side. the ,
parties of 'Western Europe has b een r eso lved entirely at the expense
of the p roletariat and in f avor of statc-ca pit a l. The motive forc e of
the Communist Parties in W est ern Europe is th e attack on capital.
The motive force of the Communi st Party of Ru ssia i s the defen se of
capital in its present form-state-capital. Thus they are exact
opposites . For Ger m a in and Shachtman this organic di stinction doea notexist because they have continually evaded answering even t o
themselves what Engels meant by s tate-capitali sm .

22

Chapter II

State Capitalism

"Tn t h e tru8'ts, ftreedom of competition c h anges into its velI"y o pp osite----'into

m o nopoly; Hin d too p.rodu ctJion- w ithou t a rry d e finite p13.'n o f cap.iWist 8Ocl>ety
caplftlllat'eis to t.he produc ti'on upo n ja d efin ite plan of th e i nvading socialist s ocie t y:'
- ENGELS, Socialism, S ci entific and Utopian

{a} The Revolution Thirty Years After

The s t at e in S tate and Revolution is the st a t e of state-capitalism.
In 1923, L enin, ne ar the end of his w orking life , coul d sa y : "Whenever I wrote a b out the N ew Economic Policy I a lw a y s quoted t he
articl e on st a t e-capitalism which I wrot e in 191 8." In the articl e
referred t o (note t he date, 1918 ) Lenin s a id ca tego r ically that from
petty-bourgeois ca p it a li sm "it is on e a n d the s a m e r oad t hat lea ds .. .
to large-scale st ate-cap it a lism and to socia lism, throu gh on e a nd the
same intenn ediar y stat ion called 'national a ccou n t in g and control of
production and di str ibution.' T h ose wh o f a il to understand t his are
committi n g a n u np ard onable m istake in econ omics ." In 1916 L enin
in Imper ia lis m, a p opular outline, did n ot g o b eyond plain m onopoly
ca pi tali sm., H e , was caref u l to p oint out the di f fi culties of capitali st
pl an nin g b y tru st s. By 1917, h e no ted in m a ny places the r a p id a ccel eration t o s tate-c a pi talism and in Sta te a nd Revol ution h e modified
hi s conception of plannin g . By October he moved st ill further and
declared that the im perialis t state could orga nise product ion "accor ding to a gen eral plan ."
Trotsky, under the infl u en ce of t h e Russian experience , attacker!
t h e id ea of n ation al ac coun t ing and contro l by the ca pita li st stat e.
I n . t he f ew p a g es dev oted t o state-cap italis m in T h e Revo lu tion
Be trayed , h e w a s carefu l, h owev er , t o leave the th eoretica l p ossibility
open. But Trot sk y a t a ny rate did not live to see contempor ary
P oland, Yugo slavi a and Czechoslovakia ; Th e old argument u s ed t o
be t hat there w a s a 'qu a li t a t ive differ e n ce between the most advanced
statificatio n b y t h e bo urgeoisie and the stat e pro p erty of Russia
achieved and a chievable only by socia l r evolution. T h e argument
u sed t o b e th a t bec ause of the antagoni sms of p r iv ate ownership,
t he capit a li sts could no t pl an. But today in E a st ern Europ e a ll the
basic indu stries are in t h e hands -of the state.' Ge rmain n ow g ives
a motley v ariety of r idicu lous reasons why plan n in g w ill b e impossible in Yug osl a via , Czechoslovakia and Poland . T hey a r e al ready
-a mill-stone around h is neck. For Yugoslavia h a s publish eddts p lan
and it is modelled on the -b lu e pri nt of Stalin.
Behind a ll t h e ev asions of all that Marx, Engels an d L en in said
on state-capitalism, b ehind t he evasions of the Y ugoslavian reality,
so hum iliating t o co ntemplate, is h idden a de sp erate f e ar that sho u ld
the bourg eoisie or, for the sake of argu men t, any other agency, ho ld
all the capital in it s hands, then it would be po ssible to , " r a ise the
l eve l of t he p r odu ctiv e force s ." Then the p r olet a ri a t wou ld not be
the gravedigger of capitalism . T h en Ma r x ism would b e Utopia. It is
in th is .t h e or et ica l g r av ey a r d that the bureaucr atic coll ectivi st s d ance
their wi t ch es' d ance.
I

The Proleta riat as Economi c Force

T he history ,of S talin ist Russia has de monst rated in life tha t
t h e on ly solu t ion to t h e b asic a n tagon ism of capitalism , on which rest
all other a n t agonisms, is the emanci pat ion of la bor. The proletariat
is t he greates t of a ll p roductiv e forces . It is its creative power which
a lon e can raise the productivity of lab or a n d establi sh s ociet y on
n ew found ations. It is precisely the necessity t o s u p p r ess this unp a rallele d econ om ic f orce which is t he basis of t otalita ria n ism Germain will no t li sten to us- t h en m aybe he will li sten t o t h is :

23

"Democracy is a form of st a t e . . . at. a certain s t a g e in the dev lopment of democracy, it first rallies the proletariat as a revolutionary
class against capitalism, a nd gives it the op port unity to c sh, to
smash to atoms, to wipe off the face of the earth the bourgeois,
even the republican bourgeois, s t a t e machine, the standing arm y,
the police and bureaucracy; to s u bst it u t e for all this a more democratic, but s t ill a state machine in the sh a pe of the armed masses of
workers who become transformed into a universal pe opl e's militia.
" Here 'qua n t it y is transformed into quality' : s uch , a degree of
dem ocr a cy is connected with overstepping t he bo undaries of bo urgeois society, with the beginning of its socialist reconstructio n. If,
ind eed , all take . part in the a dmin ist r a t ion of the state, capit a li sm
ca nnot retain its h old. The development of capitalism, in turn, itself
creates the p re r equisites that enable indeed 'all' to take pa r t in the
a dministration of the s t a t e. Some of these prerequisites are: universal
literacy, alread y achieved in most of the advanced capitalist countries,
then the 'training and di sciplining' of millions , of workers by the
huge, complex a nd s ocia lised apparatus of the po st-office, the railways, the big factories, larg e- scale commerce, banking; etc., etc."
( Sel ect ed Works, -ver. YII, p. 91.)
We hope,but we doubt very much, that this is clear to you,
Comrade Germain. The universal literacy, the training, disciplining,
etc., t hes e are t he new eco no m ic fo rces . Do you doubt it? T he n read on .
" W it h such ec onom ic prerequisites it is quite po s sible, immediately,
overnight, a fte r the overthrow of the capitalists and bureaucrats, t o
supersede them in ,t he control of production and di stribution, in the
work of keeping a ccount of labour and its products by the a r m ed
worker s , b y the whole of t he a r m ed population."
All the em ph ases are Len in 's . Is it any wonder t ha t Germain her e
takes r efu ge in a n impenetr a ble s ile nce , a sil ence as deep a s h is
sil e nc e on th e st ate-ca pitalism of E n g el s ? H er e i s Len in again.
"To el ucidate the q ue stion st ill m ore, let u s f irs t of all t ake the
m ost co nc rete ex a m p le o f st a t e-ca pit a lis m. E very body kn ow s wh a t
this example is . It "is Germ a n y. H ere we h a ve 'the la st w ord ' in
moder n la r g e-s ca le capitalist tech n iq ue a nd pla n ned or g a ni sation ,
subordinated to Junker-bo urgeoi s imperialism, Cro ss ' out t he w ords in
italics , a nd , in pl a ce of the m ilit arist, Junker-bourg eoi s impe r ialist
state, put a s t ate, bu t of a di f f er e nt s ocia l t yp e , of a diff erent class
content-s-a Sovi et, that is , a p r olet a ri a n s tat e, ari d yo u will h a ve t he
sum t otal of the con diti on s ne ces sary for s ocia li sm." ( S elected Works,
,
Vol . YII, p p . 364-5.)
L eni n saw to t he la st 'inch the c la ss and hum an difference in p r oduct ion by the bou r g eois r evolu tio n and by t he p ro letarian revoluti on .
"The positi ve, or cr eative w or k of or ganis in g the new societ y
was carried ou t by t he p ro per ty-own ing bou r g e ois m ino r it y of the
p op u la t ion. And the latter ca r ried out t his task r ela t ive ly easil y, no t with st a ndi ng the resi stan ce of the wor ke rs and t he poo rest peasan t s
n ot 011 1~' be cause t h e resi stance of t he mas se s that were e xploited
by" ca p it a l was then ext remely we a k ow in g t o thei r sca t t er e d ~h31 r
acter and ignor ance, bu t also be cause t h e f undamenta l or g a m sm g
f or ce of ari a rc h icall y-con strucj cd capita li s t s ociety is t ho spon taneou sly
expa ndi ng national and int er nat io nal marke t ."
Today t he worke r s a re no l ong e r i gnora nt. T he wor ld-m a r ke t is
in ch a os . What must be s ubs ti t uted 'I
'
"In ' every socialis t revolution-and consequen t ly in the socia lis t
revolution in Russia which w e st a rted 011 November 7 (October 25),
1917- t h e p r incipal task of t h e proletariat, and of the poorest p easantry which it leads, is the p ositiv e , or creative work of set t ing u p
an extremely intricate and subt le s ystem of new organisational r elationships ex tending" to th e planned production a nd di stribution of the

24

s required for the existence of tens of millions of people. Such

volution can be s u ccess f ully carried ou t only if the majority of
the populaticn, and primarily the majority of the toilers, display
'm de pe nd e n t historical creative s p i r it ." (Selected Works, Vol. VII).

Ethics or Economics
Note th e words "intricate and s u b t le system of new organisational relationships." The proletariat and the proletariat alone can
reo r ganize the s oci a l relations of labor. The average American
w orker laughs at the boa sted effici ency of American production.
Once h is mental subordination is de stroyed, .h e can point out means
and ways of increasing the productivity of labor which are imposs ib le in the relation between exp loited, hounded, degraded, antagoni stic labor and the . oppres sive and merciless s u per v ision which is
capital.
~
Not 'i n Marx's theories b u t in lif e, t his, with- its s u perst r u ct u r a l
rel ation s, is the problem of the day, a nd with it mankind comes of
a ge. Germain in 1947 f ears t h a t the t ransformation of p rivate
property int o s t a t e -p r op er t y, w ith the s it u a t ion of the worker unchanged, is a s olu t ion t o the econom ic problems of s ociety. It is
thi s that blinds him 't o the full s ign if ica n ce of the r evolutionary
mass movement -t h a t h a s b een devel op ing under his e y es. H e ca nn ot
m eet .i t , a nal y ze it, unde r stand it a nd help it to understand itself. The
w orkers control of production is the 'only emancipation of lab or, the
onl y reo rganizat ion of so ci et y on a n ew productive bas is. History
will r e cord that nowhere w a s thi s idea f ought more bitterly than in
th e revo lu tion vanguar d it self. And this it d id because it h ad to defend
-God h el p u s!-th e revo lu tron ary a spect s of S tali n 's du al -chara ctered
bure a ucra cy, not in 1940 but i n 19 47 ,

(b) The State Thirty Years After

But if t he revol u t ion h as thus m atured thirty y e a r s aft.ar 1917,
so h as t:,e counter-revolution . T h e a chievemen t of st a te-c a p it alism i s
at th'8 sa me time t h e beginn ing of t he d is integration of cap italism a s
a so cia l system, a nd today we. ca n w a tch the process at a ll s t a g es of
d e vel opmen t . W e ihavea p er f ec t an d con cret e example of it i n S talin ist
R u s s ia . Our analysis of S t ali ni st Rus sia,' incl u ding t he v ictor y in or
a r o u nd 1936 of t he cou nter -revolution over t h e proletaria n state in
Ru s sia, can b e found e lsewhere." Here w e are co ncerned w ith t h e
t h eo r e t ica l con cl u s ions for worl d deve lopment as a whole which must
b e drawn from the ex perience of Ru ssia.
In t h e early s t a g es of ca pr t a li sm, the objective movemen t , i .e .,
th e expansion of surp l us v alue, an d th e d esi re f or prof it on t h e
part of the ca p it a list s , the phenomenal ex p r ession of t h is obj ec t iv e
m ove ment, coi ncide. The. ca p it a lis ts therefore, have a subjective in tere st in t h e sys t em. T h e power of private capitali sts ov er th e so c ia l
c on d it ion s of produ ction and t he powe r of capita l a s a g en e r a l s ocial
"l; ow er a r e on e and the sa me t h ing. T dris is what is k nown a s p r iv a te
or free e n terprise. An d th e s yst em ca n wo r k beca u se it f i n ds in it
a cl a s s of h u man b e in gs, in d ividuals who f reel y repr ese n t it . The y .
t a ke th e l ead in t he st r-uggle for s ocial progress, the e xten si on of
thei r ow n democr atic r i ght s and ev e n the democrati c r ig h t s of t h e
p op u la tion a s a ,w h ole .
.
With the .... incr ea si n g development of capital ism, however, th e"
*

Lnt.errial llulJ:e mn of t he W !o"k cr .s P a.r-tv , M aa-ch 1 941 ; R e solution on the

Que s tion, O c uob or 1941; ,'R u s s:ia-A F'a s e is t S t arte. " New International,
A p,r il . 1941; " Ru s sia a n d M a a-xt s m, " N ew Internc\tional, Sept. 1 9 41; leAn A n al ys is
o f R us ai am Economy," N ew International, D e c . 1 9 42, Ja:n. 1 94 3, F eb. 1 943 : " lJ"he
Nlat u re of Ru s S!ilan EDooom'Y," New International, D e c . 1 9 4 6 , Jrol. 1 9 47; " After Tea
Y ear s _ revi ew of ~,otsky 's Revolution B etrayed," New International, Oct, 194 6.
Ru s :sJi~n

Iaw of, value undergoes v iolen t and incessant revolution s'. A discove r
like atomic energy 'a lt e r s the v a lu e com p os ition of c apital and t.hi
di sorder into all economies.
"
'.
.
"To the extent that suc h revolutions in value :become ' acut and
frequ ent, the automatic nature of s elf -dev elop i ng v,a l ue. make s itself
felt with the f orce o f {e lem e n t a r y powers ' against th e 'f or esi ght and
calculation s of the individual capita'list, the cou rse of normal sprod uc tion b ecomes subj ect to abnormal specu la t ion , and the e xi st e n ce of the
individual capital s is endangered. These .p e r iodica l rev olu t ions i n
value, therefor e, prove that which they .a r e .a lle ged to r efute, namely,
the i n dep en de n t nature of v alue in ' the 'form , o f capital a n d i ts increa sing independence in th e ' c ourse of its de velop ment." ( Ca p.i tal
V 01. II , p . 120.)
Capi t a l, as s ta te-cap ital, is t he exac t re ve rse of 'p la n ned . It is
i ndepen dent a s never b ef ore and r u ns 'r iot . The d om in ating fo rce 'of
society becomes the'.o bj ect ive m oveme n t o f . t he s elf -ex p a nsion of capita l
which crushes everyt hi n g that s t a n ds in its wa y. W hich capi t a lists o r
bureaucra t s can con trol t h is? R ussia sho ws anew that t h ese are, a s
Marx a n d E n gel s con t inually pointed out, t he target of it s de structive
malevole nce. It destroy s t hem .
"The con trad iction b etween capi tal . .a s a general socia l p ow er
and as a p ower of priva t e capitalists ove r t he s oci a l con d itions of
-p r odu ct ion d evelops in t o an ever m ore i r.reconc ilable clash, w h ich
implies t he dissolutio n of th ese .rela t ion s and the elaboration of t he
conditions of p r od u ct ion in t o uni vei-sa l, common, s oci al c ondi t ions."
( Capital, Vol. III, p. 310.)
,
The capi talis t is on ly the p ersonification of ca p it a l, 'a n d n ot only
s mall capitali sts b u t a ll ca pit al ist s los e a ll . righ t to exi stence b efore
t h e sw ay or capital .a s t hi s strange, in de pe nd en t , elemental social
power. I n rea/l ity, i t i s t h e nature of capital itself t o destroy capit a lists . It th r ows ou t sm a ll c a p it a lists, t h en one gro u p of capitali sts ,
( bh e J e w s ) then w ipes away p ractically .a whole capita li st class as in
Oerm a n y, t ea r s whole se ct ions of them out of Poland, Y u g osla v ia ,
Czech osl ovak ia . The t error of ca pital against the capitalists is only
e xc eeded by its t er r or a g ain s t la b or . Its h ighest p eak is the inces sant
pur g es among th e rulers o f R u ssia t hemselves. To continue to believe
t h a t thi s is ' not due to p roduction relations .is t o m ake t hese m en
masters o f their own fa te and irrh u man monsters."
"I'he t er ror is root ed in the rel ations of production and th e n eed
t o control w orke r s. 'When the w or ke rs reach the st ag e that they are
today, t he n t he r el ations of p ro d u ction demand a terror whi ch s p read s
throu g h 'a ll s ocie t y . It is b ecause of this,and not beca u se of tihe
wickedness of the Stali n ists a n d the Nazis, that t he m ode r n barbar-ism
i s t he m ost .b a r ba r ou:s hi story has ever seen . It is s u pp r es s ion . of the
democra cy of the modern masse s, the mighties t of economic an d
social force s, which compel s toahtarian s avagery.

Idealism, Not Historica l Mate rialism

Trotsky gave the motive po wer of the econ omy as t h e "prestige,
powe r a nd revenues" of the b urea ucracy . This is wrong in theo r y a nd
pra ctic e. How do you m easure prestige a nd po wer i n economic t erm s?
The proportionate r evenues of th e bureaucracy a r e no more and in all
pro bability are much less than the r evenues of a ny ot h e r ruling class.
W ithm the categorie s of Marx ian political econom y, it is th e m a chinery, the i ndust ri al plant, its need for constant expansion, it s r a pid
ob s oles ce n ce and renewal i n the com pet it ion on t he world-rnar ket-c--it is
this . (c-constant ca prta l ) t h a t dominates bo t h the wages (v- variable
capit a l ) and the s urplus ( s-s-su r plus value). Not man but capital r u les .
How is it p ossible for Marx ist s today no t to see t h a t i n R ussia it i s t h e

Sooner; or l ater. this q uestio n will ar-i s e,

26

ve for <!onst a n t expansion, th e d rive of capital for self-expansion,

c0J.l1petit io n wi th United S t a t es capital, t h e need to renew capit al
a ce rding to t he la w of value ; how is it possible n ot to see t h at this is
t he eco~omic driving force of Stali nist economy and n ot prestige,
p owe r, and revenues? Today every po litician and econom ist governs
hi m sel f by t h is.
TJ:e r efu sa l to recognize t h is is beg in ning to stifle our movement .
Ge r m a m * mu st say that social r e la t ions of p roduction in Ru s sia are
superior to the productive relations of capitalism . T h is means " the
will and intelJigence" of m en are no longer s ub or d ina t ed to t e objective movement of production. They have risen s u p e r ior to it. Tha t is
what is meant by the capacity of the bureaucracy to pl an.
But this supposed advance, this fir st s t e p in to the realm ,of fre edom, has resulted in the l!l0st horrible, the most de grading, the most
monstrous tyranny mankind has e ve r known, and worst of a ll , a _
tyranny that com petes for world power, is n ow 'i n Berlin a nd a ims a t
t h e Atlantic. A s lo n g as Germai n pe rsists in limitin g its cr im e s to the
sphere of con sumption, he has to continue to say that the bureaucracy
plans badly , it cheats, it di stributes u n equ a ll y. Its human capacities
and human sen sib ili ties become s ocial agencies. This is not even vulgar,
far le s s hi storical materialism. It has a long history both in philosophy
and political economy. It is idea lis m. Even before Marx, Hegel recognized thi s mode of thou ght and its political consequences.
The J oh ns on-F or es t t endency made this precise characterization
of Trotsky's position on R ussia in 1941. Now i n 1947 , as We see "t he
r esults of false t h eor y in ou r movement , we reaffirm our p osit i on s. For
u s, jn'od uction in Russia is s ub ject t o the la w s of t he capitalist w orldmarket. T he bureaucracy is as s u bj ect ed to the basic laws of capita lism
a s is any capitali st class. All .t h e monstrosities of the Stalin ist society
are rooted 'm ,the' laws of the capital-labor relation which reach their
highe st ex p r ession in Rus sia. If not, then the road is open to subjectivism; the. interchanging of the dialectical role of party and m asses,
e xaggeratio n of the power of Stalini sm in Russia and in Western
Eu r ope; inability to base t h eory undeviat'mgly on the ob jective movement of the proletariat. From end to end our movement in varying but
s u bs t a nt ia l degrees, the process is at work. The theoretical r emedy is
to kill it a t the primal root-tlhe production relations in the factories
of Ru s sia.

Terror for Workers and for Rulers

" T h e authority a ssum ed by the capi tali st iby :his p ersonification
of capital in the d irect p rocess of production, th e socia l fun ction perform ed by him in his capa cit y 'a s a manager and Tu ler of production,
i s essen t ia ll y different f r om the authority exercised upon the basis of
production b y means of slaves, se rfs, etc."
Modern socral a u thority is the slave of capital.
"Upon the basis of capita:listproduction, the social chae-acter of
t h e ir production im p r es ses itself upon the m as s of direct producers
a s a strict ly regulating authori ty a nd as a social mechanism of the
labor p r oce s s g raduated into a complete hierar chy. This authority is
'ves t ed in its bearers only a s a personification of the r equire m en t s of
l a bor s t a nd in g above the laborer. It is not vested in them in their
capacity as political or theoretical r u le r s, in the wa y that it u sed to
be u nd er former modes of production." (C a pital, V ol. III, p . 207) .
F or a period t h e capitalistic auth or ity app ears t o b e se parate
f.rom the .p ol itical, which 'i n t er ve n es on ly per iodically, at first to h elp
in the re lea se of constricti ng forc es (reform a nd r evolution) an.:.d later
The ab su-edttdes of Germain 's p olitical econom y in r-egard to R ussda ,
cru dities o f his undec-conaump tlorcls m canmot d etn in u s h e r e . See A pp endi xa

27

t he

by co unter-revolution to discipline the .a lw a y s growing revolt of t

proletariat, the revolt against the 's u p p r e ssion of what cap itali
itself creates. In its latest stagescapital -as a regulating ,a u t h or it yj' of '
the la b or process and particularly of socialized labor, .m ust bring the
state and a ll social relations and manifestations directly under its
control, BU,t the contradictionbetween the capitalistic productive forces
and the soc ial relations are not destroyed, they ca nnot even ibe s up:'
p ressed yi n the .deve lop ed stages of s t a t e-ca p it a'lism . They are now, no
longer inherent,exi sting in essence.Tlhey take on reality, they appear.
The antagonistic social relations, rela tions between peopl e, in Russia
a-re n ot s up p r ess ed . The relation ,be com es the a ctual da ily stru g gle
of the active antagonism driving' to its resolution, perpetual revolution and counter-revolution . The mo d us vivendi of the economy can
only be political counter-revolution-the daily purges, the d a il y destruction and corruption of workers, workers organizations and of
mana g ers. 'I'his is the national existence. The 'p olit ica l s t r u g gle a ssumes
the f or m of the ,r u t h less antagonism of p ro du ction. At a.cer-tain s t a g e,
the .t r adit.ional functions 'a n d organization s of the s t a te , army, j udieiary, admini stration cannot ser v e their purpose. Power rests in' the
secret police, Ge stapo or N.K.V.D. The in dus t ri a l reserve army a ssume s the f orm of political prisoners. Political prisoners become the
form of t he industrial reser ve army. Capital which, in Marx's words,
came in t o the w orld drippi ng blood and dirt, now function s only )n
b loo d. A nd a s this barbarism sp reads its sha d ow over Europe and
A sia, and driven by its own lo gic; r eaches its tentacles out to the prolet a r ia t of the world, Germain continues to r ep eat that this is the
re g im e t r a nsition al -t o socia lis m , that. nationalized propery is progres- '
s iv e, tha t this quintes sence of s ocia l tyranny has its root in the st r u gg le
of me n over the di stribution of fo od and clothing. Thus, his analysts of
of Stali ni st Ru ssia today is the direct repudiation of what Marx
str u ggle d a ll his li f e to establish : t h e objective basi s in production
re lation s of a ll the su bject ive m anifestations of human evil.
Under st a t e-c ap it a lism , th e Russi an ,b u r ea u cr a cy is no "dualcharacter cd " hybrid , p r oduct of its r evolutionary origins and c a p it a list dest ina t ion . It is the naked count e r-revolution. Trotsky's analy si s
i s th at the gro wth 'o f the bureaucracy and the power of the Stalinist
state are du e to th e st r u g g le ov er consumption , that the Stalinist state
i s organized nine-tenths for s tea ling , that the coming revolution is not
a socia l but a political revolution. All thi s cannot s t a n d repetition
today. The Stalinist s t ate is organized on the basis of capitalist production in the epoch of st ate-ca pit alism . The revolution will be profoundly s ocia l- a n economic revolution, the r elease of economic forces,
the creative and productive f or ces of the proletariat.
'

(c) The Com munist Parties of Russia and Eastern

Europe
The -a n a lys is - of th e econom y d efines the ruling party. The Russ ia n Com m u n is t Party exi sts on the back s of the defeated proletariat.
' B ut t he proletariat in Russia contains within itself the sa m e explosive
qualities a s the p roletariat in Western civilization, subjectively more
so because of th e experience of three revo lutions. The main purpose
of the party , therefore, is to k eep th e proletariat su b jected to the proce ss of capitalist production.
B ut suc h a process is no t achieved overnight. It was achieved
and is maintained in Russ ia by the bloodiest, th e m os t savage, a nd
the most cold-blooded counter-revolution in hi story. And it is this
which explains the ro le of the Communist ' Parties in Eastern Europe.
They are the creatures of the Red Arm y and the economic, political

28

a d diplomatic _power, and di scipline a nd training of Stalinist Rus sia.

It is under . the protection of .t he .K r ernlin and the R ed Army that
the are s ee ki n g to complete a s fast a s they can ' and with whatever
allie they can put t heir hands on , t h e t r ansformation tha t has
a lr ea y taken place in Rus sia.
T Hese are colonial reg im es. N ot in a n article but in a de cree
writ ten on the day after the day after the r evolution in October ,
Lenin defined the colonial r e gime :
"If any n ation whatsoever is forcibly r etained within the bou ndaries of a .given st a t e, if, in s pite of its ex p r essed desi re-no m atter
whet her that de sire is expr essed in t h e press, at p opula r m eeting s, in
part y de cisions, or in protest s a nd r ev olts a gai nst nat iona l op pression- it is not p ermitted t he r ight to decide the fo rms of i ts st a t e.
existe nc e by a f r ee vo te, t aken after t h e comp le te eva cua t ion of the
t roops of the in corporating or, generally, of the s t r on ger na t ion ,
without the least pressure bein g b ro ugh t to bear upon it , suc h inco r po ration is annexation, i.e., s eizu r e and coer cion ." (Selected 'Yorks,
Vol. VI, pp, 401-2.)
When a Marxist is unabl e t o ac cept this and cann ot a pply it to
r e gi m es like Poland, Yu g osla vi a and Hungary , t hen it 'I S t im e, Corn- :
rade Germain, for him to s top arguing with hi s opponents a nd reex a m in e hi s own premise s.
The Polish individuals who rule Poland and admini ster its laws
and direct its armies are not Poles at all. They are a s Russ ia n a s
the Kremlin, tied to it not only by t raining, fear, and the solida r it y
of crim e, but by the far de ep er r eco gnition that within s ocie t y a s they
see it they . must be vassals of Russi an or Anglo-American impe r ialism. Their allegi ance is not sub ject ively to the Kremlin but robject ivel y to the centralized capital of Rus sian st a t e-ca pitalism .
L et Germain deny this a nd a dd .y et another to the coil s of s teelwire in w hich he is a ssidu ou s-ly ent a ngling h im self. A ny sup port of the
Comm unis t Parties a s t hey are is a betra yal. The y pl a y and
must pl a y the same r ole as t he Com m un is t Party of Russia , w ith
the added burden of a colonial dependence as necessary to t hem as
i t " is to t h e imper ia lis t p ow er.

, r

Chapter III - Imperialism Thirty Years Ai r

(a) "Vast State-=Ca pitalist and Military Trusts and
Syndicates
The imperialism of state-capitalism is the key to the understanding of the present st a g e of imperialism all over the world
and the concrete forms of its development. Lenin, writing in the heat
of a similar, but less developed, type of world di sintegration was able
to give us a wonderful Marxist forecast of just the cont em por a r y
developments.
"Marxists have never forgotten that violence will be an inevitable
accompaniment of the col'lap se of capitalism on 'it s full s ca le and of
the birth of a socialist soci et y. And this violence will cover a historical
period, a whole era of wars of the most varied k inds--im per ia li st
wars, civil wars within the country, the interweaving of the forme r
with the latter, national wars, the emancipation of the nationalities
crushed by the i mper ia li st s and by various com bina t ions of imperialist
powers which will inevitably form various a lli a nces with each other
in the era of vast state-capitalist and military trusts and syndicates.
This is an era of tremendous 'coll a pses , of wholesale m ilitary decisions of a violent nature, of crises. It has already' begun, we see it
clearly-it is on ly the beginning." ( Sel ected W or ks, Vol. VII , pp. 315-6.)
I What Lenin described in 1918 was the beginning of barbarism .
Tod a y we are thirty, years f urther. T he whole wo rl d is caught into
. the im pe r ia lis t conflict. There are only two . divisions.
If Stalinist Russia is a vast state-capitalist a nd m ilitar y trust,
. American im perialism is a vast state-capitalist a nd military syndicate, and the distinction is evidence of the clear vision with which
Le nin saw into the f uture. -

(b) American Imperialism

'During t he war the United States government transformed itself
into a mighty state-trust. It planned its production a nd consu m p t ion.
But the American state-trust, in the struggle for world domination,
embarked u p on a government-regulated world-economic program. I t
integrated with its own the economy of Great Britain ; it po ured
billions into the thin economic veins of its allies ; it bought and
di str-ibuted agricultu.ral ,p r oduct ion on a wo rld- wide sea le. ' It acted as
collective capitalist on a hitherto undreamt-of scale.
.
With the end of the war approaching, Russia, through the Stalinist parties , backed by the Red Army, operated directly -In the prole t a r ia t . The United States operated through the Social Democracy
and the bourgeoisie, backed by the ' A m er ica n army and American
economic power. But the joint unity was against the proletariat only.
The United States now carries on open preparation for war against
its rival.-From end to end of the world its economic power economically
su pp or t s the most reactionary and oppressive regimes, at the head
of which list stands the Chiang-kai-Shek regime in China. America
supplies arms and economic resources to aid France in the ~u p p re s
sion of Viet Nam, and the Dutch in the suppression of Indonesia. It
supports t he reactionary regimes of T urkey, Iran and-, Greece and
even t he Fascist F r a nco. It maintains the tottering capitalistic
regime in J a pan.. It 'is the support 'a nd ally of every counter-revolutionary 'r eg im e in Latin-America. It shares eq ually with Russia the
major guilt in the drawing and quartering of Germany. The State
Department becomes the virtual dispenser of billions' of foreign
trade. T he la t est ven tur e is the proposed " Marshall P la n" -a gigantic
scheme to reconst r uct the shattered economy of W e st ern Europe,

d b y t h is means to co ntrol its ' e co n om y and politics completely

a. an outpos t ~- Arn e-ican tr~e and ., ha .,H,, ~ <> ~.,; " .. + 1. A+"h C:O" A" _: ~+
Ru sla and the pl:ol~tal:i~ ;l r~~ ~lution. ~ v - .., _ - .
- - _
- ' - ' --"- Y its enormous, s w oll e n bureaucratic e xp e n d it u r es at h ome, its
-. war p,reparation, direct a n d i ndirect, its co n t r ol of the World Banks
and
U international economic age n ci es, the State Department's
manipulations of foreign t r ade and forei gn loans, the Ame rican_
,government has become _t he e conom ic arbiter of billio n s of productive
f or ces and h u n dreds . of million s of p eople . Only a n economist f etishi sm can fall to see that in it s s t r u g g le with Ru s sian capit al fo r w or ld
domin a ti on, the American s ta te a cts as the center of a v a st s t a te.capitalist s ynd ica t e within which it domin ates the econo m ics and
p oli tics of its su b or di nate allies. T hes e s t ick to it f or t he s a m e
r eas o n s that thei r counterparts s t ick 0 S t a linist Rus si a, ter ro r of
t h e prol etarian revolu tion a nd fea r of a rival i m periali sm .
But g r eat a s is t he e conom ic p ow e r of America n impe r ia li sm,
this is counter-balanced by t h e co los sal drain upon its resou rces of
maintai ning the world-wide sys tem of s a t e llit e s within its s y n d ica t e,
the hatred i t engenders Inu-evolut.iou ary f or ces everywhere, a nd the
rev olutionary instincts, s t r ivi n g s a n d i ndustrial org a n izatio n of t he
American proletariat, the g reatest s oc ia l ' force th e w orl d h a s e v er
known. Not in any ultimate hi s toric but in the i m mediate sense ,
Ame ri can capita l f aces the sa me ca t astrop h ic v iole nt des t r uc t io n at
the hands of the proletariat as do es Stalinist Rus sia.
It is only when we have this as OUr basis that w e can a n alyze the
di sintegration of relations betw een n a t ions and th e co nc r ete f or ms
of the tasks history now impos es upon the - classes.
We' must unclerstand the b a ckground of L enin's m ind whe n he
made his priceless formulation s.

(C) The Interweaving of Imperialist, C ivil , and

National Wa rs
L enin in 1916 made a tri ple divis ion of the countries of the
w orld. D ivision I was t h e countr ie s of Western Europe and America
where t h e progres sive n e s s of b our g e oi s national mov e m e nts was at
a n e n d. Divis ion II com p r ised the countries of Eastern E u r o pe including Rus sia. There t he b our geoi s n a tio n al m ovement s fo r nation a l
li beration were _on the order of the d a y . In di vi si o n III were I ndia,
China , and ot her colon ial co untries w h ere the bourgeois national
movemen t s were just beg i nni n g . T hose di vi sions , t h e r e sult of g e og raphical co n d itio ns and -s ocia l r e lations, a re equally v a lid t oday,
with, h owever, trem e nd ous ch a n g es w h ich inv olve t he new relations
a nd new t actic al approache s t o t he struggle fo r s ocia lis m .
In 1947 , Division I , a fter t h i r t y years of capita lis t d isintegr a t ion ,
s h ows tha t the bou rgeois- natio nal m ov em e nts are no long e r m erely
"not progre s sive. " They h ave abandoned their historic roles, The
bourgeoise of France, Italy, Germany and Japan' no lon ger believes
in national independence.
It is t h e r efo re n a tu r a l -that amo ng t he adva nce d co u n t r ies
thi s m ovem e nt t o t he synd icate 'is m os t p ow erful. The s yndic a te
alo ne is s u it ed to the a dvanced cou ntrie s of W estern Europe.
A s so on a s we look a t L e n in's Division II w e can s e e a n
entirely different st r u ctu r a l f orm. Rus sia . was a n oppre s sor nat ion
in 1916 . But , 1917 s h ow ed t hat even i t s own bour g eoi s problems
w ere dependent upon the proletariat for s olu t ion. The h istory of
Ru s sia to date , sho ws , that even the Rus sian proletariat, in isolation,
has proved incapable of , s olv i ng not only the ' s oci a li s t p r obl ems , but
e v e n th e democratic - p r ob le m of s elf-de t e r m in a t io n . H e n ce T r otsky
in 1939 r a is ed the .. s log a n of an inde penden t Ukra ine. T h e w hole

31

histol'Y of Russia since 1917 and the miserable , blood

-count r ies of Eastern Europe ' sin ce 1916 have shown, a s we w

expect, that there . is no salv a t ion for them a s capitalist cou
ie s,
But long before 1947' it was pos sible to s ee that there i s no sa a tion
for t h em ' at all a s isolat ed c ou n t ries, capitalist or socialist,
steni a ,
Latvia, ' Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, the ' U k r a in e, the Balkan c u ntrie s,
Greece, Poland, ' cannot s u r v ive even as isolated socialist s tat es. Germain's Marxism does not k now what eve ry P oli sh wor
n k nows.
For nearly two hundred y ears a bourgeois Poland w a s constantly
partitioned "a nd repartitioned. The Poland of 191 8 was a n artific ial
creation, maintained by a b a lance of power wh ich was dest r oyed in
the war. N ow toda y Poland a s an isola ted nation, cap italist or
sociali st, is finished forever, and t h e same i s ,t r u e of t he other
countries of Eastern Central Europ e.
,
. Germain calls them "the bu f fe r -cou n t r ies." . His pro-Stalinis m , th e
spect acle s t.hrough which he views r elation s betw een nations as 00tween c lasses, h a s led h im t o endorse a t itle which is t h e exact oppos it e
of the truth. Buffer i s p reci sel y what t hey cannot be. Their whole
history. sh ow s that the y have to belong. After 1848, Hun gar y a n d
later Czech os lovak ia, clustered a r ound Austria (h en ce th e . Dual
Monarchy) in order to sa ve them selves from a greater oppr es sio nT sarist Russia. After 191 8 so m e of them formed the Little .E ut e nt e ,
under the econ om ic and politica l g u idan ce of France. The decline of
France s we p t them into the, orbit and then the domination of Ge r many.
It is no 'a cci den t that at the f irst sh ock Germany wipe d a way the
Polish a nd- Yugoslav bourgeoisie. The defeat of Germany sw e p t them
into the po wer of Russi a . Th e conclusi on i s obvious. .t is that f or
Austria, Yugosl avia, Cze choslovak ia, Greece and the ot h er s, a ny
economic org anisation which i s n ot b a sed on .t h e S oci a list U nited
State s of Europe or at the very le a s t . on a Federation of Socialist
States in Eastern Europe is r eactionary.
As national u ni t s they are doomed either to participation in a
socialist f ederat ion or .s u b or din a t ion t o a vast state-capitalist trust
or syn d icate. This is the given s tage of t h e given epoch, th e result
of the ce n t r a li za t ion of capital. This i s th e economic a n d socia l movem e nt g rowing s tea d ily th ro ugh the decades which has now reached a
climax in the 'co a lescen ce around the st a t e -capi t a li st milit a r y t rust of
Ru ssia . Th e concrete movement might have b een otherwisevbut it is
on ly a theory which can explain it. L e n in did not j oin the ' t e r m s ,
S t a t e , capit a l, military a n d trust by a cc ide nt . The com pe it ion on the
world -market fu ses these into on e ce n t ral.ized f or ce. .P olit.ics b ec omes
the m ost h ig h ly c on ce n tra t ed . a nd comp rehen si v e expres si on of t he
laws of bh e world-market. Germain, in th e face of the r eality, c onti nues to d iv id e the e eonom ic f ro m t he 's t r a t egi c needs of a tot al ita rian
state.
T oda y in .E u r ops as far s ou t h a s Greece, but above all in Poland,
t he re is and ca n b e no isol ated civi l war. E very co n fe renc e, ev'ery
ec cnomic d eal , all loa n s, " rel ief'," p eace- settlements, p roduction,
g rabs of ter. rttorv. withdra wal or m aintenance of troop s , election s ,
are g ove r ned by the st r u ggle for the domination of E uro pe between
the Uni ted States and R u ssia. All p olitical opposites, national and
i n ternational, p olitics a nd economics, peace and , war, are b eginning
to assume identity. In 1940 th e small s t a t es , pawns in t he hand s of '
t h e b ig ones, only had freedom to a Iimited e xtent, to ch oose b etween
their masters. Today G ermany, t h e heart of Europe has no fre edom
of choice. In the cabinets of France and Italy the ri val p owers
have their representatives even ly match ed , and every s te p is ca lculated for its effect on the world proletar-iat and th e s t r ug g le for
power between a s t a te-ea p rt alis t m ilita ry trust a nd a state-ca p it a list
military syndicate.

32

hapter IV - Poland - WheteAll Roads.Meet

There is no b etter ex am p le than Poland itself of how a n ati onal
sit u tion develops. -how Marxist poli cy changes, a n d h ow we mu st
. cone tely apply Marxist fundamentals. In dealing with P oland .a n d
. vself -d ermination in 190 3, Lenin. po se s two epoch s-(1) th e epoch of
the fo , a t ion of national sta tes en ding about 1871 and 2) the ep och
of 1903, 'the age of desper ate r -eaction, of extreme .t en si on of all f orces
on the eve of the proletarian revolution . . ."* During bo th per iods,
Poland was divided between G ermany, Austa-ia-Hungary and Ru s sia.
Yet the policy for each p eri od was sh a rply di stinct. In the first
period Marx. 'a nd ..Engels rai sed the slogan of se lf-det er m in a t ion f or
an independent bou r g eois P oland to 'h elp defen d democratic Europe
against T sarist r eact ion. In t he s econ d period Franz iMehring de nounced this policy. The Polish S ociali st P arty, t he P.P..S., w a s gainin g ground amon g t he p et t y-bo u r geoisie with it s s loga n s of a r m ed
in su r r ect ion and t error ism a g a in st T sarism. It so u g h t to uni te th e
th r ee p a rts of P oland into a bour-ge ois st a t e. .By 1902, sa id Mehring,
. an dn dep ende n t .bou r g eois P oland i s impossi ble a n d the refor e t h e
P oli sh proletariat in all three s ect ions s h oul d f ight " un r eser ve dly" with
its class brother s. Lenin, ca ut iou s a s always, st ated t ha t h e would no t
d ecl are th e impossibility of a bourgeoi s Poland as ' categor icall y a s did
Mehring. But h e agreed su fficien tly fo r th e time wit h the anal y sis to
accept the political conclus ion as a bsolutely correct. Th e unity of the
proletariat of the oppressed and op pressing nations, a car dinal point
in the " Leninist doctrine of . self -det erm in a t ion , he re a ssume d an
extreme f orm.
Yet long before 1916 th e s pecif ic h istorical ci rcum stan ces, a lliances, relations, etc. which cu lm in a t ed i n the war of 1914 h ad opened
u p n ew possibilities for an indep en dent b ou rgeoi s P olan d. Len in said
so pl a inly and n ow d efen de d t h e r ight of sel f -determin a t ion fo r a
-b ou r g eois P oland a gai n st T sar ist Russia . H i s m a in reason n ow was
that the righ t of self-d eterm in ation did n ot and cou ld n ot u nder
ca pi t alism me an freed om f rom an econ om ic dom inat ion by great
p owers.Su,ch freedom w a s im poss ible unde r capi t alism. But t he r ight
of self -det erm ina t ion meant p olitical freedom of a st a t e, freedom for
the full and free development of the class st r u g gle, freedom for the
proletariat to develop its democratic in stincts and, t endencies. F urther,
;the s log a n of self -de termi n a t ion h a d un de rgone a cl a ss development.
The Russian 'l ib era l b ourg eoisie had h itherto su p por te d t h e s log an ,
but under the bl ow s of t he Russian p ro letariat , 1:Jh ey b ecame antag onistic to it. Thu s Bol sh evi sm took ove r t h e slogan a s a proletari an
demand . .
T h is at onc e involv es t h e im portant distinc tion be tween the ri gh t .
of self-de te rmin a t ion a nd the raising of t h e d em a n d.
So ten t ative a nd condi t ione d i s the actual d em an d a s di sti nct from
the abst ract r igh t, that Len in, 'w h ile de fe nd in g the ri ght of , N or w a y
t o secede from Sweden , st a t es th at if su ch . a demand cou ld r esult in
a E u ro p ean war, then whi le the ri ght sho uld be fou g h t fo r , the dem and
. sh ould not be raised. That is f or th e Shachtmani t es to t h ink over.
On the ot h er hand, Le n in , in 1916, quotes Eng els to the effect tha t
colo nial In dia wo uld be j ustif ied in making a revo lution again st
"victorious soc ialism " in Britain . And th is is f or Germa in and . h is
co-thinker s to p onder over.

A Stage Beyond 1916

T h e John son- For est ten dency, in it s st r a te gy a nd t actics on the
question of self-determina tion, has ne ver a t a ny t ime lost s ight of
Lenin li ved perp'etu:ally wit h these id ea s , even i n 1 9 0 3.

3.3

the relation between the gfven stag e of the epoch,tJhe particular typ
b.f cou n t r y involved, and t he g iven st age of -ela ss ,,re :at ion s ; .a nd

-eff'ect of th is c,e:::,:::nd in Europe, fo r in stance,upon thc etrug g le

,t he "com mon goal, the Socialist United States of Europe.
In 1943, immediately after Stalingrad, which outlined the
'cou r se of bourgeois Europe, the Johnson-Forest tendency, 'i n
opposition to the .Sh a ch t man it e t h esis on the national question,
out tha t henceforth there cou ld be no in depe ndent bou r ge o s
of E stonia , Latvia, and Lithuania.
In 1946, this time against the I.K.D., we poured a s uch sc orn
a s we could on t heir idea of "auton omous, " "bourgeois states" a s p reliminary to s ocia lism. We sa id :
,
" Durin g Wor.ld War I it wa s on e of Lenin's basic arguments on
self -det er mi na t ion that economic domin at ion did not mean p olitica l
d omin ation. T oday, and that is the new st a ge, economic 'a n d poli t ica l
' domina t ion g o h and in ha nd." (Hi storical Retrogression or Soci alist
Revolution" New International, Jan., Feb., 1946.)
Thi s was a vt r em en dous step fo rward from Lenin's position . By
'Moa y 1946 our analysi s of the st age of th e epoch' had :b een in our v iew
suffi cien t ly confi rmed by the concrete happenings in 'Europe. In ou r
internati on al resolution 't heref or e we elaborated policy.
"The Anglo-American hourgeoisia and the Second International
,
seek to bribe the ' pr olet a r ia t to accept the overlordship of American
imperialism in return for bonrgeois-democratic forms and American
economic aid.
"Russian imperialism arid its Stalinist satellites seek to tyrannize
and then to bribe the proletariat to accept the virtual overlordship
of Ru ssian imperialism under the g uise of the European continent
in a new social order . . :
'
"U n de r these circumstances it is a m atter of life and dea th f or
the F ou rth International to op pose both these ruin ous roads, an d it
ca n do so only by linking the struggle for national economic r ehabilitationvto the s t r ug g le ,f or the Socialist United States of Europe.
" A Soci alist France in a So cialist ,United States of Europ e
"A Socialist Poland in a So cialist United States of Europ e
"A So cialist Germany in a Soci a list United States of Europe. "
F r om th is basic analysis we t hen ou t.lined a concrete 'p oli cy f or
Russian-dominated Eur ope and A sia :
"In Easter n Europ e the proleta r iat faces the colossal task of
,over th r owin g no t the delegated but the di rect_military power of th e
Russian st ate. In its Tea r , it h a s t h e armed 'f or ces of Russia occupying
Germa n y. Under these circum stance s, t he movement a gain st Ru ssian
domination in t he sepa r a t e cou n tries must therefore orient to wards
the unification of pr olet a r ian st r ug g le in the directly op p r esse d states,.
.includin g Germany. A m a ss r evo lutionary movement with a , common
p rogram a n d a n a dvanc ed socia l g oal h as the best possibility of sh aki n g
t he discipline of the Russian a rmies , and re-awakening in them the
.
t r adi t ion s of the Octobe r R evolution.
"With vbh is rp ers pect ive the prolet a r ia t is a ssi sted in 1Jhe carrying
out of the daily vstr ugg les a g ains t the oppres sing imperialist pow er, '
'W it hou t a per sp ective of international st r uggle, t he a dva nce d worker s will be le ss f ortified a g ainst Stalin ist propaganda or the defeatism
'Which will ' a wa it intervention on t h e part of another imperialist
po we r a s the on ly me ans of r id di n g itself of the Russian domination ,
exploitat ion andp.Junder.
" A s imil a r s it u a ti on in E astern A sia (Korea, ,Ma n ch u ri a , etc.)
po ses simil a r task s for the Fourth International."
We h ave ne ver waver ed. Ou r s is a poli t ica l position, rooted in
the mo st ca ref uJ, sys t em at ic analysis of t he developing relations bet ween t he cla sse s and the nat ions within t h e st r ug g le for the wor ld.

34

two vast state-capitalist trusts and sy n dicates.

Now to day it is possible to surnma rizo our position even more
cretely and bring to b eai- upon it our whole analysis .
1. Class rule over the proletariat in Poland is impossible without
.
a ct i e support from a n outside imperialist power.
2. Poland cannot be ruled by the Polish proletariat 'a s long as
the p sent balance of power .c on t in u es ,
3. Far m or e than ~e:hring and Lenin in 1903, it i s necessary to
see tha the Polish ' proletariat must orient itself first and foremost
towards its class brothers. The objective situation demands that sa m e
repudiation of both sides which Trotsky envisaged in Spain in 1938
i n case the intervention on both sides assumed dominance. The politics
of Poland is the politics of war.
4. This exemplifies the form t aken i.n our day of the perpetual
Marxist stru,ggle for the u n it y of the proletariat. In .M a rx's day it
was a struggle to integrate the economic and .p oli tical a spects . \Ve.
nave traced it a n d s hown that today, objectively, as a result of the
concrete .cond it ion s of decaying capitalism a nd the concretely developing and invading socialist societ y , revolutionary p olicy must unite the
proletariat international'l y for the solution of immediate needs.

Shachtman and Bourgeois Politics

Examination of th e policies of Shachtrnan 'a nd Germain shows the
confus ion into wh ic h they f a ll because neither has taken the trouble
to establish a sou nd theoret ical basis.
Shachtman begins by d ecl a r in g the comp lete independence of the
revolu tionary p a rty. T h er eb y he is ready to show t hat the r evol utiona ry party is f or everything revolutionary, inclu d ing the Socialist
U n it ed S t a t es of t he World . . Having, as h e believes, covered himself
u p from ' 'a ll "attacks" ('literary sq uabbling's a nd debating 'p oints ) he
. t h en gets d ow n t o b usiness , His policy is the policy of "critical s up p or t
to M ickolajczk". N ow crjt ical sup p or t of Mickolajczkcan mean onJy
one thing-that Sh achtman is for the victory of lMick ola j c zk , not for
a ll time, but 'a s a f ir st stage. This policy is bo urgeois politics, pure
and simple. T o say t hat Poland will be f ree under Mickolajczk i s a
fantasy. Mickolajczk stands or falls by Anglo-American im p er ia ii sm.
It is necessary to remind this realistic practicalist of a little
realism. Stalin in Cen t r a l Europe is not playing games or making debatmg points in p r e-conv en t ion di scussions. T oda y he is holding
Poland-the gateway to Germany.
.
Furthermore, with Ru ss ia n troops in Germany, to open ou.t a
ser ious struggle in Poland under the l eadership .a n d with the prospect
of victory to Mickol ajczk is to invite at on ce the complete military
occupation of 'P ola n d by R ussla, and as far a s human reason can
judge, to take the responsibility of pushing the world towards world
war. It is po ssible f or a revolutionary party to advocate this. But it i s
obvious that Shachtman writes .hi s little a rticles and scores h is little
points, devoid of any serious consideration of what his policies imply.

. Germain and Bourgeois Economics

'<,

.Som e of thi s, more or l ess, Germain sees and points out with
devastating effect. But what is Germain's ow n policy? Germain advo. cates cr-itical support of the 'Be ir u t r egime. He s ees and ca lcul ates
boldly on the inevitable intervention which alone can make .M ick olaj czk a s e r tou s contender for power. He is politically ;b li n d to the
actual concrete in tervention which alone 'm a k es Be irut ab le to .h old
' t h e .p ow e'r, I s:n't th is sh a m ef u l ? Germai n d oe s not say a s a serious
Trotskyi st m ight say : " I n this s it u a t ion , control of Poland is needed
to defend the .p r ec iou s 'planned ec ono my' of R u ssia. Therefore we
repudiate self -det ermin a t ion and declare that the P olish workers must
f or the time being d~fend the regime i n t he interests of the/degenerated

3$

but proletarian state." He does not sa y : "This Polish economy is

e con omy of a workers' st a t e, and is or can :be, transitional to sociali
Therefore ' it must be defended ." Instead he denounces the .r eg i
as
bcurgeois a nd declares that the n at iona li za ti on s a re qualitative
the
sam e t ype a s those of France or .B r itain . He knows, he must now,
that t hese b ourgeois n a ti on a liz ation s a r e defended and m aintained :by
the power of a foreign oppressing p ower wh ich makes Poland a pawn
of it s economic and political pl ans f or the 'domi n at ion of Europ e and
A sia . H e knows, he says later , t ha t the Polish prol etariat f aces this
mo rtal ene m y of its ow n se lf -determina t ion. The !political de ci sion s
about t he P oli sh regi me a re made i n Moscow. The contendin g partie s
t r avel t h er e a nd lay t he case befo r e Stalin who tell s them what to do.
A nd yet h e says that this regime must be ' cr-itically s u p ported. In
reali ty he is objectively committin g a n unpardonable d eception. He is
d ef en din g Stal inist R u ssia but does not dare to f.ace it.
T he price i s already be ing pa id an d a bitter price it is. Germain
. n ow sub scri bes to the com pletely pet t y-bou r geois conception .tha t it is
t he Beirut regime which defen ds the Polish proletar-iat and its su ppose d conq ues ts from Mickolaj czk. A s we ll sa y that British imper iali sm
defende d t he democratic rights of Britain against H itlerism.
In r eality it is not the attacks of Mickolajzck which compe l R u ssia n
domination. ,I t is the Russian domin ation of Poland w h ich g ives such
streng th as he has ' to the atta ck s of Mick olajczk. For years the P oli sh
p roleta r ia t has been under a sys te m a tic t error from Stalinism a s the
[pr elimin ary to the domination of Poland. R}1ssia's first s te p in P ol an d
was t o h a nd over the Warsaw p ro leta ria t to the Nazis. If Ru ssi a n
t r oops were ' withdrawn eve n today, the Polish ;prol etariat and t h e
masses wou ld ibe able to t ake ca r e of .Mick ola j czk , It is to mi su nd e r s t a nd com pletely the hi story of Ea ste rn Europe to belie ve that it us
R us sian troop s which p re ve n t t h e v ictory of the Fasc ists. The Fascists
w oul d be a s h ehple ss a s in Greece . A g enuine p r oletarian up ri sin g in
P ola nd wo uld fi n d Mick ola j czk ready to c ome t o t erms wi th . Beirut
a s he ha s already tried to do and as many in his party are doin g now.
\ Ve are of cou rse under n o ill usio n s abou t any withdrawals in Eur op e
by a ny occup y in g power . But it i s somet h in g en ti rely new in our
movement t o ca ll the bour geois police s t a t e the def ender of the p r oletariat and it s " gain s. "

Shachtman Meets Germain

The price Germain pays ex te n ds f ro m hi s own theories and
Poland to the rest of Eur ope. Germain ( a n d her e he i s at one 'w ith
Shachtman) has n ot a sin g le word to sa y a bou t the b urni ng que stion
of the r elation to the p ro letari at of E urope, to b egin w ith, Germ a ny .
It is beyon d credibility. W h a t p reoccupies a ll othe r p art icipa n t s and
observer s gets no t a si ngle w ord from Germa in .
Not on ly is the r elation of P ola nd t o W estern Europ e general.
It . is pa r t icul ar. What is t o happen t o Easter n Germany whi ch i s
now W e st ern P ola nd ? T he Germa ns have been driven ou t. Mill ion s
of P oles a re installe d. Do Germa in and Shachtman propose to accept
t hi s? A r e t hey for "re storation" t o Germany? Then they will drive
ou t or tenderly lead out the Poles ? Are they for the old bounda r ies
or the new on es? The bour g eoisi e and t he Stalinists r eco gnis e that
t he old Europe is g one . They are crea t ing a new on e in their own
image. The people too know that the old world is gone. The p ower s
hold m illions of Ger mans. Benes transfers millions of Sudeten Germans . The J ew s fight their war into Palestine. Stalin has transferred
pra ctically the whole p opu la tions of E stonia, Latvia and Lithua n ia .
In the French Zone there are com m un it ies of Germans ready t o
accep t French citizenship. Millio~ s of Germans may become F r ench

'3 6

c Ize ns, and welcome ones, to-morrow, Vast numbers of Europeans

a
ready to emigrate, so violent is the revulsion against the old
s oc t y . Still more significant. After the war, all the .power of
S t a l 's police was unable to s tem the tide 'of the great' migrataon Back to Western Russia from war work in Siberia. With the first
s erious break-down . in military di scipline we shall probably see tremendous mass migrations and re-transferences initiated by the whoJe
peoples themselves.
Ten per cent of Russian s oldiers in the occupying armies de se rt.
T hat is a warning, a warning that at a new stage the masse s, by
fraternization among themselves can break the di scipline of Stalin's
army.
To-day, the revolutionary movem ent sh oul d issue slogans a nd
a ppe al s for fraternization among the ,peoples. The Fourth International sh ould take the lead in s t im ula t ing and holding b efore Poles
in West er n Poland and Germany ev erywhere the concept of a f raternal
mingling of peoples aiming in t im e at a mas s, a revolutionary di sregard of the bourgeois national boundaries. The scales of b ourgeois
viole nce and barbarism can be matched only by revolutionary violence
on a cor resp onding sca le.
. Germain finds that Shachtm a n 's sloga n of the "free Republic" is
a su bs t it ut e of "empty and abstract s loga n s r eflecting petty-bourg eoi s
a nd bou rgeo is n a tionalist id eolog y " instea d of t he immedi a te struggle
for m aterial interests. But 'wh a t do es Germain substitute in stead ?
He subst tt ut es the slogan of a n " I nde pende nt Soviet Poland." If
Shach t m a ri's fre e Republic is an ab straction there are no words to
e xp re ss the ethereal character of the st r uggle Germain outlines f or
a So viet Poland.
" T he duty of Polish revolutionists is to explain patiently to the
m a sse s that Stalinism con s t itutes the a nt it hesis of Leninism ; that
t he st ru g g le for the s ocia lis t revolut io n means the st r uggle fo r a
workers democracy, a genuine S oviet democracy; that the activ ities
of the Stalinist emis saries a re a co nde mn a t ion of the Soviet bureauc racy but not of . the Communis t ideal wh ich the latter extir pate i n
R us sia i t self in rivers of blood; that the Bo lshevik-Leninist s a re
r es olut e p artisans of the ri ght of peoples t o self -de t er m ination ; that
con seque ntly the ce nt r a l s logan a r ound whic h they must m obilize is
t hat of an INDEPENDENT SOVIET POLAND, which wo uld different iate u s a s much from the conse r vative bourge oisi e a s from t he
degen er a t e bureaucracy." (Fourth International, Feb. 1947.)
" P a t ientl y explain." Is this r efer enc e recognized ? OJ. course it
is. T his is what Lenin told the Russi a n Bolsheviks to do in 1917 when
t he , vor ker s had in essence political po we r but believed in t he S ovi et.
T h is is what Trotsky preached t o the Russian workers a gai nst the
usurpa t ion s of the Stalinist r egi me in a deformed workers st a te.
Ge r ma in equates the bourgeois nat ionali za ti on a nd the police r egime
w it h the S oviet and the democr atic s elf -m obili za t ion of the mass es
in . Ru ss ia bef or e October. From the id ealization of n ation alization
i u Stalinist Russia comes this idea liz a ti on of bourgeois nat ionalizat io n i n Stalinist Poland. Show u s a sin gle line of Trotsky . t o justify
this monstrosity as Trotskyism.
.
Germain says that the Sha chtmanito thesi s and the thes is of
the Fourth ' International show their differences be st on the K ielc e
p rogr a m. They do. Shachtman is s u ppor ting critically Mickolajczk's
cam p which participated in the po groms. And Germain? He s ays that
" if t he armed struggle betwee n the militia a nd the illegal bands
had been drawn out . . . there can be n o doubt we would have ca lled
u pon t he workers of Kielce t o mobilize on their own." (our e mph as is ) .
This is indeed a revelation.. Is ' t h is to o Trotsk y's policy? The Transitiona l Program s a ys that a t ev ery conceivable opportunity the worker s

3 7

shl?uld form their own g u a r ds fo r th eir own defence. B ut f or Gerrna i

Beirut's 'p olice-s t a t e is a s tage to the S~iet regime. This too h e
s
ded u ced from the theory of the dege ne r a te d workers s tat e. Germ .. '8
Trotskyi sm t herefore now t ell s the Polish workers to wait an see
h o w " t he ir" regime protects them from Fasci sm b efore intervening.

From Opportunism to Anarchism

Germain's p osition pur sues h im everyw he re, driving him t o ri ght
a nd left. Shachtrnan prop os es t hat the Trieste w orkers v ote t o jo in
th e Itali a n bourg eois democracy . Ge rmain den oun ces h im a nd wi ns one
of hi s u su a l easy victories. But Germ a in must h ave a po si tion . H e da re
n ot tell t he T ries t e w orker s t o join T it o's sta te. H e says h imself t hat
t his wou ld m ean "the b ureaucratic strangli ng of the . wor k e r s' m oveme nt." Opportunis m now m akes its plung e into a narchism . Germain
comes out fo r " A S ovi et Co m m une in T riest e." This , even if it lasted
"for on ly a fe w week s" wou ld, we are told, a ct a s a m agne t t o the
a d va n ced m a ss es of t he countries oc cu pie d by the U .S .S .R. a n d give
a powerful impetus t o the cl a s s s t r uggl e iri Ita ly. And this pi ec e of
r om a ntic despe ration go es unr ebuk ed in ou r m ovement.
I n r ea li t y, t oday , the F ou rth I nternationalists in Trie ste sh ou ld
warn the T rieste worke r s a gain s t such s ui cida l n ationalistic action .
They sho u ld ruthles sl y in their p olicy denounce t h e national boundaries
and preach da y in and da y out t h e u nification and coordinatio n of the
T r ieste w orking cl a ss m ovement primarily with the Italian proletariat.
The y s h ou ld denounce both the Italia n democracy and the Tit o police s tate a s a g ents in th e s t rangu lat ion and de struction of E u r ope, T h ey
sh oul d s t r ive to incul cate the n ecessity for united, coordinated action
wi th the p r og r am, concre t ely w orked out, of a s ocialist f ederation. The
T r ieste wo r k ers sho u ld be tau g h t t o look upon themselves a s a p art of
t h e pro letaria t of 'Southern Eur op e. They h ave the ri g ht of self-de ter m in a t ion, but that right is h is t or icall y and p oli tically condition ed. They
s hould be fold t hat t h is right exercised for a nd by th emse lves m eans
econom ic and p olitical r u in . I ma g ine a 1947 M arxi st a dvo cating a
nationalized econom y for T ri es t e! If Germain cannot s ee the town of
Trie ste a s a part of th e in t erna tiona l prolet a r ia n st r uggle , h ow can he
s ee Poland ? The T r ieste workers may be co mpelled t o fight a batt le
for power in Triest e. Every s t r oke of po licy sh ou ld sh ow th a t the y h ave
been f or ced into this, and do not s ee it a s any prog r am of their own.
And the only way to prevent this action be ing fo rced u p on them is to
make them u nd er s t a n d and s t r u ggle for t he mass intervent ion ( mass
strikes, dem ons t r a t ion s j - of the Italian proletar iat on t h eir behalf a t
the s lig htest sign of pressure. They sh ou ld be t aug h t that t heir ow n
a ct ion s sh u ld be t he or eticall y and organizationally link ed to the actions
of t he Italian prol et aria t a n d th e t'e sistance to Ti t o. T hi s is not onl y
s ou nd Bolshevis m . I t is exactly the type of p ol icy wh ich the wo r kers in
S ou thea s ter n E u rope fo llowed i n t he la s t st ages of th e w a r . The So viet
Comm une of Tries t e sho u ld be driven ou t of our m ov em ent. The
prop e r t y not being n a t ion a li zed, the wo r k ers a re ther efo re a d vised to
die g lor iousl y " po u r encou r ager les autres."
Ge r m ai n on on e side (and Sh acht rna n on the other) , cannot recog n ize t hat the sloga n of the S ocialist U n ited States of Europ e is t h e
o nl y practical, concrete b a si s of revolu t ion a r y policy. I n the s pe ci fic
f or ms of th eir e r r ors they com ple men t t h eir j oi nt r efu s a l to se e intern a ti on al s ocia lis m a s the s olut ion , not to-morrow, b ut to-d ay. Germain
is viole nt a g a in st Ang lo-Ame rican in t e r ven t ion . Shach tman is viol en t
a ga in st R u s sian intervention . N eit h er can say " W e denounce bo t h
interventions." Neither can se e the E uro pe a n proletariat a s the basis
of p r oleta r ian strat egy to-d a y . N eith er u nd e r s t a nds what is meant by
m akin g th e Socialist U nit ed States of E urope t he u nif ying slog a n of
r e volution ary policy in E urope, T hey r e ma in th eoretically within the
u at.innal boundarie s of Poland when a ll participa nts in t h e st r u g gle ,

38

'e ll' .t he Polish workers, reco gnize that the s t rug g le is Internationalr
S chtman, swinging in the "a ir , can "only hope In iv a in for' "bourgeois'
po t ica l 'dem ocr a cy ." Germain falls back on the bourgeois nationalizat ion . The.ipoficy we advocated in May 1946 has corresponded exactly
to t I{l: actions-of the mo stvadvanced of the ',Polish workers:"They s aw
the " ivil war" for what it was and held aloof from it. In Cracow the
prole taniat vot-ed neither for .Mick ola j czk nor for Be irut. An independent iS ocia l ist P a r t y has been formed s up por olng neither side. But thi s '
po licy is s uppos ed to 'be a policy of abstentionism. '
So when Hitler attacked Czechoslovakia in 1938 and the Austrian
work er s sa id "Down with ,.H it le r ! Not for Schusnrrigg," this was presumably an abstention. When' Trotsky s a id that you could not ab stract
Hit le r 's attack on Czechoslovakia from the whole complex of modern
Europe and told the workers to oppose both, this too becomes abstention . And today when we refus e to abstract Poland from a milieu in
which is concentrated the fundamental conflicts of world politics, a n d
draw policy to su it , this t oo ,b ecomes abstention,
.
, W e .h a ve o t he r alli es than ,Mic kolajczk to st r uggle f or and wi th . ,\Ve
have to win over the s old iers of the oppres sing power-Rus si a.
The Rus si an soldi ers will s eeMick ola j czk ,a s the v a ngu a rd of AngloAmer ican imperialism. In Germany all the defea ted classes and fas cis t ic
e lem en t s will rall y to the support of 'Micko l a jczk . '\V'ij;hin the Russia n
Army itself , a ll the Kravchenkos , t h ose who se e sa lvation for Rus sia
in bo u rgeois democracy, these are t he defeatists who will be pulled over
to t he side of Mi ck olajczk . The gen uinely .p role t a r-ia n elements of the
Russia n arm y ca n bewon over n ei t he r b y 'Beir u t nor Mickol aj czk. They
must s ee the European proletariat. This is 1947.
A nd the German pr oletaria n vangua r d? ,Does Germa in b eliev e t hat
they will demon str ate, ' make a general 's t r ik e, i nitiate p olitic al activity
f or t he vict or y of Beirut ? T his will mean n ot h ing m or e tha n the t ighteni ng cf t he ir own 'n oose. And t he victory of M ick olajczk? For the German
workers it m e ans onl y the f urt her entrench ment of Angl o-American
imperialism. ' T he German w or kers w ant a destruction' of both imperialism s . T h e Rus sian wo r kers want the destruction of b oth. T he Poli sh
wor k er s need t he s a me. H e nce in ca se of a Civil war in Poland t he
revolutionary v anguard in the army of Beir ut will have a defea tist
policy. It w ill see to it that ' its r epresentatives i n Mickolajczk 's army do
the same. It sd e.clar e s in ad va n,ce : a 'pla g ue on both yo ur :h ou s es. The
proletariat will car ryon mass demonstrations against t hi s p seudocivil war. But if the war does come, it does not abstain. It does not
s hu n the war. It h olds on t o what arms it can get and struggles to
cr eate a gain st both 'Mickolajczk and .Be iru t an a rrny fo r a s ocia list
P ola n d, fr ee d from both Anglo-American .i m pe riabism and Russian, and
reaching ou t to Russian so ldiers, the German proletariat, and all the
ot he r proletariats oppres sed by Rus sian imperialism. It does not precipit a te s uch a struggle. I t work s patiently to build its cadres....lt bitterly
oppose s being forced in to war. But if the war shou ld come this is the
policy it 'will carry ou t .
Shachtman will eay wi th e la.boi -atc s a r cas m : The Johnson -Forest
p osi ti on is -based on the "Cannorrite" conception that the war is stilI
goi ng on. For occup ied E urope it is. Imperialist a rmed occupation
of a .cou n t r-y i s a st a t e of war. .Io irit occup a t ion of one country and of a
wh ole continent 'is a st a t e of war. But there is more to thi s.
The 1944 T h ese s of the Fourth International (Fourth Int erna tio nal, March 1945 ) r ef er r ed to t he "integrat ion of m ili t a r y a ction s of
s e r vice to the U.S.S. R . within t he framework of a _ g enera l working'
class offen si ve."
Does G er m a in ' propose t o ;prepare the German
proletaa-iat and the French proletariat t oda y f or this tomorrow? Or
does h e 'a ct uall y propose to dra w t h is to i ts co nclusion. . lif t h e Red
A:rmy marched on France ? I s this .to o Trotsky's position ? ' Wh ere.

,3 9

and when will this stop? Day after day during

we stand more and more bewildered ' before this question: W hat
vantage, what single advantage does Germain gain f or the prolet 'at
by this d ef en se of the U.S.S.R. in return for . the monumerita confu sions and . burdens which it places upon the Fourth International
and the working class?
l

Chapter V-- Parties, Tendencies And

Programs in the Fourth International
From the conc:rtte exposition of policy in one of the mo st difficult
a nd therefore most revealing problems in the modern struggle for
soc ia lism , it is necessary now to pass to the political tendencies in the
F ou rth International. But here also the terms sec t a r i a n, Menshevik,
Econ omist, Bol shevik, make no s ens e e xcept in st r ict relation to the
analysi s of the -m a ss movement.

(a) Sectarianism Today

How difficult and mi sleading it is t o u se these word s like sectarian
unles s within the framework of an a na lysis of the epoch is demons t r at ed by the example of Munis, In 1944 Munis and Peralta put
forward the following program for the European workers; and in 1946
r epeated it in another publication.
"1. The arming of the proletariat must be extended to the entire
prol etarian clas s a nd t o the poor pea sants. At the sa m e time, we mu st
d emand the disarmament and di ssolution of the a rmed forces of the
bourg eoisi e (army, poli ce, etc.) and a chi eve this a s s oon a s the -occas ion present s itse lf. . . .
/
\
. "2. . . . The n ation ali zation of industr y, of fin ance capital or of the
l a nd by t he ca pita list st a t e m u st n ot deceive the masses. T ha t will be
a tri ck of bou rgeois , 'St a lin ist a nd r efo r mist coa li t ions t o p reser ve
cap itali st p ro pert y. Any confi scated prope rty must n ot -be delivered t o
the bo urgeois e tate. Th e p roletaria t m u st a dm inist er t he e con omy by
It se lf a nd establi sh a sing le pla n for ail countrie s t o t h e d egree t h at
, in tern a t iona l contact a m on g the ex ploit e d per mits t h is. It is al r ead y
poss ible to el a borate a project of u ni fied p r oduction between t h e F rench ,
Ita lia n and Belgia n p r ol et a r ia t ; tomorro w it will be po ssible with the
Gen n a n, Spa ni sh , Greek, R us sia n wo r kers, etc. Althou gh th e coalitions
between bou rgeois, Stalin ist s and " social ists," supp orted b y the b ayone ts
of Wall Street, of t he City a nd of t h e K r e mlin, prevent fo r the momen t
the putting into p r a cti ce of a social plan f or Europe, the pr oject;'ou ght
t o be established and defended by the r evol utiona r ies of ev ery country.
I n t he face of t he reactionary de sig ns of t he g overnme ntal coa litions, it
would be an enormous f orce for prop aga n da, of' pe r su a sion ~d of
socialist a g it a t ion.
" 3" ... W he r e . . . com mi ttees do no t ex is t , t he im medi ate objective
of the m a sses ou ght to be t h eir est abli sh m ent. Wher e they exist, they
must be u ni t ed on a national scale b y the means of the Congress of
Com mitt ees wh ich' will st udy and reso lve t he p roblem s of t he m a s se s
and of t he socia l r evo lu t ion. The commit tees, of wo r ker s , pea sants and
sold ie r s of di ffer ent nation aliti es ough t t o make con t a ct on the fir st
occa s ion p ossible a nd create a Supr eme -Council of European Committe es . " . .W hat pre ced es can b e su m me d up in this slog a n : All political
p ower to the Com m ittees of W orkers , Peasa nts and Soldiers and, for
the m a s ses in ge ne r a l : Socialist United ' States of Europe." (LE
GRO UPE ESPAGNOL OF THE 4th INTERNATIONAL IN MEXICO,
Manifesto of October 31, 1944, translated from the F'rench. )
We .nee d not subscribe to every word. But the conception is mag-

~Q

nifi ce n t ly concrete. Munis also m akes -it perf ectlyclear that -a lull in
t he offensive of the proletariat does not alter the validity of this ' program . A s we sh a ll show, iri this .he is absolutely correct. There i s not
at ounce of sectarianism in this and people who in one place preach
the approaching downf all of ci vilization and then reject -as sectarian a
p r og ram for the international mobilization of the proletariat are -playi ng wit h revolution:.
Yet Murr is is a s ect aria n. His s ecta rt a ni sm consists essentially in
has r ejection of the slogan, the Communist Party to power. We uncea sing ly ipropagate the committees a n d the international ' plan, hut
until we have the com m it tees , the Stalinist parties ' 'r ep resen t a prof o und mass mobilization and must be su p por t ed a s we have described.
T h e q uest io n is: What does tMu n ia r epresent? .
I n 1920 during the revolutionary turmoil after the last war the
Comm u nist International faced the di sease of infantile leftism, at the
bottom of which was a r efusal to make a r evolutionary use of b ourg eois
p arliaments. This sect a r ia nis m had its or igi n in the failure of the revolut ion bec a use of the co rruption of the Social-Democracy by bourg eoi s
-'
pa rliam en t a r is m .
\ Munis r epresents the infantile leftism of today. Where b ourge ois
p a r li amentarism corrupted the proletariat in the period that culminated
in the f ounda t ion of the Third I n t ernat i onal, the devel oped objective
situa t ion h a s produced a new t ype of betr a y al, the betra yal of t he
S ocia l-Democracy a nd Com m unist P art ies wi t h the act ual st a te p owe r
ill their hands . .Just a s the L eft in 19 19 reacted too vi olen tl y a gain st
t he corrup t i on t hat h ad p r eced ed. .them~ so Muni s reacts against the
corr u p t ion t h at h a s preceded the hi storic op po r t unitie s pre s ent ed to the
Fou r t h I n t er nation al.
.
Germain, who is a ble to e xplain li ttle, cannot explain Mu rris . H e
therefo re ca nnot prepare the F ourth International for what can be 'I.
very serious d a ng er : the vi olent reaction of increasing la yer s of the
revo lutionary m asses as they see through Sta linism and t h eir r efusal
t o recognize the n ec e ssi t y of t a ct ic al com p ro m is es wi th even the bure aucracies of t h e Communis t P arties 'in W estern Europ e .
But wit h Mu n is, h is po litical po sitions carryover '111t O h is organiza tional practi ce s . T h e s ame un-B olshevik ferocity t h at he disp lays to
t he la bo r le a der ship- n ot Stali ni sm alone-he displ ays in r ega r d to the
I
.
leadership of t he Fou r t h I nternational.
Munis r e pr e sents a t end ency which has emancipat ed itself from
the pre occu p a t ion with Stalinism a s a mod e of t h ou g h t . His attack is 'on
ti le la bor bureaucracies, bo th Stalinist and ref ormist. H is b a si s is
ob vio usly the p roletarian revolutio n, the mass m ovemen t , a s we have
outlined it in this p a m p hl et. It ,is fa r di ffe rent wi t h the other tendenc ies.

(b) Me nshevism; Today

'I'he J oh ns on-F or est tend ency in 19L16, ana lyzed "the du al h er it a g e"
in th e posit.ionTeft by Trotsky to t h e Fourth Int ernation a l : on t he one
h and, the Lenini st program for t he mo bilization of t h e p roletari a t fo r
t h e world p ro let a r ia n r evolut iou: on the other, the R ussian p osi t ion .
W e poin t ed ou t f u r t he r that the mo ve men t was div iding a lon g t wo
l ines-not on mere defeatism, bu t on t h e 'R us sia n experienc e rn relation
t o the wo r ld revolutio n .
N ow it is becoming perfectl y clear that the politica l t en dencie s in
the Internat io nal are divi ding a long t he li ne s we h a ve indica t ed. The
\ L Ie.D., in its t h eor y of historical r et ro gre ssion, h a s el aborat ed the most
f ull y a nd drawn to its u lt im a t e conclusi on t h ose theories which are
r ooted in t h e degene r ation of the R u ss ian revolution.
The t heory of r etro gres sion cl aims t hat the d eg enera t ion of bo urgeois s ocie t y bring s wit h i t t he d e g e ne ration of the prol et a riat. This

41,

has received)ts mo st finished -and .revealing. manifestation in a .passage

f r om a thesis submitted to the 1946 Convention by the I.K.D. Fighting
t o break througn . the ,wall of conservatism of. the W . P. Majority, the
Johnso~-Forest tendencyJrad challenged , it with the s t a t eme nt that in
the .Umted States no one could e xclude the possibility that within two
years a ' g ene ral strike could take pl ace and the workers could form,
if not SOv1etS, worker s' co uncils. The W. P. Ma jorit y , which, in a few
months (such is centris m) w ould go mu ch f ur t her than this , not in
the ory b ut concretely, professed t o see in this a forecast of the
la st s tages of t he insurrection a nd the st r uggle for power. The LK.D.,
however, t ook up t he ch a ll enge directly a nd produced the followin g.
T he quo t a t ion is long but it has the ad vanta ge of s a ying ever yt hing,

The I.K.D. on Socialism

" The nec essit y fo r a revolutionary leadershi p is recognized in words,

but one has not t he least not ion how it has to be constit uted. I n order
to convince ourse lves of this let us push the in sanity to ex t r emes and
a ssume that J. R. Johnso n t akes power with his party in t h e spring of
1948 . Of cou r se, J ohnson will ha ve sovie ts a ll ove r an d h a ve a t his
command any number of d ifferent kind s of ' wor kers' com m it tees.' In
a ddition the party will be imbu ed with the k ind of wis dom wh ich J ohnson t a k es for 'Marxism.' We a ssume further that even the mass of
worke rs have understood J oh ns on 'full y and completely.' Then what '?
"On the ba sis of the 'conception' of the pa r t y which especially
Joh nson an d t he officia l F ou rth hold, we would then .experie nce a
catastroph e of unimaginable extent,
. " We would be faced by this problem : A r my a nd indust r y , n ational
and international politics, agriculturo an d trade, im por t s a nd exports,
educational s ystem a nd propaganda, scient ific r es earch ' and technical
a ppara t us, st a t istics and medici ne, administration, housing and a hundred other branches would not only have to be re-organized, but also
con trolled and led. W e would find ourselves in a concre te sit u a ti on
f a cing Stalinism as well a s the ch ur ch , the r eformists, the other parties,
the international diplomacy and the armed counter-rev olution. Fin a nce,
regula t ion of currency , le gis la t ion, postal se r vice, radio, the m otion
p ictures, psych olog y, philosophy, peda go gy, literat ure, a r t , fami ly life,
sports, recrea t ion, pe nolog y and a t h ou sand other questions would
create t r ou bles wh ich Joh ns on's book-learning doe s not dream of. Faced '
with a ll t h es e difficu lties which (let us r epeat emphatically) cannot be
enumera t ed and a r e of g'ig a nt ic dimen sions, Johnson would reali ze that
he ha s not underst ood "Das Kapital " if fo r no other reason t han that
h e doesn't under st a nd an ything a bout bo urgeois s ociet y . W her e eno rmous knowledge a nd utmost many-sidednes s are required he w ould
operate with a de ad sche mat a . He would be a t the mercy of the bou r geois s pe cia lis ts in every de tail, for bette r or for worse .
" Does anyone imagine that one could do without this army of
specialists or f or ce them t o cooperate through the 'dictatorship' becau se there are sufficient numbers of technically t rained workers to ke e p productio n runni ng ? But just t o m a int a in p r odu cti on and di stribution ,
e conomists , a rchit ects, technicians, en gineers, physici st s, chemists, experts iii fores try, m ining, transportati on, agricult ure, etc., are needed
'without end. All these people wou ld not let themselves be commandeer ed
by a pa r ty which is not in a po sition t o chec k up on them. Under such
circumst ances even la r ge stratas of workers would a ssume definite
traits of a "ruling " cla s s in the bad se ns e and . fall prey to this everpresent danger, the easier the more ignorant the p arty, and t hus bring
the wor ke r s t o power a s pur e pro d ucts of t h e ca pit alist enviro nment.
The workers then wo uld have practically no m or e to offer than t heir
~ ' p ro l e ta ri an " 'self -conceit or tha -a rrogance of their 'hi st orical ' mi ssion.
Thev wo u ld commit st u pidit y after st u pidit y, They wou ld be forced to
rule' by na ke d p owe r, a rouse all t he wo r ld a gainst themselves and

Ierurthen the chain of diffi cultie s from this unforeseen point t o the final
d ecline of the r evolution.
" I n civ ilized countries the conque st a n d the main t a in in g of p ow er
are m u c h more difficult than in backward ones (for exam p le, in barb aric
R ussia ) , The m ore developed a country the m or e knowledge is r equired,
and t h e mo re d ifficu lt is it t o con vince t he s p e cialists, t o win them over ,
and t o di sciplin e them. If Johnso n , t rusting in t h e development of the
class strugg le , wou ld , after t akin g -pow er, a s sem ble them and s u bm it
his ' p la ns ' th e y would remark to each other a ft er the first addres s :
'Why, this is a prattler! -H e t h inks he ca n s olv e diffi cult questions w ith
agita t ion a l s peech es .' .
" Of course, every grea t revo lu tio n 'm a k e s a g reat number of
s ch ola r s , s pe cia lis t s , i n t ellectu als of all ki nds w illing to join and b e a t
'Its di s posa l. O nl y it has to b e a great revol utio n and no t a J oh ns onnade
up on w hich one will look w ith a su perior s m il e o r w it h p anic a s up on a
folly, a childis h n e ss , a q uee r id ea or a n i n san e adventure. In t h e abse n ce
of a p arty which h a s a lready g a ined g rea t p olitical and m oral a u t h orit y
the a chie ve ment of s ocialism 'w ill b e lo st every time." (" The Cr is i s of
Socialism a n d H ow t o Ove r com e It," BULLETIN OF THE W,P.,
Vol. I , N o. 17 , p p . 16-17. )
The strict ly p oli tica l implicatio n s of t h is a re of profou n d import a nce
for t h e cl ari fic ation of our moveme nt a nd the u n de r s t andin g of the class
s t r ngg le. The ext ract sh ows that the s tat e-capitali sm of the LK.D. is
merely a no t her name for bureaucratic coll ectivism or the manag erial
socie t y of Burnh am. The technici ans a n d the man a g ers will defeat the
most powerful proletariat in the wo rld in t h e most a dvanced s oci e t y in
the w o r ld b e cause of th e a bsence, not of a p arty, but of a s pe cial t ype
of par ty. So special is this t ype of p art y that of n e ces sity there l ooms
the probability of " a th ird alterna tive ." It is n ot only t h e seizu re of
power th a t is feared . It is what ha ppens after.
T his party obv iou s ly is not a narty consisting p r e d om in a nt ly of
worke r s. It is a ua r ty able to hand le the fear-some hub of p rob lems
d etail ed b v the LK.D .. a p a r t y of the ed u ca t e d elite. T h is is in t h e or y
the class hasi s . of the Sta li ni st corruption of the proletariat in Wes t er n
Europe , Thus t he L IZ.D . .r e p r ese n t s not Menshevik tendencies in gene ral.
It is a Menshevik terrd e nc v which corres ponds t o the d e g ene ratio n of
the Th ir d I nte r na t ion al a s clas s ic Me n sh e v is m co r res ponded to the de ge ne r a t ion of t he Second. Becau se Ge rm a in is un a bl e t o a nalyze the
proletar iar and the Stali ni s t nartie s , he is thereb y a s un able t o an al y ze
th e ,L K .n . a s h e is b ~ d b y M u ni s ,
T he p ractical conseq uences of t h e po lic y of t he LK.n. are n o less
important. All w h o hold t hese view s a r e a n d must b e mortal enemies of
the r evol utiona r y s tr ugg le fo r p owe r a nd t he r evolu tion ary propa ganda
a nd agitati on which go with it. Thes e m us t w a it fo r th e party. Agitation
fo r r evolut ion , p r ona g an dn f or revo lutio n . is p ushing the proletariat to
it s certain d es tru ction. The prol etariat is n ot r eady . The party is, not
read y .
From t h is flows th e u nb r idl ed , the ungovernable ferocity and rasre
with which t h e extr em e r epres en t a ti ve s of this t enden cy a tta ck the
F ou r th I n t ern a t io n al, th e bit t e r n es s a n d ha te w ith w h ich t h e y r e v ie w
t h e w h ole past h is to r y of t he prole tariat, and the p latoni c construc tion
wh ich the y call t h e role of , t he party.
,
.A s alwa y s in the historical manif e s tation s of a lo gical line . the
s u p p or ters 0 the LK.D. show every v a r ie t y of d eviation a n d com binat ion of contradictory phenomena, u sually a n empirical respons e t o nat ion a l conditions. But all t h r ough run certain conceptions, e .g ., t h e
back wa r dn ess of the m a sse s, and the predilection fo r a "re ali stic,"
"praCtic a l, " " no n-sect a r ia n " policy, in other w ord s , the drowning of
Bolshevism in ill-con ceale d Me n shevik p olitics . The y sh ow a fan a tical
i nteres t in s tat is t ics of boom and ec onomic " stabilization." T h e mainte-

43

na nce of s ome s ort of equilibrium by an American financed "recovery"

is vi t a l for th ese t endencies. Without it the st r ug gle mi ght be precipitated by the backward proletariat upon the unready party. In varying
d egree s the polic y is the polic y of "the lesser evil," i.e., the labor st atus
quo, until such t ime a s the proletariat and the party are ready. For
them al ways t he status qu o. I n the U. S. they capitulate to American
pett y-bourgeois r ad ica lism an d t he union bureaucracy; in Britain they
capitulate to t he labor g overnm ent ; in France they capitulate to the
Stalinist bureaucra cy. F or a sec ond it mi ght appear that the French
capitulation to Stalinism is out of line. It is not. France is accustomed
to a variety of revolu ti onary and counter-revolutionary r egimes. Stalin'Ism leads the ma ss labor movement in France and i s unlikely for
some ti me to do more than maintain the democratic r egime with some
more nationalizati on.
The Worker s P a rty h a s a dded a new theoretical clarifica tio n t o
these tendencies. It has now declare d that there hang s a g re at que stion
ma r k over the ab ility of the proletariat to r ea ssemble a revolutionary
leadership before it is "destroyed" by disintegrating ca pitalism .
Under these com puls ions s log ans such a s National Liber at ion, Constituent As sem bly, nationalization, for the Labor P art y in the Uni t ed
States, a nd all variety of "democratic demands" assume the m ost conser vat ive, not to sa y r ea ct iona r y, cha r a ct er. A t t he back of a ll this is
a conc eption of the proletariat, learned in the Ru ssi an degene r at ion
and f ortified by the defeat s in Europe .
Trot sky stood for the defense of t he degenerated workers st ate but
never, except a s a t heo re t ical p r ognosis fo r the purp ose of sho wing
wha t wa s in volved, di d he a dulter ate the Bolshe vis m of the wo rld revoluti on by t he faintest t r a ce of t his poison .

(C) Economism
\ Ve have el se where defined the tendency of Germain as an E conomist
te ndency:
I
"In 1902 , the Economists g over ned t hemselve s b y t he eco nomic
nec essity of lar ge scal e pr odu ct ion rather than the mobi liz a ti on of the
masses to fight Tsarism and establish t heir political uni fica ti on in t he
democratic dic tatorsh ip of t he proletariat an d peasantry. In 1916, the
im periali st E conomi st s governed t he ms elve s by the econo mic nece ssity
of su pr a-na t iona l cen tralization rather tha n the unification and mobilization of the p r olet a ri at and pea santry of the oppressed and oppressing
count ries . In 1918, Bukharin posed the economic necessity of nationalization r ather tha n the mobiliza t ion of the Ru ssian masses into their own
organiza tions to control produc t ion a nd saf eg uard a gainst cou nte r revol ut ion .
.
.
"What does Germain pr opose t oday? In t he full E conomist tradition, a da pt ed to the presen t sit ua t ion , 'h e continues to spea k of the
economically prog ressive cha r a cte r of nationaliz a t ion and planned
eco nomy. Already in Po land , h is position sh ows t he political se rio us ness
of hi s ba sic error. The Economists of 1902 thought t hat they we re only
defending the ec onomic organization of large scale capit ali sm. In reality,
they were defending T sa r ism because only t he revolut ionary demo cratic
m obilization of the proletariat a nd pea sa nt r y could destroy politica l
feuda lism. The imperialist E conomists in 1916 thoug ht they were onlydefending the economic centrali zatio n accomplished by imperialism. In
r eal it y, t hey were defending imperialism beca us e onl y th e mobilization
of t he masses of the oppre sse d and oppressing countries could destroy
natio nal domination. Germa in in 1947 thinks he is only defending the
nationaliz ation and planned econom y of t he bureaucracy. In r eality, he
is defending Stalinism because on ly the strategic pe r spective of r evolutiona ry recon struction by t he Europ ean mas ses a s a unit, and particularly in Russia, E ast ern E urope a nd Ger man y, can oppose both t he

44

internationalism of Stalinist Russia a nd the internat ionalism of A m erican imperialism. No m atter how loudly Ge rmain p r ocl aims that Stali ni sm is the main danger, no matter how h e sh if t s on defeatism or defen sism in Russia, he cannot wi ggle out of his capitulation t o Stalinism so
long as he continues to look to economic centralization and planning
for social p r og r es s." .( " Th e Economist Tendency In The Fourth International.")
The basis for the Economist tendency of Germain lies in its s pec ia l
reaction to Trotsky's heritage. It is the only tendency which tries to
.maintain "the dual heritage" as a unified world conception under circumstances which demand a development of the theory. The result is
that the Germain tendency neither "defends" Rus sia by Trotsky's
method, nor fully advocates the world revolution by T rotsky's method.
It continually vacillates on the d efense -of th e wo r k e r s ' s t a te. It
. dared not call for the v ict or y of Stalinist Russian ov er J apanese
troops and only the rapid end of the war sa v ed it f r om the full consequences of its false position. It finally call s for the withdrawal of the
troops of the Red Army from the occupied region s, a policy which
could not possibly be advocated by a political tendency which . had
thought through and was willing to face a ll the dmp lica t ion s of its
position.
The Red Army and the Kremlin are "introducing" in. Germany
according to Germain, "progressive property form s through bureaucratic measures." American imperialism, a s its maneuvers in regard
to the Ruhr show, seeks '''1.0 pres erve reactionary property form s
through reactionary measures." Whenever faced with this choice, sa ys
Trotsky, we choose "the le sser evil." The Fourth International ca n n ot
ch oose . The s ou r ce .of these v acillations is rooted de ep in th-eory.

The Russian Proletariat

Shachtman defines th e r ela tion s of production in Russi a a s
" slavery," a de fin it ion of no value whatsoever exc ept that ~' negation
li t excludes the Russian prole t a r ia t a s 'b ein g .p r ep a r e d for th e socialist
rrevolu tion by the mech anism of p r odu ct ion itself. But t h e tendency of
G ermain, h y in sisting that the orig in of the 'S t a l in ist bureaucracy is in
con sumption only, implies that the r elation s of p r oduction lin Rus sia
a re socialist (or transitional to .soci a lism ) and thereby makes th e
r evolu tion of the Rus sian p roletari at a resp on se t o "tyranny" a n d
"oppression" or stimulation from ex te r n a l fo rces. Germain c on tin u es
t.oinsi st that the if-evolution in Russia is a political revol u t ion . T hus,
:Ileand Shachman exclude a revolufion of the Russian proletariat
based .u p on the 'p r ocess of production . The result is that, d espite
phrases, both in practice exclude the Russian prol etar-iat a s a revolu t ionary force from their calculation s of r evolution on a w orld sca le.
Shachtman see s the w orld p ro le t a r iat essentiaIly throu g h t he
s am e defeati st sp ectacles t hrough which h e v iews t he Russ-ian p roleariat, He places a big question m ark on th e 'w h ole r evolutionar y p ers p ect ive. H e hands over the theoretical deci sion which h e has to m a k e
t o an em p iri ca l mystici sm wh ich h e eu p h em ist ically c a ll s " struggle ."
\Vhat is h is p olicy therefore? 'H e h ol ds on t o t h e " d emocratic" labor
ibu rea ucracy a s the French Maj ority h old s on t o t he S t.ali n ist bureauc r a cy. They want "a .dem ocratic interlude." They w ant thep r oletai a n revolution to wait until the mass p arty can guarantee a st r uggle
without possibility of catastrophe.
Ger m a in and hi s co-thinkers apply to the Russian proletariat t e
Wh ere
p oli cy that Shachtman appl.ie s to th e world p roletar iat.
Shachtman and Co . hold on to t he labor bureaucracy, Germain and
his co-thinkers hold on to th e nationalized property. They elevate
i n to a policy Trotsky's analogy of the Russian s t a t e as a big trade
union. Their ' defensism continues b ecause . they are terrifi-ed of the
proletarian revolution in Russia unless a mass .r evolu t ion a ry party can

guarantee that dmporialism wil l not profit 'b y the defeat of t he

bureaucracy.
. Shachtman vacillates between a ver ba l r evolu t ion ism and h is
a ct ua l subordination to the "democratic interlude" of the labor leadership. Germain vacillates between a real revolutionism in Western
Eur.ope and the Kremlin and Red Army. Sha ch t man's .r evolu ti on i sm
is wrecked against hi s need to support the bureaucracies of Western
Europe. Germain's revolutioni sm is .wrecked against his def ense of
the nationalized property, i.e., the Kremlin and the Red Army.
With the in creasing suc cess, i.e. lease on life, of' the la bor bureaucr acy, Shachtman, the petty-bourgeois, becomes more de fensi st, d.e .,
mo r e ' Men shevik in hi s politics. With the increasing success of the
Kremlin and the Red A r m y, however, Germain, a Bolshevik, is compelled to become increa singly defeatist in regard to the Kremlin
bureaucracy. The great difference lie s in the perspective of world
proleta r ia n revolution con si stently maintained by Germain and questioned by Shachtman. That is why Shachtman, beginning with 3
conditional defensi sm 'i n 1941 , ends with an uncondit iona l defeatism in '
regard to Russia ba sed u pon a defeatist attit ude to the proletariat
ev er yw here. It is the con cept of the world proletarian revolution
which is driving Germain from a conditional to an unconditional de f ea t ism in regard to the Kremlin and the Red A rmy .
The vacillation s of Shachtman can be cured gnly by a .recogrriti on
of the elemental and i ns t in ct ive drive of the .prolet a riat on a worl d
sc a le; and particularly, in hi s own country, to re construct societ y on
co mmu nist beginnin g s. The vacillations of Germain can be cured on ly
:by the recognition of the . elemental a nd instinctive drive of t h e
Ru ssian proletariat to reconstruct Bodey on communist beginnings.

The Vacillations Repeated

But if Russia and " nationalized property" are not adequately defended, the world revol utionary a spect of Trotsky's heritage i s not
'a dequ at ely defended either. The vacillation on Russian defense is reflec ted in the 'p r opa g a nda f or the world revolution by the Fourth I nternational.
.
The concept of the predominant role of the party, learnt i n Ru ssia,
is transferred to We stern Europe. It ba ses the corruption of the
bureaucracies of the Com mu n is t Par ties on the machinations of the
K r emlin and not on the develop ed antagonism s of th e bo urgeoisie, t h e
proleta r ia t and the petty-bourg eoisie . Thereby, it is unable to meet
on a f undamental cla ss basi s the demoralized opportunism of Shachtman and the IKD nor the infantile lefti sm of Munis. _
Its r evolutionary propaganda tends to demand certain actions of
the proletariat r ather than elicit and develop its own proletarian experiences. Hence it s em ba r r assme nt when these actions do not take
place and 'Sh a cht ma n a n d the I.K.Dv'ers demand: w here is the revolut ion you promrsed ?'; its unrewarding concentration on is su es
like the vote on t he r eferendum. As we demonstrated, it promulgates
the r evolutionary r eadiness of the ma sses but cannot moti vate it from
the objective manifestations a s Trotsky did in r eg ard to the union
mo ve me n t in 1919. It a nno unces r ather t han analyz es. Its r evo lution ism
con s.ist s m or e in exhorta t ion , a nd in m a nifestos r ather than t h e concret e dail y presentation of the revolutionary program. It doe s n ot see
the or ganic un it y be tween the part y and the r evolut ionary mas ses bu t
i s far too much g overned b y the f alse id ea of Lenin in "What is t o be
D one ," that the party brin g s socialist cons cious ne ss to the masses
fr om the outside-dir ect re sult of the theory of the de generated workers' st a t e. Worse st ill, Germa in no w begins to find the consciousness
a n d organization of the proletari at in 1944 lower than it was in 1918.
He finds that th e phenomenal growth of Stalinism corresponds to t he
" h is t or ic retreat" of the ; workers -movement. If the vacillation on the

46

Russian q ue stion is to be corrected by the revusron, no t the exposition,

of Trotsky's theory . on Ru s sia, the vacillation 0 1: : ," ~ "':~:~l d revolution
is to b e corrected by the , most r e solute s t r ugg le fo r the rn ethod-of.
Bol shevism. We sh a ll t ake a s a model the Third 'Con g r e ss of the -Comin t e r n , dominated by -T r ot sk y , the s a me Trotsky who wrote the,
""
T ransitional Program.

(d) The Method of Bolshevism

In 1921 the Third International recognized t h at th e revolution ary
wa ve which began in October 1917 had passed.
" Th e first 'pe r iod of the r ev olut ion a r y movemen t after the war is
ch a r a ct er ized by the ele m ent a l nature of the on slaught, by the con, sider able fo rmlessness of its m ethod s and aims 'a n d by the ext reme
p a n ic of the ruling cla ss es; 'a n d it may be regar d ed by and larg e as
term in a ted."
No su ch situation e xi sts today . The extreme p a nic of the ru ling '
classes 'is f a.r greater than in 1921. The quojati on a bove 'C on t in ues :
"The class s elf -con fiden ce of the bourgeoisie a nd th e outwa r d
st a b ilit y of its st a t e org ans have undoubtedly ,be com e s t ren gt h ene d. The
dread of Communi sm has abated, if not com p letely disa ppeared. The
leaders of the bourgeoi sie are now e ven boasting a b ou t th e might of
t hei r s t a te apparatus an d have eve r y wh e r e a ssumed th e offen sive
aga in s t th e wo rking ma ss es, on both t he ' e con om i.c and p olitical
.f'r on t s."
,
Now som e s uch pe r iod as t h is is wh a t Trotsky had in mind when
. he wrote in: 1939 that if, durin g or after the war the p r oletariat did not
.s uc cee d in making the , r evolution and was thrown back on 'a ll f ronts',
t h e n he could not conceive a n other situation in wh ich i t cou ld conquer.
If there are those wh o think that such a sit u a t ion has now been '
rea ched, let them s ay s o and s t op their intolerable pl a ying with g reat
ques t ions.
Of the proletariat itself the These s of the Third Con gress st a tc :
. "The elements of s tabil ity, of conser v a t is m and of tradition, co m pletely upset in socia l relations , have lo st mo st of th ei r a u t hor ity ov er
the consciousness of the toiling m asses."
We a sk: When were t h e w orker s all ov er the 'World ever s o f r ee
of a ll elements ' of s t a bilit y, of con servatism, of tradition? If Stalinism
cor r u pt s the r ev olutionary u rge of th e masses , in 1947, the SocialD emocracy corrupted it il'\ 1921. If Stalini sm i s th e extreme cor r uption
tha t it ts, that is because of the ex treme r ev olution is m of the m a ss es.
This is s t rictly in ac cor da nc a with the laws of socia l de velopment a nd
is riot the product of the Kremlin .'
, T h e Theses call the cap italism of 1921 "Cap it a li sm in dts de athago ny ." The whole of world ci vilization i s no lon ge r in its death
a g ony. Putrefaction and gan grene have se t in . But th e International "
c a n n ot see this because 'it p ers ists in seein g p r og ress in t h e m on str ou s
b arb a r is m of Russia and the s pr ea d of this into iE u r op e and A siav>
The Third Congress in its Thesi s on T a cti cs, did not d eb ate the
le vel of consc iou sn ess Of th e masses. It g ave f re el y to the ce n t r-ist s
ail that they wanted of this. It a t tribu t ed the failu r e of the r evolution
to t h e treachery of the workers' parties and added f urt her :
". , . it is this wh ic h .du r i ng the period of apparent pros pe rity of
19 19-20 en cou r aged n ew h op es in t he Ip:r oletaria t of im proving its
con dit ions wi thin th e frame wo rk of capit a lism, the essent ia l cause of
t.he defeat of th e rising s' in 191 9 a nd of the decline of the r ov olub ionary
movemen ts in 1919 -1 920."

Tak e th at a n d do yo ur b est w ith it, Comrade Shachtman 'a n d all

yo u r co- thi nke r s. The Con gres s a dmi t ted that: "th e majority of
t h e w or k er s is not y et under the in flu en ce of commu nis m; ab ov e
"a ll, in t h e cou n t ri es where t h e p owe r of finance-c a p ital is :p a r t icu la r ly

, 47

strong and has given birth to va st layers of workers corrupted qy

imperialism ' (for example ' in England and the United States) and
where genuine 'l' ev9lu t ion a r y propaganda among the masses i s just
beginning." Most important of all, the greatest fight at this Congress
wa s a r oun d rejecting the theory ' of the offensive and the 'C ong ress
in sist ed that there was no possibility of the revolution until t he
majority of the proletariat accepted the leadership of the Communists.
Take it all, Comrade Shachtman and all the rest of you: Invent
f or 1947 a bourgeoisie confident, v a st layers of workers corrupted by
dm pe r fa li sm va majority mot acc epting ;revolut ion , m ake your reaction.a r y fanta sies into a thesis;
The International wastes its time a nd
betrays its own vacillations when it argues with you on that basis.

Bolshevism in 1921
It wastes its time. It betrays its own -vacillations. Because in
19 21 after registering the se t -ba ck , the decline of the mass revolts, the
confidence and boasting of the bourgeoisie, the Thi rd Congress the n
put forward policy. And what w a s this policy?
"All agitation and propaganda, every action of the Communist
Party ought to be permeated by this se nt im e nt , that on the capitalist
b a sis, no durable amelioration of the condition of the great body of
the proletariat is po s sible: that only the overthrow of the bourgeoisie
and the destruction of the capitalist s t a t e will make it possible t o
w ork for the improvement of the con dit ions of the p r olet a r ia t a nd to
restore the n ational econ om y r uined by ca pitaldsm ."
For 1947, is t his Bolshevik polic y or not? 'Th is is th e qu es ti on
t hat must be ans wered . But f or it t o be answered, it must b e ask ed
and the example must be s et . This is and ha s been the basic posi t ion
of the Johnson-Forest tenden cy since 1943. Is it sec tar ia n ism, ul t raleft ism , sem i-s y n d ica li sm , phra se-m ongering?
Then Iet u s have it
.asked 'a n d clea rl y answe red on a ll sides.
The Thesis warns that this, of course, sh oul d not preven t th e
s t r ug g le for v it a l, act ual a n d immed iate demands of the worker s. B ut
these wer e not t o be subst it u t ed f or the p r op aganda and agitation f or
the revolutionary overt h r ow of boureg ois societ y. These theses, it
shou ld b e noted, were n ot li t erary or h istoric. su rveys. They w ere
w r it t en i n 1921 t o g uide th e paaties until 1922:
"The revolution ary character of th e present epoch consi sts p r eci selv i n this that t he m ost m odest co n dibion s of exisencs fo r t h e
wo rking m a sse s a r e i ncom pati ble wi t h the ex is t ence of ca pit ali st satiety,
and t hat f or t h is r ea son even t h e strug g le fo r the m ost modest dem a n ds
takes on the p ropor t ions of a stru gg le f or commun ism ."

The Task of the Party

The 192 1 Theses sa y that th e strug g les m a y be d efensive bu t it
is the duty of the p arty t o dee pen the defensi ve s t r uggle, to a mplify
jt 'a n d t u r n it in t o a n offen s-ive .
To t h e F rench .P arty the t h esis offered som e a dvi ce . The re action
aga i n st th e w a r was deve lop ing mo r e s low ly dn F rance th an in t he
other coun t r ies.
In ot h er w ords, t he F r en ch p r oletaria t w a s more
"backwar d" tha n t he othe r s of continen tal Europ e. The a dvic e of
ths Thir d Con gre ss was :
" The pr a ctica l a g it a t ion ough t to t a ke a chara cter v ery much
m are p oin t ed a nd more energetic. It ou g h t not to di ssip a te itself on
incident a l si t u a t ions a nd the sh ift ing and va riable combin ation s of daily
pol itics., ,I n a ll e vents sm all or la r g e, the agitation of . t he p a rty
'sho u ld dra w the same f undam en ta l revolu ti on a r y conclusion s and in culc a te th em int o t h e w orki ng masse s even the m os t backwa rd."
Th is is Bo lshevism. Or is it sectarianism?

48
-,

In 1922 the Fourth Congress m et. It said that fasci s m, white

terro r and the sta t e of sieg e a gainst the proletariat was ri sing . It s ai d
that there was , approaching an ,e r a , of democratic-pacifist illusi ons,
a nd democratic-pacifist governments in France and Britain. It warned"
t hat the re were many stages bet wee n xiefeat and victor y. It showed
that 'wit h the decline of the r e volutio nary wave, the centrists had
mo ved a wa y from the Third I n te r na ti onal and gone back t o the'
Second. But it d id not then b egin waili ng about t he iHu sion s of the
masse s or specul ating on the date of the insur rection. Instead i t declared :
" The conception 'accord ing to which, in the unstable equilibr ium
of contem por a ry bourgeois society, the g r avest crisi s ca n suddenly
burst ,a s t he .result of a 'g r ea t strike, a co lonia l u prjsing or a ne w
war, or even a parliam ent a ry crisi s , is eve n truer "t oda y than it was
at the time of t he Third Congress.
" Rut it is 'pr ecisely becau se of this that t h e 's ubjective' fa ct or,
tha t is to s a y, the degree of understa nd ing , of will, of com bat iv rty, and
of organ ization of t he working cl ass and of its v a ng ua r d a cquires an .
en ormous im portance.
'The majorit y of the wo r ki ng class of the U n ited States and of
E uro pe ou ght t o be won, that is t he essent ial task of the Commu nist '
)
I nt er national t oda y as formerl y."
, The Bolshevism of 1947
N ow we ask: If this was Bol shevi sm in 1921, where is Bol she vi sm
in 1947? A mi ghty debate sh a kes the conference halls of the British
C on g r ess. On wha t ? Entry or. non-e ntry into t.l1e Labor P arty. The
wh ole British party, majority and minority, ,.d espit e su pe rfici a l 'diffe rences, is united on the mo st backward, the most su pe rfi cia l conceptions ,
of the world e conomy and the crisis in Britain. Under its n ose a
r espon si ble bourg eois journal wri tes :
" T he seve r it y of the problems t hat fa ce the country 'i s s uch that
the grea t majorit y of people wo uld endorse a ny poli cyfha t offere d a '
_r ea ! pros pect of emer ging f rom t hem. This does not exclude ev en the
ext re me fo r ms of Socialism, enforced by dictat ori al methods , that are
advocated by t h e 'Keep Lef t' sch ool.'?'
Th is is a -serr ou s warning to the International and can be verifi ed
in innumer a ble ways. The a r t icle appea r ed in the week that the Prime
Minis t er and the Leader of t he Oppos iti on warned the British pe ople
of a cri sis surpass ing the crisis of t he w ar. I n the same week t he
Congres s debated on -the le vel of: 'Illu sion s , no illusions ; boom, no
boom ; lu ll, no lull. For this the Int e rn a ti on al bear s the ent ire r espons ibili t ) a s it does for the sh a meful and sui c'ida l policies of the French
Ma jori t y. I n a world of g rea t st r ikes , of continuou s parliamentary
crise s, of colon ial revolts on a n u nheard-of scale, and universal fear
of wa r , i n a societ y .wher e no s ta t e ha s firm f ou nda ti ons under it s
fee t , where all go ver nments leap fro m on e adventure t o anothe r, in
th is world unabl e to sta nd st ill , wher e a ll the n egative fe atu res of
1921 a re m ult iplied t en times over a nd the po sitive f eatures have dis appeared, here the International, in no t one sing le do cumen t or d iscu ss ion can f a ce the Menshevik tendencies even with the Bol sh evi sm of
1921, f a r less .wit h what is r equired in 1947.
The inevitable result could h ave have been foretold. Organization al
and pett y political problems suc h a s e nt r y or non-entry become dividing
li ne s an d the Russian question beco mes a football in which ex t reme '
r ig ht and ex t r eme left maneu ver, each f or its own purposes, wholeso me
or otherwise.
Ye t even with this di sorder ram pant in its ranks the Internationa l
-The E,conomist. Augu st 16, 19H

r.

49

is p oli tically u nabl e t o defend Bolshevism for our e poch and di fferentiate itself f rom other t ende n ices . I n J u ly-August 1947 , it publi sh es an
editorial in the jo urnal Quatrieme International with th e p ortentous
title "New S t a g e." The new stage is not as in 1.921, t he r ec og nition of
defeat. No, it 'I S quite t h e reverse.
"For the first time since the "liberation" the prol e t a r ia t (in
France, Belgium, Italy and Holland) has taken th~ fie ld in a vast class
movement, conquering inertia and even the opposit ion of the bu rea u cratic apparatus of the Stalinist and reformist leadership, and partially
di srupting them.
"There has taken place a sh a r p break, very important, above all
from the consequences which it will have in the near future, between
large layers of the proletarian vanguard and tlse leaderships . . .
The experience acquired by the masses which have joined the battle
with s u ch vitality and dynamism in the great struggles of the past
weeks will s e r ve to reenforce the rapidity of revolutionary emergence
from the treacherous tutelage of Stalinism and r ef or m is m ."
Here in the midst of the g r ea test di slocation of society ever known
i s a great movement of the proletariat on a continental scale, accompanied by vast col onial movements '111 the Near East, the Far East and
Africa. B ut the conclusion betrays th e un-Leninist vacil.lation and
timidity.
"F'i na lly, after " ca r ef u ll y w ei ghing' everything, one is compelled
to conclude that we p robably have before u s a period of at least s om e
years during which no deci sion will be arrived at either in the s ph er e
of wa r or in t he sph er e of triumphant Revolution, but which will be
characteriz ed b y t h e in stability of the bourgeoi sie, by great economic
and political difficulties, by convul sions 'a n d crisis, and which wi ll unloos e, in the i nevit able s t r uggles whi ch will be waged by the world
proletaria t and t h e colonial pe opl e s, new revolutionary force s freed
from Stalinist t utel a ge."
Th e w rit er is "compell ed to co ncl u de " that we probabl y have
b ef ore u s a per iod of "at le a s t some years ."
Wha t is t h is doing h ere ? All the centri sts, Shachtman in the lead,
w i ll poun ce u p on t h is, declaring that this i s what they have been
saving w h en in r eality t h e y h ave b ee n saying- s om et h in g fundamentall y
di ffere nt . Wh o ever pr om ised the v ictor io us r evolution ' a s the overthrow of cap italism on a world or at lea st a continental s ca le e x ce pt
a fte r lon g years of a dvancin g a nd r etreati ng st rugg le?
This pas s a g-e in t hi s place is a concession, one of the perpetual
concessi ons to t h e ce ntrists which th e y u s e t o advance -their own reactionary p olicies. T rotsky s a id in 193 8 to the American com r a des : You
m a y be perfectly able to co nquer the po wer in ten years. Therefore
b egi n t h e r evolutionary prep a r atio n f or the masses now. And when
Shachtrna n in 193 8 thou ght a s he s t ill thinks that the time
for revol utiona ry sl oga ns is w h en the seizu re of power was approaching, Trot sky s h ou t ed a t him, "How can w e in s u ch a critical situation
a s ' now ex ists in the whole world, in the U . S. mea sure the stage of
de ve lopme nt of the w or ke rs ' movem ents?"
'rVe a sk th es e editorial writers the s a m e : Ho w can you, in the
s it u a t ion of 1947 measure the development of "the new s t a g e" ?
Either the st a tement means noth'ing e xcept what every Marxist k nows
since Ma r x 's t h esis of 185 0, (it can be found in the T h esi s of t he
Third Congres s) or it is a po litical capitulation. Every li n e of the
Third Congress is directed again st precisely t.h'is " some years b ef or e
t h e revolution" thesis, the political haven of lef t M ensh evism.
I m m ed ia t ely after this the editorial s w ing s away to the left .
" The new stage is above all marked by the broadest and most
fertile inter vention of t h e p r olet a r iat, w hich upsets all t h e ca lc u lations
of t h e bourgeoisie and of the Stalinist bureaucracy "

60
; .'

The words we have underlined should not be written if they are

not meant. But before the sentence is over we are on the right again.
". . . which can and must decide the historic alternative, not in
the direction of war but in that of the world s ocia list revolution."
The revolution is opposed no t to the counter-revolution but to the
w a r . That is precisely what all defeatists do and the e xtreme rightists
are now doing .
Finally to clinch the confusion, the editorial ends as follows:
" It is for u s, world movement of the Fourth International, t o
unf old before the oppressed masses of the world, cle arly, audaciously,
t his perspectrva of the po ssible preparation of the R evolution which
can prevent the war and lead tortured mankind from the impasse and
t he toils in which it is plunged by imperialism and the soviet bureauc ra cv. . ."
'The war a gain is posed as .alternative to the "possible" preparation

of the revolution. We prefer not to try to explain what this means. Bu t

t!1e la st sentence cannot be ignored.
" T h e new stage into which we enter is that of the hardening of
the r evolut ion ary f or ces for the p reparation, s lo w perhaps, but su re,
of t he Revolution."

All Can ~gree on 'iSlow But Sure"

Th a t last sentence is a political catastrophe. Shachtman, the
French Majority, the British Party. the LK.D., eve r y cons ervative
t e nde ncy in the International can hold to their posrtions and agree
com ple t ely with this. How does one carry .ou t a preparation , s low ,
pe r ha ps , but su re for a revolution! The difference lies then in the
pe r ha ps. Shachtman is ab solutely certain that the preparatio n will
be sl ow . Some of his clo sest su p por ters think it will be twent y yea r s.
Other wis e, de spite the great question-mark, Sha ch tman, wh o is liberal
about these thing s, will be willing' t o be su r e of the ul t im ate revolution
j us t a s lo ng as t h e preparation is s low . And if , no w t hat the proletari a t in one great series of s t r ikes h as " u ps et a ll the ca lcul a ti on s of the
bour ge oisie and of the Stalinist bureaucracy" , if with thi } new stage,
we declare that n ow the preparation is to be s low ( perhaps) but sure,
t h e n during the two previous ye a rs when t he proletariat did not
a dva nce to the new st age what e xactly sho uld have been the tempo of
t he prepa r a tion-pr es um a bly extremel y s low and conver se ly extremely
su re .

D uring t wo years the centrif ug al elem e nt s in the Interna tio na l

h a ve wi t h no slowness at all, ( he re they are never s low ) a nd wi th a
g row in g sur eness, ,gathered the ir reactio nary forces a nd a r e no w
de cla ring them selves. At this t ime , whe n t he I nterna t iona l, on the
ba sis of the ne w s t a ge, sh ou ld .h a ve swept this continual setting t he
t ime f or the r evolution into the dus t bin*and m et them with the st iffest
a nd mos t uncom promising prog r a mmatic cou nter-attack , t hi s is the
t ime it ch ooses to dall y with them a nd in ' ad d it ion to stat istics of
b oom , off ers t he m united fron ts on the t ime-table of the r ev olu t ion .
T he in surrection will com e when it will come, the wo r ld r evo lution
w ill triumph in t h e who le world or in part in it s own t im e. T his h a s
b(Jen and can be le gitima te su bject f or di sc ussion. But only after t here
is program m atic a greeme nt . These questions, when r a ised in the
midst of a world crisis nev er mean what t hey say on the surface but
a r e a cove r for r etreat and react ion. Ou r t ask is to recognize, in the
words of the Third Con gres s :
" T he revolutionary chara cter of t he p r esent epoch consi st s p r e The J ",h!n.so n .FoII1est t ondener m.et t h i s " a m e ..eact'i<J!n<l.r) p r e- l>C c Upa t i"",
w it.h per s pec.t i ves of boom fTom th e W o'rkers P<l",ty Majo rit y .>1> 194 6. W e categ-or,iClall y rcfused t o .su betrtute th~ ned herring o f d i s c u<&s',071 on 'JOOm f o r the s tra t eg ic
q u.~:ni on s .

51

cisely in this t ha t the m ost mod est condit ions of the masse s are incompat ible with t he ex istence of capit a list so ciety and that for this
reason even the struggle for the mo st mo dest demands t akes on the
proportio ns of a struggle for communism."
How is it pos sible in the face of this to t elI the wor ke rs ab out
the slow but sure preparation of the revol ution. The y a r e then slowly
but surely to starve and shiver without houses, without clothes, without
fuel.
'
Over and over again, in reading the debat es between ri ght and
left, we are reminde d of t he pr eg nant wo r ds of Chau lreu and Mont al,
French Minorityites: "O nly t he vocab ula ry dis t inguis hes Frank from
Geoffroy."
The basis, t he s pearhead of Bolshevism in our time i s the uncompromising presentation of the need and t h e m eth ods of social
r evolution. Nothing else can be the ba si s. It is th e lac k of t his basis
which make it som et imes almost impossible ' to distinguish ri ght f ro m
left at some plenum debates except by the n a mes of t he speake rs.
And this feebleness is not accidental. We can only repeat. It is the
Ru ssian position which ho lds back the International from making a
Bolshevik use of the Transitional Program.

(e) The Transitional Program Tod ay

It h a s been necessary to establi sh the method of Bols hevism, becau se of the fate t hat h a s overtaken t he Transitional Program of
Trotsky. The Transitional P rogram is one of the g reat d ocum ents of
Marxism , Bolshevism of o"u r time. Yet it is being m ad e the v ehicle for
t he mo st reactionary theory and , practice .
We sh all here show what it was, what it is and to what degree
1947 has m ade r eadjustments and extensions necessary.
The Transitional Program of 1938 was a program for the " systematic mobilization of the ma sses for t he prolet arian revolution."
. E xcept on this ba sis the Transitional Program could no t h ave
ab olis h ed th e old distinction between the minimal demands and t he
maxim um demands by linking "day-t o-day work . . . indissolubly . ..
with the actual tasks of t he revolution."
Ail minima l demands mu st be linked to factory commit tees, f or
workers' control of production and workers' mili tia. These are preci sely
what separ a t ed the Transitional Program fr om t h e old mr nimum
program . Anybody ca n demand anything. It ,is t he method that m akes
the demands of the T r a nsit ional P r og r a m transit ory t o t h e proletar ian
r evolution. Demands for workers' control of produ ction and workers'
militia are not demands 'on the bourgeoisie but .on the proletariat to
pr epar e it ,f or the proletarian revolution.
Th e Transitional Program was to 'Impla nt t he id ea int o t h e m inds
of the comrades, of "the general (i.e., profoundly revolutionary) chara cter and tempo of our epoch."
" In our minds 'It th e slogan of workers 'and farm ers gover n me nt
leads to the "dictatorsh ip of the proletariat."
The transitional demands became revolutionary in fact "insofar
a s t hey "b ecome the deman ds of the masses a s the proletarian governmen t " , i.e. , insof ar a s the masses take ove r contr ol of product ion
and form t hem selves in to worker s' militia, work ers' and fa rmers'
governm ent . Th e Transitional .P r og r a m is a program for the arming
of th e ,worker s, a pro g r am with the Soviets in mind.
Trot sky was no putschist. He said repeatedly that these were
"ideas" to be implanted as propaganda. But not a line in the program
is to be seen except as an idea which only awaited mass mobilization
to be translated into r evolutionary action of the mo st violent kind. The
milit ary program is a ca se in po int. The program says sim ply :

52

" Mili t a r y training and a r m in g' of workers a nd fanner s under

d irect control of workers and farmers' com mit tees ; creation 'of .m ilitary schools for the training of comm anders among the toilers, chosen .' ,
by workers ' organization; s u bs t it u t ion for the st an d in g army ' of , a
people's militla, indis solubly linked up with facto ri es, mines, f a rms',
etc."
.
In those s'im ple sentences the leader of t he October Revolution
and the organi zer of the Red Army was pr epar in g the revolutionary
p r olet a ria t to s p lit t h e bourgeois army, take over a se ct ion of it, organi ze it as a R ed Army, build u p a proletarian force and then arm the
whole population. This is th e s ignif ica nce of the T r a n sit iona l Program;

1938 and

1947

'

The p osi ti on of t he Johnson-Forest tendency is clear. For u s the

main difference bet wee n 193 8 and 1947 can be su mm ed up in two
concepts.
I. I T I S THE TASK OF THE F OURTH I N T E R N A TIO N A L - TO
DRIVE AS CLEAR A LI N E BETWEEN B OURGEOIS NATIONALI ZATION A ND PROLETA RI A N NATIONALI ZATION AS T H E REVOLUTIONARY THIRD INTERNATIONAL DROVE BETWEEN
BO URGEOIS DEMO CRA CY AN D P RO LETA R I A N DEMOCRACY.
II. THE STRAT EGIC ORI E NTATIO N I S T H E U N IFICATION
O F PROLETARIAN STRUGGLE ON AN INTERNATIONAL SCALE
AS EXEMP L I F IED I N T H E STRUGGLE FO R THE SOCIALIST
UNITED STATES OF EUR OPE.
'
This understood we sha ll take the k ey fe atures of the program a s
it was in 1938 and compare 'It a s a program for 1947.
" T H E OBJECTIVE PREREQUISITES FOR A
SOCI A L IST REVOL UTION"
1938. " T he w or ld political si t u a t ion a s a whole is chi e fl y ch aract er ized by a historical cri si s of the leadership of t he prol etariat. "
This is t he k e y se nt ence of the Transitional P r ogram. Why ? _
"Democratic regimes, as we ll as fascis t, stag ger on from one
bank r u ptcy to a nother.
" T he bou r geoi si e it se lf s ees no way ou t . . .
" In countries where it has a lready been forced to stake its last
u po n t he ca rd of f ascism, it now tobaggons w ith closed eyes t owa r d
.
a n economic a nd milita r y ca tastrophe.
" ! n t he historically-privileged cou ntrie s . . . all of capital's trad itiona l pa r t ies are in a s t a t e of pe rp lexity, bor der in g on a p a r a lysis
of w ill .
.
"Inter n a t ion al relations pr es ent no better pi ct ur e . . "
This is the clas si c formul a f or the p re-rev olu tionary sit uation .
,T he bourgeoisie cannot g ove rn i n t h e old way . That is ,wh y "The
hist orical crisis of m ankind is r ed uced to the cris is of the r evolut ion ary lead ershi p."
,
,
1947. The war h as come. There 'IS not one single regime, bo urge ois- dem ocr a t ic, s ocia l-dem ocr a tic, or m ili t a ry occu p ation , to which
1938 would not se em a paradise. There is no long er perplexity, t h ere
is on ly t erro r and fear. ' The problem s are in soluble.
'
From the bo urgeoisi e Trotsky now passe s to t he ' proletaria t .
"THE PROLE T ARI AT AN D ITS LE A DE RS HIP"
, 1938. " T he econom y, the s t a te, t he poli t ics of the bo urgeo is ie ami
it s int erna t ional r e la tions a re completel y bli ghted by a social cri sis,
cha racte r is t ic of a pre-revolutiona r y s t a t e of society."
1947. The economy, the s t a t e and the po litics of the b ourgeoisie
and its international r elations are no longer, completely blighted as
i n 1938. Barbaris m is a lready eating away a t t h e heart of E uropean
civilization a nd t h e colonial pe riphery. The regimes of Stalin and his
satellites surpass the traditional bourgeois regimes only 'i n - the, depth

53

of the decline and the hypocrisy of their rulers.

1938. "In all countries, the proletariat is wracked by a deep
di squiet: In millions, the ma sses again and again move onto the road
of .the revolutionary outbreaks. But each time they ,a r e blocked by
their own conservative apparatus."
)
,
1947. Smce 1938 the proletariat and the peasantry have repeat edl y
shake n deca ying bourgeois s ociety t o the ground a s in country after
count r y during 1944 or paral y zed it with mighty convulsions a s in the
great strikes of t he Un ited States. Bu t the con servative appara t uses
h a ve picked up p r ostr a t e bourgeois society, set it on its feet again
a nd are ho lding it t og et her . Wrthout them bo u r g eois society would
not exist.
1938. "The definite pa ssi n g over of the Comin t ern to t he side of
tlie bourgeois order, its cynicall y count er -r ev olut iona r y rol e throu gh out the world. particularly in S pa in, France, the Uni t ed States a nd
other "democra t ic" countries, cr eated except iona l supplementary diffi culties for the world proletariat . .. The laws of history are stronger
th an the bureaucratic apparatus . No matter how the methods of the /
socia l-bet r a yers differ-from th e socia l legislation of Blum t o the
judicial f rame-ups of -St a lin-s-t hey will never succeed in breakin g the
r evolutionar y will of the prolet ariat."
1947. The r eformist bureaucracy precisely be ca use it is reformist
can ' no longer hold the a llegiance of the m asses . T hey ha ve poured
by the hundreds of t housands and th e m ill ions into the Communist
P a r t ies , thereby decla ri ng as never before, t he ir under sta nd in g of
the need for a revolutionary t ransformation of society. Bu t convinced
of the bankruptcy of the national bourgeoisie a nd the n ati onal st a t e
and in terrible fear of t he proletarian revolution, the Comintern s eeks
t o create in Europe a nd Asia national sa t elli t es of Stalinist Ru ssia
with the Red Army as it s main protector .against pr olet a r ia n up ri sin gs
within and intervention from without. In vain. No sign of
stabilization appears. The n ew re gimes are driven along the road of
t ot alit a r iani sm. The parties of the Comintern seek to corrupt the
revolutionary will of the masse s by the prejudices of the pettybourgeoisie, bringing into play all the t reacherous devices learnt in
the school of the Kremlin. But already th e masses have in all s phe r es
shown their capacity to confound and upset the mo st carefully laid
calculations of the leadership. In major countries, already for broad
masse s, the t erm Trotskyi sm has become synon ym ous. with the idea
of revolutionary proletarian st r ugg le for power as opposed to t he
Kremlin--dominated policies of the Cominte rn.
It is at this st age that Trotsk y in 1938, having establish ed the
unbreakable drive to t he r evolutionary power of the p roletariat,
di stinguishes between the T ransitional Program and the minim um
program. Trotsky then talks of t he n ece ssary question of t actics.
But here 1947 is not 1938.
Today the proletariat fac es a nd k now s that it faces an economy
and socia l order so sha t te re d that .not hin g but t he mo st unparalleled
efforts can de stroy the counter-revolution, rebuild the economy and
finally ex t inguish I the spreading flames of war. Every passm g day
shows to the proletariat that its neare st every-day im media t e need s
can be sa t is f ied on ly by actions of the mo st far-reaching hi storical
character. The struggle for pow er therefore beco m es t he main objective of the r evo lutionary ed ucation of the masses. W A R AND THE A RM ING OF T HE PROLETARI AT
1938. "The present cris is can shar pen the class struggle t o an
extre me point and brin g ne arer t he mo ment of denouement. Bu t t hat
does not mean th at a r evolution ary sit ua t ion comes on at one st ro ke.
Ac t ua lly, its approach is sig na lized b y a continuous series 'of convu lsions . The problem of the sections of the Fourth Internationa l is

t o , help the proletarian ' vanguard " understand the ' ge ner a l character , '
'and tempo of our epoch, and ' to 'f r uct if y in time the ,s tr ug gle of 'the '
masses : with evermore ' r esolut e ,and"militant "organ izat lona l -meas ures,'
', "Strike pickets are the ba sic ' nuclei of the p roletarian- arm y." .
This ,is our point of vdeparture.- Iniconnection with ' ever y , st r ike and
s tr eet demonstration,' it . is imperative to ' pr opa ga t e ' the,'necessit y ' of
cr ea t in g workers' groups for self-defense. It is necess ary to write t his
.sloga n into the program of the ' r evolutionary win g 'of the trade' unions'.
It is imperative wherever. possible, beginnin g with t he ' youth g r oups,
t o organize gr ou ps for se lf-de fens e, to drill and a cqua in t them 'wit h
t he use of arms.
" A new upsurge of the mass mo vement should ser ve not 'o n l;t to increase the number of these units but al so to unite them a ccordinu
- to neighborhoods, .cit ies, regions. 'It is nec essa r y to give organized
expression to the valid hatred of the wor kers t oward scabs: and bands
of gangst ers and fa sci sts. It is nec essary to , advance the slogan of
a workers' ,militia as the one se r ious ,g uaran tee for the in violabilit y
of workers' organizations, meetings and press." ,
This do es n ot dep end on the consciousness of ,t he masses. It .is
precisely t he con sci ousness of t he , masses which is t o be a ltered.
"Only with the help of such s ystema t ic, pe rsi stent, indefati gable,
courageous a gitational and organiza tional wor k, a lw a ys on the ba sis
of the experience of the mass es t hemselv es, is it possi ble t o root ou t
fr om their cons cious ness the tradi tions of submissiveness a nd passiv ity .. ..'
1947 . The ob jective conditions of 1947, the great experiences of
military and cla ss warfare that the proletariat ha s gone through' since
1938 makes the 1938 point of departure inadequate. Today in larg e
a reas of t he worl d the point of departure 'is the arming of the p ro let ariat . The slog a n of a workers' militia embodying the whole population.
me n and women, is needed not for defense but a s the basis of t he
seizur o of power, a new form of stat e administration and the rec on'st r uct ion of t he na t iona l economy.
A LLIANCE OF WO RKERS AN D FARMERS
On the same revolutionary sca le is the program for the a lliance
of the workers and farmers. In 1938 there i s not one word of parJiament ar lsm in t he hundreds of words devoted to this.
1938. "Com mittees elected by sm all farmers should make th eir
a p pea r ance on the national sce ne and jointly wi th workers' committees
and com mittees of ban k employees take into their hands control of
trans port, credit, and mer cant ile operations affecting agriculture." '
1947. The vanguard, in the f ace of tne st a r ving nation, su mmo ns
t he proletariat to lea d the nation and particul arly the f armers, t o
over t hr ow the bourgeois re gime in or der to be gin the reconstructi on
'
of the economy.
WORKE RS CONTROL OF PRODUCTION
1938 . " The ' wor kin g out of even the mo st elementary economic
plan-from t he point of view of the exploited, not the exploiters -is
im poss ible wit hou t workers' control, that is, without the pen etration
of the workers' eye into all open and con cealed springs of capitalist
econ om y. Commit tees representing in dividual business enterprise s
should meet at conferences to choose corresp onding committees of
+ usts, whole br anch es of indust r y, economic reg-ion s and finally, of
n tional ind ust r y as a whole. T hus, workers' contro l be comes a school
for planned eco nomy. On th e basis of ,t he experience of control, t he
proletariat will pr epare it self fo r dir ect management of nationalized ,
indus t r y when t he hour for that eventuality strikes."
1947. The workers no longer need to pene trate into any of t he
springs of capitalist economy. I n s ome of the mo st important coun-

;; 55

t r ies of the world the ruin a nd thievery of capitalist economy are

ope n secrets to the workers. Workers' control - of production by an
ov erall plan becomes the sole m eans whereby it would be possible to
r ebuild the ruined nationalized ec on om y.
The ruin of the economy '1S complem ented by the demonstrated
ne ed and desires of millions of workers to finish once and for a ll
w ith the sla ve ry of capitalist production and to exerci se to th e fu ll
the vast productive ca paciti es created in them by capitalism. T he
experience of the Russian Revolu tion has proved beyond a sh a dow of
doubt that workers' control of production is the deepest expression of
proletarian democracy and that without it, it is impossible to solve
. the basic antagonisms of value production,
1938. "The necessity of advancing the slogan of expropriation i~
the course of daily agitation . in partial form, and not only in our
propaganda in its most comprehensive a spects, is dictated by the fact
that different brandies of industry are on different levels of development, occupy a different place in the life of societ y, and pass throu gh
different stages of the class struggle. Only a general revolutionar y
upsurge of the proletar-iat can place the complete expropriation of the
bourgeoisie on the order of the day. T he task of transitional dem and.
is to prepare the proletariat to solve this problem."
1947. The cr isis of n ational eco nom ie s like those of Franc e a nd
Brit ain compel the immed iate ex p r opriation of an the ba sic mdust.ri es
of the nat iona l economy by th e a rmed prol etariat. Piece-meal ex propr iation with or without compen satio n is doomed to failure. Far f ro m
agita t ing for t he partial expropri ation of individual industries, t h e
. ' need now is fo r total exp r opr iat ion under wor kers ' control an d com prehensive plan s f or the integ ration of n a t iona l economies int o an
in ternational production. N ot only the ruin of the econom y bu t t h e
ca pitu lation of the impotent bou rgeoisie to the need f or internation a lization forms a su r e basis fo r the agitation and propaganda of internatio nal s ocia l cons t ruction.
- T h e " Marshall P la n " form s the latest climax to t he n eed for a
plan of the 'i nva di n g' socialist society, im po sing itself on t h e ca pitali st
p roductive f orces. Preci sel y becau se of their ca pita list nat u re, a ll
su ch pla ns can r esult ul t imately in no thing else but di sruption of t h e
world economy, in crea sed d ri ve to war a n d the de gradation of t h e
.
wo r ld proletariat.
T o these pseudo-international pla ns of the bourgeoisie, ith e
vangu ard '111 ever y cou ntr y and part icula rly in the United St a t es
" m u st aim at preparing the proletariat f or a g enuinely internationa l
action : workers ' control of the main s ou r ces of production, int ern a tio nal workers' cont r ol of a ll means of tra nsport; a n inter nat ion al
plan for the r econ stru ction of t h e world econo my upon a socialist
basis.
Without such pl a n s the p ro le tariat is weak ened before th e r eac t.ionary and m a lignant ma ni pulation by the bourg eoisi e of the i nher ent
need of the produc t ive forces to be organi zed on an international
socia lis t basis . A b ov e all, the vanguard exposes t h e world-wide
counter-revolutionary r ole of A m er ic a n i mperi alism a nd the hypocritical character of its economic "gifts,"
1938. "However, the st a t e-iz a tion of the banks will produce t hese
fa vor a ble results only if th e st a t e power it self pa sses completely from
t he hands of the exploiters into the hands of the' toilers."
1947. Only if the nat ion alization takes place under the w orker s '
control r of pr oduction and the st at e p ower in the hands of the t oiler s ,
will t he st a t if ica t ion of bank s and other basic industries p roduce anything except fru stration , demor a li zation a nd ultimat ely p enal labor
fo r t h e working class. Th e sloga ns of workers' control of produ ct ion ,

56

nationalization can no longer be used except as Lenin used them, in

the closest relation with the slogan of a workers' . and farmers" government, on the road to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
THE U.S.S.R. AND PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION
1938. "From this perspective, impelling concreteness is imparted
to the question of 't he 'defense .Gf the USSR.' If tomorrow the bourgeois-fascist grouping, the 'faction of Butenko,' so to speak, should
attempt ,the conquest of power, the 'faction of Reiss' inevitably would
align itself on 'the opposite side of the barracades, Although it would
find itself temporarrly the ally of Stalin, it would nevertheless defend
not the Bonapartist clique but the social base of the USSR, i.e., the
property wrenched away from the capitalists and transformed into
state property, Should the 'faction of Butenko'prove to . be in alliance
with Hitler, then the 'faction of Reiss' would defend th.e USSR from
military intervention, inside the country as well as on the world
arena. Any other course would be a betrayal." ,
1947. The rise of Ru ssia .a s a vast state-capitalist trust, driven
by the contradictions of capitalist production and the struggle for the
control of the world-market, . h a s rendered ob solete prognoses about
elements in the Stalinist bureaucracy who seek the r estoration of
private property. Neither the tendencies in world economy nor the
economic and social development of the U.S.S.R. itself, gives t he
slightest, indication of any tendency towards the restoration of private
property. The bureaucracy defends the state-property and will continue
to defend it. It no longer confines itself to the reactionary utopia of
safeguarding socialism in a s ing le country. Allied to the Communist
Parties, it is a seri ous contender fo rc.world power and its very
existence is the greatest s our ce of corruption of the world proletariat.
It is . the g r ea t es t counter-revolutionary force in the world today. N o
r emnant of the October Revolution remains. And the Russian proleta riat in particular, and the world proletariat' in general, must make no
di stinction whatever between Ru ssian st a t e-ca pit alism and American
imperialism as the enemies of the proletariat a nd the chi ef t ortur er s
and oppressors and dec eivers of hundreds of millions of workers and
peasants. Above all, the vanguard pursues with the utmost r elentles sn ess any theory which implies that a st a t e reorganization of
property by any agency whatever cont ains in it anything el se but
an int ens if ica t ion 'of the fundamental antagonisms of capitalist production and the degradation of all classe s in society. It base s itself
unshakably upon the theoretical conception, now demo nstrated in
practice, that the only solu tion to the antagoni sm of capit alist production is the creative power of the modern worker r elieved from the
st a t us of proletarian.
1938. "A revision of planned eConomy from top it o bottom in t he
interests of producers and consumers'. Factory committees s houl d
be returned the right to control production, A democratically organized consumers' cooperative should control the quality and pr-ice of
products."
"
1947. The planned economy of Stalinist Russia cannot be r evised.
The proletariat alone through its factory committees, its free tra de
unions a nd its own proletarian party can plan the economy. All ot h er
plans con si st first and foremost of terror ag ai n st the prolet ariat,--the chief of the productive forces, to enforce subm ission to the unr esolved fundam ental antagonism s of capitalist production. The a ntagoni sms are in soluble e xcept by in stituting proletarian dem ocracy.
THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL AND THE PROLETARI AT
1938. "Of course, .even among the workers who had at one t ime
ri sen to the first ranks, there are not a few tired and disillusi oned
ones. They will remain, at least for the next period, a s by-standers
i

57

When a program or an organization wears out, the - generation which

carried .it on It sshoulders wears out ith it. . The movement is revitalized by -t he youth who are free of ' responsibility for the ,,pa s t . The
F our t h International pays particular attention to the young gene ration of , the proletariat, All of its po licies strive to inspire the y outh
with belief in its own strength and in the future. Only the f r esh
ent h us ias m and a g gressi ve spirit of the youth can g ua r a nt ee the ,
preliminary su ccesses in the s t r ugg le] . only , these successes can return
the best el ements of the older generation to the road of revolutio n.
Thus it was, thus it will be."
1947. The Fourth dnternational does no t con fo und its own f orces
with the objective r evolutiona ry situ a t ion and the m ovement of t he
p ro letariat. Pre cisely becau se of its small f orc es, it add r esse s itself
always to t he vang uar d of t he proletariat, p artic ula r ly t h e yo uth.
B ~' placing b efor e them the revolutiona r y p rogram in all its amplit ude but based always on concret e ci r cumstances a nd experience s, it
wins over the most aggressive e lem ent s who in t urn will lea d
the less advanced la ye r s in - r ev olu t ion a ry s t r uggle . T he F ou rth
I nter n a t ional r ej ects without r eservation a ll iplans to ba se r evol ut iona ry
poli cy u pon the backwardne ss of the m asses or t he smallness of the
Bo lshevik Party.
1938 . " Wi t hou t inner de mocra cy-no revolutionary educa t ion.
Without di sci plin e-no revolutionary action. The in ner s truct ure of the
F ourth 'I nt e rna tiona l is based on the principles of democratic ce ntralism ; full freed om - in d is cu ssion , complete unity in a ction ."
1947. The cris is of humanity sh arp en s a ll con t r ad ict ions, even
those w it hin th e revolutionary mo vemen t i t se lf . N ever w as it 'm or e
n ecessar y for the inter national p arty of wo rl d s ocia lism t o p ract ice
t h e most ruthl es s f r eed om of dis cu ssi on . Never was it m or e necessa r y
to have th e m ost rigid discipline in a ction. Theor etical intransigea n ce
m u st be combined wi th organizational flexi bility. A t the m omen t
w h en th e proletar iat is in process of making a great historic a dva n ce,
sects, h istorically progressiv e i n perio ds of qui es ce nce, become r eactionary. F or all wh o opp ose the democratic imper ialisms and Sta li n- '
ism, un it y in one p arty is essen tial. Th e Fourth I nt ern a t ion a l .will
.pursue with out m ercy th ose enemies of prole tar ian !power wh o f ly
t he banner of T r otskyi sm , and yet seek t o di srupt t he continuit y
of ou r m ovement .
Th e a bove is not a program f or adoption . N ot even a d raf t
program can reasonably com e ex ce pt from a n internat ion a l
cen t re, th e work of com rades of .v a r ied k n owledge a nd r ecen t a n d
concr ete ex per iences w ith the pr oletariat . But enough h a s been
s aid t o make it impossibl e :
1 ) for Menshevism t o concea l itself behind a t reachero u s inter pretation of the Tran si tional Progra m.
.
2) for Bolshevi sm t o allow ,Me nshevik t endencie s to obscur e
the fundamen ta:!s of ou r m et h od w ith picayune di s putes a imed at
whittling a w ay its r evolu ti ona ry dyn a mism , conf id en ce and au dacity ,
demanded n ow as n ever before 'b y t he objecti ve r ela t ions of s ociety.
There can be n either -r ig h t, n or left n or ce nt re h ere, T hi s is Bolshsvi sm a nd opposed to it are its enem ies.
'

C onclusion
We have

t o draw the theoretical 'a r r ow to t h e head. 'H ist orv has

shown that in mo ments of grea t s ocial crisis, dt s fart hest f ligh t s
fall short of the r eality of th e prol etarian r ev olu t ion . Never .w a s t h e
p r oleta ri at so r eady f'or the r evol ution ary strugg le, n ever w a s the
need fo r it so great, neve r was it mor e ce r t a in that t h e 'Proletar ia n
upheaval, h owever lon g del aye d, will on ly the m or e certain ly t a ke
humanity forward in the g r ea t es t leap forward it has hitherto made.

58
/

The p er iods of retreat, of quiescence, of inevitable d efeats a re

mere episodes in the face of the ab solute nature of the crisis . Wrote
Marx in 1851, ,
"Proletarian .r evolut ions . . criticize themselves con stantly,
interrupt themselves continually in their own course, come back to the
apparently accomplished in order to begin it afresh, deride with unmerciful thorou ghness the inadequacies, weaknesse s and paltrines se s
of their first attempts, seem to throw down their adversary onl y in
order that he may draw new st r en gt h from the earth and ri se again
more gigantic before them, r ecoil ever and anon from the indefinite
prodigiousness of their own aims, un t il the situation has been created
which makes all turnin g back impossible, and the conditions thems elves cry out . . ."
T oday f rom end , to end of the wo rld t h ere ca n be no tu r ning
back. But the d em oc r atic instincts and needs of hundreds of m ill ions
of people are cry ing ou t for a n ex-pression which only t he socia lis t
revolution can :gi ve. Th ere is n o .p ow er on ea r t h t hat can suppress t hem .
They w ill n ot be su pp ressed.
September 15, 1947

Ap~ndix
The Political Economy Of Germa in
Governi ng all economic conce ptions are certain philosophic conceptions, whether the econom is ts a re a ware of them or n ot. And
equally go ver n in g a ll p olitic al conce p t ions are certain e conomic conce p t ions. Germain's whole a nal ysi s of Russia is governed by an
e conomi c analysis; It i s u nd er con su mptionism.
In h'is Draft Theses (International Bulletin , P ublished by t h e
Soci a li st Workers Party, p. 13 ) Germa in writes:
"Th e t endency t oward str uctu ral a ssimil a t ion is u nd enia ble. Th'is
t endency does not stem f ro m t he need fo r 'i nterna l accumulat ion of
capital,' that .is, f r om an y p ursuit of profit s. It is p reci sely he r e that
t h e essentia l ec onomic d iffer ence between ca pitalist econ omy and
S oviet eco no my li es . T he ce nt r a l problem of " capital'ist ,e conom y i s
the probl em of gettin g s u r plus -va lue--that is t o s a y, the p u r suit of
profits ( un de r t he capitalist syst em a ccumulation of capital is t he
ca pit ali za t ion of t he s u r plus- va lue ; this can b e achieved only if su r pl us -value is gotten ). But wit h Soviet eco no m y the b a sic ques tion is
ex pansion of p r oduction, in dependently of t he mat ter of pr ofits (t h e
economist Le ontiev, in a n article publi shed in 1943, a ck n ow le dges "t h a t
between 19 28 a nd 1935 t he S ov iet m etallurgical industry operated ,
at a st ea dy loss a n d c ou ld not have survived and grown ex cept
with the help of state subsidies) . W herea s imperialism co nsists e ss e nt ia ll y in the search for 'new sph er es of capital investm en t in order
to combat t he tende ncy toward a s t ea dy decline in the a verag e rate
of profit, Soviet expan sioni sm looks f or sou r ces of r aw materials,
fini shed g oods , etc., independently of the question of prof it s , con si deri ng only. t he needs of production and of the planned econom y."
Germain po ssesse s the v irtu e of m a k ing a ll hi s m ist a kes pow erfully and clearly. It is difficult to see how it i s po ssible to make more
fanta stic mistakes t h a n he concentrate s in t h is passage.
T he Soviet m et a llu rg ica l industr y operated at a l oss. All that
th is mean s is that su r plus-la bor ex t r a ct ed fro m one sph er e of t he
economy was u sed to bol ster up a noth er s ph er e. A capitalist eco nomy,
p a r t icul a r ly economies that, are controll ed by t he st ate, d oe s ex actly
the s a m e t h ing. Ther e is no s peci a l "Soviet virt ue" in thi s. T he
British st a t e to day will h a ve no hesitation whatever in p ro duc in g in
one sphere at a loss in order t o bol ster su ch over-all purpos es a s
it has. Germain obv iously bel ieves that today a capitalis t e co no my
would se e a vital industry not grow a n d ~ve n not survive becau se it
could no t sh ow a profit on the book s.
Germain informs u s that "with S ovi et ec onom y the basi c qu est ion
i s ex pansion of production, in dep end entl y of the 'm a tter o f profi t s ."
A ccording to this p olitical econom y , So viet econ omy j u st has t o
pro duce and p ro du ce and produ ce.
An econom y can only produce with what it has. The nationa l
production must attend to the absolute needs of the popu la t ion in
the broadest sens e ; it must renew the worn-o ut plant and then it
can expand on ly with what remain s. Now 'i f a s in Russia , it is a
po ve rty-stricken eco nomy f unctioning within the world-market, the
s urplus i s strictl y li mited. It m u st p ay t h e worker a t hi s value, it
cannot afford t o pay him more. T o do so would less en t he precio u s
su r p lus. And fo rthwith it is in the g r ip of v a lu e production.
T hi s is wh at Ma r x 'ta u ght , that once t he ,prole tariat is 'h u mil ia t ed ,
degraded, a proleta r ia n , then automatically t he on ly way of raisi ng
the productivity of l a bor i s by expanding the cons t a nt capital, t he

,6 0

m ac h ine r y , the plant, at the expense of the workers, Stalin would

dou bt les s be delighted to be able to raise "the standard of living"
of t he Russian workers. He cannot do it. Even where a plant is doing
a dequat e. service, the discovery and popularrzation of a superior type
of ma chiner y in Western Europe compels the rapid depreciation in
value, Le., the scr ap pi ng of this particular type of production and
th e subst it u t ion of the higher. Stalin doe s not need to know political
econ om y in order to do this. Self-preservation dictates this con stant
reorga n iza t ion of the economy, as far a s possible, in order to maintain
a re a sonable relation with the other economies of the world. When
t he wor ld-ma r k et exi sted a s a f u nc t ioning communication, this te st
accordin g to value acted automatically often by violent crise s.
T-od ay, when the world-market is in ruins, the same necessity exists.
The pla n ner s, particularly in backward Ru s sia, have no guide at a ll
exc ept the mo st ruthless production of su r plus -lab or to fe ed the insatia ble needs of the econ om y. Engel s in A nt i-D uh r in g su mme d up
Sta lin's dilemma with a stonishing precision. The st a t e-ownersh ip of
ca pit al, he s a ys , po sses ses the "technical means" of solving the
p r oblems of capitalist production. T ech nica ll y, production in Ru ssia
ha s an unlimited market. It is into this unlimited pit that the underconsum pt ionrst s fall and dro wn thems el ves. It would, for example,
be insa nit y t o produce va st quantities of food and cotton- goods. T he
wa ges of workers must be limited. So are the appetites of e ve n
Stalinist bureaucrats.
St ali nis m cannot produce and produce and produce. It is cons ta nt ly caught between the contradiction that it cannot get su r plus la bor except from labor-power. And it m us t keep the cost of laborpowe r a s cheap a s po ssible; otherwise the cos t of the commodity,
Le. t h e labor that go es rnto it r ise s t o a de gree that imperils t he
w hole economy in its relation to other economies. Marx took speci al
ca re t o warn of preci sely ,t h is when he wro te :
"Cent r a li za t ion in a certain line of indus try would h ave reached
i t" ex t r em e limit, if all the individual capit al s invested in it wo uld
h a ve become amalgamated into one s ingle capital.
. " Th is limit wou ld not be r eached in a ny particul ar so ciety until
th e en t ir e social capital would be u nited , ert h er in the hands of one
sin gle capitalist, or in those of on e s ing le corporation." (C a pit al,
Vol. I, p. 688)
'
.
. In a given economy, Le., in ' a st a t e-ca pitalist corporation whi ch
f un ct ioned within the world-market, there would be a struggl e . to
maint a in a certain r elation between con stant and variable capital ,
bet ween industrial plant and labor. And a s long a s other eco no mie s
deve loped their s ys t ems, the s t a t e-ca pitalist corporation would h ave
to ma in t a in a simila r r elation. That 'rs precisely the dil emma of
St ali nism . The planning only a ll ows the planners, insofar as t he y
can guess at wh at is ,r equir ed ) to manipulate the econ om y and t he
wor kers t he mo r e ea sily for the production of su r plus-value. If, howev e r , t he economy were a st a t e-ca pit a list cor por a t ion embracin g the
wh ole worl d, then and only then would the wh ole problem be altered.
The worl d-m ar ket would have be en abolished. Value production would
cease, and 'I f men would st a nd for it, a plan could work. That, ho wev e r, would not be capitalism, and a s Le nin sa id, we are a long way
f r om that.
.
The question could be st be illuminated by a few theoretical obs erva t ions on the "Marshall Plan." If, abstractly speaking, the United
Sta t es did use its surplus ' to equip the continent of Europe, in a few
yea rs it would be faced with a modernized economy, so su per ior to
'Its own that its own products would be driven out of the American
rr.a rket. Forthwith it would find that it needed to struggle now for

Gl

su rp lus -va lu e to re-equip its own plant now depreciated, not by wind
and rain, but in value. And s o it would go.
Th e mode of appropriation, i.e., by individual private capitalists,
u ndo ubt edly creat~d a certain anarchy of production, particularly
of the old commercial typ e of cri se s. But the basic contradiction is
in prod uction, not :in t he market, and lies in the con t radi ction b etween
t he const an t expansi on of capital a nd th e relat ive dim in ut ion of
lab or . It is not the real ization of s u r p lu s-v a lue but the falling rate
of prof it , .i .e., the falling r elation of the total su r p lus -value to the
tot al sooialca pit a l. This relation i s determined :by capital on a world
,s ca le and ,St alin ism ca n never esc a pe it. In t he early days it made
a le ap but that . r elation soon caught up wi t h it and now it is trapped.
What is the solu t ion ? It i s not an ex tend ed market. If the
w orld-m a rket for the sal e of consu mp ti on g ood s w ere in cr eased by
t he discover y of millions of s t a r v in g people with gold to pay, it would
solve no t hi ng. The solu tion i s the raising of the productivity of labor.
If capital cou ld d ouble the 'p rodu ct iv.ity of labor and make the vast
profits of its early d a ys , there are .st ill vast areas of the .world to
exploit. It do es n ot need Russi a. There is Ch ina, India, L atin- America,
Africa. But the m a r gin of profit i s so low t ha t expansion on the
gigantic scal e no w r eq uired i s prohibited to it. H ence it stagnates
a n d fooli sh capitalists a nd still m ore fo olish econ omi sts then begin
to s pecu lat e on "raising the standa r d of living of the workers to
provide a m arket." If capital had d ep en ded upon raising the s t an da r d
of living of the w or ke r s as a market, there would have be en only on e
capitabist a nd he would not have la sted v ery long.
Ma r x saw t hat produ ct ivity on th e basi s of exp anding plant
a nd deg r ad e d workers would 'r ea:ch a limit. And then he made a
tremendo us step f'orward, so tremendous that even now we cannot
g'rasp vit . It was m ade only b ecause his s pecif ic economic theories
w ere g uided ,by the dia le ct ical m aterialist theory. He sh owed that
on ly by la bor 'i t self be coming f r ee could the n ew l evel s of produ ctivity
' be a ch ieved. For h im this cou ld n ot ,p ossibly h ave been a humanit a r ian f low er in th e buttonhole of nati on a liz ed pr op erty. Man, edu cated, trained by t he achievemen ts of ca p ita lis m , w ould ,r a ise the
p ro duc t ivit y of lab or by r ever sing th e capitabist method, ex pansion
of pl a n t a nd deg radation of t he worker. Only by th e increasing
de velopme n t of the worker a s a h uman b eing, cou ld t he capitalist
mo vement be r eve r sed . Bure aucratic collectivism , manag er ial societ y,
d egener-a ted workers st a te, all can p lan t o the l a st v itami n. They
can ne ver r ever se t his m ovem ent.
The whole question of t h e Marxist a nal ysis of capitalis t CrI S IS
has been debated fo r m a n y yea r s. L eni n , in par ticula r, in debates
w it h the N a r odni ks a t t he t u r n of t h e century, and lat er , never
to lerated .a n y theories which made t he decline of ca pitalism t urn
on t he r ealization of s u r p lus value, i.e., m a rket economics. N ow the
ex pe rience of R us sia , a nd in dt s w ay, t he devel opm en t of t he A mer ica n p r olet aria t , sets the sea l on the debate.
Today this is n ot a question' of theo ry. The validity of Ma r x's
t h esis is proved by the fact that ever y econ omy, Stalinist, Ameri can
a nd British is f a ced with th e p r obl em. of t he p r odu ctivity of labor.
T he wo rkers are revo lt in g p r eci sel y again st being made m erely the
instrum ents of in crea si n g p ro du ct ivity. Marx saw and st a t ed that
t he incr easin g degradation h ad its a ffi rmat iv e side, the instinct of the
worker s t hemselves t o take over production a nd thus ca r ry out the
practica l solu t ion of wh at h e s aw theoretically. This is the inevitable
r es u lt of va lue productio n.
The increase of con stant capital not onl y de grades the w orkers
but m us t a lso throw out millions which it must hold in r eserve for

62

 the -i ncrea sing bursts of pr oducti on whe t he r in the old da ys in ord ina r y ma r ke t competition or a s t oda y in t he com pet it ion of war. Stalinist
p rod uction not only degrades the worki ng clas s with the sa me results
a s in traditional capitalism. Be in g' va lue p roduction it must also
continua lly throw out millions of wo r kers from production a nd h ave
t hem f or future spasm odic bu rst s de spite the pre sent decli ne . of the
world m arket. This is the significa nce of the million s of slave lab orers
who are no more than the capitalist industrial r es erve a r my of labor.
U nless this i s understood a s the bas is of the capitalist ec onomy,
the ro ad is op en not onl y t o the mi su nderstanding of the Stal inist
economy but al so to basing t he r evolutionary instincts of the p r olet ariat u pon the ab senc e of employment or t he n ee d fo r a "higher st a ndar d
of liv ing." From this flo ws t he consta nt preo ccupation with boom a nd
stabil iza t ion . The perspective of r ev olu t ion 'IS based upon the mo st
v ulg a r ~ c ono mi st anal ysis of wor ld econ omy and of the proletariat.
It is the r esult of an inabilit.yto see tha t today " be h is paym ent hi gh
01' low," the proletariat has been developed b y capitalism t o a st a ge
of e le ment a l r evolutioni sm. This im pedes a ll per spective of any ser ious
econ omic recove r y a ltogethe r apart fro m ec onomi c st a tist ics. The
f ulfil m ent of this r ev olutionism is p r eci sel y wh a t Marx called the
real hi story of humanity. And it is because the ' r eal hi story of
h u ma nit y 'is rejecting t he capi talist s ys tem that the a n tagon ism s are
shakin g the soc iet y t o piece s.
.
Thus Ma rxian econo mi cs itself develops and bec ome s fu sed with
the irresis t ible so cializat ion of labor and its po li ti ca l ex pressi on in
t he r is ing m a ss movem en t . Of all thi s . there is no t ' a hint in the
political eco nom y of Germain.
.
This is a b ri ef po pula r .st a t ement , Th e question ha s been more
adequa tely d ea lt w ith in
1. T he Development of Capital ism i n Rus sia b y Lenin,
Cha p te r I, T r a nsla t ed b y F. Forest, New Internat io na l, Oct.,
N ov., Dec., 1943.
2. Produc ti on fo r P r oducti on 's :Sa ke, b y J. R. J ohn son ,
Int ernal Bulletin of t he Workers Party, May, 1943.
3. A Restatement of s ome F unda men tals of Ma r xi sm , b y F . F or est,
In ternal Bu ll etin of Worke rs Party, IMar ch 1944.
4. Luxem bou r g 's Theor y of Accumula ti on , by F. Forest
New In ternationa l. A pril and Ma y, 1946.

J. R. J.

World Perspectives
and the '
Russian Question
For a further analysis of the point of view of ,t he
Johnson-Forest Tendency on the Russian Question
and on the theses on historical retrogression of the
I. K. D., the interested re ade r is referred to this
new pamphlet which contains earlier articles ' of I ,' ,i
t he tend e ncy on these and other questions.
,
Reprint ed in this multigraphed pamphlet are the :". .:
following articles:
. '~ .
"

HISTO RIC A L RETROGRESSION OR

SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
By J . R. JOHNSON

AFTER TEN YEARS

( Revie w of T rotsky 's Th e R evolution B etr a yed)

B"y J. R. JOHNSON

' .l,.

TH E NATURE OF RUSSIAN ECONOMY

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