Fifth Congress of the
Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores
Where Is Centrism Headed?
There are two possibilities, two roads between which the centrists can choose in the present situation: to save their “personality,” their self-love, their “prestige,” they can break discipline and leave the party before or during the congress, thus managing to do the greatest possible harm; or, they can admit the possibility of being wrong, lend an ear to the opinions of the working-class base, accept the resolutions of the majority and clearly show their willingness to be reintegrated into the new party, doing their utmost to liquidate all the bad habits of Morenoism.
The adoption of one or the other of these positions will be the objective criterion by which the party can determine if class limitations hold preeminence in the individuals in the Center, defining them as a crystallized petty-bourgeois current hostile to revolutionary war, or if a proletarian criterion wins among them.
The reports reaching us from the party indicate that the Center is a clearly defined, split-oriented and anti-party tendency. The latest activities of these compa�eros are becoming increasingly consistent, showing more and more clearly a general orientation to disown all the positions adopted at the Fourth Congress, diverting the debate from the essential points through the petty-bourgeois method already dealt with of placing everything in doubt up to the possibility of knowledge itself and bringing up an infinity of minor questions, “stories not worth a farthing,” most of them false. Even if true, they do not enlarge on the strategic and tactical questions, but would involve only practical corrections.
In this way, evading a serious treatment, a Marxist polemic on the central items of interest to the organization (the party crisis and other matters relating to the proletarianization of the party and preparations for war) while at the same time unleashing an infernal confusion about secondary matters of a merely practical nature, they play their petty-bourgeois role of sowing disorientation, doubt, fear, insecurity. Whether this dynamic develops and is borne out will depend fundamentally upon the internal evolution of the centrist group. But the tactic the party uses with regard to them will play an important auxiliary role. The tactical principle that should guide our attitude toward the centrists is the one that Mao summed up so well in his expression, “To cure the sick, kill the sickness.” That is, we must unanimously and continually attack the disease of “petty-bourgeois Morenoism” that the Center elements are suffering from. We must use our firmness and intransigence to the utmost to demonstrate the central questions to them, and the need to avoid weakening the party which is preparing itself to go forward. We have to make them see how a splitting attitude on their part objectively aids our enemies, and that even if they are right, something that will be determined by the future evolution of events, their place is in the party, which they can serve by exercising constructive criticism. This general tactic is based on activity, firmly requiring the centrists to carry out their assignments and to respect party discipline. All lack of discipline must go. The following criteria must be established with regard to the centrists: (a) Avoid violent attitudes of a personal nature. (b) Prevent impediments to activity, firmly requiring the centrists to carry out their assignments and respect party discipline. Every violation of discipline must be noted as a matter of record and communicated to the party, without . . . tight agreements that safeguard party unity.[*] (d) Propose that the rank and file members of the Center—after careful selection—be assigned to periods of activity in worker teams. (e) Show by exemplary Leninist respect for constructive opinions a willingness to listen, thus assuring the centrists that our party is not and never will be a Stalinist apparatus. (f) Speed up preparations for the Fifth Congress and hold it as soon as possible. This is a fundamental aspect. It is necessary to put an end to the indecisiveness and ambiguity that is obstructing and distracting the party. We can not lose another day carrying out our tasks of preparation. This is why we need a congress right away to resolve the party crisis and enable us to throw ourselves fully into the struggles that await us. Nearly the entire party has already taken a position. If we are not able to draw up the thorough documents that are necessary, mainly for addressing the vanguard of the masses, we can substitute for them with a group of clear resolutions. The settling of the party crisis is an organizational problem.
Let’s give it a speedy solution in the Fifth Congress.
Comrades: The party has undergone almost seven months of open internal struggle. The Congress has put an end to this experience and our party has come out of it strengthened and purged. The experience that we have just undergone should be engraved in fire in the party’s memory, and from here on we must remain constantly alert to prevent and to root out any reappearance of the poisonous weed of petty-bourgeois, bureaucratic Morenoism by exercising criticism, self-criticism, and proletarian vigilance. In the same way we must prevent and nip in the bud any other new form through which the class enemies might gain entrance into the party. This is not the last time we will have these problems. We must not despair or feel discouraged if, in spite of everything, they show up again.
But we have to come out of this crisis completely on the alert and well armed to prevent a repetition in the future. We have learned how to deal with it. This is precisely through increasing proletarianization of the party, a constant rise in the percentage of workers in the organization, the active and conscious participation of the rank and file and the cadres. The most strict intransigence in face of any type of deviation. The constant exercise of criticism and self-criticism. The closest relationship with the masses. The serious study of Marxism-Leninism. An increasing degree of effectiveness in carrying out the line and the tasks.