Markin comment:
In October 2010 I started what I anticipate will be an on-going series, From The Archives Of The Socialist Workers Party (America), starting date October 2, 2010, where I will place documents from, and make comments on, various aspects of the early days of the James P. Cannon-led Socialist Worker Party in America. As I noted in the introduction to that series Marxism, no less than other political traditions, and perhaps more than most, places great emphasis on roots, the building blocks of current society and its political organizations. Nowhere is the notion of roots more prevalent in the Marxist movement that in the tracing of organizational and political links back to the founders, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the Communist Manifesto, and the Communist League.
After mentioning the thread of international linkage through various organizations from the First to the Fourth International I also noted that on the national terrain in the Trotskyist movement, and here I was speaking of America where the Marxist roots are much more attenuated than elsewhere, we look to Daniel DeLeon’s Socialist Labor League, Eugene V. Deb’s Socialist Party( mainly its left-wing, not its socialism for dentists wing), the Wobblies (IWW, Industrial Workers Of The World), the early Bolshevik-influenced Communist Party and the various formations that led up to the Socialist Workers Party, the section that Leon Trotsky’s relied on most while he was alive. Further, I noted that beyond the SWP that there were several directions to go in but that those earlier lines were the bedrock of revolutionary Marxist continuity, at least through the 1960s.
I am continuing today what I also anticipate will be an on-going series about one of those strands past the 1960s when the SWP lost it revolutionary appetite, what was then the Revolutionary Tendency (RT) and what is now the Spartacist League (SL/U.S.), the U.S. section of the International Communist League (ICL). I intend to post materials from other strands but there are several reasons for starting with the SL/U.S. A main one, as the document below will make clear, is that the origin core of that organization fought, unsuccessfully in the end, to struggle from the inside (an important point) to turn the SWP back on a revolutionary course, as they saw it. Moreover, a number of the other organizations that I will cover later trace their origins to the SL, including the very helpful source for posting this material, the International Bolshevik Tendency.
However as I noted in posting a document from Spartacist, the theoretical journal of ICL posted via the International Bolshevik Tendency website that is not the main reason I am starting with the SL/U.S. Although I am not a political supporter of either organization in the accepted Leninist sense of that term, more often than not, and at times and on certain questions very much more often than not, my own political views and those of the International Communist League coincide. I am also, and I make no bones about it, a fervent supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, a social and legal defense organization linked to the ICL and committed, in the traditions of the IWW, the early International Labor Defense-legal defense arm of the Communist International, and the early defense work of the American Socialist Workers Party, to the struggles for freedom of all class-war prisoners and defense of other related social struggles.
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Markin comment on this series of Proletarian Military Policy (PMP) articles:
Coming out of the radical wing of the Vietnam War anti-war movement in the early 1970s, and having done military service as well, I was intrigued when I first read about the Socialist Workers Party’s (SWP-U.S.) Proletarian Military Policy (PMP) as propounded by that party just before and during World War II. The intriguing part, initially at least, was the notion that radicals could have a democratic propaganda platform to work off of in bringing their fellow soldiers around to an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist by proposing to control the then much less powerful American military through democratic methods like election of officers, etc..
And then life intruded. Or rather I reflected on my own somewhat eclectic anti-war military work and, as well, of various schemes by reformists to “control” various aspects of bourgeois society without having to take power and replace those institutions. In short, take political responsibility for the current regime. In the year 2010 we, after years of defeat and decline, are quite used to reformists and others putting forth all kinds of nice schemes for turning swords into plowshares by asking the bourgeois state to take the war budget and create jobs, better educational opportunities, provide better health care, you name it all without, seemingly, positing the need to change the state.
A classic and fairly recent example of that, in the aftermath of the Professor Henry Louis Gates arrest in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was the renewed call for “community control of the police.” And of course, come election time, the willingness, sometimes without even the caveat of refusal to take office if elected, of all and sundry leftists to run from the executive offices of the bourgeois state. Thus, by standing for those offices, exhibiting a touching “innocence” on the question of responsibility for the administration of the capitalist state. To my mind, the PMP is on that order. The idea, the utopian idea, when you talk about the central organs of bourgeois state power, the armed forces, the police, the courts and the prisons that something short of the struggle for power will do the trick. The hard, hard reality is otherwise, as we are also too well aware of every time we get a little uppity.
Reflecting on my own military experience about what can and cannot be done in order to influence soldiers and sailors and fight for an anti-war perspective military does not mean that nothing can be done short of taking take power to do so. The real problem with the PMP, and it may have reflected a lack of knowledge of wartime military possibilities, cadre familiar with the then peacetime volunteer military, and the “weak” military presence in pre-World War II America was that it was trying to project a positive program where what was called for, and is usually called for in war time conditions, were defensive measures such as creation of rank and file servicemen’s unions that fight for democratic right for soldiers, essentially the right to organize, and against victimizations of both radicals and others that get into the military’s cross hairs. The other key policy was to link up the civilian political anti-war opposition with the soldiers through the vehicle of coffeehouses or other off base places and soldiers and sailors solidarity committees. Late in the Vietnam War period those effects were beginning to have effect as rank and file disaffection with that war almost split the soldiery. Certainly it was a factor in Vietnamization of the war as the American army became more unreliable as a tool to carry out imperial policy.
As the material presented notes, especially in the introduction, the SWP never, as far as I know, repudiated the PMP (it kind of drifted away as World War II entered its final phases.) This, perhaps, reflected a certain “softness” as also noted on the question of running for executive offices of the bourgeois state which that party did after the war and revolutionaries’ relationship to that state in the struggle for power. As well it is not clear how much Leon Trotsky’s posthumous residual authority, who pushed the PMP as much as anybody else, played in this whole mess. Read this material as a modern Marxist primer on the bourgeois state.
“Resolution on Military Policy,”
submitted by the Workers International League and the Trotskyist Opposition of the Revolutionary Socialist League
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Written: 1944
Source: Prometheus Research Library, New York. Published in Prometheus Research Series 2, 1989.
Transcription/Markup/Proofing: David Walters, John Heckman, Prometheus Research Library.
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2006/Prometheus Research Library. You can freely copy, display and otherwise distribute this work. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive & Prometheus Research Library as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & editors above.
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The text of this resolution is taken from three undated, mimeographed pages entitled “Conference Discussion Material.” The resolution was adopted by the March 1944 founding conference of the British Revolutionary Communist Party.
1. The Second World War into which capitalism has plunged mankind in the course of a generation, and which has been raging for more than four years, is the inevitable outcome of the crisis of capitalist methods of production, long predicted by the revolutionary Marxists, and is a sign of the impasse out of which capitalism cannot lead the mass of humanity.
2. The war of the British ruling class is not an ideological war fought in the interests of democracy against fascism. This has been demonstrated clearly by their support of Hitler against the German working class; their acquiescence to the seizure of Austria and Czechoslovakia; by their cynical policy of non-intervention in Spain which enabled Franco to massacre hundreds of thousands of Spanish anti-fascist proletarians; and by their support of Darlan in North Africa and Badoglio and Victor Emmanuel in Italy. The British ruling class is waging the war to maintain its colonial plunder, its sources of raw material and cheap labour, its spheres of influence and markets, and to extend wherever possible, its domination over wider territories. It is the duty of revolutionary socialists to patiently explain the imperialistic policy of the ruling class and expose its false and lying slogans of the “War against Fascism” and the “War for Democracy.”
3. The victory of German fascism and Japanese militarism would be a disaster for the working class of the world and for the colonial peoples. But no less disastrous would be a victory for Anglo-American imperialism. Such a victory would perpetuate and intensify the imperialist contradictions which gave rise to fascism and the present world war and will inevitably lead to new fascist and reactionary regimes and a Third World War.
4. The British working class, therefore, cannot support the war conducted by the ruling class without at the same time opposing its own class interests on a national and international scale. Our party is opposed to the war and calls upon the working class to oppose it. Only by overthrowing the capitalist state and taking power into its own hands under the leadership of the Fourth International, can the British working class wage a truly revolutionary war and aid the German and European working class to destroy fascism and capitalist reaction.
5. By their support of the war the Trade Unions, the Labour Party and the Communist Party, with their satellite organisations, have betrayed the historic interests of the working class and the interests of the colonial masses oppressed by British imperialism. It is the duty of revolutionary socialists to mercilessly expose the leadership of these organisations as agents of the ruling class in the ranks of the workers and to win over the broad mass of the workers from the leadership of these organisations to the party of the Fourth International.
6. The outbreak of the war created a new objective situation in which the revolutionaries had to conduct their political activity. Millions of workers—men and women—the most youthful and virile section of the population, are conscripted into the armed forces. The war not only changed the way in which millions of workers are forced to live, but also their level of political consciousness. War and militarism has penetrated every phase of, and become the basis of, their lives.
7. It would be a mistake on the part of the revolutionary socialists to lump the defencist feeling of the broad mass of the workers together with the chauvinism of the Labour and Stalinist leadership. This defencism of the masses stems largely from entirely progressive motives of preserving their own class organisations and democratic rights from destruction at the hands of fascism and from a foreign invader. The mass chauvinistic enthusiasm of the last war is entirely absent in the present period. Only a deep-seated suspicion of the aims and slogans of the ruling class is evident. To separate the workers from the capitalists and their lackeys, is the principal task of the revolutionary party.
8. The policy of our party must be based upon the objective conditions in which we live, including the level of consciousness of the masses, and must help the masses in the process of their daily struggles along the road to the seizure of power.
9. In the present period all great social changes will be made by military means. Our party takes the capitalist militarisation of the millions, not merely as the basis for the restatement of our fundamental principles and aims, but for the purpose of propagating positive political ideas and policies in the ranks of the working class as an alternative to the class programme of the bourgeoisie. This necessitates the supplementing of our transitional programme with a policy adapted to the needs of the working class in a period of militarisation and war. Our attitude towards war is not based merely on the rejection of the defence of the capitalist fatherland but on the conquest of power by the working class and the defence of the proletarian fatherland. From this conception flows the proletarian military policy of the Fourth International.
10. In the last war socialist pacifism and conscientious objection were progressive and even revolutionary in opposition to the policy of national unity and support for capitalist militarism which was advocated by the chauvinists. But thirty years of class struggle have clearly and decisively demonstrated that such policies act as a brake on the socialist revolution and serve only to separate the conscious revolutionaries from the mass of the working class caught up in the military machine. To this negative policy must be counterposed a positive policy which separates the workers from their exploiters in the military organisations.
11. The working class and the revolutionary socialists are compelled to participate in the military organisations controlled by the capitalist state. But to the capitalist militarism for capitalist ends, the revolutionary socialists must counterpose the necessity of proletarian militarism for proletarian ends. Our military policy defends the rights and interests of the working class against its class enemy; at every point we place our class programme against the class programme of the bourgeoisie.
12. The Labour Party, the Communist Party, the I.L.P. and the sectarians have also policies for the workers in arms. But these policies are reformist, based upon the perspective of the continued control of the state in the hands of the bourgeoisie. These policies contain only a series of minor democratic and financial reforms which do not lead to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the conquest of power by the working class.
13. Our party is for the arming of the working class under the control of workers’ organisations, the trade unions, workers’ committees and political parties.
We are against the special schools controlled by the capitalists for the training of their sons and agents for the highest posts of command and technicians of the military arts.
We are for state-financed schools, controlled by the trade unions and workers’ organisations for the purpose of training worker-officers, who will know how to defend the interests of the working class.
We are against the selection of the officers in the armed forces, including the Home Guard, by the bourgeoisie and its state machine. This selection takes place on the basis of class loyalty to the capitalists and hatred of the working class. We are for the election of officers in the armed forces by the men in the ranks.
These are the positive steps which our party advocates in its proletarian military policy, and which supplements our general transitional programme in the struggle for power. Such a policy, not only caters for the needs of the workers in uniform in their day to day struggle against the reactionary officer caste, but by its thoroughly anti-pacifist character, prepares the working class for the inevitable military attacks which will be launched against it by the exploiters at home, and for the defense of the proletarian fatherland against reactionary war of intervention.
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“On National Defence”
submitted by the Militant Group of the Revolutionary Socialist League
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Written: 1944
Source: Prometheus Research Library, New York. Published in Prometheus Research Series 2, 1989.
Transcription/Markup/Proofing: David Walters, John Heckman, Prometheus Research Library.
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2006/Prometheus Research Library. You can freely copy, display and otherwise distribute this work. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive & Prometheus Research Library as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & editors above.
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The text of this resolution is taken from a bulletin entitled “Resolutions submitted by the Militant Group (R.S.L.) to the R.S.L.-W.I.L. Fusion Conference,” dated March 1944.
1). This Conference declares that there must be no room for ambiguity in our organisation with regard to our attitude in the event of the invasion of imperialist Britain by the forces of a rival imperialist power. Our attitude is determined by our estimation of the war as an imperialist one. In such a war, “national defence” means defence of colonial booty and imperialist exploitation. Furthermore, defeats of British Imperialism, by weakening it, facilitate its overthrow at the hands of the revolutionary proletariat.
2). As Lenin put it, “We will not become partisans of national defence until after the seizure of power by the proletariat, until after the offer of peace....Until the moment of the seizure of power by the proletariat, we are for the proletarian revolution, we are against the war, we are against the ‘defencists’.” (August, 1917)
3). Consequently, we must reject, on grounds of revolutionary principle, all policies stating or implying that the British proletariat should resist a foreign imperialist invasion before it, the British proletariat, has obtained state power. We reject such policies, regardless of whether they advocate class-collaboration in an open form, e.g., working-class support for the bourgeois state against invasion, or in a concealed form, e.g., “independent” working-class military struggle against invasion within the bourgeois state, that is, before the proletariat has seized power.
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Attitude of the Proletariat Towards Imperialist War”
submitted by the Left Faction of the Revolutionary Socialist League
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Written: 1944
Source: Prometheus Research Library, New York. Published in Prometheus Research Series 2, 1989.
Transcription/Markup/Proofing: David Walters, John Heckman, Prometheus Research Library.
Public Domain: Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line 2006/Prometheus Research Library. You can freely copy, display and otherwise distribute this work. Please credit the Marxists Internet Archive & Prometheus Research Library as your source, include the url to this work, and note the transcribers & editors above.
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The text of this resolution, which was submitted to the March 1944 founding conference of the British Revolutionary Communist Party by the Left Faction of the former RSL, is taken from six unsigned, undated pages headlined only with the title of the resolution.
I. The Validity of Leninist Policy
This Conference declares that the policy of revolutionary defeatism as laid down by Lenin during the First World War is entirely applicable to the present conflict. No new factors have arisen which can justify a departure from this fundamental proletarian policy towards Imperialist War.
The view that the rise of fascism constitutes a new factor warranting the abandonment of the policy of revolutionary defeatism and the adoption of a defencist policy is a manifestation of petty-bourgeois ideology and is irreconcilable with the profession of socialist internationalism. The policy of revolutionary defeatism is applicable in all belligerent imperialist powers irrespective of the state form—whether fascist or democratic.
The existence of the Soviet Union warrants only tactical changes. It cannot justify an abandonment of the basic expression of the class struggle in war time—the policy of revolutionary defeatism.
II. The Fundamental Premise of Revolutionary Action in War Time
The policy of revolutionary defeatism constitutes an assurance that there will be no capitulation to bourgeois ideology. It guarantees that the struggle for socialism will be carried on unaffected by fears of it facilitating “national disaster.”
The fear of “National disaster” is the main weapon in the hands of the bourgeoisie for the maintenance of its hegemony in war time for it is the source of all opportunist (chauvinist) deviations, hence the Leninist axiom—“A revolutionary class in a reactionary war cannot but desire the defeat of its own government” constitutes the premise of every truly revolutionary action in war time.
Such a desire and only such a desire is compatible with genuine class struggle. Revolution in war time is civil war, and the transformation of war between governments into civil war is on the one hand facilitated by military reverses (defeats) of governments, on the other hand it is impossible really to strive for such a transformation without thereby facilitating defeat.
The desire of defeat must not be relinquished even where it is clear that such defeat carries with it the military victory of the enemy bourgeoisie. Defeat, even though it be by a “fascist” country, demoralises not the proletariat but the bourgeoisie hence such a defeat constitutes not an aid but an obstacle to the victory of fascism.
Fascism can in no wise be imposed by an army of occupation. Fascism is based on the demoralisation of the working class and the destruction of its organisations and must not be confused with a military dictatorship. The demoralisation of the proletariat which is the fundamental condition for the victory of fascism can derive only from its failure to achieve socialism after a favourable opportunity has presented itself. Then and only then does the “initiative” pass to the frenzied petty bourgeoisie—which acting as agents of the big bourgeoisie, vents its despair—in the form of hate, upon the proletariat. Under a military occupation the petty bourgeoisie is more inclined to direct its hate against the foreign army, not against the proletariat. Fascism can only be “home grown.” Nor is the victory of democratic imperialism in any way other than that of disintegrating and demoralising the bourgeoisie whose power is exercised through a fascist state, conducive to the restoration of “democracy.”
In the conditions of imperialist war the distinction between decaying democracy and murderous fascism disappears in the face of the collapse of the entire capitalist system. From the point of view of the British Workers the victory of German Imperialism is preferable to the victory of “democratic” Britain and conversely from the point of view of the German workers the victory of Britain is preferable to the victory of “fascist” arms. The class conscious proletarian sees in such victories only the defeat and humiliation of his own exploiters which he ardently desires.
The proletarian does not regard imperialist war as simply a war between governments hence he does not consider that to desire the defeat of one’s own government is the same as desiring the victory of the “enemy” government. In a war between governments he is neutral, but imperialist war is a manifestation of the class conflict within society consequently he is not neutral towards his own bourgeoisie, he is not impartial towards the military fate of his own oppressor but desires the defeat of his own ruling class—the class which directly exploits him.
To his own bourgeoisie he is related by the fact of direct exploitation, to the enemy bourgeoisie he is related on the one hand by the fact of it being the enemy of his own bourgeoisie in a war between governments, and by the fact of it being the oppressor of his class brother—the proletarian of the “enemy” country. Thus his only real enemy (sole enemy if allied countries are excluded) is his own bourgeoisie, in relation to the imperialist war he is neutral to the enemy bourgeoisie (desiring neither victory nor defeat), but of course desires its defeat by his brother proletarian. Thus also is it impossible for the proletariat to strike a blow in war time at the enemy bourgeoisie without striking at the proletariat of the “enemy” country and aiding its own bourgeoisie.
International action in war time is directed solely against one’s own bourgeoisie.
Lenin’s axiom is the prerequisite for serious revolutionary action, not because revolution is impossible without military defeat, history proves only that defeats are more advantageous to the revolutionary proletariat than victories, but because the proletariat and in particular the vanguard of the proletariat is rendered impotent unless it desires the defeat of its own government.
III. Application of the Policy of Revolutionary Defeatism
Revolutionary defeatism counterposes to the bourgeois necessity of achieving victory the necessity of the proletariat desiring the defeat of its own government. To the bourgeois lie that the enemy country is the cause of the war it counterposes the concept of our own bourgeoisie bearing to us sole responsibility for the war and its effects. To hatred of the enemy—fraternisation, to imperialist war—civil war for socialism. The task of the revolutionary party is to destroy the influence of bourgeois ideology upon the masses and to impose a socialist ideology upon the struggles of the proletariat. In war time the most pernicious and dangerous illusion is defencism. Defencism is a manifestation of nationalism—revolutionary defencism of national socialism. It is an insuperable obstacle to fraternisation and the achievement of international socialism. Hence the substitution of defeatism for defencism is of vital importance. The destruction of the elements of chauvinism can be accomplished only by counterposing the class needs of the masses to the national needs—the needs of the bourgeoisie.
The defencism of the masses is mixed with many progressive sentiments and class instincts. The development of these features into a socialist consciousness cannot be accomplished simply by supporting the progressive features for to the masses they are inextricably mixed with the defencist illusions, but only by counterposing the one to the other.
Failure to bring the class features into opposition to the nationalistic features means to give a “left” covering to patriotism. This is the role of charlatans. Attempts to capture the leadership of the workers on any other basis than that of revolutionary defeatism will lead to social-patriotism, to the destruction of the Revolutionary Party. This is not to say that the masses can be won to the banner of the Fourth International on the slogans of “turn imperialist war into civil war,” etc., but slogans which are evasive and ambiguous with regard to the proletarian attitude to the war are a betrayal of socialist internationalism.
The value of all slogans, demands, etc., must be measured by the extent to which they enlighten the masses, destroy bourgeois ideological influence, raise socialist consciousness. During an imperialist war—especially prior to the revolutionary upsurge this means above all the raising of the internationalism of the workers. Therefore it is necessary to patiently explain the nature of the war, its incompatibility with working-class interests, and the necessity of fraternisation with the workers in the “enemy” country on the basis of class struggle each against his own ruling class. At first the Revolutionary Party can expect only to swim against the stream, but on its ability to do this depends its whole future. If it makes the smallest concession to defencism and fails to correct it, it is irretrievably lost.
IV. Revolutionary Defencism
Revolutionary Defencism constitutes an attempt to reconcile the socialist tasks of the proletariat with the bourgeois task of resisting defeat. It is an expression of petty-bourgeois ideology. Revolutionary Defencism seeks to present the revolution as a means of defeating the imperialist enemy, or of opposing defeat of one’s own country by the enemy. The socialist revolution is not a means of solving bourgeois national problems, but of resolving the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeois nationalist problems of the imperialist belligerents were solved nearly a century ago. The policy of revolutionary defencism might possess some justification in a colonial war, at least if undertaken in a spirit of internationalism, but its application to an imperialist war is nothing but the policy of the social-chauvinist Kautsky, the “internationalism” of which serves only to justify the working class in every country with the defence each of its own fatherland. It is a betrayal of international socialism.
Such a policy, notwithstanding its “revolutionary” flavour, cannot advance the working class one real step forward. Defencist illusions do not constitute a means of achieving the socialist revolution, they only bar the way to an internationalist attitude which is the prerequisite for fraternisation and the transformation of imperialist war into civil war.
Revolutionary defencism has found numerous specious formulations—telescoping the tasks of winning the war and the revolution, defeating one’s own bourgeoisie first. The use of such general formulas as “The workers everywhere are the enemies of the bourgeoisie everywhere and working-class action in our own country encourages working-class action in the enemy country,” serve as a cover for defencism. The former as a justification of “neither victory nor defeat,” and the latter to justify a desire for the military defeat of the enemy. Even fraternisation has been presented as a weapon, not against our own bourgeoisie but against the enemy bourgeoisie also. The practical results of this “internationalism” in the spirit of Kautsky have been the American Military Policy, demands for efficient military equipment, deep shelters, better rationing, increased production, etc. Slogans which can only drive the workers further into the blind alley of defencism, into disillusionment and demoralisation.
The American Military Policy (Chicago Conference Policy) is not a working-class policy but a petty-bourgeois hotch potch. It represents a fundamental departure from the traditions of the Fourth International. It adopts the view that this imperialist war would be progressive if it were under workers control, “we never...give them (the capitalists) any confidence in their conduct of the war.” As a general formula it is true a workers state wages progressive wars but we are confronted with specific conditions—not abstractions. This war is an imperialist war in which millions of workers are engaged in the slaughter of their class brothers at the behest of their own exploiters. It is reactionary to demand that this bloody slaughter, this crime should be conducted “under workers control.” Moreover the fact of the workers in each country demanding of its own bourgeoisie that it be made responsible for the slaughter of its fellow-workers cannot lead to international socialism, hence the “workers control” can never be realised, it remains an empty phrase. All that remains is support of the imperialist war.
The American Military Policy advocated that the workers should “fight against sending of worker-soldiers into battle without proper training and equipment.” This is alleged to be a translation of Trotsky’s Military Policy. However the class-conscious proletarian can distinguish between not wishing to permit one’s own bourgeoisie recklessly to squander the lives of workers even though it be in the slaughter of brother workers and demanding the efficient prosecution of that slaughter.
The demand for deep shelters—a specific demand which flows from acceptance of the American Military Policy can only be distinguished from the demand for superior weapons of war by drawing an absolute distinction between offence and defence and between military personnel and civilians. The demand springs from the masses because they accept the necessity of winning the war and desire to protect their lives. The necessity of winning the war is a product of bourgeois deception and is reactionary. The desire to protect one’s life is not specifically working-class—nor for that matter specifically human. It becomes specifically working-class only if it means protection of working-class lives (soldiers no less than civilians) from the attacks of one’s own bourgeoisie, i.e., if one’s own bourgeoisie is held responsible for the war and its effects (bombing); but in this case the demand for shelters is nonsensical. The demand for shelters is in fact directed only in form against one’s own bourgeoisie, in essence it is an act of aggression against the proletariat of the “enemy” country. It is a betrayal of international class solidarity.
Similarly the demand for “increased production” springs from the desire to “defeat fascism,” i.e., German imperialism and as such it possesses no progressive content. The addition of the words “under workers control” does not alter the general character of the slogan. It only adds a “socialist” covering to the bourgeois lie of “defeating fascism.” The outcome of bourgeois lies can never be socialism, not any step towards it. The demand for “increased production” to aid the Soviet Union did possess a certain progressive feature—the desire to aid a workers state. But this feature could possess no value to the workers despite its class nature until it was counterposed to the defencist—i.e., bourgeois features. Failure to counterpose the desire of the workers to aid a workers state to their desire to prevent the defeat of “their own” country, e.g., by demanding that all existing arms be sent from Britain without regard to the interests of national defence, left the workers at the mercy of the Stalinists. In a slogan such as “Total Aid to the Soviet Union,” the addition of “under workers control” would not be a deception of the working class.
The demand for the ending of the Party truce may be progressive or reactionary. Progressive if counterposed to the bourgeois task of winning the war, reactionary if advanced as a means to the better prosecution of the war.
In circumstances in which the masses are dominated by defencist illusions it is valueless to adopt slogans which fail to oppose such illusions. It is necessary to place the working-class necessity of ending the truce in as sharp opposition as circumstances will allow to the “national interest,” to “winning the war.”
The idea that to call upon the workers to seize power can never be reactionary whatever the purpose is in its very essence unmarxist. No slogan can possess an intrinsic progressiveness. The call to the workers to seize power must be evaluated not in accordance with some Kantian virtue of the “slogan in itself” but by the purpose—the aim for which the slogan is advanced. “To seize power in order to defeat fascism” is in existing circumstances no more progressive than support of the imperialist war. The aim of “defeating fascism” is the aim of our own bourgeoisie even though the original deception practised by the bourgeoisie is cloaked by a “socialistic” demand to “seize power.” A slogan cannot alter the character of the imperialist war.
V. Defencism of the Leaders and of the Masses
Defencism is a manifestation of bourgeois ideology. It infects the Revolutionary Vanguard through the capitulation of the masses to the intense ideological pressure exerted by the bourgeoisie through the instrumentality of the reformist leadership. But a “Revolutionary Vanguard” which succumbs to such influences and is unable to extricate itself is worthless. A failure of a “leadership” to resist an alien ideological pressure implies a failure to analyse the class origin of this pressure, that is, that it adopts a non-marxist, non-proletarian standpoint. It is petty-bourgeois. The masses on the other hand slowly but surely overcome their defencist illusions. The ideological pressure of the bourgeoisie is counteracted by the demands made by the bourgeoisie upon the proletariat. The sacrifices made by the workers in the interests of winning the war so sharply conflict with their class interests that the desire for the defeat and humiliation of their exploiters becomes the dominating factor in their attitude to the war. It is entirely untrue that the masses are unable to comprehend and accept the Leninist policy of Revolutionary Defeatism. The masses can assimilate every marxist theoretical question, but they do it in their own way, by testing it “under fire,” in the same way they test the Revolutionary Leadership. Those “leaders” who have been unable to swim against the stream, who have capitulated to defencism and been unable to extricate themselves, are lost to the movement. The masses will never accept them as the Revolutionary Vanguard.
VI. Defencism and the Fourth International Leadership
Defencist tendencies in the Fourth International have manifested themselves most markedly in precisely those countries in which the proletariat has more than its chains to lose—those countries which possess or possessed at the outbreak of the war colonial empires on the basis of which the bourgeoisie could grant its proletariat a privileged position. Hence it is not surprising to find that one feature of this defencism is expressed as a desire to “defeat fascism”—i.e., as opposition to the loss of a privileged position—as a pampered slave.
Such opportunism must inevitably infect and is in fact infecting every aspect of Fourth International policy. In America and Britain the Fourth International is following in the footsteps of the 2nd., and 3rd., Internationals and it is useless to attempt to appeal to the absence of a distinct social strata in the Fourth International as the basis for degeneration. “History knows degenerations of all sorts” and the ideological influence of a “parasitic” proletariat may yet provide the basis for the death of Trotsky’s International.
If the Fourth International is to live it must purge its ranks of all defencists. Not the slightest concession must be made to revolutionary defencism. At the core lies the need for a firm internationalist leadership which can resist the pressure of alien interests. This, not “objective conditions,” is the only guarantee that the Fourth International can fulfill its historic role.
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