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The crisis of proletarian leadership has been the decisive factor in world politics since the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and the Stalinization of the Comintern in the 1920s. The current worldwide crisis of the imperialist economic system, the resultant radicalization and growing combativity of the working class in the imperialist countries, the rise of revolutionary struggles in the colonial and semicolonial countries, the crisis of the mass reformist working class leaderships, and the development of the political revolution in Poland all combine to create extremely promising conditions for the resolution of that crisis today.
This will require, first and foremost, the growth and development of revolutionary Marxist vanguard parties which are capable of winning the allegiance of decisive segments of the toiling masses, leading them in the overthrow of the rule of the international bourgeoisie and its agents, and in establishing the proletarian dictatorship as a tool for the creation of an international socialist society.
This has historically been the objective of the world Trotskyist movement, and it was the reason for the creation of the Fourth International in 1938. Although that organization remains a relatively small propaganda nucleus, its forces and influence in some countries have reached a stage where they can play a direct role in the living class struggle, and in many other countries they have promising opportunities for growth. Most importantly, its basic programmatic foundations — which continue the revolutionary perspectives of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky — have been proven valid with every major development of the international class struggle. As we know from all historical experience, these fundamental programmatic questions are ultimately decisive. Our understanding on these essential principles, embodied in such documents as the Transitional Program, is the guide for our practical intervention in the class struggle, and the basis upon which we can build strong sections, with real links to the masses. This remains our primary organizational task.
Today, faced with the historic need of transforming ourselves into mass parties of revolutionary action through the course of participating in and providing leadership for the class struggle, we must reaffirm our basic strategic perspectives, and constantly renew and enrich them as a result of real experiences in the struggles of working people. Those of us in the Socialist Workers Party must particularly reaffirm the centrality of the following programmatic questions: (1) permanent revolution (i.e., the understanding that the only kind of revolution which can fulfill the demands of the masses in the age of imperialism is the proletarian revolution, the socialist revolution, even in those countries where an overwhelming weight of national and bourgeois-democratic tasks remain to be accomplished, and where these tasks may have a decisive political weight in the revolutionary process); (2) the political revolution against Stalinist-tyranny; and (3) the unity and interdependence of the three sectors of the world revolution — the imperialist countries, the colonial and semicolonial countries, and the deformed and degenerated workers’ states. The most striking feature of the world political situation today is the simultaneous rise of the class struggle in all three sectors, fueled primarily by the international nature of the economic crisis. This creates an extremely difficult situation for the imperialist bourgeoisie and its allies. It is even more true now than it was in the past that each struggle of the working people and the oppressed throughout the globe is intimately tied to every other.
When the imperialist bourgeoisie enjoyed a relative class peace with its own proletariat it could focus on putting down challenges to its rule in the colonial world, either directly—Korea, Guatemala, the Congo, the Dominican Republic — or covertly — Iran (Mossadegh), Chile, etc. Even in Indochina, where massive protests by the North American population were instrumental in forcing U.S. withdrawal, the effectiveness of these protests were limited by the lack of significant participation and leadership from mass organizations of the working class.
Today this situation is changing. The campaign being waged at home to impose austerity on the workers in the advanced capitalist countries, and the increasing resistance to that campaign, requires considerable attention and resources from the rulers. Major political initiatives against government policy — like the antimissiles movement in Europe — have a similar effect.
The potential stakes involved in foreign military adventures by the imperialist powers are raised because of the higher class consciousness of working people. Combined with this are the memory and the political lessons learned as a result of Vietnam which remain quite strong. This has been a major factor limiting the ability of the international bourgeoisie to intervene directly into recent revolutionary developments in Iran, Grenada, and Central America. A converse process also occurs. The developments in the colonial revolution help to shift the international relationship of class forces more and more against the interests of the international bourgeoisie. They stimulate solidarity movements in the industrialized countries, and help to shatter political illusions which the proletariat in these countries still harbor in “democratic” political institutions — exposing their role as the main defenders of oppression against the colonial masses. Thus every advance of the colonial revolution helps to strengthen the struggles in the imperialist centers.
Combined with these factors, we must consider the impact of the Polish workers’ upsurge — the highest development so far of the political revolution against Stalinist rule. Despite the propaganda efforts to portray the rise of Solidarnosc as an anticommunist and precapitalist development, the imperialist bourgeoisie recognizes full well the threat which the Polish working class represents to their interests. The crisis of the Stalinist and Social Democratic apparatuses — both the governments and the mass parties — parallels and reinforces the developing crisis of the imperialist system itself. These bureaucratic machines work to prop up that decaying system.
The Kremlin and other Stalinist regimes in power in particular continue to aid the capitalist class by playing their counterrevolutionary role — in the name of “detente” and “peaceful coexistence.” They do nothing to stop the bloody Israeli invasion of Lebanon, give scant aid to the revolutionaries in Central America, support the class-collaborationist governments in France, Spain, etc.; and give political endorsement to Khomeini and the Argentine junta (both before and after the Malvinas). All of this in addition to the repression of the Polish workers. The struggle of the Polish masses for a democratic proletarian republic provides an alternative and an inspiration for working people throughout the globe.
The general international situation — this combined crisis — also worsens the contradictions between different imperialist powers, who have conflicting interests and do not always agree on how to advance their common goals. Despite attempts to chart a unified perspective, like the Williamsburg summit in the spring of 1983, these contradictions inevitably emerge. Working people can effectively exploit this situation to gain greater room for maneuver.
It is a serious methodological error to try to extract one aspect of this worldwide revolutionary process, such as the revolution in Central America and the Caribbean — no matter how important it may be in its own right — and elevate it to the rank of “epicenter” of the world revolution around which all else revolves. This misses the essential international and interconnected, nature of the entire world crisis of the imperialist system, every component of which is linked to and dependent on every other. By committing this error, the current central leadership of the SWP has consistently failed to appreciate the centrality of other major developments in the international class struggle.
An understanding of this broad scope of the international class struggle allows us to see the many opportunities for constructing a mass Leninist international movement — opportunities which are not at all limited to those developing as a result of the Central America revolution, but which exist around many struggles and in every country. To help create that international and resolve the leadership crisis of the proletariat we must clearly pose a correct solution to the combined crisis on a world scale — the international proletarian revolution in all three sectors. Ultimately, the success of the whole world revolution depends on the outcome of the struggle which we in the United States will wage against the most powerful bourgeoisie in the world for control of the wealth and resources of our own country. Not until that battle is fought and won will any other revolution be truly secure.
Some of the most dramatic and important events for revolutionaries today are occurring in Central America and the Caribbean. Revolutionary governments have taken power in Nicaragua and Grenada. They have taken steps which run counter to the interests of imperialism and the native ruling classes, and which have sparked the sharp antagonism of these reactionary forces, who understand the real threat presented by this revolutionary process — the potential for the complete expropriation of bourgeois economic interests.
In other Central American countries similar struggles are gaining strength and threatening to topple totalitarian pro-U.S. regimes. This process is most advanced in El Salvador, where revolutionary forces similar to the Sandinistas are fighting with a perspective of conquering governmental power and seem to be on the road to victory.
The revolutionaries leading these events represent the growth and development of the Castroist current. The roots and ideology of that current can be traced back to the Cuban revolution and its impact throughout Latin America. The present course of the Central American revolution stands as striking confirmation of the revolutionary capacity of Castroism.
The most important achievement of Castroism, in addition to conquering governmental power (now in three countries), has been its ability to find the correct solution to the problem of permanent revolution in Cuba, and the Cuban workers’ state stands as a model for the solution of the same problem in Nicaragua and Grenada as well as in El Salvador, Guatemala, etc., after the conquest of power in those countries. This will be the key to the future of these revolutions. We must also acknowledge that the weaknesses of Castroism can be seen within these struggles. These weaknesses take the form of theoretical and programmatic gaps and errors (for example, on the nature of Stalinism or the role of the neocolonial bourgeoisie) which result from the specific historical conditions in which the Cuban revolution took place. But up to now it is the positive, and not the negative features, that have proven decisive in the current round in Central America and the Caribbean.
The clash in Nicaragua between the masses led by the FSLN, on the one hand, and the old ruling classes and their supporters, on the other, is becoming sharper and sharper. It has reached the stage of a major armed invasion by counterrevolutionaries backed by U.S. imperialism. A decisive showdown is shaping up that must end either in the overthrow of the still-dominant economic power of the bourgeoisie and the creation of a workers’ state resting on nationalized property or in defeat for the revolution.
This is the question of permanent revolution as it has always been under-stood by the world Trotskyist movement. In the age of imperialism there can be no road to national liberation and economic independence and development in the colonial world except through a process of proletarian revolution, of socialist revolution. No bourgeois solution is possible because the native bourgeoisie fears the independent mobilization of the masses more than it desires to be liberated from imperialism, and is incapable of breaking out of its subservience to the world market which holds the economies of the less developed countries hostage. Nor can there be any halfway solutions between a socialist reconstruction of the economy and a maintenance of bourgeois property, any “mixed economy,” as a long-term project. Such a set-up is inherently unstable and demands a relatively rapid resolution in favor of either the working class or the bourgeoisie.
Saying that the colonial revolution today must be proletarian in nature in order to succeed does not mean calling for “instant nationalizations” or for the “immediate imposition of socialism.” It doesn’t mean ignoring the needs and desires of the peasants, of any other essential allies of the working class. These and other slanders and caricatures of permanent revolution originated with Stalinism in the 1920s and have long ago been thoroughly refuted.
In the course of carrying through the revolutionary process, the working class must include as part of its own perspective the needs and desires of the poor farmers, of semiproletarian layers, and other allies. It will be necessary to determine what democratic and transitional demands can best mobilize the toilers in the fight to overthrow the old regime; and the optimum pace for carrying out the transition to a planned economy after that overthrow. There will be inevitable concessions to alien class forces. None of this changes the fact that unless the government that comes to power in the course of the revolution is willing and able to carry through a proletarian economic program, in opposition to the interests of the native bourgeoisie and imperialism, it will inevitably either accommodate to those forces or be overthrown by them. This is the key lesson of revolutionary efforts in this century, often learned at great cost.
The overwhelming weight of bourgeois-democratic tasks in many colonial and semicolonial countries (particularly in Central America) does not stand as an obstacle to a perspective of proletarian revolution, but rather reinforces the necessity of it. No section of the bourgeoisie has proven capable of carrying out those tasks, and none will. Only a government which bases itself on the independent power of the workers and peasants and fights for their interests will be capable of solving the national-democratic tasks of the revolution. In order to maintain itself, and the allegiance of the masses, such a government must undertake measures against the interests of the bourgeoisie — as the FSLN and NJM have — and move toward the creation of a workers’ state based on nationalized property.
This dynamic explains the unbridled hostility of Washington to these revolutions in its own backyard. It will try by every means it can to push them back and prevent the resolution of the situation in the interests of the workers and peasants. This is the reason for the economic sanctions which have been imposed, the not-so-secret military operations against Nicaragua designed to undermine and overthrow the Sandinista regime, the plots and sabotage against Grenada, and the military aid to the regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. However, there is not unanimity within the American ruling class on a course of direct military confrontation in Central America. And some of Washington’s imperialist allies have also been more inclined to try the road of buying off the Sandinista revolution, or getting the FMLN-FDR to subordinate their struggle to some sort of diplomatic deal.
The U.S. government must also come to grips with the continuing memory of the Vietnam war among American workers, and the risks it runs of sparking a class confrontation on its home ground with any renewed attempts to use its own troops in counterrevolutionary adventures in other countries. At some point, in some country, as the colonial revolution advances, the American ruling class must decide that the stakes have become high enough and that the risk must be taken; we must be prepared for the possibility of direct imperialist intervention at all times. But we cannot predict exactly when or where this will take place.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to use every means at its disposal, short of the actual engagement of its own combat forces, to try to turn back the revolutionary tide in Central America. This makes the tasks of international solidarity with these revolutions particularly important for North American revolutionaries. We must take every opportunity to organize and mobilize working people, members of oppressed nationalities, students, and others around the basic demand of “U.S. hands off!” All such efforts will lay the essential foundation for the kind of movement which will become necessary and possible should the direct use of U.S. forces occur.
Another new revolutionary current has emerged in a different sector of the world revolution in the form of Solidarnosc in Poland. The initial goals of this movement were for independent trade unions, basic economic demands, and democratic liberties. But in pursuing those demands Solidarnosc and the Polish masses came squarely up against the political reality of bureaucratic rule, and the all-pervasiveness of that rule in the workers’ states dominated by Stalinism. The unavoidable logic of even the simplest demands led to a situation in which the power of the organized workers and their allies was pitted directly against the repressive apparatus of the bureaucratized workers’ state.
The situation faced by Solidarnosc today, and since Jaruzelski’s December 1981 coup, is considerably less favorable than in the previous period of open legality. The military takeover was a significant setback, which put the Polish workers on the defensive. But this was by no means a decisive or crushing defeat; the Stalinist apparatus has not been able to reassert its uncontested control over society. The underground resistance continues in myriad forms: illegal bulletins, Radio Solidarnosc broadcasts, work slowdowns, and mass rejection of the new officially sanctioned unions. Strikes and demonstrations have reemerged as a major form of struggle, for example when Ana Waltynowych was put on trial, or on May Day 1983. The massive outpouring of support for Solidarnosc which was evident during the Pope’s visit in June 1983 shows conclusively that the repressive measures of Jaruzelski have totally failed to achieve their objectives.
There is little room for the Polish bureaucracy to maneuver and few concessions they can offer to restore their brand of social peace. They have been unable to force or cajole any of the leaders of Solidarnosc to make a deal such as that proposed by the Polish church hierarchy — something the Pope may also have tried to advance during his tour. All of this indicates that continuing conflict between the bureaucrats and the masses in Poland will be on the agenda for some time to come, and the basic political question — who will rule the workers’ state? — will become more and more clearly posed.
This is the question of political revolution; the bureaucratic parasites must be thoroughly purged by the working class and not an ounce of their influence and privileges allowed to remain intact. This can only be accomplished by a real mass revolution. It is completely incorrect to describe this process as a simple “democratization” of the workers’ state, an idea which can be, and has been, proposed even by sectors of the bureaucracy itself.
There can be no historic compromise between the interests of the masses and those of the bureaucracy. Unless the bureaucracy is overthrown by a real political revolution it must inevitably turn on the masses. It is this indisputable fact which put the political revolution on the order of the day in Poland during the height of the workers’ upsurge there, and which makes it still a burning question for the Polish masses. This is the only alternative to the domination of the bureaucrats.
Recognizing that the problem of the political revolution is objectively posed by the Polish workers’ upsurge says nothing at all about the timing or tactics of such a revolution. Only those closest to the scene of action can really say whether there was any period during the autumn of 1981 when the Polish workers could have actually taken state power into their own hands. But whether or not they could have actually taken state power given a leadership with the desire to do so, it is clear that only the strategic perspective of taking power — an understanding that this is the only way to win the demands put forward by the Polish workers — can serve as an adequate framework for the Polish masses in pursuing their objectives.
The discussion on this question within the Solidarity movement was and still is quite extensive. This testifies to its extreme relevance in Poland. A differentiation has developed among the leaders of Solidarnosc between those who have tended toward accepting the idea of a compromise with the bureaucracy and those with a perspective for a revolutionary solution. (There are, of course, many shades of opinion within the framework of these two general categories.) This discussion will certainly continue within the ranks and leadership of Solidarity, along with discussions on other questions which are not yet clarified for the Polish masses—such as the need for a clear alignment with all of the struggles of working people and the oppressed around the world, from South Africa to El Salvador.
One of the most striking features of the Polish events is the combination of the political revolution with the national struggle to be free of oppression by the Kremlin. Polish nationalism, on the whole, has played a progressive role, serving as a strong stimulus to the antibureaucratic struggle, and helping to unite the working class with its allies in the rest of the population. It seems likely that the political revolution in other Eastern European countries, and in the USSR itself (where Great Russian chauvinism plays a significant part in maintaining bureaucratic domination) will display similar features.
Revolutionary Marxists around the world have been in the forefront, and correctly so, of solidarity with their Polish sisters and brothers; urging the mass institutions of the working class in the capitalist countries — the unions and mass parties—to send material aid to Solidarnosc, and to demand the release of imprisoned Solidarnosc leaders and others. It is essential that active support for the Polish workers’ struggle be carried on by the working class, and particularly by its most conscious sectors. If this is not done it reinforces the misconception that the real friends of the Polish workers are the anticommunists and bourgeois politicians.
In the United States revolutionary Marxists have an indispensable educational role to play concerning the real meaning and stakes of events in Poland; including the work we can do through our own forums and through our election campaigns and our press. But we can also participate with other forces in the labor, student, or radical movements in sponsoring meetings which directly present the Polish workers’ side of the story (for example a tour of a Solidarnosc representative) or in teach-ins and debates. We should also promote discussions of the Polish situation at union meetings, rank-and-file fact-finding trips to Poland, and attempts to collect material aid directly for the Polish workers themselves. American workers, like our sisters and brothers in other countries, must focus particularly on the hundreds of political prisoners. We must demand their release and an end to the trials. An overwhelming international outcry is needed to defend these victims of bureaucratic repression. We should also raise the demand of an end to economic sanctions against Poland, and cancellation of Poland’s debts to U.S. banks.
Engaging in such activity will give us the opportunity to reach a much broader audience than can be done simply in our own name, and to work side by side with others who are genuinely interested in helping Solidarnosc. There is a big discussion taking place, and there are many people we can influence and win over to a correct perspective. Solidarnosc has had a big impact on the American working class because of its basic strategy of building an independent union, which has major implications in this country.
The revolutionary developments in Poland and in Central America and the Caribbean stand as positive examples of what can be accomplished by revolutionary mobilizations of the masses when they develop a consistent perspective of class independence and defense of their own interests. In the Middle East in recent years we have also seen powerful mobilizations of the masses, which toppled the shah of Iran, organized a general strike on the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and resisted the assault of the Zionists in Lebanon for three months. In contrast to the events in Poland and Central America, however, the situation in the Middle East primarily shows what kind of problems are created when such mass mobilizations come under the leadership of bourgeois or petty-bourgeois forces with a class-collaborationist outlook. The Iranian revolution which toppled the shah occurred shortly before the victory of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Yet while in Nicaragua the masses have been able to move toward independence from the stranglehold of imperialism and to organize themselves independently to fight for their own interests, the Iranian revolution has seen the ever-increasing subordination of the workers and peasants to the rule of the bourgeois government headed by the Islamic Republican Party (IRP).
In the course of the revolution, the masses were drawn under the leadership of the clergy, representing the interest of the Bazaar. Populist and anti-imperialist rhetoric were used to turn the mass movement into a battering ram against political rivals of the IRP — both the more Westernized bourgeois forces and the organized left. In addition to the sponsorship of overtly right-wing goon squads (the Hezbollahi, or “partisans of God“), the clergy channeled sectors of the revolutionary-minded masses into organizations sponsored by, and serving the interests of, a new repressive bourgeois state apparatus. These included the Komitehs, used to repress militants on a local basis; the revolutionary guard corps (Pasdaran), used as an armed wing of various cliques in the government—particularly in the brutal repression against the oppressed nationalities; the Jihad for Construction, which functions primarily as a tool to pacify the countryside and as an army corps of engineers.
Because of their nature as vehicles to co-opt revolutionary elements, these movements began by including honest anti-imperialist militants. But since these were not real independent organizations of the masses, the government has been able to control them, purge them, and increasingly incorporate them into the state. This is now seen, for example, by the introduction of ranks into the Revolutionary Guards, and the creation of a ministry for them in the government.
Today in Iran, the workers’ Shoras (councils) have almost entirely lost their independence (where they continue to exist at all) and in most cases have been replaced by the Islamic Anjomans (societies) which were set up by, and are subordinate to, the IRP. The regime has launched an overwhelming repression. Torture is again routine, and the executions number in the thousands and still continue. This is directed primarily against the oppressed nationalities, the left, and the working class, and has had a devastating effect. At the same time the real counterrevolutionaries — the SAVAK agents (many of whom remain in positions of power) and the pro-shah officer corps in the army — are treated with kid gloves. The government has completely undermined the educational system, launched attacks on the rights of women, and maintained the oppression of the national minorities.
The outlawing of the Tudeh (Communist) Party in the spring of 1983, and the arrest of thousands of its members and leaders, shows the inexorable logic of this process. The Tudeh Party had followed a slavish policy of praise and political support for the “anti-imperialist” government under Khomeini, thinking that in this way it could avoid the repression which it had (at best) failed to oppose and (at worst) given cover to when used against others. In reality, this policy sealed the Tudeh Party’s fate. After progressively destroying democratic rights and institutionalizing torture and summary executions with the acquiescence of the Tudeh Party, Khomeini brought down the axe which the victims themselves had helped to sharpen.
The present situation in Iran is not an inevitable result of the revolutionary process. It is the result of the failure of the Shores and other mass organizations to develop an independent proletarian perspective, and of their reliance on Khomeini and the clergy to point the road forward for the revolution and carry out a policy in the interests of the toilers. Had the Iranian workers and peasants developed instead a leadership which explained the need to rely on their own strength, and to seek alliances with the oppressed nationalities (the Kurds, the Azarbaijanis, etc., who represent 60 percent of the population) in their fight for self-determination, the outcome could have been qualitatively different. A reversal of the trend toward the consolidation of a repressive bourgeois government in Iran depends on the revival of independent class mobilizations by the workers and peasants, directed against the Khomeini government and their own bourgeoisie as well as against the external threat from imperialism. The IRP government in Iran, like many other bourgeois nationalist regimes in the developing countries, has sought to use the struggles of the masses to better its own position in relation to imperialism. It has also, particularly in the initial stages of the revolution, felt compelled to make significant concessions to the masses’ anti-imperialist, and particularly anti-American, imperialist aspirations. For these reasons it has taken a number of genuine anti-imperialist measures, and is not viewed by Washington and its allies as a reliable bulwark to defend their interests. This, in turn, has resulted in the attacks, both economic and military, by imperialism on the present Tehran government.
Revolutionary Marxists support every anti-imperialist measure taken by the government and strive to push this dynamic as far as possible. We must participate in, and be in the forefront of, defending Iran against counterrevolutionary efforts, either direct or indirect, by the imperialists — such as the 1980 Iraqi invasion. This is because the task of overthrowing the Khomeini regime is a task for the Iranian workers and peasants themselves, not one for the international bourgeoisie. It is the task of revolutionary Marxists seeking to build a section of the Fourth International in Iran to help the masses establish their own government — a workers’ and farmers’ government — which is the only kind that can carry on a truly effective anti-imperialist struggle. In the long run, even the most militant bourgeois nationalist regimes must reconcile themselves with imperialism — as the IRP government appears to be attempting today, with its overtures to West Germany and other countries, for example — since they cannot offer any truly independent path of development.
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982 — and the response of the Palestinian resistance and the Arab governments to it — also demonstrated the difficulties created by the lack of a clear proletarian perspective, in this case for the Palestinian and Arab masses. The majority of bourgeois and monarchical Arab governments have no ability to fight Zionism, nor any serious interest in doing so, as illustrated by their passivity during the latest war. These regimes have been unable to reach an accord with Israel primarily because of the overwhelming opposition to such a course within their own populations. If they could get away with it, they would gladly opt for the “Camp David” solution.
Working people can have no illusions about the desire of the various “socialist” or bourgeois nationalist regimes in the Arab world to fight imperialism. And we cannot hesitate to condemn them for their crimes against the masses, even (or especially) when these occur in the name of “anti-imperialist unity.” It was the “anti-imperialist” and “socialist” Baath clique which launched an atrocious war against the Kurdish people of Iraq, as well as the counterrevolutionary invasion of Iran. The Syrian government, part of the “steadfastness front” against Israel, proclaims all sorts of anti-imperialist objectives, while refusing in fact to fight imperialism in any meaningful way. It uses its rhetoric, among other things, to cover up such crimes as the 1982 bombardment and liquidation of Hama, one of its major cities, and scene of an uprising against the government.
The main leadership of the PLO commits a serious error when it includes these and other Arab governments, as well as the Palestinian bourgeoisie, within its strategic framework of pan-Arab unity in the fight against Israel. We stress the word strategic because it is important to differentiate between this and temporary tactical, or military, alliances which are by no means excluded under conditions like those in the Middle East. But the strategic perspective of a common struggle with the Arab ruling classes has seriously crippled the Palestinian cause, and has led to a situation where its demands and perspectives are limited to those which will not alienate its bourgeois allies.
The task of Palestinian national self-determination is a task which can only be carried out by the Palestinian workers and peasants along with their allies, the toiling masses in the other Middle Eastern countries, including Israel. But Arafat and the current he represents within the PLO, while not hesitating to mobilize the Palestinian people (at least their armed contingent) when they have been forced to do so, prefer to make deals at the top with the enemies of the masses—the representatives of the Arab ruling classes. This is the reason for their policy of “non-interference” in the affairs of the Arab states, which simply means not opposing the rule of the Arab kings and bourgeoisies. This strategic approach has left the PLO politically unprepared for events like the murderous attack launched by King Hussein in 1970 that drove the resistance forces out of Jordan.
The divisions in the PLO which have taken the form of armed confrontations between “Arafat loyalists” and “rebels” reflect, at least to some extent, these real contradictions of the Palestinian struggle today, created by this traditional class-collaborationist policy. This is true regardless of whether those who oppose Arafat are able to develop a clear alternative perspective, and regardless of the diplomatic advantages which various Arab governments, Israel, or the imperialists try to gain from the divisions in the PLO.
A revolutionary appraisal of Palestinian nationalism and of Arab nationalism, which are tremendously progressive forces, must combine the nationalist with a with a proletarian revolutionary perspective. Only through the socialist revolution in the Middle East can the Palestinian masses win their liberation from the yoke of imperialist oppression and overthrow Zionism.
The overtly reactionary as well as the “progressive” bourgeois nationalist regimes in the Middle East all share a fear of the revolutionary mobilization of the masses which is essential in this process. Many of these governments are themselves the products of national revolutions against European colonial ism, but the bourgeois nationalist revolutions that took place in the region failed to liquidate imperialist domination of these countries. A revolution of the scope necessary to liquidate the racist Zionist state and win over the Jewish working masses will clearly require a proletarian perspective.
This does not in any way belittle the importance of the national struggle, which in a situation like the one in the Middle East is likely to play a predominant role in advancing the necessary mobilization of the masses. It rather underlines its importance. There can be no socialist revolution in the Middle East without the national revolution playing a major part. But at the same time any national revolution, to be successful, must from the beginning be a socialist revolution as well. Only a perspective that refuses to compromise the independent interests of the workers and peasants — which means a perspective of proletarian revolution — can successfully mobilize the masses in their struggle for national liberation. We must insist on this fundamental lesson, which revolutionary Marxists have confirmed again and again.
There is no guarantee that Israel would have been defeated in Lebanon, or that the situation would be significantly different in the Middle East, if the PLO had followed a different policy over the last ten years (though at least in the 1975-76 Lebanon civil war a real opportunity existed for the Lebanese and Palestinian workers and peasants to take power to create their own government). But the actual policies the PLO did follow made any success much more difficult if not impossible. Even if all that is on the agenda is a defensive struggle, a correct approach to strategic tasks makes it possible to understand who are the reliable allies, and on what programmatic basis they can be mobilized.
Solidarity with the Palestinian struggle is a primary responsibility for revolutionary Marxists, particularly in the United States. Demands and slogans which can help mobilize working people in objective support for the Palestinian cause revolve around these themes: U.S., Israeli, and other imperialist forces out of Lebanon; no arms sales or military aid to Israel; self-determination for the Palestinian people. We must develop these ideas in our agitational work and in our proposals for action. In addition, through the vehicle of our more general propaganda we must explain our support to a victory by the PLO over Israel.
In the same way that the revolutions in Central America and the Caribbean demonstrate the basic applicability of permanent revolution in a positive way, so the recent experiences in Iran and Palestine demonstrate it in the negative. This takes nothing away from the heroic struggles of the Iranian and Palestinian masses themselves. The toppling of the shah will always remain an historic achievement no matter what the final outcome in Iran. This act itself was an important blow against the power of the imperialists. The resistance of the PLO to the Israeli siege of Beirut is a proud chapter in the history of that struggle, and an inspiration to all fighters against tyranny and exploitation. But history shows time and again that even the most powerful mass mobilizations are not sufficient in and of themselves to lead to victory. They must develop a perspective of overthrowing the bourgeoisie, and they must develop a leadership capable of acting decisively to establish a proletarian government.
Though less dramatic than events in Central America and the Caribbean, in Poland, or in the Middle East, a new situation has begun to take shape in the imperialist countries which will ultimately be decisive for the international class struggle. This has expressed itself both in terms of an increased economic struggle — a fightback against austerity — and in a number of important political battles. This process is uneven from one country to another, but clear signs of its development can be seen throughout Europe and North America. The Western European working class has long had a militant trade union tradition in most countries. This tradition is playing an important role today when the workers are faced with the ever-mounting takeback drive of the employers in their attempt to make working people pay for the capitalist economic crisis. But the European workers have learned that the fight against austerity cannot be waged on the trade union level alone. They are also seeking a political solution for their dilemma.
This has manifested itself in the historic electoral victories for Social Democratic parties in France, Greece, Spain, and Sweden. There is also the development of the Bennite current in the British Labour Party, and the leftward shift of the rank-and-file base of that party. This can be expected to continue in the wake of the Thatcher electoral victory, which mainly reflected the inability of the traditional Labour Party leadership to present an alternative. The Social Democratic-CP coalition governments in Europe will not be capable of resolving the bourgeois economic crisis, or of significantly softening its effect on the working classes, but their election represents a powerful step forward for the masses and improves the general relationship of class forces. It is the task of revolutionary Marxists to demand that the reformist workers’ parties presently in office break with the bourgeoisie and take decisive measures to halt unemployment, factory closings, and other attacks by the bosses. This policy will expose the reformist misleaderships and help the masses shed the illusions they still hold about them. It will lead to an understanding of the need for a truly revolutionary working class government, which can carry through a complete transformation of economic and social relations.
Events move rapidly in this kind of situation. In both France and Spain the working class has issued a warning to the reformists through the municipal elections in the spring of 1983, which revealed growing disillusionment with the policies of the national governments. There have been major divisions within the CPs and SPs which reflect increased dissatisfaction within the ranks. These things in no way indicate a shift to the right, but rather a desire for a government that truly defends the interests of working people against the bosses. It is this sentiment that presents a major opportunity for the emergence in these countries of a mass-based class struggle leadership.
There are other indications of a new political consciousness and willingness to act on the part of the European proletariat. Most significant of these is the growth of the antimissiles movement. This is a movement directed clearly and decisively against the imperialist remilitarization drive. It is a movement for unilateral (even if only partial) disarmament. The European sections of the Fourth International have correctly been in the forefront of this development, and made it a big priority in their activity, seeking to deepen its connections to the working class by getting the unions actively involved.
The North American and particularly the U.S. working class is not as advanced in its trade union or political consciousness as are the Europeans. Nevertheless, growing signs of class consciousness are appearing; this lays the basis for a rapid development of the class struggle.
While in Canada the trade union movement launched its own independent political party some years ago, the U.S. workers have so far failed to follow that example. This complete lack of any independent mass expression of working class politics, even if only of a reformist character, is the dominant feature of political life in our country. It puts its stamp on all aspects of the class struggle.
There are signs of a heightened awareness within the U.S. labor movement about this situation and the need to resolve it. The development of a labor party based on the unions is a task of the greatest importance to all working class militants in the U.S. today. It requires particular attention from the revolutionary party.
The tasks which must be undertaken for the defense of the gains made over the past twenty to thirty years by working people in the U.S. and Canada will require a militant, fighting, class struggle leadership for the union movement. The current crop of union bureaucrats have no experience with these kinds of struggles, and no interest in developing that experience. Though they come from many different backgrounds, and have different outlooks that reflect different pressures, they are all completely class-collaborationist, and there is no sign that any of this layer are capable of breaking with their past.
But the longer the contradiction continues between the kind of leadership that is needed to advance the class struggle and the kind that is available, the more explosive the situation becomes. There are growing indications that North American workers have begun to draw the conclusions from several years of givebacks and concessions. They have come to understand that these will not save jobs or improve the general economic picture. There is also a growing consciousness about the need for the unions to take a stand on broad social questions — the rights of women and Blacks, opposition to nuclear power and weapons, and against the government’s war policies. A large number of unions have taken positions against U.S. intervention in Central America. Even the national AFL-CIO is against recertification of human rights progress in El Salvador. All of this reflects growing ferment in the ranks.
It is just a matter of time before a new leadership begins to develop which can present a consistent alternative policy to the present course of the union bureaucracy.
The events in Grenada and Central America, and in Poland, are the most advanced examples of the development of working class struggles in counter-position to the traditional reformist working class apparatuses. But they are not the only examples. In most countries the general rise in working class combativity has yet to find any real political expression outside of the Stalinist and Social Democratic blind alleys in which the international workers’ movement has been trapped for decades. But there are important exceptions to this. One example is the Workers Party (PT) in Brazil.
The developing confrontation between the workers and the capitalists in Brazil was reflected in the significant defeat suffered by the government in the 1982 elections, despite extremely undemocratic election procedures. The PT represents a move onto the political arena of real, mass-based, class struggle forces with a long experience and tradition in the Brazilian workers’ movement. In addition to the strong showing made by the PT (strong considering its inexperience and the difficult conditions it faced), the ruling party lost important races to the mass reformist bourgeois opposition party.
In Mexico, too, the 1982 elections demonstrated the growing crisis of bourgeois rule. Here a genuine revolutionary pole, presented by our comrades of the PRT through the candidacy of Rosario Ibarra de Piedra, made an impressive showing and developed a truly mass-based response.
In Latin America in general there has been a renewed development of mass struggles. In Argentina, in the wake of the Malvinas defeat, the military regime is teetering on the edge, with no significant social base. Renewed mass demonstrations and strikes in Chile have threatened Pinochet. In Bolivia, the mobilizations of the tin miners and others forced the restoration of a civilian government, which has little real hope of stabilizing bourgeois rule. In Uruguay, Colombia, Peru — with the imposition of martial law — and other countries there are also struggles taking place.
For American revolutionaries the fight for Puerto Rican independence always has a particular importance. The massive unemployment and oppressive living conditions of the island’s inhabitants is a direct result of their superexploitation by U.S. monopolies. There have been a number of important battles in recent years such as the electrical workers’ strike, the student strike at the University of Puerto Rico, and the occupation of the “town without fear.” The battle also continues for an end to the U.S. military’s use of the island of Vieques for target practice. All of this shows a continued combativity on the part of the Puerto Rican people. We extend our full support and solidarity to these and similar struggles, and will mobilize ourselves to do so actively whenever the opportunity arises. We will also attempt to collaborate in joint campaigns with our co-thinkers in the LIT, sympathizing section of the Fourth International in Puerto Rico.
Other parts of the colonial and semicolonial world have been the scene of important events as well, from South Africa, to Ghana, to the Western Sahara, to India, to South Korea, to the Philippines, to Micronesia, to East Timor. The efforts of the colonial masses to break out of their bondage is searching for effective expression. Such expression can only be found in these countries through a perspective of socialist revolution, of permanent revolution.
Fueling all of the major developments in the international class struggle is the growing structural crisis of the imperialist economic system. It must be emphasized that this is a structural crisis, not a conjunctural one. It will not be resolved after a short period of readjustment. The long period of capitalist economic boom which followed the destruction created by the Second World War has come definitively to an end. Markets for products continue to diminish and profitable investment opportunities are fewer and fewer. Industrial production in the main imperialist countries is shrinking. In the United States in the fourth quarter of 1982 the utilization of productive capacity was at its lowest point in history. This results in massive unemployment.
At the same time the tremendous expansion of credit by governments, by industry, and by consumers — which has softened the impact of the crisis of overproduction—has fueled a massive inflation which in its turn threatens to completely destabilize the international economy. So precarious is the situation that a single default by a major corporation, or bank, or country could start a chain reaction with devastating effects.
The impact of this economic crisis can be felt in every sector of the world. Its consequences in the imperialist countries themselves are obvious; and the questions of jobs and of controlling inflation play a major role in political life — along with the question of who will pay for the crisis, the workers or the bosses.
In the colonial and semicolonial countries the effects of the economic situation are even more devastating. These nations must pay ever higher prices for the industrial and consumer goods they import, yet the prices they receive for the raw materials and agricultural products that they export remain the same, or actually decline. This causes a massive balance of payments problem. The huge public debt which has accumulated in many of these countries as a result of this fuels an inflation which is qualitatively greater than it is in the industrial countries, and the suffering of the masses is much more acute.
The workers’ states are also affected by the capitalist crisis. Shrinking world trade means a diminished opportunity for exports to gain much-needed hard currency for the purchase of Western-made goods. In a country like Cuba, which utilizes the same agricultural markets as the colonial countries, the reduced prices it receives for its products create major difficulties and result in a shortage of foreign-made commodities. We have already discussed the even greater impact of the international economic crisis on the bureaucratically controlled workers’ states of Eastern Europe, which have, over the past several years, significantly mortgaged their future to the Western banks, and where the burden of foreign debt is combined with the growing crisis of a bureaucratically managed economy.
We can expect to see, and in feet have already seen, varied attempts by the bourgeoisie to solve their crisis—fiscal manipulations, protectionist schemes, increases in war spending, and similar measures. But none of these can be of any long-range help and most will even make matters worse. The only real solution which the imperialist ruling classes can offer is one of cutbacks and austerity. Working people, they assert, demand too much when they expect a decent standard of living in return for their labor.
But the solution of the bourgeoisie will not be quickly imposed on the working class, and it cannot be imposed without big struggles. This will place on the order of the day the question of the working class itself taking matters into its own hands and imposing its own government and its own solution to the crisis.
The development of this class struggle will not be linear. It will have its ups and downs, its ebbs and flows, and its unevenness from country to country, and even within the same country. This will likewise be true of the economic crisis as a whole, which will undoubtedly see periods of relative recovery even within the context of an overall decline. Although the ability of the ruling classes to maneuver and grant concessions is much more limited than it has been in the past, it is wrong to say that there can be no attempts in this direction. We can decisively say, however, that much greater struggles will be necessary for working people to wrest even the smallest concession, or to maintain their present standard of living.
The opportunities on a world scale for creating a revolutionary vanguard capable of leading the working class and its allies forward to a decisive victory over the imperialist system have never, since the degeneration of the Russian Revolution, been greater than they are today. There is no one tactic or gimmick which can instantly or even rapidly resolve the leadership crisis of the proletariat. What is required is a continuation of the basic Leninist strategy of party building, based on the method of the Transitional Program, in each country through a combination of activities — depending on the course of world events, the domestic class struggle, and the specific relationship between revolutionary Marxist and other forces vying for leadership and influence in the working class.
The most important task we have in relationship to the Castroist current, and the revolutions it is leading, is to throw ourselves fully into the effort for solidarity and against imperialist intervention. This is a project which is possible in every country. In addition, in those countries, mostly in Latin America, where this current is actively involved, along with us, in the class struggle, we must strive to work with them in every possible way to develop united campaigns and perspectives. Through these kinds of activities, as well as through the successes our forces can score in leading the struggles of working people, we will put ourselves in the best position to learn from and emulate the strong side of the Castroists, as well as engaging these comrades in the necessary political discussion on the important points of programmatic difference which remain between us. In this way we can pursue our perspective of convergence with these forces in a constructive and principled way.
A similar set of tasks must govern our approach to Solidarnosc. We must demonstrate the dedication of revolutionary Marxists to mobilize material aid and political solidarity in support of the Polish workers. We will thereby place ourselves in a position to contribute to the thinking-out process, the political differentiation occurring within Poland itself, and help with the consolidation of a leadership dedicated to the perspective of political revolution.
We must have a special relationship to the struggles in Central America and in Poland because of their extreme political importance for the world revolution today. But we must also have the perspective of throwing ourselves strongly into solidarity with any and every struggle against imperialist domination, or national oppression, or for democratic rights, wherever they should occur, from the Middle East, to South Africa, to Latin America, to Ireland, to the USSR, to China.
In countries where revolutionary Marxist organizations exist, the building of parties rooted in the broadest mass of working people will require close attention to the developing domestic class struggles, as well as to problems of international solidarity. This means participating in and attempting to provide leadership for the unions and other mass organizations. It means attention to the particular struggles of oppressed nationalities, of immigrant workers, and of women. Special attention must also be paid to the struggles of youth, both working class youth on the job and students.
We have answers to all of the problems faced by working people and their allies — answers contained in the basic principles of class solidarity and proletarian internationalism as expressed in the Transitional Program .We must translate our answers into a language that can be readily understood, and apply them to specific struggles and concerns that emerge out of the broader class struggle.
In all of our mass work, the tactic of the united front must remain our basic approach. This will aid us in building the most powerful activities in defense of working people’s interests, and it will allow us to reach those forces we want to increase our collaboration with, as well as helping to expose the misleaderships of the working class.
The turn to basic industry remains an essential task for revolutionary Marxists throughout the world. The growing radicalization within the working class itself provides new openings and opportunities for propaganda, agitation, and action. This dictates that we give top priority to work in this arena. This requires a conscious effort to develop a cadre which in its large majority is part of and rooted in this basic strategic sector of the working class.
The colonization of our existing cadre is the absolutely necessary beginning to this process; but it is only the beginning. Revolutionary militants in industry must strive to gain the trust and confidence of their co-workers by forging inseparable ties with them, and showing through discussion and action that our program can point the road forward to liberation from the insecurity and oppression of life under capitalist rule. This can only be done via a long-term commitment, and through fighting side-by-side with those we hope to reach—demonstrating our capacity to lead in every struggle and on every question, both big and small.
Through this process our primary objective is to convince and recruit a new layer of fighters directly from the industrial working class itself. Only if we do this, only if our parties become proletarian in this sense—made up in large measure of comrades who originate in and are recruited out of basic industry — will we be able to say that we have accomplished our goals in the turn.
It is also essential that the turn to basic industry not be seen as a turn away from other vital components of the class struggle — either important non-industrial sectors of the working class or allies of the class which maintain their own importance. Rather we must use our turn as a means of strengthening and deepening our work in these sectors. We must also recognize that a need to be rooted in working class life doesn’t end at the factory door, but requires a concern with the many and varied needs of working people on and off the job.
One organizational conclusion flows inescapably from a correct assessment of the opportunities opening up for revolutionary Marxists today—build the Fourth International. Only the Fourth International maintains the programmatic heritage of the Marxist movement from the Communist Manifesto written by Marx and Engels; through the early years of the Communist International under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, through the development of the Comintern’s program by Trotsky and the Left Opposition after Lenin’s death in the fight against Stalinism, and in great events—such as the Chinese revolution of 1925-27, the fight against fascism in Germany and France, the Spanish civil war, etc. It is the Fourth International, and only the Fourth International, which has applied these lessons to the revolutionary developments of the post-World War n years, and which, to this day, maintains a perspective for proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries, in the colonial world, and in the deformed and degenerated workers’ states.
This programmatic perspective of revolutionary Marxism has been fought for and conquered at a great cost in human sacrifice and suffering. To maintain and apply that program is the most important task of our world movement. It becomes doubly and triply important now that the opportunity exists for our international current to influence and learn from the experiences of other revolutionary forces such as those in the forefront of the battles in Central America and Poland. Demonstrating that we can build our parties based on our program will be one of the most important factors, along with the objective development of the revolutionary process itself, in contributing to any convergence that may be possible — a joining of our own forces with these others in a common political tendency.
An insistence on the need to build the Fourth International today and an insistence on the need for programmatic clarity are not organizational fetishism or sectarianism. We all know that in the process of building a revolutionary international many kinds of organizational forms, maneuvers, etc. will be needed. But those in our ranks who today reject building the Fourth International as a correct organizational perspective present no serious or practical alternative. They demand that we orient ourselves toward an as yet nonexistent “new mass Leninist international” as if the only thing that was keeping this from coming into existence was our failure to embrace it. Even more significantly, they insist that this requires renouncing our programmatic perspectives on permanent revolution and on the political revolution, along with a rejection of our correct approach to the three sectors of the world revolution. We have also begun to see the development of a new and completely non-Marxist approach which tries to fit all developments in the world into either “pro-imperialist” or “anti-imperialist” categories, without making the necessary distinctions between different class forces involved in such struggles. The result of this has been the grouping of the international proletariat in the same “anti-imperialist camp” as certain radical bourgeois colonial regimes and Stalinist governments, with a concurrent theoretical and practical subordination of the need for independent struggles by the workers and peasants to defend their own specific interests. The “struggle against imperialism” is declared to be a higher task. One clear example of the tragic results of such an approach is the disastrous line of the SWP majority on Iran, and the similar approach taken by some members of the Fourth International in Iran itself.
History has demonstrated time and again that organizational projects under taken by even the best intentioned revolutionists, if they ignore or deny the importance of program, can only end in disaster. The proposal to subordinate the building of the Fourth International today to the perspective of a new mass Leninist international, especially when this perspective is accompanied by the reckless abandonment of a correct Marxist outlook, must be firmly rejected.
We must instead reaffirm our programmatic perspectives — not because they have been inscribed in stone by those who came before us, but because they have been confirmed and reconfirmed over and over by every experience of the world working class and the international revolution. We must reaffirm our commitment to these principles because without them the working class will be unable to overthrow the capitalists and advance to the reconstruction of the world on a socialist, a humanitarian basis. We must build parties and an international based on that program, seek to gain the leadership of the working class and its allies, and seek to join with all other class struggle, proletarian, revolutionary currents which have arisen and which will arise in order to advance the revolutionary process.
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