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Farrell Dobbs

Letter from Farrell Dobbs to Gerard Bloch

February 12, 1955

Written: 12 February, 1955
Source: Struggle in the Fourth International, International Committee Documents 1954-1963, Volume 1, pages 8-9. Education for Socialists bulletin; issued by the National Education Department of the Socialist Workers Party (US). No copyright.
Transcription/Proofing: David Walters and Andy Pollack
HTML Markup: David Walters
Public Domain: Encyclopepedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2005. This work is completely free to copy and distribute. Please cite the Encyclopepedia of Trotskyism On-Line if the contents herein are reproduced.

Dear Comrade,

Sorry we failed to acknowledge receipt of your letters of December 23 and 28, 1954, and the enclosed documents. We did, however, promptly comply with all your requests contained in the letters.

There has never been any doubt in our minds that Pablo was involved in one way or another in the emergence of a pro Stalinist faction in the LSSP, even though this faction was later repudiated by Pablo. He was compelled to repudiate also Clarke, Lawrence, and Mestre, after he first directed them onto the liquidationist road. William Silva’s remarks only corroborate what we had suspected for some time.

Your letter to the IC dealing with the question of unity is a well reasoned document representing undoubtedly the views of all the organizations adhering to the IC, at least in its fundamental assessment of the problem. To our knowledge, no one of the adherents of the IC has any illusions about the possibility of establishing unity with the Pabloites. No one has any sympathy for the conciliationist position of the LSSP.

Some tactical differences have manifested themselves on the best way to deal with the Ceylonese and other conciliators. We believe, however, that those differences are largely episodic and are mostly due to misunderstanding.

How shall we treat this problem of the conciliators? Their only concern is to avoid taking a clear stand and they think they can do it by working out a formula for a modus vivendi between the Trotskyists and the Pabloites. But there is no such modus vivendi possible. The organizations affiliated with the IC have categorically rejected Pabloite political and organization methods. They had first hand experience in bitter, irreconcilable struggle and splits with Pablo’s agents in their own ranks.

They are fully aware of the great harm Pabloism has done to the world movement and are in no mood to soften up on this question.

The truth is that if we had thought out the parity committee question to the end when the proposal was first made, it would have been rejected at that time. There are many reasons for rejecting this proposal, but not the least of them is that it should have been rejected for the good of the Ceylonese. The best way to deal with the Ceylonese is to make them realize beyond a doubt that there is no room for maneuvers between the Trotskyists and the Pabloites. From this point of view, the parity committee is not an aid but a hindrance in winning the Ceylonese to unqualified support of the IC.

The misunderstanding within the IC grew out of the acceptance of the parity committee proposal, while no one really wanted it or expected to accomplish anything through it. It was accepted under the false concept which you even repeat in your last letter, that to reject the proposal would place on the IC the onus of responsibility for the split.

However the question of the onus of responsibility for split is not at all so simple. In the first place, we are not dealing here with a mass movement in which one must be concerned that the masses who are generally yearning for unity do not consider us an anti unity force. We are dealing with comparatively small vanguard groups of more or less politically alert people. They know who was responsible for the split in France, England, and elsewhere. If they don’t know it, then we had better get busy explaining it. The split was due to the attempt to impose an alien line and alien organizational methods on the Trotskyist world movement. If this is not known the task then is to continue to explain this.

The split was brought about by Pablo. It was brought about by underhanded methods of deceit and subterfuge or outright brutality, as in France. It makes no sense to talk at this stage of the onus of responsibility for the split. We must work instead to complete the task of ridding the movement of Pabloism and to unite the Trotskyist forces within the framework of the IC. We should demand of the Ceylonese to join us in this task.

The IC however has been caught on the hook of a maneuver to establish “responsibility for the split.” You proposed to get off the hook by combining the acceptance of the parity committee proposal with a number of political demands which would be unacceptable to the Pabloites and would in turn hook the Ceylonese. This proposal was too obvious a maneuver. To accept the parity committee proposal for a discussion leading to unity, and at the same time pose a series of demands which add up to a rejection of Pabloism and agreement in advance with the IC position, would be interpreted by everyone and especially the Ceylonese as a maneuver which smacks of ultimatism.

We are convinced that the majority of the IC rejected this proposal not out of conciliationist considerations but because the proposal offered a poor solution. However, by accepting without qualifications the parity committee proposal the IC gave the impression it believes reunification is on the order of the day.

The correct course as we see it now would have been to reject outright the parity committee proposal as a cheap maneuver by Pablo to gain new advantage for his assault on Trotskyism and prevent his being thrust into oblivion. If Pablo seriously entertained the idea of unity, he would never have gone through with the rump 4th congress. That act itself represented a consummation of the world split. The struggle to reconstitute a Trotskyist world movement requires at this stage a blunt political and organizational confrontation, not maneuvers. This would be a line that would express our convictions. It would be simple to explain and would confront vacillators with an unmistakable choice between Pablo and the IC.

But this line was not the one that was taken. We were as much in error on this as anybody. We propose now that this become the line at the next meeting of the IC. We believe you should adopt a resolution along these lines for the benefit of the Trotskyists in the first instance.

What we do then with the parity committee proposal after that becomes secondary. There are two possible courses open.

One is to declare openly that upon further consideration of the parity committee proposal we have decided to reject it because the world movement would gain nothing from such maneuvers, and explain why this is so.

The second course is to leave the parity committee on ice and proceed with our own course. We would continue with the struggle of winning people away from Pabloism, prepare our own documents, carry through our own discussion, and prepare a congress.

If the Pabloites wish to summon a meeting of the parity committee, we can tell them we have nothing to take up we are not ready, we are busy with our own discussion.

These, in brief, are our views on this question. We will appreciate your comments on the general line of this letter and, if you agree with that line, we would like your thoughts on the alternate tactical courses outlined with regard to terminating the parity committee.

Fraternally,
Smith [Dobbs]

P.S.: The Latin American comrades complain that their correspondence remains unanswered by the IC. Can you clarify this?