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The Struggle Against Imperialism and War
The
whole world outlook, and consequently also the inner political life of
individual countries, is overcast by the threat of world war. Already
the imminent catastrophe sends violent ripples of apprehension through
the very broadest masses of mankind.
The Second International repeats its infamous politics of 1914 with all
the greater assurance since today it is the Comintern which plays first
fiddle in chauvinism. As quickly as the danger of war assumed concrete
outline the Stalinists, outstripping the bourgeois and petty bourgeois
pacifists by far, became blatant haranguers for so-called "national
defense." The revolutionary struggle against war thus rests fully
on the shoulders of the Fourth International.
The Bolshevik-Leninist policy regarding this question, formulated in the
thesis of the International Secretariat (War and the Fourth International,
1934), preserves all of its force today.
In the next period a revolutionary party will depend for success primarily
on its policy on the question of war. A correct policy is composed of
two elements: an uncompromising attitude on imperialism and its wars,
and the ability to base one's program on the experience of the masses
themselves.
The bourgeoisie and its agents use the war question, more than any other,
to deceive the people by means of abstractions, general formulas, lame
phraseology: "neutrality," "collective defense," "arming
for the defense of peace," "struggle against fascism,"
and so on. All such formulas reduce themselves in the end to the fact
that the war question, i.e., the fate of the people, is left in the hands
of the imperialists, their governing staffs, their diplomacy, their generals,
with all their intrigues and plots against the people.
The Fourth International rejects with abhorrence all such abstractions
which play the same role in the democratic camp as in the fascist: "honor
" "blood," "race." But abhorrence is not enough.
It is imperative to help the masses discern, by means of verifying criteria,
slogans and demands, the concrete essence of fraudulent abstractions.
"Disarmament?"-But the entire question revolves around who will
disarm whom. The only disarmament which can avert or end war is the disarmament
of the bourgeoisie by the workers. But to disarm the bourgeoisie, the
workers must arm themselves.
"Neutrality?"-But the proletariat is nothing like neutral in
the war between Japan and China, or a war between Germany and the USSR.
"Then what is meant Is the defense of China and the USSR?" Of
course! But not by the imperialists who will strangle both China and the
USSR.
"Defense of the Fatherland?"-But by this abstraction, the bourgeoisie
understands the defense of its profits and plunder. We stand ready to
defend the fatherland from foreign capitalists, if we first bind our own
(capitalists) hand and foot and hinder them from attacking foreign fatherlands;
if the workers and the farmers of our country become its real masters,
if the wealth of the country be transferred from the hands of a tiny minority
to the hands of the people; if the army becomes a weapon of the exploited
instead of the exploiters.
It is necessary to interpret these fundamental ideas by breaking them
up into more concrete and partial ones, dependent upon the course of events
and the orientation of thought of the masses. In addition, it is necessary
to differentiate strictly between the pacifism of the diplomat, professor,
journalist, and the pacifism of the carpenter, agricultural worker, and
the charwoman. In one case, pacifism is a screen for imperialism; in the
other, it is the confused expression of distrust in imperialism. When
the small farmer or worker speaks about the defense of the fatherland,
he means defense of his home, his family and other similar families from
invasion, bombs and poison gas. The capitalist and his journalist understand
by the defense of the fatherland the seizure of colonies and markets,
the predatory increase of the "national" share of world income.
Bourgeois pacifism and patriotism are shot through with deceit. In the
pacifism and even patriotism of the oppressed, there are elements which
reflect on the one hand a hatred of destructive war, and on the other
a clinging to what they believe to be their own good-elements which we
must know how to seize upon in order to draw the requisite conclusions.
Using these considerations as its point of departure, the Fourth International
supports every, even if insufficient, demand, if it can draw the masses
to a certain extent into active polities, awaken their criticism and strengthen
their control over the machinations of the bourgeoisie.
From this point of view, our American section, for example, entirely supports
the proposal for establishing a referendum on the question of declaring
war. No democratic reform, it is understood, can by itself prevent the
rulers from provoking war when they wish it. It is necessary to give frank
warning of this. But not withstanding the illusions of the masses in regard
to the proposed referendum, their support of it reflects the distrust
felt by workers and farmers for bourgeois government and Congress. Without
supporting and without sparing illusions, it is necessary to support with
all possible strength the progressive distrust of the exploited toward
the exploiters. The more widespread the movement for the referendum becomes,
the sooner will the bourgeois pacifists move away from it; the more completely
will the betrayers of the Comintern be compromised; the more acute will
distrust of the imperialists become.
From this viewpoint, it is necessary to advance the demand: electoral
rights for men and women beginning with age of 18. Those who will be called
upon to die for the fatherland tomorrow should have the right to vote
today. The struggle against war must first of all begin with the revolutionary
mobilization of the youth.
Light must be shed upon the problem of war from all angles, hinging upon
the side from which it will confront the masses at a given moment.
War is a gigantic commercial enterprise, especially for the war industry.
The "60 Families" are therefore first-line patriots and the
chief provocateurs of war. Workers' control of war industries is the first
step in the struggle against the "manufacturers" of war.
To the slogan of the reformists: a tax on military profit, we counterpose
the slogans: confiscation of military profit and expropriation of the
traffickers in war industries. Where military industry is "nationalized,"
as in France, the slogan of workers' control preserves its full strength.
The proletariat has as little confidence in the government of the bourgeoisie
as in an individual capitalist
Not one man and not one penny for the bourgeois government!
Not an armaments program but a program of useful public works!
Complete independence of workers' organizations from military-police control!
Once and for all we must tear from the hands of the greedy and merciless
imperialist clique, scheming behind the backs of the people, the disposition
of the people's fate. In accordance with this, we demand:
Complete abolition of secret diplomacy; all treaties and agreements to
be made accessible to all workers and farmers; Military training and arming
of workers and farmers under direct control of workers' and farmers' committees;
Creation of military schools for the training of commanders among the
toilers, chosen by workers' organizations; Substitution for the standing
army of a people's militia, indissolubly linked up with factories, mines,
farms, etc.
Imperialist war is the continuation and sharpening of the predatory politics
of the bourgeoisie. The struggle of the proletariat against war is the
continuation and sharpening of its class struggle. The beginning of war
alters the situation and partially the means of struggle between the classes,
but not the aim and basic course. The imperialist bourgeoisie dominates
the world. In its basic character the approaching war will therefore be
an imperialist war. The fundamental content of the politics of the international
proletariat will consequently be a struggle against imperialism and its
war. In this struggle the basic principle is: "the chief enemy is
in your own country" or "the defeat of your own (imperialist)
government is the lesser evil."
But not all countries of the world are imperialist countries. On the contrary,
the majority are victims of imperialism. Some of the colonial or semi
colonial countries will undoubtedly attempt to utilize the war in order
to east off the yoke of slavery. Their war will be not imperialist but
liberating. It will be the duty of the international proletariat to aid
the oppressed countries in their war against oppressors. The same duty
applies in regard to aiding the USSR, or whatever other workers' government
might arise before the war or during the war. The defeat of every imperialist
government in the struggle with the workers' state or with a colonial
country is the lesser evil.
The workers of imperialist countries, however, cannot help an anti-imperialist
country through their own government, no matter what might be the diplomatic
and military relations between the two countries at a given moment. If
the governments find themselves in a temporary and, by the very essence
of the matter, unreliable alliance, then the proletariat of the imperialist
country continues to remain in class opposition to its own government
and supports the non-imperialist "ally" through its own methods,
i.e., through the methods of the international class struggle (agitation
not only against their perfidious allies, but also in favor of a workers'
state in a colonial country; boycott, strikes, in one case; rejection
of boycott and strikes in another case, etc.)
In supporting the colonial country or the USSR in a war, the proletariat
does not in the slightest degree solidarize either with the bourgeois
government of the colonial country or with the Thermidorian bureaucracy
of the USSR. On the contrary, it maintains full political independence
from the one as from the other. Giving aid in a just and progressive war,
the revolutionary proletariat wins the sympathy of the workers in the
colonies and in the USSR, strengthens there the authority and influence
of the Fourth International, and increases its ability to help overthrow
the bourgeois government in the colonial country, the reactionary bureaucracy
in the USSR.
At the beginning of the war the sections of the Fourth International will
inevitably feel themselves isolated: every war takes the national masses
unawares and impels them to the side of the government apparatus. The
internationalists will have to swim against the stream. However, the devastation
and misery brought about by the new war, which in the first months will
far outstrip the bloody horrors of 1914-18. will quickly prove sobering
The discontents of the masses and their revolt will grow by leaps and
bounds. The sections of the Fourth International will be found at the
head of the revolutionary tide. The program of transitional demands will
gain burning actuality. The problem of the conquest of power by the proletariat
will loom in full stature.
Before exhausting or drowning mankind in blood, capitalism befouls the
world atmosphere with the poisonous vapors of national and race hatred.
Anti-Semitism today is one of the most malignant convulsions of capitalism'
s death agony.
An uncompromising disclosure of the roots of race prejudice and all forms
and shades of national arrogance and chauvinism, particularly anti Semitism,
should become part of the daily work of all sections of the Fourth International,
as the most important part of the struggle against imperialism and war.
Our basic slogan remains: Workers of the World Unite!
Workers'
and Farmers' Government
This
formula, "workers' and farmers' government," first appeared
in the agitation of the Bolsheviks in 1917 and was definitely accepted
after the October Revolution. In the final instance it represented nothing
more than the popular designation for the already established dictatorship
of the proletariat. The significance of this designation comes mainly
from the that it underscored the idea of an alliance between the proletariat
and the peasantry upon which the Soviet power rests.
When the Comintern of the epigones tried to revive the formula buried
by history of the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and
peasantry," it gave to the formula of the "workers' and peasants'
government" a completely different, purely "democratic,"
i.e., bourgeois content, counterposing it to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The Bolshevik-Leninists resolutely rejected the slogan of the "workers'
and peasants' government" in the bourgeois-democratic version. They
affirmed then and affirm now that. when the party of the proletariat refuses
to step beyond bourgeois democratic limits, its alliance with the peasantry
is simply turned into a support for capital, as was the ease with the
Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries in 1917, with the Chinese Communist
Party in 1925-27, and as is now the ease with the "People's Front"
in Spain, France and other countries.
From April to September 1917, the Bolsheviks demanded that the S.R.s and
Mensheviks break with the liberal bourgeoisie and take power into their
own hands. Under this provision the Bolshevik Party promised the Mensheviks
an the S.R.s, as the petty bourgeois representatives of the worker and
peasants, its revolutionary aid against the bourgeoisie categorically
refusing, however, either to enter into the government of the Mensheviks
and S.R.s or to carry political responsibility for it. If the Mensheviks
and S.R.s had actually broke with the Cadets (liberals) and with foreign
imperialism, then the "workers' and peasants' government" created
by them could only have hastened and facilitated the establishment of
the dictatorship of the proletariat. But it was exactly because of this
that the leadership of petty bourgeois democracy resisted with all possible
strength the establishment of its own government. The experience of Russia
demonstrated, and the experience of Spain and France once again confirms,
that even under very favorable conditions the parties of petty bourgeois
democracy (S.R.s, Social Democrats, Stalinists, Anarchists) are incapable
of creating a government of workers and peasants, that is, a government
independent of the bourgeoisie.
Nevertheless, the demand of the Bolsheviks, addressed to the Mensheviks
and the S.R.s: "Break with the bourgeoisie, take the power into your
own hands!" had for the masses tremendous educational significance.
The obstinate unwillingness of the Mensheviks and S.R.s to take power,
so dramatically exposed during the July Days, definitely doomed them before
mass opinion and prepared the victory of the Bolsheviks.
The central task of the Fourth International consists in freeing the proletariat
from the old leadership, whose conservatism is in complete contradiction
to the catastrophic eruptions of disintegrating capitalism and represents
the chief obstacle to historical progress. The chief accusation which
the Fourth International advances against the traditional organizations
of the proletariat is the fact that they do not wish to tear themselves
away from the political semi-corpse of the bourgeoisie. Under these conditions
the demand, systematically addressed to the old leadership: "Break
with the bourgeoisie, take the power!" is an extremely important
weapon for exposing the treacherous character of the parties and organizations
of the Second, Third and Amsterdam Internationals. The slogan, "workers'
and farmers' government," is thus acceptable to us only in the sense
that it had in 1917 with the Bolsheviks, i.e., as an anti-bourgeois and
anti-capitalist slogan. but in no case in that "democratic"
sense which later the epigones gave it, transforming it from a bridge
to Socialist revolution into the chief barrier upon its path.
Of all parties and organizations which base themselves on the workers
and peasants and speak in their name, we demand that they break politically
from the bourgeoisie and enter upon the road of struggle for the workers'
and farmers' government. On this road we promise them full support against
capitalist reaction. At the same time, we indefatigably develop agitation
around those transitional demands which should in our opinion form the
program of the "workers' and farmers' government."
Is the creation of such a government by the traditional workers' organizations
possible? Past experience shows, as has already been stated, that this
is, to say the least, highly improbable. However, one cannot categorically
deny in advance the theoretical possibility that, under the influence
of completely exceptional circumstances (war, defeat, financial crash,
mass revolutionary pressure, etc.), the petty bourgeois parties, including
the Stalinists, may go further than they wish along the road to a break
with the bourgeoisie. In any case one thing is not to be doubted: even
if this highly improbable variant somewhere at some time becomes a reality
and the "workers' and farmers' government" in the above-mentioned
sense is established in fact, it would represent merely a short episode
on the road to the actual dictatorship of the proletariat.
However, there is no need to indulge in guesswork. The agitation around
the slogan of a workers'-farmers' government preserves under all conditions
a tremendous educational value. And not accidentally. This generalized
slogan proceeds entirely along the line of the political development of
our epoch (the bankruptcy and decomposition of the old bourgeois parties,
the downfall of democracy, the growth of fascism, the accelerated drive
of the workers toward more active and aggressive politics). Each of the
transitional demands should, therefore, lead to one and the same political
conclusion: the workers need to break with all traditional parties of
the bourgeoisie in order, jointly with the farmers, to establish their
own power.
It is impossible in advance to foresee what will be the concrete stages
of the revolutionary mobilization of the masses. The sections of the Fourth
International should critically orient themselves at each new stage and
advance such slogans as will aid the striving of the workers for independent
politics, deepen the class struggle of these politics, destroy reformist
and pacifist illusions, strengthen the connection of the vanguard with
the masses, and prepare the revolutionary conquest of power.
Soviets
Factory
committees, as already stated, are elements of dual power inside the factory.
Consequently, their existence is possible only under conditions of increasing
pressure by the masses. This is likewise true of special mass groupings
for the struggle against war, of the committees on prices, and all other
new centers of the movement, the very appearance of which bears witness
to the fact that the class struggle has overflowed the limits of the traditional
organizations of the proletariat.
These new organs and centers, however, will soon begin to feel their lack
of cohesion and their insufficiency. Not one of the transitional demands
can be fully met under the conditions of preserving the bourgeois regime.
At the same time, the deepening of the social crisis will increase not
only the sufferings of the masses but also their impatience, persistence
and pressure. Ever new layers of the oppressed will raise their heads
and come forward with their demands. Millions of toil-worn "little
men," to whom the reformist leaders never gave a thought, will begin
to pound insistently on the doors of the workers' organizations. The unemployed
will join the movement. The agricultural workers, the ruined and semi-ruined
farmers, the oppressed of the cities, the women workers, housewives, proletarianized
layers of the intelligentsia-all of these will seek unity and leadership.
How are the different demands and forms of struggle to be harmonized,
even if only within the limits of one city? History has already answered
this question: through soviets. These will unite the representatives of
all the fighting groups. For this purpose, no one has yet proposed a different
form of organization; indeed, it would hardly be possible to think up
a better one. Soviets are not limited to an a priori party program. They
throw open their doors to all the exploited. Through these doors pass
representatives of all strata, drawn into the general current of the struggle.
The organization, broadening out together with the movement, is renewed
again and again in its womb. All political currents of the proletariat
can struggle for leadership of the soviets on the basis of the widest
democracy. The slogan of soviets, therefore, crowns the program of transitional
demands.
Soviets can arise only at the time when the mass movement enters into
an openly revolutionary stage. From the first moment of their appearance,
the soviets, acting as a pivot around which millions of toilers are united
in their struggle against the exploiters, become competitors and opponents
of local authorities and then of the central government. If the factory
committee creates a dual power in the factory, then the soviets initiate
a period of dual power in the country.
Dual power in its turn is the culminating point of the transitional period.
Two regimes, the bourgeois and the proletarian, are irreconcilably opposed
to each other. Conflict between them is inevitable. The fate of society
depends on the outcome. Should the revolution be defeated, the fascist
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie will follow. In the case of victory, the
power of the soviets, that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat and
the socialist reconstruction of society, will arise.
Backward
Countries and the Program of Transitional Demands
Colonial
and semi-colonial countries are backward countries by their very essence.
But backward countries are part of a world dominated by imperialism. Their
development, therefore, has a combined character: the most primitive economic
forms are combined with the last word in capitalist technique and culture.
In like manner are defined the political strivings of the proletariat
of backward countries: the struggle for the most elementary achievements
of national independence and bourgeois democracy is combined with the
socialist struggle against world imperialism. Democratic slogans, transitional
demands and the problems of the socialist revolution are not divided into
separate historical epochs in this struggle, but stem directly from one
another. The Chinese proletariat had barely begun to organize trade unions
before it had to provide for soviets. In this sense, the present program
is completely applicable to colonial and semi colonial countries, at least
to those where the proletariat has become capable of carrying on independent
politics.
The central task of the colonial and semi-colonial countries is the agrarian
revolution, i.e., liquidation of feudal heritages, and national independence,
i.e., the overthrow of the imperialist yoke. Both tasks are closely linked
with each other.
It is impossible merely to reject the democratic program; it is imperative
that in the struggle the masses outgrow it. The slogan for a National
(or Constituent) Assembly preserves its full force for such countries
as China or India. This slogan must be indissolubly tied up with the problem
of national liberation and agrarian reform. As a primary step, the workers
must be armed with this democratic program. Only they will be able to
summon and unite the farmers. On the basis of the revolutionary democratic
program, it is necessary to oppose the workers to the "national"
bourgeoisie. Then, at a certain stage in the mobilization of the masses
under the slogans of revolutionary democracy, soviets can and should arise.
Their historical role in each given period, particularly their relation
to the National Assembly, will be determined by the political level of
the proletariat, the bond between them and the peasantry, and the character
of the proletarian party policies. Sooner or later, the soviets should
overthrow bourgeois democracy. Only they are capable of bringing the democratic
revolution to a conclusion and likewise opening an era of socialist revolution.
The relative weight of the individual democratic and transitional demands
in the proletariat's struggle, their mutual ties and their order of presentation,
is determined by the peculiarities and specific conditions of each backward
country and to a considerable extent by the degree of its backwardness.
Nevertheless, the general trend of revolutionary development in all backward
countries can be determined by the formula of the permanent revolution
in the sense definitely imparted to it by the three revolutions in Russia
(1905, February 1917, October 1917).
The Comintern has provided backward countries with a classic example of
how it is possible to ruin a powerful and promising revolution. During
the stormy mass upsurge in China in 1925-27, the Comintern failed to advance
the slogan for a National Assembly, and at the same time forbade the creation
of soviets. (The bourgeois party, the Kuomintang, was to replace, according
to Stalin's plan, both the National Assembly and soviets.) After the masses
had been smashed by the Kuomintang, the Comintern organized a caricature
of a soviet in Canton. Following the inevitable collapse of the Canton
uprising, the Comintern took the road of guerrilla warfare a peasant soviets
with complete passivity on the part of the industrial proletariat. Landing
thus in a blind alley, the Comintern took advantage of the Sino-Japanese
War to liquidate "Soviet China" with a stroke of the pen, subordinating
not only the peasant "Red Army" but also the so-called "Communist"
Party to the identical Kuomintang, i.e., the bourgeoisie.
Having betrayed the international proletarian revolution for the sake
of friendship with the "democratic" slavemasters, the Comintern
could not help betraying simultaneously also the struggle for liberation
of the colonial masses, and, indeed, with even greater cynicism than did
the Second International before it. One of the tasks of People's Front
and "national defense" politics is to turn hundreds of millions
of the colonial population into cannon fodder for "democratic"
imperialism. The banner on which is emblazoned the struggle for the liberation
of the colonial and semi colonial peoples, i.e., a good half of mankind,
has definitely passed into the hands of the Fourth International.
The Program of Transitional Demands in Fascist Countries
It is a far cry today from the time when the strategists of the Comintern
announced the victory of Hitler as being merely a step toward the victory
of Thaelmann. Thaelmann has been in Hitler's prisons now for more than
five years. Mussolini has held Italy enchained by fascism for more than
sixteen years. Throughout this time, the parties of the Second and Third
Internationals have been impotent, not only to conduct a mass movement,
but even to create a serious illegal organization, even to some extent
comparable to the Russian revolutionary parties during the epoch of Tsarism.
Not the least reason exists for explaining these failures by reference
to the power of fascist ideology. (Essentially, Mussolini never advanced
any sort of ideology.) Hitler's "ideology" never seriously gripped
the workers. Those layers of the population which at one time were intoxicated
with fascism i.e., chiefly the middle classes, have had enough time in
which to sober up. The fact that a somewhat perceptible opposition is
limited to Protestant and Catholic church circles is not explained by
the might of the semi-delirious and semi-charlatan theories of "race"
and "blood," but by the terrific collapse of the ideologies
of democracy, Social Democracy and the Comintern.
After the massacre of the Paris Commune, black reaction reigned for nearly
eight years. After the defeat of the 1905 Russian revolution, the toiling
masses remained in a stupor for almost as long a period. But in both instances
the phenomenon was only one of physical defeat, conditioned by the relationship
of forces. In Russia, in addition, it concerned an almost virgin proletariat.
The Bolshevik faction had at that time not celebrated even its third birthday.
It is completely otherwise in Germany where the leadership came from powerful
parties one of which had existed for seventy years, the other almost fifteen.
Both these parties, with millions of voters behind them, were morally
paralyzed before the battle and capitulated without a battle. History
has recorded no parallel catastrophe. The German proletariat was not smashed
by the enemy in battle. It was crushed by the cowardice, baseness, perfidy
of its own parties. Small wonder then that it has lost faith in everything
in which it had been accustomed to believe for almost three generations.
Hitler's victory in turn strengthened Mussolini.
The protracted failure of revolutionary work in Spain or Germany is but
the reward for the criminal politics of the Social Democracy and the Comintern.
Illegal work needs not only the sympathy of the masses but the conscious
enthusiasm of its advanced strata. But can enthusiasm possibly be expected
for historically bankrupt organizations? The majority of those who come
forth as emigre leaders are either demoralized to the very marrow of their
bones, agents of the Kremlin and the GPU, or Social Democratic ex-ministers,
who dream that the workers by some sort of miracle will return them to
their lost posts. Is it possible to imagine even for a minute these gentlemen
in the role of future leaders of the "anti-fascist" revolution?
And events on the world arena-the smashing of the Austrian workers, the
defeat of the Spanish Revolution, the degeneration of the Soviet state
- could not give aid to a revolutionary upsurge in Italy and Germany.
Since for political information the German and Italian workers depend
in great measure upon the radio, it is possible to say with assurance
that the Moscow radio station, combining Thermidorian lies with stupidity
and insolence, has become the most powerful factor in the demoralization
of the workers in the totalitarian states. In this respect as in others,
Stalin acts merely as Goebbels' assistant.
At the same time, the class antagonisms which brought about the victory
of fascism, continuing their work under fascism too, are gradually undermining
it. The masses are more dissatisfied than ever. Hundreds and thousands
of self-sacrificing workers, in spite of everything, continue to carry
on revolutionary mole-work. A new generation, which has nor directly experienced
the shattering of old traditions and high hopes, has come to the fore.
Irresistibly, the molecular preparation of the proletarian revolution
proceeds beneath the heavy totalitarian tombstone. But, for concealed
energy to flare into open revolt, it is necessary that the vanguard of
the proletariat find new perspectives, a new program and a new unblemished
banner.
Herein lies the chief handicap. It is extremely difficult for workers
in fascist countries to make a choice of a new program. A program is verified
by experience. And it is precisely experience in mass movements which
is lacking in countries of totalitarian despotism. It is very likely that
a genuine proletarian success in one of the "democratic" countries
will be necessary to give impetus to the revolutionary movement on fascist
territory. A similar effect is possible by means of a financial or military
catastrophe. At present, it is imperative that primarily propagandistic,
preparatory work be carried on which will yield large-scale results only
in the future. One thing can be stated with conviction even at this point:
once it breaks through, the revolutionary wave in fascist countries will
immediately be a grandiose sweep and under no circumstances will stop
short at the experiment of resuscitating some sort of Weimar corpse.
It is from this point onward that an uncompromising divergence begins
between the Fourth International and the old parties, which outlive their
bankruptcy. The emigre "People's Front" is the most malignant
and perfidious variety of all possible People's Fronts. Essentially, it
signifies the impotent longing for coalition with a nonexistent liberal
bourgeoisie. Had it met with success, it would simply have prepared a
series of new defeats of the Spanish type for the proletariat. A merciless
exposure of the theory and practice of the "People's Front"
is therefore the first condition for a revolutionary struggle against
fascism.
Of course, this does not mean that the Fourth International rejects democratic
slogans as a means of mobilizing the masses against fascism. On the contrary,
such slogans at certain moments can play a serious role. But the formulae
of democracy (freedom of press, the right to unionize, etc.) mean for
us only incidental or episodic slogans in the independent movement of
the proletariat and not a democratic noose fastened to the neck of the
proletariat by the bourgeoisie's agents (Spain!). As soon as the movement
assumes something of a mass character, the democratic slogans will be
intertwined with the transitional ones; factory committees, it may be
supposed, will appear before the old routinists rush from their chancelleries
to organize trade unions; soviets will cover Germany before a new Constituent
Assembly will gather in Weimar. The same applies to Italy and the rest
of the totalitarian and semi-totalitarian countries.
Fascism plunged these countries into political barbarism. But it did not
change their social structure. Fascism is a tool in the hands of finance
capital and not of feudal landowners. A revolutionary program should base
itself on the dialectics of the class struggle, obligatory also to fascist
countries, and not on the psychology of terrified bankrupts. The Fourth
International rejects with disgust the ways of political masquerade which
impelled the Stalinists, the former heroes of the "Third Period,"
to appear in turn behind the masks of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, German
nationalists, liberals-only in order to hide their own unattractive face.
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