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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 14, 3 April 1950, p. 5.
(By Mail from Paris)
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Ours is without any doubt an era which is seeking a new orientation. This is especially true of working-class parties which reject capitalism, reformism and Stalinism, all three.
The need for basing realistic action on a new understanding of things is felt most vividly in those places where the Stalinist practice of “socialist” transformation of the economy and society, and of the “socialist liberation” which is peculiar to it, is being lived through in concrete, daily experience – provided that in the course of this experience the possibility still exists of confronting facts with ideas, or of confronting ideas with ideas, as is not the case in the satellite countries and still less in Russia.
That is why Germany and especially Berlin occupy a special position, as areas which are in part under the control of Stalinism but in part still offer the possibility of an opposition to it. This situation, together with a certain number of other factors (the fact that they were so long cut off from the outside world; the technical difficulties of the first post-war years) has brought to birth here, since the end of the war, a multitude of groups and grouplets. They have one thing in common: they all aim at the constitution of a strong working-class movement which will be free of both reformism and Stalinism.
Until a little while ago, the activity of these groups remained confined to narrow circles, to a semi-underground existence, with mimeographed material. It was an event of a certain importance, therefore, when during the last half year one of these groups, called “The Revolutionary Socialists of Germany,” undertook the publication of a printed magazine which appeared under the name of Pro und Contra [Pro and Con] beginning with its second issue.
It is not issued by an organization, properly speaking, but by men who are in agreement on certain fundamental questions – former members of the German Communist Party as well as of the Social-Democratic Party. Some are still members of the latter, or indeed are adherent of the Fourth International or of other German opposition groups. What unites them, as was mentioned above, is above all this: to capitalism, reformism and Stalinism they want to counterpose a genuinely socialist and Marxist position.
But they are not of the opinion that they already possess all the wisdom in the world. They recognize, on the contrary, the necessity for further reflection and clarification. And to this work they want to make a contribution with their magazine Pro und Contra. As the editors themselves write: “These issues are intended to be documents for the new spiritual and political orientation.”
And by no means do they intend it to be an organ which will spread only the ideas of the group itself. The magazine is rather to be an open forum for all non-totalitarian and non-reformist socialists.
This formula appears to us to be well adapted to what is required by the present state of the revolutionary socialist movement. It would be a step forward if in some way the various German groups, thanks to the initiative taken by the ground around Pro und Contra, found in it the possibility of emerging from their obscurity and of making contact with public opinion.
Up to now four issues of the magazine have appeared. In part they contain theoretical studies attempting to analyze the contemporary scene and to work out the meaning of genuine socialism in the face of reformist and Stalinist ideas and realities.
In other articles, the issues published give detailed information on the economic, social and political conditions in Germany today. Thus, No. 2 published an interesting report on the way in which the Stalinists took control of Eastern Germany and on the structure of the SED (the Stalinist “Socialist Unity Party”). In No. 4 there is an article on the Social-Democratic Party which gives a good idea of the struggle of tendencies within it.
But the magazine does not limit itself to German questions. Notably, No. 4 contains a long and noteworthy study devoted to China and to the history of the national liberation struggles in the Far East during the last half century.
All in all, it is a magazine which deserves to be followed attentively, in spite of the reservations to be made about it.
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