SOCIALIST APPEAL OCTOBER 22, 1938 Transitional Demands Will Mobilize the Masses unxwares.
Program Will Lay Basis Fortable in the immediate future. It is necessary to begin a campaign Regime of Dual Power Business Secrets and Workers Control of Industry all kinds of struggles, even when they involve only the most modest material interests or democratic rights of the working class. He takes active part in mass trade union for the purpose of strengthening them and raising their spirit of militancy. He fights uncompromisingly against any attempt to subordinate the unions to the bourgeois state and bind the proletariat compulsory arbitration and every other form of police guardianship not only fascist but also democratic. Only on the basis of such work within the trade unions is successful struggle possible against the reformists, including those of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Sectarian attempts to build or preserve small revolutionary unions, as a second edition of the party, signify in actuality the renouncing of the struggle for leadership of the working class. It is necessary to establish this firm rule: self isolation of the capitulationist vaFiety from mass trade unions, which is tantamount to a betrayal of the revolution, is incompatible with adherence to the Fourth International.
Expropriation of Separate Groups of Capitalists Greetings to the Fighters in Spain At the same time, the Fourth International resolutely rejects and condemns trade union fetishism, equally characteristic of trade unionists and syndicalists. a) Trade unions do not offer, and in line with their task, composition, and manner of recruiting membership, cannot offer a finished revolutionary program: in consequence, they cannot replace the party. The building of national revolutionary parties as Sections of the Fourth International is the central task of the transitional epoch. b) Trade unions, even the most powerful, embrace no more than 20 to 25 per cent of the working class, and at that, predominantly the more skilled and better paid layers. The more oppressed majority of the working class is drawn only episodically into the struggle, during a period of exceptional upsurges in the labor movement. During such moments it is necessary to create organi zations, ad boc, embracing the whole fighting mass: strike committces, factory committees, and finally, Soviets. c) As organizations expressive of the top layers of the proletariat, trade unions, as witnessed by all past historical experience, including the fresh experience of the anarcho syndicalist unions in Spain, developed powerful tendencies toward compromise with the bourgeois democratic regime. In periods of acute class struggle, the leading functionaries of the trade unions aim to become masters of the mass movement in order to render it harmless. This is already occurring during the period of simple strikes; especially in the case of the mass sit down strikes which shake the principle of bourgeois property. In time of war or revolution, when the bourgeoisic is plunged into exceptional difficulties, trade union leaders usually become bourgeois ministers, Therefore, the sections of the Fourth International should always strive not only to renew the top leadership of the trade unions, boldly and resolutely in critical moments, advancing new militant leaders in place of routine functionaries and careerists; but also to create in all possible instances independent militant or ganizations corresponding more closely to the problems of mass struggle bourgeois society; not stopping, if necessary, even in the face of a direct break with the conservative apparatus of the trade unions. If it be criminal to turn one back to mass organizations for the sake of fostering sectarian fictions, it is no less so to pas.
sively tolerate subordination of the revolutionary mass movement to the control of openly reactionary or disguised conservative. progressive. bureaucratic cliques. Trade unions are not ends in themselves, they are but means along the road to proletarian revolution through several countries. New waves of this type will be inevi. control becomes a seboat for planned economy. On the basis forte Provides for Active Defense in favor of factory committees in time in order not to be caught direct management of nationalized industry when the hour for that eventuality will strike.
of Working Class Rights To those capitalists, mainly of the lower and middle strata, who of their own accord sometimes offer to throw open their books to the workers usually to demonstrate the necessity of cning of the methods of counter attack on the part of capital.
lowering wages the workers answer that they are not interNew waves of sit down strikes can call forth and undoubtedly will call forth resolute counter measures on the part of the bourLiberal capitalism, based upon competition and free trade, ested in the bookkeeping of individual bankrupts or semi bankgeoisie. Preparatory work is already being done by the confidenrupts but in the account ledgers of all exploiters as a whole. The has completely receded into the past. Its successor, monopolistic tial staffs of big trusts. Woc to the revolutionary organizations, workers cannot and do not wish to accommodate the level of capitalism not only does not mitigate the anarchy of the market woe to the proletariat if it is again caught unawares!
but on the contrary imparts to it a particularly convulsive chartheir living conditions to the exigencies of individual capitalists, themselves victims of their own regime. The task is one of re The bourgeoisie is nowhere satisfied with official police and acter. The necessity of controlling economy, of placing state organizing the whole system of production and distribution on a army. In the United States, even during peaceful times, the guidance over industry and of planning is today recognized at least in words by almost all current bourgeois and petty more dignified and workable basis. If the abolition of business bourgeosie maintains militarized battalions of scabs and privately.
secrets be a necessary condition to workers control, then control armed thugs in factories. To this must now be added the various bourgeois tendencies, from fascist to social democratic. With the is the first step along the road to the socialist guidance of economy. groups of American Nazis. The French bourgeosic at the first fascists, it is mainly a question of planned plundering of the approach of danger mobilized semi legal and illegal fascist depeople for military purposes. The social democrats prepare to drain tachments, including such as are in the army. No sooner does the the ocean of anarchy with spoonfuls of bureaucratic planning.
pressure of the English workers once again become stronger than Engineers and professors write articles about technocracy. In immediately the fascist bands are doubled, trebled, increased ten their cowardly experiments in regulation, democratic governfold to come out in bloody march against the workers. The bourments run head into the invincible sabotage of big capital.
geoisie keeps itself most accurately informed about the fact that The actual relationship existing between the exploiters and The socialist program of expropriation, e. of political over in the present epoch the class struggle irresistibly tends to transthe democratic controllers is best characterized by the fact that throw of the bourgeoisie and liquidation of its economic domi form itself into civil war. The examples of Italy, Germany, Authe gentlemen reformers stop short in pious trepidation before nation, should in no case during the present transitional period stria, Spain and other countries taught considerably more to the the threshold of the trusts and their business secrets. Here the hinder us from advancing, when the occasion warrants, the de magnates and lackeys of capital than to the official leaders of the proletariat.
The politicians of the Second and Third Internationals, as well as the bureaucrats of the trade unions, consciously close their eyes to the bourgeosie private army; otherwise, they could not preserve their alliance with it for even twenty four hours. The reformists systematically implant in the minds of the workers the The Conference of the Fourth International proclaims its Free the best fighters! Free the members of the notion that the sacredness of democracy is best guaranteed when complete solidarity with the fighters in Spain, whatever their of the Free Munis and Carlini, former militiamen, mem the bourgeoisie is armed to the teeth and the workers are un parties, who with arms in hand are struggling against the crim bers of the Fourth International! All they ask is to go back to armed.
inal gangs of Franco Hitler Mussolini.
their posts at the front, in the vanguard of the republican The duty of the Fourth International is to put an end to It proclaims its firm will to set to work in every way to armies. Working class fighters, force Negrin Stalin to put an such slavish politics once and for all. The petty bourgeois demobreak the blockade established on August 1936, by the end to their frame ups and persecutions, direct importations crats including social democrats, Stalinists and Anarchists yell French Popular Front Government, the English Government, and from Moscow!
louder about the struggle against fascism the more cravenly they the Russian Government.
All the time that they are slandering and persecuting revo. capitulate to it in actuality. Only armed workers detachments, who It recalls with pride that the first effective practical aid in lutionaries throughout the entire world, the leaders of the Pop feel the support of tens of millions of toilers behind them can the form of volunteers, while the Popular Front parties were ufar Front, who are responsible for the blockade, confine them successfully prevail against the fascist bands. The struggle against still babbling away about neutrality. was given by the sections selves to mere phrases intended to lull the fighting spirit of the fascism does not start in the liberal editorial office but in the facof the Fourth International, particularly the French and Belgian workers.
tory and ends in the street. Scabs and private gun men in factory sections. It salutes its members who fell in in the first days of The Fourth International, all the while that it is trying to plants are the basic nuclei of the fascist army. Strike pickers are the fight against Franco: Robert de Fauconnet, member of the organize solidarity in every domain, has been proclaiming ever the basic nuclei of the proletarian army. This is our point of deP. killed at Huesca, Pasqué, of the Belgian killed at since the beginning that the best and most effective aid that parture. In connection with every strile and strect demonstration, trun, as well as many other comrades wounded or crippled. the workers of the whole world can give to their Spanish brothIn those days, the revolutionary workers, in the militias, in ers lies in direct action, organized espocially by trade unions groups for self defense. It is necessary to write this slogan into the factories in the rear and at the front, were the masters. in the war industries, in transportation, and in seaports, in boy the program of the revolutionary wing of the trade unions. It is That is why they won the first decisive victories. Today they, cotting all shipments to the fascists, and in the general strike imperative everywhere possible, beginning with the youth groups, the winners of the first victories, have been imprisoned and are to overthrow the governments that support the blockade. to organize groups for self defense; to drill and acquaint them hunted down. Stalin bureaucracy, allied with the socialist tops, The Fourth International proclaims that only victory over with the use of arms.
the anarchist leaders, and the bourgeoisie, has, in return for Franco can re open the perspective of a proletarian revolution. new upsurge of the mass movement serve not only very precarious material aid, forced repressions against the That is the reason why, despite the frame ups and persecutions to increase the number of these units but also to unite them ac. Trotskyites and against the anarchist rank and file fighters. of the Negrin Stalin government, and while fighting against cording to neighborhoods, cities, regions. It is necessary to give The end sought by this Stalin bourgeois terror was the restora that government of defeat and reaction, advanced workers organized expression to the valid hatred of the workers toward tion of bourgeois property relations and the recapture from the must strive with all their strength for the victory of the repub scabs and bands of gangsters and fascists. It is necessary to ad workers of their July 1936, conquests. It is in this repression, lican armies.
vance the slogan of a workers militia as the one serious guaranwhich decapitates the republican army, that one can find the The EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE tee for the inviolability of workers organizations, meetings, principal cause of the defeat.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL and press Only with the help of such systematic, persistent, indefatigable, courageous agitational and organizational work, always on the basis of the experience of the masses themselves, is it principle of non interference with business dominates. The ac mand for the expropriation of several key branches of industry possible to root out from their consciousness the traditions of counts kept between the individual capitalist and society remains vital for national existence or of the most parasitic group of the submissiveness and passivity; to train detachments of heroic fightthe secret of the capitalist: they are not the concern of society. bourgeosic.
ers capable of setting an example to all toilers; to inflict a series The motivation offered for the principle of business secrets Thus, in answer to the pathetic jeremiads of the gentlemen of tactical defeats upon the armed thugs of counter revolution; is ostensibly, as in the epoch of liberal capitalism, that of free democrats anent the dictatorship of the 60 Families of the to raise the self confidence of the exploited and oppressed; to competition. In reality, the trusts keep no secrets from one United States or the 200 Families of France, we counterpose compromise fascism in the eyes of the petty bourgeois and pave another. The business secrets of the present epoch are part of a the demand for the expropriation of these 60 or 200 feudalistic the road for the conquest of power by the proletariat.
persistent plot of monopoly capitalism against the interest of so capitalist overlords.
ciety. Projects for limiting the autocracy of economic royalists Engels defined the state as bodies of armed men. The will continue to be pathetic farces as long as private owners of In precisely the same way we demand the expropriation of arming of the proletariat is an imperative concomitant element the social means of production can hide from producers and the corporations holding monopolies on war industries, railroads, to its struggle for liberation. When the proletariat wills it, it the most important sources of raw materials, etc.
consumers the machinations of expfoitation, robbery, and fraud.
will find the road and the means to arming. In this field, also, The abolition of business secrets is the first step towards actual The difference between these demands and the muddlethe leadership falls naturally to the sections of the fourth Incontrol of industry.
headed reformist slogan of nationalization lies in the follow. ternational.
ing. 1) we reject indemnification. 2) we warn the masses Workers no less than capitalists have the right to know the against demagogues of the People Front who, giving lip service secrets of the factory, of the trust, of the whole branch of in to nationalization, remain in reality agents of capital. 3) we call dustry, of the national economy as a whole. First and foremost, upon the masses to rely only upon their own revolutionary strength; banks, heavy industry and centralized transport should be placed (4) we link up the question of expropriation with that of seizand Farmers under an observation glass.
ure of the power by the workers and farmers.
The next tasks of workers control should be to explain the The necessity of advancing the slogan of expropriation in he debits and credits of society, beginning with individual business course of daily agitation in partial form, and not only in our The brother in arms and counterpart of the worker in the country is the agricultural laborer. They are two parts of one undertakings; to determine the actual share of the national propaganda in its more comprehensive aspects, is dictated by the come wolfed by the individual capitalist and by all the exploiters and the same class. Their interests are inseparable. The industrial fact that different branches of industry are on different levels of workers program of transitional demands, with changes here taken together; to expose the behind the scenes deals and swin. development, occupy a different place in the life of society, and dles of banks and trusts; finally, to reveal to all members of so pass through different stages of the class struggle. Only a general and there is likewise the program of the agricultural proletariat.
ciety that unconscionable squandering of human labor which is revolutionary upsurge of the proletariat can place the complete The peasants (farmers) represents another class: they are the result of capitalist anarchy and naked pursuit of profits. expropriation of the bourgeosie on the order of the day. The task the petty bourgeoisie of the village. The petty bourgeoisie is No office holder of the bourgeois state is in a position to of transitional demands is to prepare the proletariat to solve this made up of various layers: from the semi proletarian to the ex.
carry out this work, no matter with how great authority one would ploiter elements. In accordance with this, the political task of wish was the industrial proletariat is to carry the class struggle into the country. Only thus will he be able to divide his allies and his of the 60 or 200 families of their respective nations. To enemies.
break the resistance of the exploiters, the mass pressure of the The peculiarities of national development of cach country proletariat is necessary. Only factory committees can bring about find their queerest expression in the status of farmers and to soine real control of production calling in as consultants but not as the Proletariat extent of the urban petty bourgeoisie (artisans and shopkeepers. technocrats. specialists sincerely devoted to the people; acThese classes, no matter how numerically strong they may be, countants, statisticians, engineers, scientists, etc.
Sit down strikes are a serious warning from the masses ad.
essentially are representative survivals of pre capitalist forms of dressed not only to the bourgeoisie but also to the organizations of production. The sections of the Fourth International should work the workers, including the fourth International. In 1919 1920, the out with all possible concreteness a program of transitional de The struggle against unemployment is not to be considered Italian workers seized factories on their own initiative, thus sig. mands concerning the peasants (farmers) and urban petty bourwithout the calling for a broad and bold organization of public naling the news to their leaders of the coming of the social geoisic and conformable to the conditions of cach country. The works. But public works can have a continuous and progressive revolution. The leaders paid no heed to the signal. The victory advanced workers should learn to give clear and concrete answers significance for society, as for the unemployed themselves, only of fascism was the result.
to the questions put by their future allies.
when they are made part of a general plan, worked out to cover a considerable number of years. Within the framework of this Sit down strikes do not yet mean the scizure of factories in While the farmer remains an independent petty producer, plan, the workers would demand resumption, as public utilities, the Italian manner; but they are a decisive step toward such he is in need of cheap credit, of agricultural machines and ferof work in private businesses closed as a result of the crisis. seizures. The present crisis can sharpen the class struggle to an tilizer at prices he can afford to pay, favorable conditions of Workers control in such cases would be replaced by direct extreme point and bring nearer the moment of denouement. But transport, and conscientious organization of the market for his workers management that does not mean that a revolutionary situation comes on at agricultural products. But the banks, the trusts, the merchants The working out of even the most elementary economic plan one stroke. Actually, its approach is signalized by a continuous rob the farmer from every side. Only the farmers themselves. from the point of view of the exploited, not the exploiters series of convulsions. One of these is the wave of sit down strikes.
with the help of the workers, can curb this robbery. Committees elected by small farmers should make their appearance on the is impossible without workers control, that is, without the pene The problem of the sections of the Fourth International is to tration of the workers eye into all open and concealed springs of help tire proletarian vanguard understand the general character national scene and jointly with workers committees and comcapitalist economy. Committees representing individual business and tempo of our epoch and to fructify in time the struggle of mittees of bank employees take into their hands control of transenterprises should meet at conferences to choose corresponding the masses with ever more resolute and militant organizational port, credit, and mercantile operations affecting agriculture.
committees of trusts, whole branches of industry, economic remeasures By falsely citing the excessive demands of the workers, the gions and finally, of national industry as a whole. Thus, workers The sharpening of the proletariat struggle means the sharp big bourgeoisie skillfully transforms the question of commodity Factory Committees The Alliance of the Workers problem of President Roosevel and Premier Blum against the plotting The Picket Line. Defense Groups Workers Militia. The Arming of During a transitional epoch, the workers movement does not have a systematic and well balanced but a feverish and explosive character. Slogans as well as organizational forms should be sub.
ordinated to the indices of the movement. On guard against routine handling of a situation as against a plague, the leadership should respond sensitively to the initiative of the masses. Sitdown strikes, the latest phenomenon of this kind of initiative, go beyond the limits of normal capitalist procedure. Independently of the demands of the strikers, the temporary seizure of factories deals a blow to the idol, capitalist property. Every sit down strike poses in a practical manner the question of who is boss of the factory: the capitalist or the workers?
If the sit down strike raises this question episodically, the factory committee gives it organized expression. Elected by all the factory employees, the factory committee immediately creates a counterweight to the will of the administration To the reformist criticism of bosses of the so called economic royalist type like lord in contra distinction to good, democratic exploiters, we counterpose the slogan of factory committees as centers of struggle against both the first and the second.
Trade union burcaucrats, in accordance with their general conduct, will resist the creation of factory committees as they resist every bold step taken along the road of mobilizing the masses.
However, the wider the sweep of the movement, the easier will it be to break this resistance. Where the closed shop has already been instituted in peaceful times, the committee will formally coincide with the usual organ of the trade union, but will renew its personnel and widen its functions. The prime sig.
nificance of the committee, however, lies in the fact that it becomes the militant staff for such working class layers as the trade union is usually incapable of moving to action. It is precisely from these more oppressed layers that the most self sacrificing battalions of the revolution will come.
From the moment that the committee makes its appearance, a factual dual power is established in the factory. By its very es sence, it represents the transitional state because it includes in itself two irreconcilable regimes: the capitalist and the proletariat.
The fundamental significance of factory committees is precisely contained in the fact that they open the doors if not to a direct revolutionary, then to a pre revolutionary period between the bourgeois and the proletarian regimes. That the propagation of the factory conuittee idea is neithes premature nor artifical is amply attested to by the waves of sit down strikes spreading