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A Fourth International Tendency (FIT) pamphlet, February, 1988. Used by permission.
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The items in this collection are offered as a contribution to a rich discussion opening up among radical activists and revolutionary socialists – in the United States and many other countries – about “where do we go from here” in the resistance to the violence and oppression of capitalism. Socialists tend to agree on broadly-defined goals: the need for a society whose resources are collectively owned and whose institutions are democratically controlled, in which the free development of each person is the condition for the free development of all. But how are we to advance toward that goal in the here-and-now, and what is the best way for us even to understand the here-and-now? What is the political program that can enable socialists to comprehend and change society? There is disagreement on how to answer these questions, and such disagreement has generated many different socialist organizations and groupings.
In the past, major differences within the socialist movement opened up between reformists and revolutionaries, culminating in a worldwide split between the moderate Social Democrats of the Second International and the militant Communists of the Third International. Later, after the Third International suffered its Stalinist degeneration, the bulk of the world Communist movement became infused with the reformist orientation of the “popular front” period. Small handfuls of militants, mostly regrouped in the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky, advanced a revolutionary Marxist perspective in the face of the bureaucratic and reformist orientations of the massive Social Democratic and Stalinist movements. The picture was further complicated with the proliferation of a variety of small, sectarian, often ultraleft groups – and also with the partial decomposition of Stalinism, which gave rise to a strong Maoist current which, in turn, fragmented into a myriad of warring sects. In this context, much of what passed for debate on the left often seemed to have a particularly sterile quality, with counterposed groups claiming a monopoly on Truth and revolutionary virtue.
Since the 1960s, however, a number of different left-wing currents have emerged which have demonstrated a political seriousness that has helped to cut across some of the traditional divisions. In Nicaragua, for example, the revolutionary Sandinistas have come forward as force defying easy categorization. Writing from this orientation, Orlando Nunez and Roger Burbach have argued that in some countries “an array of left political parties makes it essential to build broad coalitions based on debate of revolutionary strategy and programs.”
In the United States today there is no revolutionary socialist party worthy of the name. But the elements exist for the development of such a party. First of all, there is the injustice, inequality and institutionalized oppression of capitalism – a system which generates a growing dissatisfaction among the majority of working people. There are struggles not only of workers but also of Blacks, Hispanics, women, youth, the elderly, gays and others, and of those opposing militarism and war and the destruction of our environment. And there is a growing radical and even socialist consciousness, created not only by objective problems but also through the educational efforts of socialist activists identifying with a variety of organizations and periodicals.
In their book Fire in the Americas, Forging a Revolutionary Agenda Burbach and Nunez offer this summary of the situation we face:
Today serious conflicts among the ruling classes are leading to fissures in the system of domination. But this crisis in the ruling bloc will lead nowhere if the popular movements and the revolutionary forces do not act. U.S. imperialism under Ronald Reagan has already set in motion a two-pronged offensive for reconsolidating its rule in the Americas. It involves: (1) an offensive against U.S. working people, including a rollback in real wages and the slashing of social programs, and (2) the use of military force in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the imposition of tough economic measures that benefit U.S. multinational (corporate] interests. The bottom line for the U.S. bourgeoisie is to increase the economic surplus so that it can rebuild its economic base and deal with its accumulation crisis. The success or failure of this program hinges on what the popular classes and the revolutionary movements do in Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States. Left to its own devices, the U.S. ruling class will very likely succeed. Only strong opposition from the lower classes and a redynamized left can stop it. The struggle will not be easy.
Regardless of who follows Ronald Reagan as President of the United States, this will continue to be the reality of the immediate future. The question will continue to be how the left can be “redynamized” into an effective force for social change in the United States. And as Burbach and Nunez have indicated, an essential part of this process will be “debate of revolutionary strategy and programs.”
Many on the left shy away from such debate around program, fearing that this will create divisions among socialists. This has been a common anxiety in many countries at different points in the history of the socialist movement. As experienced revolutionaries have pointed out more than once, however, such debates don’t create differences – the differences already exist. The process of programmatic clarification, ranging from general perspectives to immediate tasks, provides a more objective framework (minimizing petty personal considerations, gossip, etc.) within which the differences can be discussed and often resolved. In fact, programmatic clarity(what is our general understanding of things? what is our strategic orientation? what do we do next?) provides a basis for joint work and, ultimately, for a unified revolutionary party. Nor does this imply the creation of a monolithic organization. Lenin’s explanation is worth remembering: “The elaboration of a common program for the Party should not, of course, put an end to all polemics; it will firmly establish those basic views on the character, the aims, and the tasks of our movement which must serve as the banner of a fighting party, a party that remains consolidated and united despite partial differences of opinion among its members on partial questions.”
As we attempt to elaborate a programmatic orientation which is appropriate for the circumstances in which we find ourselves, it makes sense to approach new realities with fresh eyes – but also to do more than that. There are continuities and similarities between the realities of our own time and the realities of earlier periods. Likewise, many of the conceptions of what socialists should do are not new (even when some of their proponents make a show of “newness”) but flow from or correspond to previous tactical, strategic, and ideological orientations in the socialist and communist movements. Some of this earlier experience led to dead ends; some of it proved to be valuable. An immersion in the past can blind us to the realities of the present and the possibilities of the future. A refusal to seriously consider the experience of the past can also blind us. The tasks facing us are immense. In developing a revolutionary socialist program for the United States, we can’t afford to ignore the immense resource which is represented by the efforts and experience of previous revolutionary generations.
In 1938, in consultation with revolutionary activists around the world, Leon Trotsky drafted a document entitled The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International. More popularly known as the Transitional Program, this was the founding programmatic document of the Fourth International, which has continued to exist as an international network of revolutionary socialists down to the present day. This document attempted to summarize the general principles and methodology of revolutionary Marxism, from the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels to the first four congresses of the Communist International led by Lenin and Trotsky, but also applying this orientation to the new realities of the 1930s: a worldwide economic depression, the rise of fascism and Nazism, recent experiences in the workers’ struggle against capitalism and in oppressed peoples’ struggles against colonialism and imperialism, the developing of Stalinism, and the approaching Second World War.
This important document is available, along with transcripts of preparatory discussions plus valuable essays by Joseph Hansen and George Novack, in Leon Trotsky et al., The Transitional Program for Socialist Revolution (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1977). A searching examination of its meaning for revolutionaries in the United States of that time can be found in George Breitman’s The Liberating Influence of the Transitional Program included in Paul Le Blanc, ed., The Revolutionary Traditions of American Trotskyism (New York: F.I.T., 1987).
To what extent, however, is this document useful for revolutionary activists half a century later?
The essays in this volume by Evelyn Sell, Steve Bloom, and Frank Lovell discuss the contemporary relevance of the Transitional Program’s approach, with a special focus on the current situation in the United States. These three veteran activists are leaders of the Fourth Internationalist Tendency, an organization which is committed to the unification of socialists in the U.S. on a revolutionary programmatic basis. Two other items in this collection are recent political resolutions of the F.I.T. – The Threefold Crisis Facing U.S. Working People (1988) and Building the Revolutionary Party in the U.S. Today (1985), which apply the approach of the Transitional Program to U.S. realities in the 1980s.
None of these items pretends to offer a finished, final statement on what the revolutionary program should be for the United States, nor did the Transitional Program itself claim to do this for revolutionary internationalists when it was first advanced. Revolutionaries are committed to changing the world, but the world itself has changed dramatically and continues to change. Many of the changes involve transformations generated by the struggles of working people and the oppressed. Such a dynamic reality militates against any notion of “the last word” ever being uttered on the question of revolutionary program. Related to this is Lenin’s point that “revolutionary theory is not dogma, but assumes final shape only in close connection with the practical activity of a truly mass and truly revolutionary movement.” The program provides guidelines for action but must continually be refined, reformulated and further developed on the basis of experience-the experience of revolutionary activists, the working class and the oppressed as they carry on the struggle for liberation.
A better future will not come about automatically or simply because many people want it. It will only come about if we are able to draw enough people into the struggle to create it. But the effectiveness and success of that struggle are not predetermined. Those who are serious about socialism must be serious about the program to achieve it. That’s why this pamphlet and the discussion of which it’s a part are so important.
February 1988
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