;;A Response to Partido Obrero

Chris Edwards

12 February 1999

In the this and previous issues of In Defence of Marxism, considerable space has been given to the positions of Partido Obrero of Argentina on the question of reconstructing the Fourth International. Osvaldo Coggiola and Luis Oviedo and now, in this issue, Jorge Altamira have expressed deep scepticism about any possibility of regenerating, or partially regenerating, the largest international organization to emerge from Trotsky's Fourth International, the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI). Partido Obrero and its international co-thinkers, mainly in Latin America, emerged from the Lambertist organisation in 1979. Its founding document characterised the USFI as "counterrevolutionary" (1). We have challenged this view in previous issues of In Defence of Marxism.

In his earlier article (2), Osvaldo Coggiola approvingly quoted the following:

"'The reconstruction of the Fourth International, was shipwrecked in the past 25 years, after the crisis of 1951-55, because the tendencies that raised the banner of struggle against Pabloism were organised in a political context that possessed, as its axis of reference, the supposed regeneration of revisionism. In order to preserve this axis, and their consequent unification man oeuvres, they organised a federal framework, which questioned the principle element of democratic centralism. Thus it was with the SWP/US and International Committee before 1963, with the OCI (Lambert) and Healy until 1971, and with the ORCFI from its foundation. The common characteristic of negating work based on centralism barely hid the intention of reaching an agreement with revisionism at the first opportunity. It was the determination of the revisionists in maintaining themselves as a centralised organisation, in the face of the federalism of their opponents, that guaranteed their survival. The so-called continuity of the Fourth International, that filled Lambert and Co. with such pride, is refuted by the fact that it is impossible to conserve the thread of international revolutionary continuity in a federation of debates.'"(3)

In this quotation from a document of PO's now defunct international organization, the Fourth Internationalist Tendency (FIT, or TCI to give it its Spanish initials, not to be confused with the former US organization of the same name), there are some erroneous as well as valid points. It is true that the International Committee tradition was based on international federalism, while the ISFI/USFI current was based on a loose form of international democratic centralism. This strengthened the latter and weakened the former. Coggiola is right to insist on international democratic centralism as the most appropriate form of organization for the international proletarian vanguard. However, he does not see the link between this federalism, which is really just another expression of the deep-rooted organizational sectarianism of the International Committee, and the sectarian way in which this current split from the Fourth International on the eve of the 1953 World Congress, without even attempting to struggle for its positions inside a still-united Fourth International. Is it really all that surprising that an international current which behaved in such a sectarian way towards the Fourth International should then be unable to function on the basis of international democratic centralism? The ICFI was a loose federation with national parties preserving their own autonomous little empires in their own countries. They were unable to co-operate in the ICFI just as they were unable to co-operate with the united Fourth International. The same thing happened in 1979 with the Parity Commission when the Bolshevik Tendency split from the USFI before the 1979 USFI World Congress.

In relation to the actions and methodology of the "antipabloites", Coggiola expresses very clearly the organizational sectarianism of the PO and its co-thinkers. If it was irresponsible sectarianism for the proto-ICFI to break organizationally from the FI in 1953, without even attempting to struggle for its point of view within the International that Trotsky had struggled to build, then what status should we attach to the statement, quoted approvingly by Coggiola, that the antipabloites, "were organised in a political context that possessed, as its axis of reference, the supposed regeneration of revisionism"? What status should we attach to the view that, "The common characteristic of negating work based on centralism barely hid the intention of reaching an agreement with revisionism at the first opportunity"? Coggiola is alluding to the decision of the SWP/US and the Morenists to rejoin the ISFI in 1963 to reunite the majority of Trotskyists in the newly-formed USFI. While he is justified in challenging the erroneous politics of the SWP and the Morenists on the Cuban Revolution and the political basis of the reunification, he is not justified in challenging the legitimate need to reunify the International. It was correct to reunify in 1963 because it was wrong to split without a struggle in 1953. The proto-Spartacists challenged the illusions in Castroism within the SWP and they were correct to struggle within it and the USFI until they were expelled. We may justifiably regard them as crazy sectarian provocateurs today, but in the 1960s they played a progressive role on this question.

The deep skepticism of PO about the possibilities of regenerating "revisionism" stand in stark contrast to the approach of Trotsky towards the centrist leaders of the left socialist parties in the early thirties:

"The transition from one stage of struggle to a higher one has never been accomplished without internal friction. Some comrades, homesick for the mass organisations, desire to gather up fruits that are still unripe. Others, anxious about the purity of the principles of the Left Opposition, regard all attempts to approach the larger mass organisations with distrust. How can one approach organisations at the head of which are centrists? 'What good can be expected from Nazareth?' We are quite ready, they say, to unite with the rank and file workers, but we do not see any sense in approaching the centrist leaders, etc., etc. Such a purely formal manner of posing the question is erroneous. They are greatly affected by propagandist sectarianism.

The Third International was itself recruited nine-tenths from centrist elements who evolved to the left. Not only individuals and groups but also entire organisations and even parties with their old leadership, or a part of that leadership, placed themselves under the banner of Bolshevism.

This was absolutely inevitable. Their further developments depended on the policy of the Comintern, of its internal regime, etc. In the camp of the workers movement today, if the fascist, nationalist, and religious organisations are excluded, one observes the predominance of the reformist and centrist organisations; in the latter category we include, with a good reason, the official Comintern. It is clear that the rebirth of the revolutionary workers movement will take place at the expense of centrism. Moreover, not only individuals and groups but entire organisations will place themselves anew under the Communist banner. The further development of re-education will depend on the general direction of politics, the regime and finally on the march of historic events." (4)

(my emphasis--CE)

Of course, Trotsky was talking about leftward-moving centrism of social democratic origin and not rightward-moving centrism of Trotskyist origin. They are not the same thing. While it is important to recognize the differences between the two, it is nevertheless true that even rightward moving centrism, by its very nature, is not consistently counterrevolutionary. The ITO, unlike PO, does not accept that the USFI is counterrevolutionary in character. Its centrist politics means that it is both inconsistently revolutionary and inconsistently counterrevolutionary. In the long post-war period, there have been serious periodic lapses from Trotskyist positions. But the striking thing about the USFI has been not its consistency in being counterrevolutionary, but its consistency in being inconsistent.

In the paragraphs immediately following the above quote, Trotsky compares centrism of Stalinist origin and centrism of social democratic origin as they manifested themselves in the early 1930s. He said that Stalinist centrism was a conservative, relatively long-standing form of centrism because the Western Communist Parties had a powerful social support in the Soviet bureaucracy. This preserved its existence for an extended period and meant that it did not immediately suffer the fate of most centrist parties, which is one of either revolutionary development or relatively rapid disintegration. Stalinist centrism lasted for the best part of a decade until it collapsed into counterrevolutionary betrayal in 1935. Centrism of social democratic origin in the 1930s did not have such a social support and disintegrated within a few years. The USFI has also existed for a long time, almost half a century, in much the same form. Rather than experiencing a dramatic collapse into consistently counterrevolutionary betrayal comparable to August 1914 or the 1935 Franco-Soviet pact, the USFI has staggered on in much the same centrist vein throughout the post-war period. What explains this longevity? It is not because of a powerful social support such as the Soviet bureaucracy. However many illusions the USFI has in Cuban Stalinism, it has not sponsored he USFI in any way. In fact, the longevity of the USFI is explained by its inconsistent adhesion to Trotskyism and the Trotskyist programme. However, much the ISFI/USFI might have periodically departed from this programme, it has also periodically implemented this programme, however inconsistently and inadequately.

Sticking the label "counterrevolutionary" on the USFI does not capture the living complexity of the political phenomenon with which we are dealing. Because it is a simplistic caricature, it can be easily dismissed by the USFI and other Trotskyist organizations as the crude slanders of crazy sectarians. It effectively renders impossible political dialogue with the best elements within the USFI and other Trotskyist organizations, as the PO discovered when they attempted to meet with the Revolution Tendency of the LCR in Paris. A subsequent meeting with Lutte Ouvriere (LO) resulted in a letter from the latter protesting at the writing off of the USFI by PO from any process of reconstructing the FI. This is one reason why LO has not involved itself so far in our current project to reconstruct the FI.

The current paper of Jorge Altamira (5) on the subject of the LCR-LO electoral agreement published in this issue of IDM, suffers from the same sectarian flaws as the above statements of Coggiola. While making many correct criticisms of the political shortcomings of the agreement, Altamira concludes by calling upon LO to break the agreement with the LCR. This is a wrong and sectarian conclusion to a correct analysis of the political problems of the agreement. The alliance has generated a good deal of enthusiasm, energy and hope in the French far-left. Instead of damning the project and calling upon LO to break the agreement, undermining this momentum in the process, it is methodologically more effective to call upon the LO and the LCR to preserve the electoral alliance and raise the political level of the platform. There is a positive aspect to the alliance of two of France's Trotskyist organizations. This is that it is a step in the direction of ending the fragmentation of the Trotskyist movement, which is necessary if Trotskyism is to be numerically strong enough to make a difference in the class struggle. Numerical strength is important. Altamira's method cuts across this instinctive desire for unity and effectiveness and also cuts him off from any influence on the best elements within the LCR and LO who can, in turn, caricature him as a hopeless cynic and a splitter.

Trotsky, as we have seen, was able to anticipate that a revolutionary party would recruit nine-tenths of its future membership from centrist parties, including the whole or part of their leaderships. The experience of the French Socialist Party joining the Comintern virtually en bloc was probably uppermost in his mind when he wrote the above quotation. Even the former counterrevolutionary social patriotic leadership, which had supported France in the First World War (e.g. Cachin and Frossard), were allowed to join the new French Communist Party and even to attend the Second Congress of the Comintern in 1920. If such things can happen it would be foolish indeed to exclude in advance, in "formalistic fashion", a similar development today under the impact of a powerful leftward development in the international class struggle. This might well manifest itself in the regeneration of the USFI and its fusion with other Trotskyist organisations to reconstruct the Fourth International on a much wider basis. We can be as skeptical as we like about such a likelihood; but we cannot, and should not, exclude it, in advance, as a possibility.

Finally, while we are on the subject of the French Socialist Party and the Comintern, it is instructive to recall that the former was allowed to join the latter before the "21 Points", outlining the revolutionary criteria for membership of the Comintern, were drawn up. In other words, Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not approach revolutionary regroupment through a process of political ultimatums and denunciation of the shortcomings of the centrist parties they were seeking to influence. Instead, a practical political relationship and a political dialogue were simultaneously established with these parties. The French Socialist Party was allowed into the Comintern while the Bolsheviks simultaneously struggled for political clarification. This approach is one that was outlined in a past ITO document submitted to the 1995 USFI World Congress.

"The disorientation and fragmentation of the Trotskyist movement has increased markedly since the collapse of Stalinism. Trotskyist regroupment requires both political clarification and organisational unification. It is not possible to say simply, "Political clarity first, organisational unity second". However tidy and attractive that formula may sound, it fails to understand the real problem and oversimplifies the solution. Political clarity must be won in the course of a struggle for organisational unity, as organisational unity must be won in the course of a struggle for political clarity. In his 5 May 1875 letter to W. Bracke, Marx wrote: "Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programs". This observation is used by opportunists to justify their abandonment of the revolutionary program, but its real meaning is that there is an indissoluble connection between achieving theoretical clarity and building the revolutionary movement, a dialectical unity of opposites. Theoretical clarification not linked to building a revolutionary party is an unimportant exercise. Under today's conditions, with the current state of the crisis of revolutionary leadership, the struggle for Trotskyist regroupment is the best and, in truth, the only adequate framework for theoretical clarification. In the struggle for regroupment, theoretical positions can be confronted with each other polemically and tested in practice. Theory can become real and not just ideological thinking." (6)

Notes.

(1) Fourth International Tendency. "Declaration of the Fourth International Tendency."(1979). Unpublished English translation available from the author of this article.

(2) Coggiola, A., "For the Reconstruction of the Fourth International." (part 2) in In Defence of Marxism Vol 1 No 2. Autumn 1997.

(3) Fourth Internationalist Tendency. "sobre la division del SU y la formacion del Comite Paritario." ("On the Division of the USFI and the Formation of the Parity Commission."). December 1975)

(4) Writings of Leon Trotsky, 1932-33, p276. Pathfinder Press. New York

(5) Altamira, J., "Professor Tobin now has his Revolutionary Front" in this issue of IDM. 1999.

(6) Left Tendency 1995 World Congress document, "Building the Fourth International and Mass Trotskyist Parties in Every Country."1995.