Fifth Congress of the
Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores
Memorandum on the International
Introduction
The Central Committee charged me with preparing this memorandum which consists merely of an exposition of the point of view I developed at the Fifth Congress with regard to the International. This is not a systematic work, and it lacks the necessary precision in its historical references. This is owing to the fact that Central Committee was interested in speeding up the presentation of the point of view expressed at the Congress, which it considers in general to be correct, so that the party would be clear as to its position on the International, aware that the necessary systematic work is now a secondary task that must not be permitted to divert us.
1. Marxist Internationalism
Since Marx and Engels, Marxism has viewed the anticapitalist struggle and the socialist revolution from an internationalist point of view. Marx said that the socialist revolution is national in form and international in content, and that the proletariat’s struggle against the bourgeoisie is an international struggle. In accordance with this principle, Marx and Engels were responsible for fashioning the revolutionary party of that period into an international organization (first the International Workingmen’s Association, and then a series of subsequent organizations up to the Second International of Engels).
Lenin and the Bolsheviks completely shared this point of view and were members of the Second International despite its great limitations and the reformist character it acquired after the death of Engels under the leadership of the Germans and Austrians (Kautsky and Adler among others). Faced with the International’s betrayal in the European inter imperialist war, the Bolsheviks along with a handful of revolutionists (the Zimmerwaldian left), broke with the Second International. After the victory of the Russian revolution, the Third International was formed with its headquarters in Moscow. Through its first four congresses and its activity and guidance, this revolutionary International advanced the world revolutionary movement considerably. It fostered the formation of revolutionary Communist parties in many countries; and the International, with wise moves despite some errors, played a direct role in the European revolution of that period. This short period, opening with the founding of the International in 1918 and lasting until shortly before Lenin’s death in 1923 came closest to the Marxist conception of an international party. When Lenin was living, the Third International centralized the revolutionary struggle of the international proletariat against capitalism practically and was also able to bring some popular sectors opposed to imperialism (peasantry, petty-bourgeoisie and national-bourgeoisie of the colonial countries) into close alliance with the proletariat’s struggle. (We are referring mainly to the national anticolonialist movement of the Asian peoples.)
But after a transitional period in which the Third International came to play a centrist role, maintaining a general line of developing the world revolution with grave reformist, and populist deviations arising from national interests of the USSR being placed above those of the world revolution, Stalinism caused the degeneration of the International, subordinating it to the immediate national interests of the Soviet Union, and consequently transforming it into an obstacle to the international revolution until it was dissolved as part of a postwar agreement with Churchill and Roosevelt.
This etperience, the memory of the last years of the Stalinist international, must have been one of the most important factors that led the Asian revolutionists—who through their development of revolutionary war had become transformed into the vanguard of the world revolution (Vietnamese, Chinese, and Koreans)—to draw the conclusion that an International was not necessary. They believed instead that an International constitutes an obstruction to the revolutionary struggle in each country, and that it must expressly establish nonintervention, the absolute independence of each national party, as a principle and convert internationalism organizationally into exchange of experiences and moral and material support.
Our point of view is that since the Leninist experience of the Third International, the need for an international revolutionary party that can centralize the struggle against capitalism and imperialism on a world scale has become clearer than ever. This need is more compelling each day because of the prevailing characteristics of the period we are living in. Capitalism is solidly centralized under the aegis of yankee imperialism. In some areas (Southeast Asia) a revolutionary struggle is developing that is international in form and content, which the different anticapitalist and antiimperialist revolutionary processes that are unfolding in every country, region and continent are notorious for their reciprocal influence. The kind of revolutionary International we advocate, besides unifying and centralizing the world revolutionary struggle, is also of vital importance in building socialism. As Lenin explained, the struggle against capitalism does not end with the victory of the revolution or the seizure of power in a given country, instead it continues against the vestiges of capitalism, against “the force of custom and petty production that is produced and reproduced daily under capitalism.”
This struggle, whose hard road and difficulties Lenin predicted in 1920, has shown that the experience of the workers states was truly titanic. An International designated as revolutionary plays an outstanding role during the socalled period of transition from capitalism to socialism, centralizing on an international level the struggle for the construction of socialism in transition to the future communist society. Finally, it is a political obligation for every proletarian revolutionist, for every Leninist party, to remain active, to maintain international political activity, participating in a direct or indirect way in the revolutionary experiences of different countries, maintaining an international outlook of the struggle for socialism in a practical way. This will immediately result in a better understanding of the national tasks, in increased efficiency on the part of the leadership of the revolutionary struggle, thanks to the assimilation of international experience, which is always richer, more complete, and more diverse.
These objectives, these revolutionary needs, firmly attach us as a fundamental matter of principle to the internationalist concept held by Marx and Lenin. This position, which we defend, was supported and developed in the most difficult days by Trotsky and the Fourth International he founded in 1938. As part of his struggle against Stalinism, Leon Trotsky upheld the MarxistLeninist banner of revolutionary internationalism, the banner we have inherited, which is maintained by the Fourth International and which we must raise and openly unfurl as a guide to proletarian revolutionists.
In recent years, the Cuban leadership brought to the revolutionary movement a practical, exemplary internationalism symbolized by the example of Comandante Guevara, a practical internationalism that we highly esteem and that we must try to imitate. The Cubans likewise attempted to found international revolutionary organizations (Tricontinental and OLAS), although for different reasons, they did not achieve results similar to those of the Leninist international.
2. The Present Situation in the International Revolutionary Movement
Today, the concrete situation faced by every revolutionary organization like ours, which understands the need of loyalty to the internationalist principles of Marx and Lenin, is the following:
On the one hand, on the extreme right, we find the revisionism headed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which includes the Communist parties of the European workers states with the sole exception of Albania, and the Moscoworiented Communist parties in almost every country of the world. This current, which is a direct product of reformist Stalinist bureaucratism, has abandoned the revolutionary struggle against capitalism and imperialism. Objectively, the European socialist countries and the USSR are in antagonistic contradiction to capitalism. Moreover, the line of the revisionist bureaucracy in power, which they call “peaceful coexistence” and which in reality seeks conciliation, the division of the world, being based in a suicidal and utopian, idealist belief that socialism will eventually be established by the mere weight of its example, has been creating favorable conditions for capitalism, stimulating its aggressiveness and emboldening it to such a degree that it has become a weight, a reactionary influence, within the workers states themselves, deepening their degeneration, finding channels to reintroduce capitalism, and opening up the possibility for capitalist restoration, as is shown by the present situation in Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Poland and mainly Yugoslavia.
On the other hand, the Communist and workers parties in the revolutionary workers states—the Chinese Communist Party, the Cuban Communist Party, Albanian Workers Party, Vietnam Workers Party, and Korean Communist Partyare the revolutionary currents that are advancing a revolutionary line and actually fighting or on the verge of it in close relation with one of these parties. These parties have developed and are continuing to develop, to various degrees, the most implacable and determined revolutionary struggle against capitalism and imperialism. They constitute the real vanguard of the world revolutionary movement, and it clearly follows that a revolutionary International that centralizes the anticapitalist and antiimperialist struggle on a world scale is possible only on the basis of these parties. But such an international is not feasible for the time being because of the express position of the Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Albanian parties, holding that the organization of a new International is not necessary but prejudicial, and because of the insurmountable difficulties encountered by the leadership in concretizing in organization terms the consistent internationalism referred to above.
Finally, another real aspect of this period is the existence of the Trotskyist movement and other internationalist revolutionary currents within the capitalist countries, which, while not lining up with the two sectors already mentioned, are striving to apply Marxism in a creative way to the concrete situation in their country, fighting arms in hand; and in their process of revolutionary maturation they are beginning to redeem the internationalist banner of MarxismLeninism under the exceptional inspiration of the thought and action of Comandante Guevara.
It is thus evident that for an organization like ours, there is no alternative but to struggle firmly for the construction of a new revolutionary International. And to succeed in this struggle, it is more than ever necessary to win the respect of the layers of the revolutionary workers sectors by means of the fullest and firmest development of revolutionary war in our country and by establishing the closest ties with Latin American and world revolutionary movements.
3. The Fourth International
It is necessary to make clear that the Trotskyist movement includes heterogeneous sectors. From counterrevolutionary adventurers who prostitute its banner to consistent revolutionists. The resurgence of Trotskyism following the death of Stalin in the USSR became polarized in the Fourth International to which we belong with the result that almost all of the adventurist and counterrevolutionary groups that called themselves Trotskyist were left on the outside. Recognition of Stalin’s negative side by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself dramatically confirmed the healthy and correct roots of the Trotskyist movement and favored the development of two simultaneous processes: (a) the reunification of the major part of the Trotskyist movement, at that time very atomized, weakened, and discredited, which was concretized at the Reunification Congress of the Fourth International in 1963. (b) The revitalization of Trotskyism by the dual means of a new and broader prestige that made possible the entrance of revolutionary youth in its ranks, and also to a change in the axis of the strug gle from one that confronted and denounced Stalinism a sterile axis that led to mistakes and sectarianism and castrated the movementto the contemporary revolutionary problematic. This provided us with an understanding of the Cuban revolutionary process, the opening to revolutionary war in theory and practice, and reconsideration of the character of the Asian revolutions.
Some compa�eros, who are opposed to our adherence to the Fourth International, argue that it is a discredited bureaucratic organization that instead of facilitating the revolutionary struggle obstructs it because of the resistance aroused by our adherence to it both on the international level and in the workers vanguard front in our country. Let us examine these questions: In the first place, it is necessary to be clear on the fact that the Fourth International actually has great limitations and a scarcely redeemable tradition.
We can summarize it by saying that the historic task of keeping Leninist internationalism alive, of preserving and developing the theory and practice of the permanent revolution, had to be carried out, under conditions of the absolute sway of Stalinism, by small circles of revolutionary intellectuals whose genuine isolation from the proletarian vanguard and the masses—in spite of considerable efforts to penetrate them—prevented them from becoming proletarianized and gave the Trotskyist movement a pettybourgeois character. This reality determined that the Fourth International’s contribution to the revolutionary movement became limited to the not at all negligible safekeeping of essential aspects of MarxismLeninism that had been abandoned and trampled underfoot by Stalinism. But far from playing an important practical revolutionary role, it stumbled into reformist and ultraleftist views on many occasions and served as a refuge for all kinds of counterrevolutionary adventurers, a consequence and at the same time, cause, of the isoation we mentioned.
Moreover, the process of renovation and development we referred to, which is showing considerable vigor, necessarily implies a transformation of the International and its parties in a proletarian direction. It implies a radical change in its social composition, progressive abandonment of its still dominant pettybourgeois characteristics, and a full and key participation in different national revolutions. The future of the Trotskyist movement depends on the capacity of the International and its national parties to assimilate this transformation and consciously and methodically carry it out. To summarize, to the negative aspects of the Fourth International, which we have to recognize and understand critically, we must counterpose the real and determining fact that the International is renewing itself, is stirring with life, and heading toward a rich process of revolutionary transformation, a process in which we are participants and proponents.
It is necessary to reiterate, so as to leave no room for error, exaggerations or false illusions, the realistic point of view I upheld at the congress, that we do not believe in the possibility of the Fourth International becoming converted into the international revolutionary party, the need of which we uphold. We believe that this is now historically impossible, and that the role of the International, granting the favorable supposition that it becomes converted into a proletarian revolutionary or ganization, should be to seek to construct a new Revolutionary International modeled after the Leninist Third International and based on the Vietnamese, Chinese, Cuban, Korean, and Albanian parties.
In the second place, it is necessary to make clear that in spite of its grave errors and limitations, the International is not really so discredited. On the contrary, thanks to the orientation of revolutionary war adopted by part of the International, it actually has the sympathy of important sectors of the world revolutionary vanguard and enjoys excellent relationships with them. The party has to be aware of the fact that almost all of our international contacts, including those in Latin America, have been established and consolidated by the International, mainly by the International Secretariat, the French Communist League and the Bolivian POR. As for the workers vanguard in our country, it is false, as we have experienced in practice, that Trotskyism is rejected. In general, we can say that the masses scarcely know about it and, except among the Codoviists, the McCarthyite antiTrotskyist propaganda of the Argentine Communist Party has not taken hold in any sector of the vanguard. In addition, the Argentine revolutionary vanguard as a whole has sufficient political maturity to be able to distinguish between the different sectors of the left. And our party, which does not hide its membership in the Fourth International, has been able to make itself known and respected as a revolutionary combat organization adhering ideologically to MarxismLeninism. It is publicly asserting our adherence to the theory of permanent revolution and the Trotskyist analysis of the Soviet bureaucracy, as well as our enthusiastic approval of the theory of revolutionary war developed by Mao Tsetung, Giap, etc.
4. Conclusion
Our party ratifies its adherence to the Fourth International, conscious of its importance, its necessity, and its limitations. What guides us is not a deification of the International, but a critical appraisal of it and a principled internationalist conviction, as well as an appreciation of the importance of the need for an active international political life to participate in the Argentine revolution more correctly. We ratify our adherence, conscious at the same time that we must not hold any illusions in the Fourth International being able to convert itself into the world revolutionary leadership that we consider necessary.
We ratify our adherence with the intention of contributing to the proletarianization of the International, to its revolutionary transformation, and struggling to orient it toward the formation of a new international revolutionary party based on the Chinese, Cuban, Korean, Vietnamese, and Albanian parties, and on the sister organizations struggling in a revolutionary way in every country against capitalism and imperialism.
This should not obstruct, but on the contrary, facilitate, the establishment of the closest relationship with nonTrotskyist revolutionary currents throughout the world, especially with the combat organizations in Latin America. Alongside them and on the basis of a significant development of our war, we will succeed in being heard by all of the Communist parties in the revolutionary workers states.
A final point. The fact that we are compelled to adopt consistent Marxist, and thereby critical, positions in relation to the international revolutionary movement should not cause us to succumb to pedantry and selfsufficiency. On the contrary, we should take into account the preceding positions as working hypotheses for our organization, necessarily limited and subject to further verification. We must understand that we can speak from a critical position only by judging these conceptions and/or others that are more advanced when we find ourselves leading the revolutionary war in practice. Therefore, we must adopt a humble and respectful attitude, although no less critical and alert because of this, towards those revolutionary parties that have played and continue to play a revolutionary role. The worst that could happen to us would be to fall into the Morenoist charlatanism of feeling we have the right to give advice to everyone, instead of quietly carrying out our revolutionary tasks.
Miguel